Animals are notoriously troublesome when it comes to shooting films. They don't always obey the director, and when they do they often steal the show.

But 69-year-old French director Jean-Jacques Annaud - with two widely acclaimed films about animals under his belt, The Bear and Two Brothers - loves the challenge.

Annaud's latest film deals with wolves. Adapted from the Chinese bestseller Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong, the film follows a young man's reflections on Han and Mongolian culture during his stay on the grasslands in 1967.

The protagonist had a young wolf as company, while Annaud kept a dog when he taught cinema in Cameroon, Africa, at age 20.

But that wasn't the only reason Annaud was fascinated by the book. For the director, filmmaking is the best way to explore different lives.

He put himself in the shoes of a young girl when making The Lover, and in shooting animal films he tries to see the world from their perspective.

"I need to learn about wolves, their soul and culture," he says. "The wolf's world is amazing. They share something in common with humans by living in a community led by a chief. Their organization and principles make them powerful."

When making The Bear, he scouted circuses and bear farms across the world to find 18 cubs. He even found every cub an adult bear to look after it. The bears' lives were observed and recorded for months until he chose one of them.

"I don't see much difference in casting actors or animals," he says. "In both cases I need to figure out what they are thinking, and whether they like to communicate with me or not."

Annaud has been involved with Wolf Totem for almost three years. He worked with Andrew Simpson, one of the world's best wolf trainers, who has been working on a ranch close to Beijing for 15 months, training 11 2-year-old wolves, and five that are 6 months old.

The animals will star in front of the cameras this fall. Annaud has completed scouting locations in Inner Mongolia, met with actors and finalized the storyboard.

He says he is shooting the film with the intention of expressing something he has seen in Chinese people.

"Many people assume that Chinese do not care about the environment, but Wolf Totem is the most beautiful book about the environment I have read," he says.

"It comes from the heart of a man and is loved by so many readers here. I have the impression that I will make the rest of the world understand that Chinese are indeed conscious of the environment."

Annaud is a familiar name to Chinese cinephiles largely thanks to his 1992 film The Lover. Hong Kong actor Leung Ka-fai led the cast with the then-debutant Jane March, in the love story between a Chinese man and a French girl, in Vietnam.

It was not easy to find Leung and March. Usually Annaud will watch a lot of movies, go to theaters, meet hundreds of actors in various cities, and exhaust a number of casting directors until "love at first sight" strikes him.

For The Lover, Annaud had casting directors search in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Montreal, Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong.

After months of research and seeing hundred of candidates, he was almost ready to drop the project. Nobody was right for the roles. Then Leung showed up at his hotel in Kowloon. They had been playing "cat and mouse" for several months. Annaud heard that Leung was hesitant to shoot in English, and to do some scenes with no clothes on.

But when Leung appeared behind the half open door, he struck Annaud because of his "aristocratic behavior, sparkling intelligence in the eyes, class, and humility".

"I remember thinking: I cannot shoot my film with any person but this man," he says.

The same happened for 17-year-old March, who had never stood in front of a camera before. She was fragile and strong, moody and mysterious, magical.

The role was very tough for her.

"Nothing is more difficult to achieve than a convincing carnal scene," says Annaud, who adds that he was grateful to Leung for being so understanding.

"Directing actors has a lot to do with understanding the emotions, the impulses that go through their hearts when they are in front of the camera. In my view, good directing starts when all the elements on the set contribute to make the scene spontaneously and instinctively right for the actors."

The rule applies to children, animals and even insects.

"The more you make it right for your performers, the more they will automatically act right. If you want to have an actor salivate in front of a meal: shoot before lunch, not after. Same for wolves. You plan a seduction scene: Don't put on strong lights that will make your actors blink."

Like Wolf Totem, The Lover was based on a novel, a semi-autobiographical one by female French writer Marguerite Duras.

Annaud has been a fan of literature since he was a boy. He started to study Latin and Greek at 11 and was particularly enthused by early Greek poetry. Verse-scansion became his favorite entertainment.

"I have great difficulty staying awake in front of poorly written pages," he says.

"There is an emotion created by good books that is unique to literature, coming from the melody of the words, the subtleties of grammar, the refinement of vocabulary.

"Words leave much more room for the imagination of the reader than images do for a film viewer. A good book is an intimate cerebral voyage, while a good film is an emotional ride."

A great movie adaptation, he believes, is almost as rare as a great book, because when a director handles a literary gem, the director is likely to disappoint fans of the novel, who have already shot the movie in their heads.

He often thinks of a cartoon he saw in an elevator in Los Angeles.

Two goats were eating side by side. The first one had the morose face of a film critic and was chewing the pages of a novel; while the second was swallowing the gelatin of a 35 mm reel of film while confessing to her colleague: "The book was much better".

liuw@chinadaily.com.cn