S/D: Christopher Doyle

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I just saw "Last Life in the Universe" and was impressed yet again by our good friend Mr. Doyle... I always keep an eye out for his credit, and I've seen most of the Wong Kar Wai movies they've collaborated on, as well as a few others (including some that I had no idea he had worked on). I was also flabbergasted to learn he had written and directed a film that I have very little chance of ever seeing (I hope I am wrong)... so here's his filmography, go to town.

As director:

San tiao ren (1999)
... aka Away with Words
... aka Kujaku (Japan)

As cinematographer:

The White Countess (2005) (post-production)


Eros (2004) (segment "The Hand")
... aka Ai shen (China: Cantonese title)
Three... Extremes (2004)
... aka Three, Monster (South Korea)
... aka Three... Extremes (Singapore: English title)
2046 (2004)
Lü cha (2003)
... aka Green Tea (International: English title)
Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (2003)
... aka Chikyû de saigo no futari (Japan)
... aka Last Life in the Universe (International: English title)
Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) (TV)
Ying xiong (2002)
... aka Hero (USA)
... aka Jet Li's Hero (USA)
Six Days (2002) (V)
The Quiet American (2002)
... aka Stille Amerikaner, Der (Germany)
... aka The Spy (Philippines: English title)
San geng (2002) (segment "Going Home")
... aka Three
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Made (2001)
Fa yeung nin wa (2000)
... aka In the Mood for Love (France) (Hong Kong: English title) (USA)
... aka Hua yang nian hua (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)


Liberty Heights (1999) (as Chris Doyle)
San tiao ren (1999)
... aka Away with Words
... aka Kujaku (Japan)
Psycho (1998)
Choh chin luen hau dik yi yan sai gaai (1997)
... aka Chu chan lian hou de er ren shi jie (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
... aka First Love: The Litter on the Breeze (Hong Kong: English title)
Motel Seoninjang (1997)
... aka Motel Cactus
Cheun gwong tsa sit (1997)
... aka Happy Together (Hong Kong: English title) (USA)
... aka Chun guang zha xie (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
... aka Happy
Si mian xia wa (1996)
... aka 4 Faces of Eve
... aka Sei min ha wa
wkw/tk/1996@7'55''ht.net (1996)
Yang ± Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema (1996)
Feng yue (1996)
... aka Temptress Moon
Wo de mei li yu ai chou (1995)
... aka The Peony Pavilion
Duo luo tian shi (1995)
... aka Duoluo tianshi (Hong Kong: Cantonese title: alternative transliteration)
... aka Fallen Angels (USA)
Hong meigui, bai meigui (1994)
... aka Red Rose White Rose
Dung che sai duk (1994)
... aka Ashes of Time
... aka Dong xie xi du (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Feixia Ahda (1994)
... aka The Red Lotus Society
Chong qing sen lin (1994)
... aka Chungking Express (USA)
... aka Hong Kong Express (Europe: English title)
Anlian taohuayuan (1992)
... aka Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring
... aka The Peach Blossom Land
Mungsing Sifan (1992)
... aka Awakening
... aka Mary from Beijing
A Fei jing juen (1991)
... aka A Fei zheng zhuan (China: Mandarin title)
... aka A-Fei Tsing Chun (China: Mandarin title)
... aka Ah Fei's Story
... aka Days of Being Wild (Hong Kong: English title)
... aka The True Story of Ah Fei (literal English title)


Shou huang de nu ren (1989)
... aka Her Beautiful Life Lies
... aka I Am Sorry
... aka I'm Sorry
Sha shou hu die meng (1987)
... aka My Heart Is That Eternal Rose
Lao niang gou sao (1986)
... aka Soul
Noir et blanc (1986)
Haitan de yitian (1983)
... aka That Day, on the Beach

firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)

his apartment is tony leung's apartment in Chungking Express

that 2003 thai film is supposed to be pretty good.

gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 20:16 (twenty years ago)

Rabbit-Proof Fence was visually great. His early work with Wong Kar Wai always reminds me of Sonic Youth videos (hi Ned!), and I think he did a wonderful job of saving Days of Being Wild from itself. I really prefer his more experimental, dischordant work to the fluidness of his second (present act) which, while maintaing the wonderful color-sense, lacks a little bit of the spatial imaginativeness evident in the early '90s.

Remy (hstencil tastes like bubble gum) (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

i have no complaints at all about any of his work that i've seen. and i'm not sure what you mean about the sonic youth videos, remy... i have never liked the aesthetic of sonic youth's videos (pre-washing machine, anyway-- basically before they started spending any money on them) and this makes me slightly scared for what to expect when i finally see his earlier work.

a few other things. there is a photographer named Peter Bialobrzeski
( http://www.bialobrzeski.de/ ) whose work is perhaps the only stuff that i hold in as high a regard as Doyle's. But then I'm pretty ignorant about photography (someone please recommend some stuff!).

also does anyone have any good online resources or books or anything that provides a very good reference for photography and how to achieve different looks (color temps, processing techniques, different film stocks)? basics.

aaaaand... just out of curiosity, what does a guy like doyle get paid? or cinematographers in general (esp. in relation to regular photographers)?

firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

also can anyone recommend me any photoblogs? the only one that i've found that i truly love is Nick Kilroy's (r.i.p.)

firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

more a meta-photoblog than a photo-blog, but full of good stuff.

dan (dan), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 22:55 (twenty years ago)

there is a good interview w doyle in this magazine:

http://www.vertigomagazine.co.uk/

apparently CD is working on a merchant-ivory production...

NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 09:19 (twenty years ago)

s: everything except "Made"

http://img203.exs.cx/img203/439/mood108hy.jpg

¬_¬ (PUNXSUTAWNEY PENIS), Thursday, 17 February 2005 09:35 (twenty years ago)

i feel silly about it, but i really love 'made'... probably because the completely idiotic character that vince vaughn plays reminds me a lot of one of my best friends. i do think that doyle was a weird choice to shoot the film though.

if i can save 10 bucks on the wong kar wai collection by just buying them all but days of being wild individualy, should i do it? it's not really a big deal, but i've heard not so great things about the movie.

firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 17 February 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

haha, i've heard it's his best, seriously! i'd hit it, definitely.

i tht made was okay -- p diddy was great, and vaughn was good if we annoying. no idea why doyle was hired, cos it wasn't very 'him' alas.

NRQ, Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

I wouldn't destroy any of his cinematography (his films ALL look great) but obv some of his non-Wong Kar-Wai work is kind of meh.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

i thnk that photographers William Eggleston (definately) and (maybe) Nan Goldin are big inluences on Doyle in a differnet way to Peter Bialobrzeski - after all his stuff with WKW is largely very close framed/ cropped shots in cramped interiors. i like this Peter Bialobrzeski site - will have a proper look later.

I'd love to see this film he directed.

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:25 (twenty years ago)

buying them all but days of being wild
You're kidding, right? Because in retrospect that might be the best one of all.

Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

made has some really nice doyle stuff in it (and a couple of hilarious vaughn moments). does kinda suck tho

s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 17 February 2005 17:59 (twenty years ago)

It was better than the Psycho remake (which I saw solely for him actually.)

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

the vaughn outtakes on the made dvd are actually better than anything in the movie!

s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:43 (twenty years ago)

That's pretty much the case with every Vince Vaughn movie though.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 17 February 2005 18:47 (twenty years ago)

american directors don't really seem to know what to do with doyle. the relative merits of made (i did like puff) were lost on me, since I loathe jon favreau.

¬_¬ (PUNXSUTAWNEY PENIS), Thursday, 17 February 2005 19:04 (twenty years ago)

'liberty heights' kind of worked, had the same hyper-past-tense look as WKW's '60s films. no great shakes as a film, though.

NRQ, Friday, 18 February 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

He's hilarious and tremendously inspiring in person. But totally drunk, too.

He does well with WKW and a lot of the other Asian filmmakers bc he tends to work best in improvisational mode. It's not that he can't make decent shots otherwise - however, the constraints of a Hollywood system tend to limit his range considerably. Most of his Hollywood work consists of films I've seen that I had no idea he shot until looking up the IMDb list.

By his own admission he had no clue what he was really doing until mid-way through the Days of Being Wild shoot. The fact that anyone knows who he is today is bc he met Edward Yang during his drinking exploits, and Yang had the courage and faith to have him, virtually without any experience, as his DP - this ultimately led to a union showdown just to be allowed to bring Doyle on-set. (I say none of this to disparage - I heard it all fro the horse's mouth.)

And as far as influences go, although I have no idea, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if he had no clue who those people named above were.

He's an amazing DP, but only when given the space to be so.

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 18 February 2005 11:54 (twenty years ago)

does his 80s taiwanese stuff look anything like his wkw stuff? i can't think of more difft styles than yang and wkw, but have only seen yang's later work.

NRQ, Friday, 18 February 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

No, i wasn't suggesting that Peter Bialobrzeski was an influence. If anything I'm sure it's the other way around. Did you see him at a Q&A or something, Girolamo?

firstworldman (firstworldman), Friday, 18 February 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

I saw him at a Q&A, he came along with everyone to the after-party, we all drank and talked until 7AM, he flashed everyone, followed some women out, and managed to show up more sober than anyone else for the 10:30 follow-up talk. Then he immediately went back to Shanghai to finish The White Goddess>. He literally stopped by for 18 hours to talk to us and then went back on-set.

Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 18 February 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

http://www.kino.com/daysofbeingwild/

gygax! (gygax!), Sunday, 27 February 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)


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