The Big Screen Life of Lin Cheng-sheng

Lin Cheng-sheng's appearance, with his dark skin, profuse sweating, flip-flops, and roly-poly countenance, is suggestive of a good-natured uncle from the countryside. There's no hint of the elegant yuppy that you would expect of a big-time director. Lin's down-home appearance and affable manner belies not only a multifaceted and prolific movie director, but an actor, screenwriter, and author as well.

Last June Lin finished his most recent film, The Cruise of Robinson, as well as a 200 thousand word autobiography, The Future It Keeps Coming. In addition, he also received the Chinese Publishers Golden Tripod Award. It's no exaggeration to say that 2002 was a banner year for Lin Cheng-sheng.

Lin Cheng-sheng bringing back the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear Award to Taiwan. The film company organized a celebration and press conference.

Robinson adrift

The Cruise of Robinson, the most expensive work Lin has ever shot, was filmed on a grant from the Government Information Office for NT$10 million; the Central Motion Picture Corporation invested an even larger amount. In the current trying times of Taiwan's movie industry, this budget is considered quite generous.

In a coffee shop smelling of stale cigarette smoke and pipe tobacco, Lin reflects on his new film. Not only was it the most expensive of all his previous works, but the actual filming was also the most painstaking. Each day, as work began, two to three hours were spent on setting up lighting alone, in an attempt to bring out the essence of middle-class urban life. The Cruise of Robinson portrays a real-estate agent who makes his home in a hotel. The highlight of his day is browsing websites that sell small islands on the Internet and using his mouse to communicate with the world. He doesn't want to get married and dates four women with whom he doesn't want to get involved. He is adrift both in his life and in his emotions.

"There is nothing of great importance in the main character's life," Lin explains. "He just coasts along; there are few surprises and little sacrifice. It's similar to your typical urban dweller." Friends of the main character often say things that are easily forgotten-"unimportant" little matters that slowly become a heavy burden. After the Taiwan real-estate market collapses, his friends tell him to move to Shanghai to start a new career, but he is hesitant. This reflects the current mind-set of a certain group within Taiwan society.

While The Cruise of Robinson is waiting in the wings for the best time for public release, Lin has already finished a new script and is applying for another grant. He is on standby, but isn't giving up on his diligent search for other investors. "In the movie industry, you can't say anything too specific if you haven't nailed down a project," he points out. "This protects you as well as your investors."

Even though the chronically depressed state of Taiwan's movie industry seems unlikely to change, Lin Cheng-sheng believes there is life after death for the industry. "Last year, it felt like the Taiwan movie industry was starting to make a comeback." He gave a few examples: Tsai Ming-liang and Chang Tso-chih were both involved in promoting their newest films: What Time is it There and The Best of Times. For the Taipei Film House, Hou Hsiao-hsien built an 88-seat SPOT mini-theatre so that short films and documentaries finally have a channel to reach an audience.

Rural memories of childhood from Lin Cheng-sheng's semi-autobiographical A Drifting Life.

A dissolute life

Over the past few years, the number of movies produced in Taiwan in any given year has remained relatively low. Last year there were only 21 films made. Many new directors encounter a persistent problem: after their first film, there is a long wait before they finish another. However, in recent years Lin Cheng-sheng has shot a new film every year. His good fortune at landing new movie projects has added to an already colorful reputation.

Generally speaking, Taiwan directors get started in the industry by taking one of two routes: the first is to gain experience working in the movie field, and the second is to attend film school. When first getting started, Lin Cheng-sheng had neither film experience nor formal training. As a youth coming from rural Taitung, what challenges would bring him to the forefront of the international movie industry more than ten years later?

Lin was born in 1959 in Taitung County's Kuanshan. After graduating from junior high school, Lin's father hoped that he would study at a vocational school and develop an occupational skill. However, Lin's heart was set on going to senior high school and then to university. The father and son clashed and the result was that Lin attended neither vocational school nor high school; he left home and headed for Taipei instead. Lin knocked about for a bit and was at a point of desperation when he passed a bakery and spied a "help wanted" sign on the door. Lin worked up the courage to enter the bakery, and for the next 13 years Lin was baking bread.

After fulfilling his mandatory military service, Lin was reluctant to return to the bakery, but he couldn't find any other work. He wasn't happy with the thought of spending a life amidst flour and oil and standing next to a hot oven. He often switched jobs, shuttling between guest houses and leading a dissipated life. When he was broke, he would go to his father for money. Eventually his father stopped giving him money, and Lin resorted to stealing his father's bankbook and forging his signature. To save the wayward son, his father reported Lin to the police, which resulted in four months behind bars for the son. When Lin left jail, he was resigned to a career as a baker.

One day while standing outside a theatre, Lin spotted a notice for a scriptwriting and directing class. It was destiny calling. He quit his baking job once again and attended classes. Ever since, Lin has never looked back.

In the new film, The Cruise of Robinson, Leon Dai portrays a real-estate agent living in a hotel who is always seeking to return home in terms of his life and his emotions.

Movies saved my son

At the lowest point of his life, Lin Cheng-sheng fell into the embrace of the movies. In the scriptwriting and directing class, Lin spent his days watching films, discussing films, and studying how to make films. He also met his wife-Ko Shu-ching. The class transformed him completely.

After getting married, Lin concentrated on writing scripts. He started talking more with his father. Sometimes his father would go to Lin's apartment in Hsintien and borrow books to take home and read. "One afternoon," Lin recalls, "my father was suddenly moved to say, 'I never thought movies would save my son's life and allow him to become a man.' I'll never forget the mood he was in that afternoon; he seemed comfortable and at ease with his son."

The screenplays Lin penned were soon piled in a stack as high as he was tall. He entered the Government Information Office's contest for outstanding screenplays three years in a row without success. Then his wife, Ko Shu-ching, won with her first submission, High Mountain Balloon.

The two were great admirers of Hou Hsiao-hsien. Upon learning that Hou Hsiao-hsien was preparing to film City of Sadness, they eagerly volunteered to work on the film. Lin and Ko were promised positions as an assistant cameraman and costume assistant, but the schedule was often delayed. While waiting for filming to start, they rented part of an apple orchard on Mt. Li. They didn't expect that after a year of working hard, they would lose NT$600 thousand and the apples left unsold were useful only for making fruit wine. Afterwards they thought about documenting the wine making process, and used their remaining money to buy a simple movie camera. Lin Cheng-sheng thus started making documentaries.

In 1990, with life in a Mt. Li orchard as background, Lin filmed the documentary, Old Chou, Old Wang, A-Hai, and Their Four Farm Hands, which won top honors in the China Times Express competition for noncommercial films. The next year, 1991, Lin filmed Murmur of Youth, a documentary about a neighbor's daughter who loved to sing, and how she dealt with the ennui of adolescence. In 1992, Lin returned to Mt. Li, where he shot A-Feng's and A-Chien's Peacock Place. For three years straight, Lin's documentaries won top honors in the China Times Express competition.

In 1993, the Government Information Office sponsored an event calling for a short feature film. Lin Cheng-sheng entered a story about a family, The Family Jewels, and won a grant to make the film.

Courage to continue

Lin Cheng-sheng took the path of most new movie directors-applying for a movie grant-and realized his dream of becoming a director with 1995's A Drifting Life. But before the grant was announced, Lin had the chance to do a little acting. In the film Tropical Fish, Lin plays the dull-witted kidnapper of a boy who is preparing to take the joint entrance exams for high school admission. The kidnapper gets caught up in buying books and encouraging his hostage to study hard. Lin also appears in Buddha Bless America, a film set in 1950s Taiwan. He plays the only man considered literate by the peasants of a Taiwan farm village, who finds himself caught between the villagers and the U.S. military-with problems wherever he turns.

Some directors look at Lin Cheng-sheng and see the ideal actor for a typical "Taiwan farmer," yet Lin is clear; his acting career is a sideline, while shooting films is his true passion.

Lin's first film, A Drifting Life, highlights the joys and sorrows of a farm family set in a past era. When his wife dies, a young father takes to the road broken-hearted, leaving his son and daughter with their grandmother. This first attempt at directing earned Lin the Young Director's Silver Cherry Blossom Award at the Tokyo Film Festival. 1997's Murmur of Youth portrays the ambiguous relationship of two female ticket takers working in a movie ticket booth. The two leading actresses, Liu Juo-ying and Tseng Ching shared the award for best leading actress at the Tokyo Film Festival-hot news for the movie industry that year. 1998's Sweet Degeneration depicts a brother and sister and the incestuous relationship of their youth. 1999's March of Happiness describes Taiwan two years before retrocession during the Japanese occupation. It is a period piece that takes place in the March of Happiness coffee shop, where Taiwan's idealistic, progressive thinking artists and intellectuals gather to talk freely of their aspirations and criticize the government.

In 2000, Betelnut Beauty was presented with the Berlin International Film Festival's award for Best Director, the high point of Lin Cheng-sheng's career.

"Lin Cheng-sheng always gives me the impression that he can 'write beautiful sentences, but can't quite put them together.' His individual style is still obscure. Sweet Degeneration was the same. Although it was his most metaphorical and symbolic film, it's low momentum entangled the movie's pacing. It couldn't unfold and the result was a gloomy film," says critic Wen Tien-hsiang. That was until Betelnut Beauty, where the beginning of the film shows Lee Sinjie and Chang Chen standing in front of a metro station, screaming at an empty lot in the concrete jungle, ignoring the pelting rain. All the while, the camera is circling the youths. The scene is electrifying, and it reveals a breakthrough in Lin Cheng-sheng's directing technique.

The future it keeps coming

"The Berlin film festival's award for best director was indeed an honor," Lin says. "But I've been a judge, and I know the decision comes from the subjective opinions of a few judges. You're happy and then it passes."

Ever since Lin's first movie, people have called him lucky. "Luck is just a type of fortune encountered in the ups and downs of life," Lin counters. At first he simply thought about making a movie. When his second movie was finished, he had no idea how the next movie would come. Who would have guessed that Japan's NHK would express a willingness to invest; or that Peggy Chiao's Arc Light Films had a concept that included Taipei, Beijing, and Hong Kong, with an interest in the topic of betel nut beauties? A director is only in charge of filming; a movie's development through completion is not entirely under his control.

"My good fortune is that I haven't worked in vain. I've been able to film every story I have written," says Lin. He is well aware of how the world works. Rewards require cultivation, though cultivation does not necessarily result in rewards.

Lin Cheng-sheng admits there are many people who are more diligent than he, and that there are an even greater number of people who are more talented. Lin believes that everyone has a spirit to protect them; in the West it's called a guardian angel. "My guardian angel has taken good care of me-and hasn't been lazy," the director says.

In his new book, The Future It Keeps Coming, Lin writes in a conversational, self-deprecating, yet intimate voice. He gives a thorough portrayal of his dark adolescence; and for his film work, Lin's attitude is "there's no way to predict the future."

"There's a saying in Taiwan, 'short people bear grudges.' When I was young I felt a lot of frustration, but I've mellowed with age. The process of writing a book made me realize just how I spent my youth." Lin says.

Tension and interest

In his autobiography, Lin Cheng-sheng does not mention the creative process involved in his movies. However, comparing his life with his five major movies, from A Drifting Life to Betelnut Beauty, the reader, or audience, clearly discovers that Lin is reluctant to abandon his youth. This extends to relatives, friends, and coworkers of his youth who are all brought into his films. Each character is modeled on a real person, which is why his characters are so appealing.

"There are very few Taiwan directors who have written autobiographies. His film works for various reasons have always been slightly flawed or unfulfilling. His autobiography on the other hand is his most captivating 'work.' The fresh and flowing character of this book is quite stirring," says film critic Wang Ting-hui.

Interestingly enough, at the same time, Lin's wife Ko Shu-ching was also writing her reminisces, A Butterfly Flew Past. It is different from The Future It Keeps Coming in that it relates the story of the making of a director. The focus of A Butterfly Flew Past is on her own potential as a director, and how, after becoming Lin Cheng-sheng's wife, she was obliged to become the woman behind the director.

"I was the one who wanted to buy the camera and film a documentary about workers. But after bringing it up the mountain, Lin Cheng-sheng grabbed the camera and wouldn't let go," writes Ko. The two filmed for a year and accumulated seventy rolls of videotape. When the editing started, so did the problems. Who would edit? Who would direct? The result was Ko assisting Lin to complete the editing.

In 1996, while shooting Murmur of Youth, the problem of having two directors strained the relationship between the two. Originally they decided to coordinate as two directors. However, at a press conference featuring three different movies, there were only three director's chairs. Ko Shu-ching and Lin Cheng-sheng ended up fighting over who would sit in the "Murmur of Youth" chair. Lin was one step quicker, and afterwards would not give it up. In the end, there was only Lin Cheng-sheng as director.

When Lin Cheng-sheng was achieving success and recognition, her own portfolio was nearly empty, but Ko Shu-ching decided not to give up. A Butterfly Flew Past is written with a touch of bitterness. It describes an ideal couple whose relationship is threatened and changed by film: the "third-party."

A movie life

No matter if film has been good or bad to Lin Cheng-sheng, film has changed his life.

Though he has completed six films, Lin still doesn't feel he can adjust to film circles. Above all, when promoting his films, his greatest fear is when a reporter asks: "what was the most interesting aspect of shooting this film?" Lin reflects, "They just want to write gossip, but I really don't know how to answer. When you shoot a film there are a million things going on,"

Once a reporter asked Lin how he is able to depict female characters so well. "I knew I couldn't really answer that, so I said: 'I'm a man, and of course men love women.' And I realized that I've become worldly and that worldliness is another way of understanding," he says.

"Taking the creative road, I recognize that the future is unpredictable. I'm always asking myself if I have already shot my last movie. It makes me really appreciate the process of filming each movie. But if for some reason I have no more films to shoot, I won't be too disappointed." Lin says his happiest moment last year was the publication of his book. He realized that other than movies, he can also create literature. Perhaps in a few years he will become part of the audience encouraging new directors.

From a dissolute youth to a fulfilled middle aged man, through humor and the intensity of experience, Lin has reinvented his life through the movies. For Lin Cheng-sheng has no misgivings about his past, and he has no misgivings about his future.