AsiaNews Magazine Jan10-16,2014 ( Jan 1-7,2014) | 页面 43

CULTURE

January 10-16, 2014

Zhou joined China Central
Television in 1993 as a producer for
its news magazine that followed
the highest rated evening news
programme. The CCTV show
was mostly investigative, but
occasionally it would feature
scholars, writers and artists. The
diversity of the show provided
him with opportunities to tap
into his fields of interest.
"I was lucky that I found myself in
a work environment that encouraged
me to do what I loved to do."
In the ensuing years, he made
multiple-episode documentaries
on the Dunhuang Grottoes;
the Peking Opera legend Mei
Lanfang; the Bund in Shanghai;
the Louvre; the Palace Museum of
Taipei; and, of course, the wildly
successful Forbidden City series.
About half of the projects
were commissioned rather than
initiated by himself, but they
all enticed him with challenges.
One of the challenges is the
mountain of information from

which he has to cull the most
relevant and most exciting to be
used in his films. He does not
shove it to a team of researchers,
but would conduct the in-depth
probe himself so that he has a
firm grasp of the subject matter.
For the first episode of The
Forbidden City, for which he wrote
a 6,000-word script, he devoured
historical documents to the tune
of more than a million words. "We
even made discoveries that went
beyond what the scholars knew, so
our film benefited their research."
Zhou experimented with the
BBC format of using an expert
who acted as a guide for his film
on the Great Wall. But he is not
optimistic about the format in
China because, as he sees it, it
would require talents who must
project trustworthiness and
eloquence as well as knowledge
and erudition. "Most of the
time, we would use a narration
and a voice-over that is a
friendly third person and an all-

knowing god, sight unseen."
For his next project, Zhou
intends to make a film on
traditional Chinese medicine,
which will ruffle a few feathers
as the topic is polarising.
"I'll incorporate differing views
on it," he notes. But above all, he
wants to show TCM as "part of
China's ancient value system and
a vital expression of the culture".
He even dreams of venturing
into the realm of fictional feature
films, but it has to be about ancient
Chinese history and he does not
trust others to do the script for him.
"It must be the Chinese cultural
genes inside me. Whether I do a
documentary or a fictional feature
or even a cartoon, I want it to carry
on traditional culture and values. It
can be entertaining and it must have
strong aesthetics, but ultimately
you're responsible for contributing
to the cultural heritage. It's a
burden I carry on my shoulders."
The series was aired on CCTV9
from December 20 to 29 last year. ¬