Ren Shanshan, Yang Mengjiao.
Poster of the movie "The Wandering Earth 2". Courtesy of the filmmaker of "The Wandering Earth 2".
The movie "I Love You!".Stills. "I love you!".Photo courtesy of the filmmaker.
Core Reading. The aesthetics of the audience are constantly changing with the times. The contemporary expression of traditional culture and the artistic presentation of contemporary life need to "link" the aesthetic orientation and psychological needs of contemporary audiences.
The innovation of communication methods has brought films closer to the audience. In recent years, all kinds of short ** platforms have become an important position for film marketing, but they are just icing on the cake, and what plays a decisive role is still the quality of the movie.
The style of an era will always be expressed through various cultural carriers. As an important category of popular literature and art, how should movies tell our stories and present the style of our times?Flipping through the new works of domestic movies in 2023, you can find the answer.
"The Wandering Earth 2", which fantasizes about the future, and the "Mountain Moving Project" and "Month by Month Plan" that ultimately save the earth, are not only an expression of imagination, but also a projection of ancient legends48 Tang poems run through "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", and what flows is the unfading time and poetry;"Fengshen Part 1: Song of the Dynasty" retells the story, and the unbridled imagination of Wang Yang transforms into a magnificent historical picture and a fantastical mythological world ......Tradition and modernity are combined, inheritance and innovation are integrated, history, present and future are connected, and domestic films burst out with innovation and creative vitality.
It is necessary to "go our own way".
Root-seeking, inheritance, and innovation are the "own way" of Chinese animation, and they are also the path for domestic film innovation and creation. Ye Jiaying, an expert in the study of classical Chinese poetry, once said that as long as there are Chinese, classical poetry will not die. "Chinese team, Chinese audience, Chinese story, Chinese culture. This is the pursuit of the creator of "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an". The film cuts from the perspective of the "bystander" Gao Shi, adopts a technique similar to the scattered perspective of Chinese painting, and uses animation to recite romantic poems that belong to the Chinese. Yu Zhou, the film's producer, recalled that ten years ago, the team went overseas for research, and they realized that they could not imitate it step by step, but had to "go our own way".
Seek the roots of Chinese theatre traditions. China is a big country of drama, from pre-Qin Youju to Yuan miscellaneous drama, Chinese drama contains artistic rules, emotional ethics, and aesthetic concepts, full of the unique flavor of Chinese culture, in line with the aesthetic psychology of Chinese. Zhao Weifang, vice president of the China Film Critics Society, believes that since the new era, high-quality dramatic narratives have begun to return to film creation, and filmmakers have paid more attention to absorbing nutrients from traditional drama narratives, transforming traditional culture into resources for narrative innovation, and improving their storytelling capabilities. Taking the creation of the main theme film as an example, from the "'Me and My' series" to the "Changjin Lake" series" to this year's "Volunteers: Heroes Attack" and "King of the Sky", these blockbusters no longer only pursue audio-visual shock, but let the images serve the narrative, focus on portraying vivid and unique characters, and get rid of the trap of conceptualization, formula, and homogeneity.
The aesthetics of the audience are constantly changing with the times. The contemporary expression of traditional culture and the artistic presentation of contemporary life need to "link" the aesthetic orientation and psychological needs of contemporary audiences. Drawing from the past is not retro and muddy, but to construct a story at the intersection of tradition and modernity, and inject modern values. "Fengshen Part 1: Song of the Dynasty" expresses the values of justice and kindness that connect tradition and modernity. Screenwriter Ran Ping introduced that the main creator of the film realized from the beginning that reshaping the classical and traditional artistic image should respond to the emotional problems and life encounters faced by young audiences in reality, and what can trigger the audience's empathy is not an all-knowing and all-powerful lonely hero, but the growth process of young people from ignorance to awakening.
The excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture are the inexhaustible source of film innovation and creation. Chinese traditional culture is rich and colorful, including the aesthetic ideas and philosophical concepts hidden behind the observable, recitable and audible things, to explore the depth behind it, enhance the richness of the presentation of works, it is a great test of the creator's cultural accomplishment and artistic transformation ability.
Let the facts "tend to be more accurately expressed".
How to deal with realism and drama more accurately has attracted the attention of film creators.
Realistic films are aesthetically and artistically created on the basis of real life, and have a stronger penetrating power. Up to now, the top 10 films at the box office this year are all domestic films, of which 5 are realistic themes. The film lens panned to a broader life, and the creation of realistic themes was closer to reality. "All or Nothing", "Disappearing Her", "In the Octagonal Cage" and "I Passed Through the Storm" are based on social news and real people, combining public emotions with personal expression. "I love you!"."Deep Sea" and "It Doesn't Seem to Be So Enthusiastic" focus on "niche" topics such as the emotional world of the elderly, the mental health of modern people, and the happiness of the disabled group. In addition to live-action feature films, animated films with realistic themes such as "Tea Ah No. 2 Middle School" have also appeared.
The language of the film is also more sophisticated. "She Who Disappeared" is a suspense film with "color". In the past, most suspense films used darkness as the main visual tone, and "She Who Disappeared" impacted people's senses with rich and highly saturated colors. "Cinema is about the art of moments, and the picture of the bamboo sea in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the mirror city in "Inception" are unforgettable for the audience. I hope that in a few years, they will be able to remember the starry sky under the sea in "Disappearing Her". Director Cui Rui said.
The writing of the spy war narrative in "No Name" and "The Tip of the Knife" makes people feel both familiar and unfamiliar. "No Name" uses non-linear narrative, concise dialogue, symmetrical composition, etc., to reflect a distinct authorial style. "Try to restore that era through real history, real environment, and real context, and create a more simple story", in the view of director Cheng Er, film creators "should have a minimum of taste and aesthetics of the current era, and tend to be more accurate expression".
The Wandering Earth 2 strives to be "a documentary about the future". The film's story spans decades, from domestic to foreign, from the bottom of the sea to space, from the earth to the moon, and the scene transitions are overwhelming. The art design of the whole film is to rationalize the imagination, deliberately avoiding modernity and futurism, and leaning towards a realistic style. Thanks to the strong manufacturing industry, especially the application of 3D printing and CNC machine tools, the special props produced by the crew have reached the product level with precision, creating a realistic picture texture.
The pursuit of innovation in communication methods.
The innovation of communication methods has brought films closer to the audience. In recent years, various short platforms have become an important position for film marketing. This year, the formation of popular movies and popular schedules is mostly inseparable from the "promoter" of the media.
According to the "2023 Film Market and Audience Research Report" jointly released by the Forum Department of the China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival and Lighthouse Professional Edition, the accurate communication of short ** is one of the key factors for "All or Nothing" to "break the circle". On the ticketing platform Taopiao, the popularity of "want to see" after the finalization of "All or Nothing" was not high, until a short ** was released, and the single-day "want to see" on Taopiao ticket increased by 523% month-on-month.
Short** is just the icing on the cake, what plays a decisive role is still the quality of the movie. Industry insiders said that to dialectically look at the role of short ** in topic marketing, it may make publicity more and more dependent on some small communication points, and some "points" do not have much to do with the film itself, once the audience does not feel the same emotions as the short ** in the movie, it may make the film lose its reputation among some audiences.
This year, domestic films have accelerated the pace of external communication, and films such as "The Wandering Earth 2", "Warm", "No Name", "King of the Sky", "Fengshen Part 1: Chao Song Fengyun" and other films have gone abroad one after another, and Chinese film festivals have been held in many countries. Not long ago, a foreign film company announced that it would remake "Hello, Li Huanying", and the news sparked heated discussions. Experts believe that these Chinese stories are seen by the world because they have found a "susceptibility point" of value.
Beijing Normal University has been investigating the "International Communication of Chinese Films" for 11 consecutive years, and when these reports are connected, it can be found that the important starting point for overseas audiences to understand films is their own cultural background. Domestic films "going to sea" still need to find more "susceptibility points".
We need to find a common story. At this year's Silk Road International Film Festival Forum, a foreign director said that whether it is a big production or a small production, a feature film or a documentary, they all hope to work with their Chinese counterparts to find good stories with common ground.
If the issues that domestic films focus on and the values they convey can arouse the same thinking and empathy from audiences around the world, it will be the pride of Chinese filmmakers. This is the wish of some young directors, and it is also the mission of this generation of filmmakers.
Typography: Zhang Fangman.
People** December 15, 2023 18th edition).