Text|Linghu Boguang.
Zhang Yimou has written many times before, in the early days as a director, in terms of lens language, Lao Mouzi is definitely world-class, and even a little overclass, but as a screenwriter, it is difficult to pass many times, and the level of the national teacher is between 90 and 60 points, so many times it is only 70 points.
When the fifth generation was at its peak, Chen Danqing, Wang Shuo and other literati all said that Lao Mouzi could only shoot good-looking, and later turned to commercial films, which was more obvious (of course, much stronger than Feng Xiaogang).
To say that there is cultural reflection, and it is also very sharp, "Ju Dou", "Red Lantern" and "Qiu Ju" all involve this aspect, and Zhang Yimou especially likes to refer to the relationship between sex and power, to be precise, it should be the relationship between sex and Chinese tradition, especially the embodiment of the dark side of female sexual repression, which is really sharp.
In terms of power, the national teacher is very powerful at filming parents and men's power, but he filmed the imperial power of the king in ancient costumes in the later period, and the historical background is not enough, and it is a bit empty and taken for granted. It makes people feel like a child's play, saying that it is an epic tragedy, but the result is a playhouse, and many people compare him with the Japanese national teacher Akira Kurosawa, which is quite obvious in this regard.
However, compared to the early days of catching those literati writers, the national teacher has been improving, as he said, he is an old scalper, living to learn all the time, the most important thing is that no matter how the audience scolds, he will not return the mouth, which is more down-to-earth and gives people a good impression.
I wrote before that "The Great Wall" is actually a dividing line, a new force represented by Wu Jing and Guo Fan, which began to replace the fifth generation and Hong Kong directors and occupy the mainstream commercial blockbusters in the Chinese market, but Zhang Yimou is still rare.
Because during this period, his "Shadow", "Sniper" and "On the Cliff" were all middle-school Chinese films needed by the market. This is between commercial special effects blockbusters and literary films, the kind of stylized and extremely stylized commercial genre films, we are very short of top commercial blockbusters, top literary films, but what is more lacking is this kind of movie.
And although these three movies are not classics, the quality is not bad.
But when Zhang Yimou went to shoot Werewolf Killing "Man Jianghong" and achieved great success, and then went to make the sketch movie "Article 20", even the advantages of stylized extreme genre films with this lens language were abandoned, and he was completely reduced to a working commercial film director, it would be very sad.
Now when it comes to Chen Kaige, they are all scolding, many people really haven't watched movies and really hate Chen Kaige, and then deny those movies. In the end, it was concluded that "Farewell My Concubine" is all the credit of others. There are very few negative people discussing the movie, and these people are listing the accusations against him, such as being arrogant, he is vain, he is not grounded, and he doesn't like the performance in variety shows.
It feels like our culture seems to hate him more if the more humble people are, but is his arrogance justified, in fact, he is also very talented, his "Child King", "Singing While Walking", "Fengyue" and "Jing Ke Assassinating the King of Qin" are also classics of Chinese movies, and many people are surprised that this was filmed by Chen Kaige.
Do people who let poetry levitate have to be grounded? In fact, it is not possible that this kind of suspension and poetry will go to the extreme, maybe one day a more unique film will be created, of course, it seems unlikely now, after all, it is almost impossible to change the stubborn old man. I can actually understand Chen Kaige's contradictory problem, which is simply "the deputy director of the production department bought the whole company, and then really thought that he was really this piece of material".
I have a relatively good understanding of certain types of filming due to my work experience, but I clearly know that many shooting results are based on the results of mature industries in a specific sub-category, such as making jokes, which requires good scripts, good actors, good assistants, good equipment, and good post-editing.
The vast majority of good ** is for the script and script that has been perfected, according to my own experience to set the shooting plan, select the appropriate equipment, and implement the shooting action of each segment, as well as the final stage of the film and the communication of editing, I know how many pounds and taels I have, I know what to do and what not to do, in my own acre and three points of land.
Chen Kaige is the opposite, his feeling of overturning is very similar to the feeling of overturning my own writing when I was a child. After falling into his own emotional logic, he became more and more twisted, and in the end, the work was completely detached from the theme, the expression was chaotic, and the logic of characters and events did not land at all. In the end, I felt that Temei felt that she was literate, but she failed the test paper.
This is also the problem of Chen Kaige's movie later, I want to be commercial and want to pursue my own expression, and the result is very awkward. But there are still pursuits and attempts, especially when Zhang Yimou has given up on himself.
For example, last year's National Day file "Volunteers" was not successful at the box office, but it was a commercial blockbuster. I have always said that this Spring Festival Chinese movie is really too weak, when "Fengshen 2" and "Nezha 2" are not, even if "Volunteer Army 2" is released, it will look better.
Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou's later films, it cannot be simply said that the form is greater than the content! In terms of the medium of movies, I think it can be compared to that Chen Kaige's ability to write poems or prose is stronger than that of writing ** (running for the chief director of the Olympic Games, he really wrote a poem).
But the movie always has to show a story, either like Jia Zhangke and Gu Changwei, who can use the camera to support his emotional expression, or like a reed that can frame the storyline, if there is none, it will be worse, halfway through the story, Chen Kaige's emotions have been released endlessly, and the end can only be touched to the ground, the drop is too big, and it feels like pulling the crotch.
The most direct is the actor's fine performance, Leslie Cheung, Li Xuejian, Ge You, these actors can be held up in a complete movie; The new generation of actors in this era has suffered a lot, in a limited time, under such fierce antagonisms and contradictions, they still have to reconcile the century, which makes people look confused.
Zhang Yimou just gave up the pursuit completely, and made werewolf killing and sketch movies.
This *** director, in fact, the ranking has always been higher than Zhang Yimou, and Chen Kaige is lower, but many things are still in progress, far from the time when they are evaluated by ranking. When people are alive, the existence of interest relationships is not good for what industry evaluation, what film history and the like!
Zhang Yimou's embrace of the market does not mean that he can't make good films or literary films, but that he gives up a lot of his original things to deliberately cater to the market, which is a personal trade-off. And there is no shortage of market-oriented directors in the current film industry, what is lacking is directors who adhere to and create core culture, especially Chinese culture. The latter is too difficult in this circle of deformed capital operation.
Chen Kaige is one of them, and he still has a certain influence. It is that everyone has to eat, and not because of the secularization of one side, the other side is completely denied. Chen Kaige is at least still insisting on some of his things that others think are inexplicable. I'm not qualified to comment on Zhang Yimou, but he gave up too much of his own things.
Chen Kaige doesn't seem to have pretended to be too much, he wants to express everything very clearly, which is also a big factor in his good or bad, and his reputation goes up and down. This *** director has been fighting for 40 years, and now it seems that he is really a difficult brother, creating brilliance in the early days and leading the peak of Chinese films. Although the intermediate transformation is controversial, the market success still leads China. In the later transition period, word of mouth gradually collapsed, but the foundation is still there.
Until the new generation of young viewers in recent years no longer understands, this is the saddest.
In the era when the fifth generation of directors grew up, the country was poor, people's lives were monotonous, material scarcity, and aspirants were not satisfied with the embarrassing reality, but could only find a way out at the spiritual level, explore the meaning of life, and our long and glorious history.
The directors of that generation invariably set their sights on the ancient society and romanticized it a lot, they praised the ancient criticism of reality, they were unwilling to accept the real society in their memory, and the modern society is developing too fast, they are old, their adaptability has become low, they can't keep up with the mainstream social consciousness, they can't understand the real society, and they can only understand it one-sidedly through the description of the newspaper.
There are some stereotypes, and the movies made with realistic themes are often not highly rated.
Personally, I feel that Zhang Yimou is rotten, not that he didn't make good movies, but he didn't grow up, "Shadow" was all played badly in "Hero", and now I feel that the national teacher is relying on instinct to film; Feng Xiaogang used to be a very ambitious director, but now he feels that he has completely given up his pursuit.
Huang Jianxin's previous movies were quite avant-garde, and the current level of the main theme has long been recruited, but I don't know a lot; Chen Kaige is one of the few people I think still has the heart to rush up (although he has also started to shoot the main theme, but at least he still has a pursuit).
But no matter what, the fifth generation of great directors can't keep up with the times, and it's time to retire.