Most of the film review articles in various academic journals are too "professional", which widens the relationship with readers.
The following text, if you read it carefully (I doubt that many people will not read it carefully, will rush to comment or even draw conclusions), you will get a lot more than expected.
------------------ "Tangshan Earthquake" Enlightenment: The Modernization Process of
Realism , Realist films in the purest sense are often squeezed in the market and are in a marginal position. Some people sadly predict that realist movies have withdrawn from the mainstream, and will be replaced by all kinds of modernity. Regardless of the mark of modernity, the collective "aphasia" of realist films has almost become an indisputable fact. The successful release of the film "Tangshan Earthquake" has cast a heavy weight on this hazy debate. It strongly proves that realist films still have strong vitality under today's aesthetic background, and at the same time, they are also strongly revising With various outdated concepts about realist films, the traditional realist creations are upgraded, transformed and transformed in the modern sense. It can be said that the appearance of this film is a symbolic achievement of the modernization process of Chinese realist films, and its significance goes beyond the film itself, thus bringing general enlightenment to Chinese films.
For a hundred years, Chinese films have been looking for and exploring the most reliable path for the nation and the public, and realist creations have always been the vanguard and backbone. His creative peaks formed in the 1930s and 1940s and 1970s and 1980s were poetically hailed as "the vicissitudes of walking" and "unyielding sorrow". However, after the peak, realist films also faced various impacts: the unique impulse of individual subjectivity, which impacted the group model centered on collective memory and public accumulation; The dominant thinking of positive expression and narrative; and the dazzling feelings and broken images caused by modernity anxiety also impact the integrity and harmony once constructed in the realist creation. In the context of global integration, especially under the multiple encirclement of multimedia and new media, the realistic creation of films has fallen from a peak to a trough. At the right time, the Hollywood film industry in the United States has reloaded into battle, using technology and industrial strength to recreate the form and type of film, and the world film lineup, including the European author film system, has encountered the sweeping coercion of Hollywood films. In such a background outline, Chinese films are generally caught in "methodological anxiety", and the hesitation of realist films is inevitable.
Has the origin of realism, which has traversed the centuries of Chinese cinema, is today complimenting history and disappearing into invisibility? Could it be that Chinese films have entered a dizzying method carnival because of "methodological anxiety" after a hundred years? The fact is that Chinese films are working hard to carry out various experimental experiments, and the renovation of methods is also forming a new entertainment landscape, but such efforts have not aroused the general support of the audience. People are still making higher demands on the film: not to reject your method experiment, but to ask your film essence and film meaning. In this kind of questioning, we can realize that realist movies are not only a kind of nostalgia, but also the essential needs of the audience. However, how realism can pass through the baptism of modernization, complete its transformation in the process of modernization, and maintain its lasting vitality, has become one of the biggest issues facing Chinese filmmakers.
Rebuilding Trust with Legitimacy Narratives
Integrity is the basic character of realism, and loss of trust is the biggest paradox of the concept of realism. However, in the specific creation, many film themes are based on reality, and the narrative method adopted is also the basic strategy of realism, but it has repeatedly been questioned and abandoned by the audience. This distrust concerns the legitimacy of the film's narrative. The principle of legitimacy of narration should be based on the real laws of daily life and the real laws of the mind, which is the fundamental starting point of the film. "People-oriented" is the original and clear source of realist movies, and it is also the unselfish rule of realist movies. In the source of daily life, looking for the veins of people's hearts and the twists and turns of human nature is an inevitable way to narrate the legitimacy of films. Ignoring this fundamental starting point, no matter how grand the social theme is chosen, and what kind of historical structure is found, trying to make people the coercion of the historical trend, as the subordinate of the social movement, to the originality and complexity of the human heart of the world. Abstract generalization and abbreviation of sexuality and subtlety, poeticizing, beautifying, and legendizing life, so as to strengthen a certain meaning of socio-historical science in the tailoring used for me, which transgresses the legal narrative of the film and makes the film Flowing outside the laws of life and heart, the trust of the film will be lost in the cruel "cultural discount".
Therefore, the legitimacy of realistic narrative requires the film to dare to face the real secular life and get out of the grand narrative mode in the sense of social history. "Tangshan Earthquake" also draws on a large disaster background and a large social and historical event. Obviously, the film specifically identifies the victims of the disaster and the event to a family, and to the seemingly narrow foothold of the mother-daughter relationship. superior. In the previous grand narratives, it was difficult to make such a risky choice, and we were often worried that such a choice would obscure the social and historical power contained in it. Under such a catastrophic historical event, whether to face the collective or the individual, whether to face the actions of social groups, or to face the difficult process that the human heart is enduring, this is not only a different choice for news and literature and art, but also a traditional concept and a A fundamental difference in modern consciousness. If you choose the former, it may become an artificial copy of the news, or it may be false due to the emphasis on subjective purpose in the process of copying; and if you choose the latter, the resonance and word-of-mouth of "Tangshan Earthquake" are widely proved.
For a long time, our realist creations have relied more on the ability of "typical generalization", more from the commonality and universality, and abstractly "refined" life. There is no difference between the heart. The reason for the emergence of this narrative mode is that there is a strong subjective purpose and social utility. The propaganda function and the news function play an inner dominant role. In this way, the "administrative nature" of the film covers the artistic nature of the film. . As far as the catastrophic historical event of the Tangshan earthquake is concerned, it is easy to fall into such a narrative trap: to use mass action for earthquake relief and disaster relief to explain the universal truth. And such a task has already been accomplished by other mediums, without the additional burden of repetitive repetition on the art of cinema. The "correctness" of this orientation also constitutes overriding and harming the legitimacy of art. The film undertakes tasks that it should not undertake and becomes a superfluous footnote. A little carelessness can also become false evidence. The film "Tangshan Earthquake" eschews this model and chooses the "aftershocks" of individual souls and the reconstruction of special family relationships, infiltrating multi-level humanistic values in the suffering of secular life. This is the job of art, and in this narrative the film achieves a coherence that is true to life and what people want. It walks away from the established pattern of the grand narrative, restores the viewpoint to the fireworks of the world, takes on the big pattern from a small perspective, resolves the history of disasters with the spiritual history, and focuses on the core values with the endless daily life. In this sense, we must especially respect the courageous choice of the film when confronted with this subject matter, and the independent decision of seeking truth from facts. The audience did not turn away because of the importance of the film's title, and the film narrative that conforms to artistic laws is winning people's attention. generally accepted.
To rebuild the trust of realist films, we must start with the legitimacy of the film's narrative, check the abnormal phenomena that have transcended the narrative rules, use legality to obtain authenticity, and use authenticity to gain trust. In the era of increasingly developed social transparency and information disclosure, authenticity requirements and legality requirements have become the basic thresholds for film narratives. The film "Tangshan Earthquake" seems to be returning to the principle, but it should be regarded as a transition to modernization, because in the special context of Chinese film realism, it breaks free from general patterns and habitual thinking, and is not afraid of risks. Close to the truth of art, its courage to challenge has the power of modernity.
Gain depth from the value of personal experience
Out of the grand narrative mode, "Tangshan Earthquake" has opened up a new path for realist creation in the exploration and discovery of personal experience. Personal experience reflects an independent understanding and understanding of the world and society. It often escapes common sense and is often different from consensus. The daughter Fang Deng in the film has a special relationship with her mother due to the special bearing of the earthquake disaster. This relationship affects her general view of the world and constitutes her isolated way of getting along with the outside world. She is far away from her adoptive parents and mother to study abroad. She abandons her studies for the sake of her children. She is married to a foreign land with a possible Electra complex. She walks shoulder to shoulder with the world and is full of doubts. The "past life" of the earthquake drags the "present life" after the earthquake, and the beautiful facts that have been reversed and shattered by the catastrophe can be integrated and restored. No one can give an answer quickly.
This is the personal experience of daughter Fang Deng. This experience has not been strongly reversed because of the victory of earthquake relief and the advent of New Tangshan and new life. The film maintains a parallel relationship with this unique personal experience, giving full sympathetic attention and understanding to Fang Deng's independent personality. Similarly, Yuan Ni, who is now widely known as a great mother, is only an ordinary woman with "high debts", and the rest of her life is all to repay her personal spiritual debt. The world has changed. The film also maintains a sympathetic parallel to such a mother. The remarkable thing about this parallel relationship is that there is no authoritative force born from the beginning to the end of the film, no attempt to use the difference of social status to influence the heart, no attempt to use mature principles to dominate the characters and require changes accordingly. The film walks freely on the track of personal experience, freeing all characters from being dominated, arranged, and demanded, proving the paradox and complexity of life with a unique existence, and finally believing that there is always a force that will make the film work. We burst into tears, and our unique personal experience will surely precipitate and dedicate precious value to the world.
Transferring the formation and tempering of values to a unique and independent personal experience is another modern quality reflected in the film's realistic creation. Our creative inertia used to be that the formation and refinement of values generally followed the generalization and abstraction of "typical" from the majority, and personal experience was no longer representative because it was not universal. Character models and character traits from social groups and organizational structures have a unified commonality and social identity, and the emotional fate and character context of characters are controlled by an "invisible hand", regardless of whether everything on the screen is related to the audience. The inner secret feelings correspond to each other, but the content of the film is often performed in the name of "typicality". The value conveyed in this way may also have truth, but the image representatives selected through the cultivation of "commonality" cannot touch every rich heart, and it is difficult for such value expression to go deep into the heart.
Paying attention to the discovery and expression of personal experience is even more important in this diverse, multi-directional and changeable era. Differences in personal experience make up the richness of the real world. Only by respecting differentiated personal experiences can we approach the dynamics and ecology of society more realistically, and by constantly choosing among differentiated personal experiences, we can gradually discern broader values and meanings. The modern character of realism requires consciously acknowledging that every living individual has a reason to exist, and every individual may be a benign starting point. Although the individual is often in a dark situation, the life composed of flesh and blood has an ethical structure of self-improvement. , they will guide the value on the road of self-evidence, this value belongs to the self and is shared with human beings. Therefore, treat personal experience equally, transcend social identity, treat disadvantaged groups, marginalized situations, stress, anxiety and heroism, superiority and authority as equals, and even always tilt towards the disadvantaged on the emotional scale, and strive for society on the premise of pursuing personal fairness. Harmony, which would bring realist films into deep writing, allowing realism to regain its place in the modern context.
Let the hard verification of meaning have temperature
Tears and moving are the common feelings of audiences after watching "Tangshan Earthquake", but what the film leaves people is not tragic sorrow, but a warm core, which is also the audience's basic conclusion to the film. Achieving cultural reconciliation of tensions in sharp personal experiences, thanks to the film's painstaking verification of value and meaning, through 32 years of life's journey of verification, people find that the truth is actually so close: "A relative is a relative after all" , Forgiving and being forgiven only lies in the opening of the door of the soul. Once the glacier melts, the sun is still shining.
However, the value and significance of the film are far more than superficial. Audiences with different experiences may have different elaboration spaces. In-depth interpretation or even over-interpretation of this film will form an important cultural phenomenon, and all of this is an important cultural phenomenon. It stems from the hard work of the film itself in the verification of its meaning. A rational conclusion, that is, the generation of meaning and value, is not a congenital stipulation, nor a conclusion prepared in advance. It requires a long perceptual experience to verify, and the deduction of the rationality of life and mind. This is the foundation of the film. Task. As a mother, Yuan Ni can't find a home just for the father and daughter to go home, and naturally forms the persistence of love. The film never deliberately advertises her so-called chastity, but she guards more than just a door; as a daughter, Fang Deng follows him like a shadow. The wind drifts away, and the film does not deliberately create a bitter confrontation between her and the world, and what she avoids is more than a mother. The film spans 32 years, with more than two hours of life logic and life steps, in the complex and tangled spiritual formula, it approaches an instant conclusion and achieves eternal resolution. This warm core has conquered audiences with different experiences with a careful process spanning and bursting spiritual passion, and the transmission and coverage of meaning achieves the best effect.
This theme also easily dissolves the arduous search for value and meaning. Using the framework of the catastrophe to create strange contradictions and paradoxes, so as to reveal the nihility of existence and the absurdity of ethics, this has also become a proposition of modernist works. For a period of time, the desolation and helplessness of living conditions and the absurd and helpless sense of life have also appeared in Chinese film creation. The marginalized reality and the squeezed life situation have outlined a cruel reality and do not advocate reconciliation. Without seeking rescue, the author maintains a "zero degree of emotion" in this display, and the tension in the film creates a powerful pressure on the audience. These film works have their unique role in realizing the breakthrough of realistic films and rewriting the falsity of film performance, but they are not widely accepted by the audience. The tension in the film constitutes a kind of "compulsive repression" for the audience. It is reasonable for the movie-like market to slump.
To break the "zero degree of emotion", it is necessary to achieve reconciliation in the tension of the film. The verification of value and meaning is an indispensable extension, which is also the only way for the film to reach the audience. Embracing the ultimate value and the true meaning requires kindness and full emotion. The pilgrimage of truth also requires lasting patience and perseverance. It is far more difficult and persistent than lifting the veil and scars. Therefore, this This kind of emotionally difficult persistence is more likely to move people's hearts and win the audience, which is obviously to be expected.
After experiencing the modern transformation of realism to realism, I will walk with most people to verify the value and meaning, and then reach a greater consensus, so that personal experience can reflect the light to shine on more people. This may be a realist film. In the face of another round of modernization and upgrading today, this upgrade is no longer just relying on the European film paradigm, but also trying to learn from the successful model of Hollywood commercial films. In the context of multimedia, if a film wants to establish its advantages, it must care about the common thirst for value and meaning in the collective viewing ceremony. This is the unique "photosynthesis" of film in the dark space.
The success of "Tangshan Earthquake" has caused profound and multiple reflections on Chinese films. Facts have strongly proved that the vitality of realist films is still strong, but the modernization transformation that realist films are facing is increasingly urgent. The modernization process of realism not only requires changes at the content level, but also faces the renewal and creation of the film language system. I would like to take this as a starting point, and let Chinese films continue to reach the ideal state.
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