The Hottest Lens in the East--Cinematographer Christopher Doyle

At last year's Golden Horse ceremonies, Chris Doyle was nominated as best cinematographer for his work in three Hong-Kong-made films, Ashes of Time, Chungking Express, and Red Rose, White Rose, establishing an unprecedented record in Golden Horse history. Competing with himself, he won his first Golden Horse award for Ashes of Time.

With his brown hair and blue eyes, he came up to the podium to accept the award, and gave his speech in fluent Mandarin. "I want to thank my Chinese teacher for helping me get in touch with Chinese culture. I've said this before. Tonight I'm going to say it one more time. I'm a Chinese with a skin disease." This year he is nominated for his work in Fallen Angels.

The story of an urban Taipei youth who wants to learn to fly. （courtesy of Performance Workshop）

Golden Horse opens up new roads

In 1991 Doyle's name was submitted for nomination for his work in Days of Being Wild. But according to the regulations at the time, "foreigners" who were not ethnic Chinese were not qualified to be nominated for awards.

Before that, Doyle had filmed seven Chinese films, netting him awards at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival and the Hong Kong Film Festival, and he won the Osella D'oro at the Venice Film Festival. But he always felt a little outraged at Taiwan's Golden Horse festival for rejecting all non-Chinese.

Year after year, Doyle was rejected by Golden Horse. In 1991, he held a press conference, publishing the statement, "I love Taiwan; Taiwan doesn't love me."

He also suggested that the Golden Horse refer to the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, which holds that any foreigner who has taken part in the production of more than three Chinese movies can be nominated to take part in festival competition. The Golden Horse executive committee accepted Doyle's suggestion and revised their rules.

Christopher Doyle once considered taking ROC nationality, but he dispensed with his plans, because the Australian government strictly implements single nationality, and additionally his parents objected.

Christopher Doyle has an "expressionistic" personality, and he loves to show off.

Innately active

When you first meet Chris Doyle, even though you don't know much about him, you can feel his extraordinary energy and mischievous disposition.

Doyle, who has filmed for top-notch directors throughout the Chinese world and has worked with actors and actresses great and small, never neglects to capture some memorable shots at the filming site with his idiot camera. Having recorded the expressions of actors and directors in a photo exhibition, he flew from Hong Kong to Taipei for three days. From morning to night, he was interviewed by a steady stream of journalists.

Sitting in the coffee shop of Eslite bookstore's Tunhwa branch, he drank can after can of beer. He didn't have to eat and didn't care to sleep. The first night he moved to a pub where he stayed until five o'clock the following morning. At ten o'clock he was seen in the coffee shop again laughing merrily and offering up the stories behind his photos and his personal tale of sailor-turned-cinematographer.

"My parent's generation are always missing Britain. They think Australia is part of Europe, and they have no knowledge of Asia, which is such an important and complex region. For me, it was a big 'hole.'"

When he was 18 years old, Doyle went to college in Australia, majoring in literature. But wanderlust took hold of him, and after only a year of school he quit and jumped aboard a ship. In the early 1970s, while sailing the seven seas, the active young sailor went ashore in Taiwan for the first time at Keelung Harbor. On dry land and looking for fun, he asked around for some good music.

He walked into the most fashionable restaurant of the day, Idea House on Taipei's Chunghsiao East Road, and got to know Stan Lai-who was singing there and had yet to become involved in drama--and his long-locked future wife Ding Nai-chu. They were among his first Chinese friends.

In order to photograph the main actor's expressions inside a car, Doyle is strapped with his camera to the side of the vehicle. It's not hard to imagine just how arduous filming can be. （Working still from Peony Pavilion, courtesy of Central Motion Pictures）

My flock of Chinese friends

After several years of life aboard ship, he went to Europe and Israel and then to entrancing India. But he discovered that in India, with its heavy aura of religion, "you could hear 14 different languages in a single day." He thought, even if he stayed, he could probably never completely understand the place.

So he decided to go to Hong Kong and start learning Chinese. Why did he come to Taiwan? "Because of love!" he says succinctly.

"Now when I look back on my own experiences in life, I was either getting away from someone or getting close to someone," says Doyle. Several changes in his life were all brought about because of human relationships.

He and his French-Chinese girlfriend took Chinese lessons at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's New Asia College. But the tuition proved to be too expensive, and after two semesters they both moved to Taiwan.

"Why do I emphasize so much that I belong here?" asks Doyle with a proud air. "When I first knew Hou Hsiao-hsien, he was an assistant director. I met Stan Lai when he was still playing piano in a bar, and when I met Lin Huai-min, the Cloud Gate dance troupe was still at the painful stage where nobody got paid. My youth was passed here."

The seventies was the budding season for Taiwan's theater and music, and a new generation of film. Chris Doyle was part of that important stage. He was a founder of the Lan Ling Theater Group, and took part in performances with early members.

Four main characters, male and female, develop a story of betrayal and unrequited love in Hong Kong's Chungking Mansion. （courtesy of Scholar Film Company）

Notes from a cinematographer

The first time Doyle touched a motion picture camera, it was a disaster. A friend of his wanted to film a documentary on Hakkanese folk ballads. He happened to have time. Together they traveled throughout Taiwan for more than 20 days, but the reels of film turned out a mess. Sometimes the sound and pictures were there, and sometimes they were missing. But this experience prompted his interest in the visual media. Later on, he served as assistant cinematographer for director Li Xing's Story of a Small Town. He also filmed experimental movies. Using other people's names, he won several Golden Harvest Awards.

About 14 years ago, he stepped into the world of television. Veteran film worker Chang Chao-tang pulled him into the news department of China Television to film a news magazine. Then photographer Juan Yi-chung invited him to help film Traveling Images.

"Wind travelogues, water travelogues, temple travelogues-we filmed them all. It was like we were writing poems," says Chris Doyle.

Traveling Images was simultaneously broadcast on all three major stations. It discarded the preachy method usually adopted by social education programs. Instead, it used a travelogue approach, presenting the special ambience of various locales in Taiwan' s countryside. The documentary' s poetic style attracted the attention of the people in movie circles.

Edward Yang invited Doyle, who had never filmed a feature film, to shoot That Day on the Beach. This evoked an angry reaction from the cinematographers within the Central Motion Pictures Corporation. But disregarding all the pressure, Edward Yang insisted on using Christopher Doyle.

That Day on the Beach tells a story of a young wife looking for her husband who suddenly disappeared. There's not much dialogue in the film, but the lens conveys the helpless and melancholic mood of the leading actress. This film won Doyle the best cinematography award of the 1983 Asia-pacific Film Festival.

A story about a high school girl and her love affair in a previous life. （courtesy of Central Motion Pictures）

Leaving footprints all over the world

By the time he had stayed in Taiwan for six years, he could hardly believe that he had gained success so quickly. He had begun to receive praise after his first film. It shouldn't have been that easy, he thought.

Just then, the romantic nature in his blood sent him off to "follow love." He and his French-Chinese girlfriend returned to Paris to marry, and Doyle started afresh there as a newcomer.

Being idle in France, he began making collages out of photos. That such an active person would sit down quietly cutting and pasting, and even hold an exhibition, startled his Taiwanese friends.

But this man of European descent didn't really like Paris. He felt, "Parisians are snobs. The culture there isn't open. It's as bureaucratic and boring as my own country."

When director Shu Chi invited him to Hong Kong to help shoot Soul, he flew back to Hong Kong immediately. On the weekends, he flew more than ten hours back to Paris to see his wife, but separated by thousands of miles, the two people drifted farther and farther apart.

Soul is a feminist movie disguised as a detective film. It's about a wife whose husband is killed by underworld gang members. She guides her child from hiding place to hiding place. In the movie, lightnight-fast camera cuts and hues of green were boldly employed. It won Doyle the best cinematography award in 1987 at the Hong Kong Film Festival, and directors with artistic ambitions began to take an interest in him.

In 1990, Doyle cooperated with Wong Kaiwai to shoot Days of Being Wild. The trio of Wong Kaiwai, Doyle and art director William Cheung produced Ashes of Time, Chungking Express and Fallen Angel one after the other, establishing Wong as a master at "using a shattered and incomplete storytelling approach as contrast to the immutability of life."

（top） During the filming of Red Rose, White Rose, adapted from Chang Ai-lin's novel of the same name, Hong Kong movie starlet Yip Yukhing played the role of White Rose. Chris Doyle photographs her pensive, cigarette smoking demeanor. （courtesy of Christopher Doyle）

Defining a new direction

Overshadowed by the industrialized structure of Hong Kong's commercial movies, director Wong Kaiwai chose in Days of Being Wild to go back to the Hong Kong of the sixties, immersing himself in his childhood memories and the rebellious dreams of adolescence. The film was also a turning point for Doyle's creations. The protagonist's decadent mentality was expressed through dim yellow lighting. Doyle constantly changed the lens applications: high angle, low angle, depth field, telephoto or close-up. "Ashes of Time was the first movie which let me know clearly what I am doing," he says. "It made me understand that without such lighting and cinematography, the whole film would display a different kind of style."

Nestor Almendros, protege of master director Francois Truffaut and director of such well reputed films as The Story of Adele H. and The Last Metro, once said cinematography "is only a helping hand to the director. Although a cinematographer can proudly have his own distinct style, he shouldn't forcibly brand his mark onto the films. He should try his best to realize the style of the director and then immerse himself in that style."

Doyle thinks that one of the features of the MTV age, as well as postmodern society, which relies predominantly on the visual, is that as long as the creator feels a certain style is fit, he can borrow it, and one person can have many styles.

"In the art of cinema, as long as the atmosphere is right, everyone will believe it. The director has to affirm that the cinematographer has room to express his opinions and capabilities," says Chris Doyle.

（bottom） Doyle and Hong Kong director Wong Kaiwai work together with an intuitive understanding. The two have filmed four movies together, including Days of Being Wild and Fallen Angels. （courtesy of Christopher Doyle）

Images as kaleidoscope

Doyle describes his own personality as "expressionistic." He loves to show off. He is not afraid to aim a section of wide-angle shots and then suddenly switch to a big close up. "Some people will think it's destroying the style, but I dare to do it."

Last year China Times Express gave Doyle an award for his contribution to cinematography, because with a rhythmic, pictorial style he "devoted himself to the visual arts of Taiwan and Hong Kong" over a long time.

Art professor Chiang Hsun praised Chungking Express, Doyle's work of last year, because it "uses brand-new visual images and constructs in a nebulous manner the solitary realities of modern people. The images appear as if from a kaleidoscope, too frantic for the viewer to catch. Kaleidoscopes are sumptuous and charming, but they merely present a cluster of color fragments. This film pushes the sensual enjoyment of vision to its nihilistic limit."

Too impatient to spend time mounting the camera on a tripod, and also looking for lively mobility, while filming Days of Being Wild, Doyle for the first time hoisted the 30 kilogram motion picture camera on his shoulders, initiating his famous technique of hand-held motion photography.

Taiwan director Chen Kuo-fu, who filmed Peony Pavilion in 20 working days, says, "He completely lives up to my demands of speed and prolific energy. Local photographers don't have half his ability." Ninety percent of the footage in Peony Pavilion was filmed with hand-held cameras. "He uses himself as a tripod. What I want is for the picture to be stable, yet a little erratic, to have a feel that's a little frightening," says Chen Kuo-fu.

"I'm no athlete, though I dance up a lot of sweat and I try to remember to jog. I'm weaker and older than two camera assistants' ages added together." Doyle's concern is whether five or ten years from now he will be able to lift 30 kilos of camera.

Christopher Doyle has filmed 20 Chinese-language films. He is anxious to avoid repeating his own style and being caught in a rigid structure.

In the midst ot famous directors

After Days of Being Wild, he returned to Taiwan to film Stan Lai's The Peach Blossom Land, then went to Beijing to film Zhang Yuan's Beijing Bastards. Following these were Ashes of Time, Stan Lai's The Red Lotus Society, Wong Kaiwai's Chungking Express, Hong Kong director Stanley Kuan's Red Rose, White Rose, Taiwan director Chen Kuo-fu's Peony Pavilion and mainland director Chen Kaige's Temptress Moon.

Finding a warm reception everywhere he goes, in Taiwan, mainland China and Hong Kong, he compares working with directors to "having an affair." "It's about trust and space. You love me a little more, and I'll give you more. Those who know me make use of this weakness of mine," he says.

Hong Kong director Stanley Kuan observes that in the last several of his films, Doyle has played eclectically with wide-angle lenses, hand-held photography, racking focus, and so on. Most importantly, Doyle is afraid of repeating himself, and he emphasizes communicating with the director, to avoid ossifying into a "Chris Doyle style."

"Both in terms of directing and cinematography, style should reflect content. It should be determined by the material in the story, and should not be style for style's sake," says Kuan.

Yet another collaboration between Doyle and Wong Kaiwai. Again, the main topic is love. （courtesy of Scholar Film Company）

A Taiwanese with dyed hair

With his brown hair and blue eyes, Doyle is, after all, a "foreigner." Can he genuinely grasp the cinematic spirit of Chinese directors?

Stanley Kuan believes, "Movies filmed by Chinese have a Chinese spirit, but a film ought to leap beyond the scope that only Chinese can understand. Movies should have no national boundaries."

Kuan also stresses, "Chris is already a Chinese. His resolution is revealed by the fact that as soon as he arrived in Taiwan, he had this intuition, that if you don't learn the Chinese language, you can't establish yourself in the Chinese world."

Doyle tells a humorous story that occurred due to his marvelous Chinese. One day he received a phone call from a Western friend. As the two spoke English, a Chinese friend standing nearby exclaimed, "Chris, your English is pretty good!"

Once in Beijing he bumped into Taiwan architect Teng Kun-yen in an elevator. When Doyle spoke his standard Mandarin with a hint of a Taiwan accent, Teng's Beijing artist friend asked, "Why did this Taiwanese dye his hair brown?"

Taiwan director Chen Kuo-fu confirms: Mastery of Chinese is Doyle's foremost qualification for working with Chinese directors, because "language captures communication and thought." From this angle, Chen feels that movies naturally have national boundaries, but Chris Doyle has already broken past the first barrier.

Booked for '97

As his photography gains greater acclaim, his philosophy is that work is a holiday. "If you finish eight hours, what about those other 16?" he asks.

During the current movie industry slump, when the number of films is gradually decreasing and even big-name directors schedule only one film a year, Doyle's calendar is full, clear through 1997. Stanley Kuan, Wong Kaiwai and the mainland director Zhang Yimo have all asked for his help on their next films. Australian directors have also given him invitations.

"Of course, I'm anxious to make promises and sign contracts. It's a kind of security. We're all whores. In business, you have to answer the door. Who knows if tomorrow anyone will want me?" Yet even as he uses the metaphor of a prostitute, he adds that he is only joking. And he guarantees that if by any chance there is a clash in schedules, the films of his Chinese friends will take top priority.

Without question, Christopher Doyle's destiny is intertwined with the Chinese. "The first oriental woman I ever saw was Shu Feng." When he disembarked in Hong Kong, he walked into a cinema to watch his very first Chinese movie. Shu Feng's The Valiant One was on the screen. When he saw a close-up of her face, he remarked, "How beautiful!" From then on, he was entranced by Chinese films.

At 18 he set out to sea and happened through Taiwan, only later settling down here. Now at 43, the time he has spent "stumbling" into Chinese society exceeds the time he has lived in his own country. Taipei, Hong Kong and Shanghai have become his principal living environments.

Will he someday return to Australia? "I go back for five days and start to go crazy," he says. Originally, the reason he left his home was because he knew from books that out there was a completely different world.

In November of this year, Christopher Doyle held his exhibition "Their Best Side" at Taipei's Eslite Bookstore. In his introductory pamphlet, he wrote, "1984-8. Married to France!" And then, "Follow heart to where I belong: H.K., Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing." The time: "1989 Till Forever."

[Picture Caption]

The story of an urban Taipei youth who wants to learn to fly. (courtesy of Performance Workshop)

Christopher Doyle has an "expressionistic" personality, and he loves to show off.

In order to photograph the main actor's expressions inside a car, Doyle is strapped with his camera to the side of the vehicle. It's not hard to imagine just how arduous filming can be. (Working still from Peony Pavilion, courtesy of Central Motion Pictures)

Four main characters, male and female, develop a story of betrayal and unrequited love in Hong Kong's Chungking Mansion. (courtesy of Scholar Film Company)

A story about a high school girl and her love affair in a previous life. (courtesy of Central Motion Pictures)

(top) During the filming of Red Rose, White Rose, adapted from Chang Ai-lin's novel of the same name, Hong Kong movie starlet Yip Yukhing played the role of White Rose. Chris Doyle photographs her pensive, cigarette smoking demeanor. (courtesy of Christopher Doyle)

(bottom) Doyle and Hong Kong director Wong Kaiwai work together with an intuitive understanding. The two have filmed four movies together, including Days of Being Wild and Fallen Angels. (courtesy of Christopher Doyle)

Christopher Doyle has filmed 20 Chinese-language films. He is anxious to avoid repeating his own style and being caught in a rigid structure.

Yet another collaboration between Doyle and Wong Kaiwai. Again, the main topic is love. (courtesy of Scholar Film Company)