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Chinese Female Filmmaker Explores "Demonized American Heartland"
Deadline Hollywood ^ | May 2017 | Nancy Tartaglione

Posted on 03/14/2018 10:01:30 AM PDT by GoldenState_Rose

“I thought my last film was hard,” Zhao laughs, “but for a Chinese woman to try to wrangle a bunch of young cowboys?”

Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao is making her second trip to the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight this year, with sophomore feature The Rider. Born in Beijing, Zhao went to school in the UK and college in the U.S. before settling in Denver, basing her first two feature films on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.

Zhao’s 2015 drama, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, was developed at the Sundance Institute and premiered in Park City that year. It centers on the bond between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister. The Rider — focuses on a young cowboy who suffers a near-fatal rodeo injury and undertakes a search for a new identity, and what it means to be a man in the heartland of America.

Of her decision to seek out such stories, Zhao says she “definitely felt stuck creatively” in big cities. And, “when you’re stuck, historically you go west… Coming from a country that’s rapidly changing, I love the idea of a place like South Dakota where nothing has really changed.”

Just don’t call the movie a Western. “What defines a Western?” Zhao says. “I’ve probably seen three my whole life. The film is really my version of a feminine gaze on one of the most masculine images in American culture.”

Although she hasn’t yet worked as a filmmaker in China, Zhao says that her desire to do so is growing.

(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: cannes; china; chloezhao; cowboys; geneautry; heartland; hollywood; horses; johnwayne; masculinity; movies; pineridge; rider; rodeos; southdakota; sundance; sxsw; therider; trump; westerns; zhao
“I would love people to meet him,” ... “as he represents a lot of people in that part of the country which today is demonized for probably voting for Trump, but they are humans. I find my calling more in telling the story of that part of the world.” ~ Chloe Zhao
1 posted on 03/14/2018 10:01:30 AM PDT by GoldenState_Rose
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To: GoldenState_Rose

“The Rider” Trailer: https://youtu.be/AlrWRttLTkg


2 posted on 03/14/2018 10:02:17 AM PDT by GoldenState_Rose
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To: GoldenState_Rose

Bkmrk.


3 posted on 03/14/2018 10:07:01 AM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear (Screw The NFL!!!!!! My family fought for the flag!)
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To: GoldenState_Rose

The Chinese own half of Hollywood now, don’t they?


4 posted on 03/14/2018 10:22:59 AM PDT by Scooter100
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To: GoldenState_Rose

“but for a Chinese woman to try to wrangle a bunch of young cowboys?”

We saw a movie like that.

Oops. Wrong forum.

L


5 posted on 03/14/2018 10:24:22 AM PDT by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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To: GoldenState_Rose
“as he represents a lot of people in that part of the country which today is demonized for probably voting for Trump, but they are humans..."

That is actually a pretty funny line when you think about it. Kind of like you might find an anthropologist saying about primitive people in a remote part of the World.

6 posted on 03/14/2018 10:30:16 AM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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To: Lurker

Cream of sum hung gy


7 posted on 03/14/2018 10:31:58 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: GoldenState_Rose

Here’s a Western made by South Koreans:

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD - Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tk80iXCspM


8 posted on 03/14/2018 10:38:40 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: fishtank
Here’s a Western made by South Koreans:

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD - Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tk80iXCspM

I loved that movie! I loved it so much I bought myself a copy of it. :)

9 posted on 03/14/2018 10:50:12 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: GoldenState_Rose

Seems e
that she had stumbled upon the fact that cowboy, redneck and blue collared people are nothing like what modern Hollywood portrays them to be.


10 posted on 03/14/2018 11:45:28 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: GoldenState_Rose

me no likey


11 posted on 03/14/2018 11:45:31 AM PDT by goldendelicious
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To: GoldenState_Rose

Instead of Spaghetti Westerns, Rice Noodle Westerns.


12 posted on 03/14/2018 12:06:21 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: fishtank
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD - Official Trailer

Okay, I'm gonna have to watch that. Looks hilarious. "Run to the other side so I can see where they're shooting from."

13 posted on 03/14/2018 12:52:00 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: GoldenState_Rose; Army Air Corps; gaijin; Bikkuri; yldstrk; COBOL2Java; beaversmom

For your interest.


14 posted on 03/14/2018 12:55:36 PM PDT by KC_Lion (If you want on First Lady Melania's, Ivanka Trump's or Sarah Palin's Ping Lists, just let me know.)
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To: GoldenState_Rose

East Meets West
Yin Yang


15 posted on 03/14/2018 1:02:18 PM PDT by bunkerhill7 ((((("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione.")))))))
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To: Inyo-Mono

“as he represents a lot of people in that part of the country which today is demonized for probably voting for Trump, but they are humans...”

Well, gee, thanks little lady. I guess she must have thought us middlers were knuckle-dragging troglodytes before she actually spoke with and observed some of us in the wild. F her.


16 posted on 03/14/2018 4:59:45 PM PDT by polymuser (Its terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today. - Chestern)
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