Among the movies released recently, "It Doesn't Seem to Be So Enthusiastic" Although the box office performance is not outstanding due to scheduling, it has won a good reputation for its high-level comedy aesthetics of "hot-blooded and gentle, happy and poignant". At the same time, the film's unique comedy style and the successful blending of multiple genres and artistic innovation have also triggered our further thinking about the current development of comedy.
The New Look of Comedy: The Creative Ecology and Artistic Genealogy of Current Film and Television Comedy.
At present, the creation of film and television comedy shows the enthusiasm and vigorous vitality of diversified exploration, and most of the outstanding works that stand out are represented by comedians and developed on the basis of comedy teams, and gradually form their own unique and distinctive comedy styles, which further enrich the ecology of China's film and television comedy creation.
Xu Zheng's "embarrassing series" comedy films such as "People in Embarrassment", "Thai Embarrassment" and "Hong Kong Embarrassment" highlight the genre elements of road movies, full of humor of civic comedy, and observe the protagonist's life difficulties and spiritual growth in adventures along the way, and his comedy lineup composed of outstanding comedians such as Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang has become a reliable box office guarantee.
In recent years, Xu Zheng's comedy creation has broken through the model of "embarrassing series" road adventures, rooted in real daily life, fully excavated comedy factors, and gradually moved towards comedy dramatization. The realist work "I Am Not the God of Medicine" successfully fired the first shot of its transformation, and the unit films of the "Me and My Motherland, Hometown, Fathers" series such as "Winning the Championship", "The Last Lesson" and "Duck Prophet" represent Xu Zheng's comedy and the current new mainstream to integrate a new move, integrate with social reality issues, and the aesthetic style of laughter and tears, humor and solemnity make Xu Zheng's comedy works more long and intriguing.
In recent years, Dapeng comedies, which focus on the bitterness and joy of the lives of little people, have risen rapidly, from "Pancake Man", "Sewing Machine Band" to "Beneficiary", "Keep You Safe", and then to the upcoming New Year's Eve in 2023 "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop!".It highlights the Northeast comedy style with a strong fireworks atmosphere, and also contains the examination and reflection of life and life, and the bright color of the optimistic spirit of the little people's tenacious survival and hard pursuit of dreams under the serious theme of the times. Dapeng comedy movies have opened up a path of satirical comedy from small to big and simple to understand, and effectively played the critical function of comedy films to satirize reality.
The "Happy Twist" team, which has entered the public eye from drama performances and Spring Festival Gala sketch stages, has expanded its comedy creation to the big screen through the superb performances of core actors such as Shen Teng, Ma Li, Allen, Chang Yuan, etc., and has become an important branch in the current comedy film market in China. "Happy Twist" based on the advantages of the drama script adaptation and creation of "Charlotte's Troubles", "The Richest Man in Xihong City", "The Iron Fist of Shame" and other masterpieces all reflect the essence of its hybrid and match aesthetics, constructing a "different world" wonder in the landscape of daily life, satirizing and deeply reflecting on the chaos and deformed values in the consumer society through visual presentation full of dramatic tension and postmodern deconstruction, with exaggerated but not suspended, funny and sharp artistic characteristics. The sci-fi comedy "Lonely on the Moon", the new mainstream movie "My Hometown and Me" and the unit story "Comedy +" in the new mainstream film "Me and My Fathers" are more surprisingly showing the team's outstanding ability to control the theme and the innovative exploration made in the integration and expansion of comedy film genres.
In addition, the growth of the contracted actors is also an important motivation for the sustainable development of the "Happy Twist" team's performing arts productivity. Actor Wei Xiang went from the overly violent drama idiot Wei Chenggong in "This Killer is Not Calm" to the easy, natural and real coach Wei Guozheng in "It Doesn't Seem to Be So Enthusiastic", constantly breaking through the limitations of appearance and the barriers of funny performances for the sake of being funny, thus gaining universal recognition from the audience and the industry.
In terms of variety shows, with the weakening of the influence of traditional TV variety comedies such as sketches, cross talks, and stage plays in recent years, online variety shows such as "Wonderful Story", "Tucao Conference" and "Annual Comedy Contest" are increasingly revealing their influenceOr integrate dialogue, dance and other elements to create a new performance space, strive to get close to the aesthetic taste of young people, and also build a good platform for young comedians to go to the public, and a number of eye-catching new comedy forces have emerged. At the same time, these programs enlighten the subjectivity of young people with a "network sense" full of comedy and influence the formation of their values.
Comedy breakthrough: from hybrid transcendence to comprehensive innovation.
From the perspective of the current rich and diverse creative ecology, the collage and mixing of genres is an important path for comedy creation to constantly innovate and enhance artistic vitality, whether it is "A Good Show", "Mozart in Outer Space", "Lonely on the Moon", or the rising star "It Doesn't Seem to Be So Enthusiastic" has repeatedly confirmed this innovative way, on the one hand, it is manifested in the integration of different theme elements within the artistic style, and on the other hand, it is reflected in film and television, The different art styles of variety shows can learn from and infiltrate each other, which can make comedy tricks come out one after another, bringing the audience an unexpected joyful experience.
Li Xueqin, Shi Ce and other talk show actors have played roles in film and television dramas such as "Keep You Safe" and "Hometown, Don't Come to Harm", and their vivid comedy images and their own comedy temperament have added a different scenery to film and television worksIn this way, the actors have also gained a high rate and popularity in front of the camera, which in turn helps to expand their influence on the variety show stage.
At the same time, film and television creation techniques are also frequently used in stage performances, and many excellent works in the "Annual Comedy Contest" freely mobilize the performance elements inside and outside the stage to achieve the transformation or overlapping of time and space in film and television, such as "Once in a Thousand Years" Xiaoqing can teleport Xu Xian to the painting with a finger to the outside of the painting, and the body control of the two people in step by step bridges the information gap between presence and absence;Another example is "Wukong", where the producer, screenwriter and waiter Wukong are in the same restaurant, and a screen can span the past and the present. The time-space transition that relies on the actors' movements and lines does not make a drama, but highlights the unique comedic effect of the stage performance, and greatly expands the performance space of the stage and the imagination of the audience.
The integration of artistic elements such as vocal music, dance, and opera with body imitation and language performance has also injected fresh blood into comedy, such as Jiang Long imitating zombies and dancing tango in "The Last Lesson", Huang Chengcheng, who played the father in "Walking the Flower Road", danced at his daughter's wedding scene, and a group of pink-clothed dancers in "Moonlight Song" played various uses such as eating, wearing, and transportation in life. The language interprets the stagnation of the moonlight clan when it controls the salary, and the cross-border combination of comedy and conventional art can often surpass the audience's imagination and bring a surprising aesthetic experience.
Of course, if you simply pursue the new form mixture, sometimes it will also cause confusion in the content or stiffness of the connection, resulting in an imbalance in aesthetics, and comedy will inevitably become a farce. Therefore, the comprehensive creation of comedy must pay attention to the exploration and precipitation of story content, so as to achieve appropriate literary quality. According to Hegel, comedy is "the depiction of the decaying and stupid reality of reality, in order to make it (reality) like self-destruction", "without resentment, but with a bright and hearty laugh." In fact, the current comedy creation of film and television and variety shows all carry the creator's deep insight and speculation into history, the times, and the people's livelihood, showing the sharpness and depth of comedy in laughter, and arousing the audience's thinking.
It doesn't seem to be so enthusiastic", the film not only inherits the basic performance paradigm of the "Happy Twist" series of films, but also surpasses the previous performance content of the series to a considerable extent. The film tells the story of the passionate experience of the so-called "heart youth", a special group of people with intellectual disabilities, who devote themselves to basketball games, and on the one hand, it has achieved a breakthrough in the creation of conventional sports themesOn the other hand, the film shows the marginalized people, but does not sell anxiety and suffering, and the warm tone of the comedy comforts the hearts of the people and spreads spiritual enlightenment. The film shows the dislocation of the identity and feelings between the "young people at heart" and ordinary athletes, as well as the cognitive gap brought to the audience, which brings a sense of joy and hilariousnessWhat is especially valuable is that this sense of comedy is not built on the consumer disabled at all, but truly reflects the unique potential of the "young people at heart" through the experience of beating and beating in life.
At the same time, the film also realizes a kind of "dislocation of redemption", it is the sincerity, kindness, affection and righteousness of the "young people" from the heart that dilute Wei Guozheng's desire to win at all costs in order to win the championship, and realize that "failure is also a victory", and the disabled people, as a vulnerable group, have taught a spiritual enlightenment lesson to the able-bodied with simple actions. The film shows that "Happy Twist" breaks through the bottleneck of modeled creation and moves from an absurd comedy to a more realistic and caring life comedy.
Looking at the current comedy creation ecology, the outstanding works that stand out are often super type, from the expression techniques to the theme mining often bloom in the cross-border integration, and the new comedy power active in film and television and variety shows is the "shape" of integrating and expanding many skills, and condenses the comprehensive transcendence of the "soul" of the observation and thinking of the times, thereby improving the creative level and comedy quality from the inside out, and maintaining the innovative vitality of comedy art.
Author: Dai Qing Shi Tianyue.
Text: Dai Qing Shi Tianyue (The authors are respectively a professor at the School of Drama, Film and Television of Communication University of China, Secretary General of the Audiovisual Committee of the China Literature and Art Critics Association, and a 2020 doctoral student at the School of Drama, Film and Television of Communication University of China) Editor: Xu Luming Editor: Shao Ling.
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