For thousands of years, countless heroic epics have been recited, but I never thought that the most dazzling stroke of them came from the hands of a weak woman.
When the times call for heroes to step forward, she threw off the loom and supported her country in distress like a pillar. When peace gradually returned, she abided by her duties as virtuous and virtuous as before. She is the well-known Mulan!
Her heroic deeds were also made into a movie, so how was this "hero" recreated in the movie? The reason why her image can be immortalized is what kind of background of the times it was born in?
Fierce competition with European and American films
In the early stages of creation, Chinese films faced fierce competition with European and American films.
In order to compete with European and American films, compete for the box office, and also to cope with the creative atmosphere of "Europeanized" films and highlight the national identity of Chinese films, film production companies represented by Tianyi and Minxin have focused on traditional Chinese culture and Chinese folk tales, and created a series of costume films, barnyard history films, and monster films adapted from classical novels and folk tales.
thus led the first upsurge in the creation of costume films in the history of Chinese films, which provided an opportunity for Mulan to "work in the shadow". At the same time, the emergence of national consciousness gives a new connotation to the image of Mulan.
Starting from the opera movie "Mulan in the Army", Mulan's image frequently appeared on the movie screen, and it was unabated in popularity in the two costume film booms.
Starting from the creative era of "Mulan in the Army", Mulan began the awakening of "heroes", and became a national hero with the image of a patriot, shining in the war years.
It can be said that the first craze for the creation of costume films is based on traditional Chinese culture, and the creators' entertaining adaptations of history and folk tales are in line with people's psychology of escaping from the chaotic times.
During this period, the well-known story of Mulan became a classic theme for the adaptation of costume films. In 1926, Li Minwei made a movie of Mei Lanfang's new play "Mulan in the Army", which was the first "electrocution" of Mulan in modern times.
In 1927, Tianyi Company, which led the boom in costume films, released the movie "Mulan in the Army". Then, in 1928, Minxin Company co-produced the movie "Mulan in the Army" by Li Minwei and Hou Yao.
In this short-lasting costume film boom, Mulan frequently appeared on the camera, witnessing the beginning and end of the trend.
From heroes to patriots
Although "Mulan in the Army" and "Mulan in the Army" were created in the later stage of the costume film boom, they were affected by vicious commercial competition to a certain extent, focusing on the legendary, twists and turns of Mulan's story, and entertainment.
However, it is undeniable that Tianyi and Minxin Company still adhere to the proposition of "avoiding Europeanization" and "film saving the country", and this creative motive makes the Mulan story encounter commercial adaptation at the same time, but also with the meaning of revitalizing national films.
Compared with the two, the opera film "Mulan in the Army", which is based on Mei Lanfang's new drama and released in the early days of the costume film boom, is less commercially constrained, and more strongly expresses the subjective desire of the creator.
Echoing the social environment of the war years and the background of the awakening of national consciousness, the creator added the expression of national discourse to the story of Mulan, shaping the "heroic female" Mulan who defends the family and defending the country, and realizes the transformation of Mulan into a "patriot".
Whether it is at the level of story or image interpretation, Mei Lanfang's version of "Mulan in the Army" provides a feasible reference for the adaptation of Mulan films in later generations.
The new play "Mulan in the Army" was created in the context of the opera reform movement. "To make the Chinese have the consciousness of implementation, we must always rely on the power of drama, so the old drama cannot but be overthrown, and the new drama cannot but be created."
The masters of opera performances adapt traditional repertoire or make up new historical stories, eliminate the feudal elements in them, and inject the spiritual connotation of patriotism and national salvation.
Reshape the image of Mulan
According to Mei Lanfang's own statement, there are two motives for rehearsing "Mulan in the Army", one is because the new play rehearsed before "Mulan in the Army", although it has some sobering meaning, it cannot be separated from the love between men and women, family trivialities and other content.
And Mulan is a female historical hero, if her martial spirit and patriotic thoughts are vividly performed on stage, it should always be beneficial to the society at that time.
Heroic, martial arts, and patriotism have become the three key words for Mei Lanfang to reshape Mulan's image. Secondly, Mei Lanfang wanted to make a breakthrough on the art stage, using the plot of Mulan disguising herself as a man to show her two opera skills on the stage.
At the same time, in order to echo the social background of the time, Mei Lanfang changed the title of the play to "Mulan in the Army".
The adapted image of Mulan still has traditional ethics such as loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, but the individual consciousness of filial piety for her father and loyalty to the monarch in the previous text has risen to the national consciousness of loyalty to the country, and Mulan has become a national heroine who resists aggression.
Although the innovation of Mulan's image began with Mei Lanfang's adaptation of a new play, it relied on the tradition of shooting opera films in the early days of Chinese cinema.
The transformation of Mulan's "patriot" image is in line with the social psychology of the moviegoers, continuing the nationalist discourse since the late Qing Dynasty, and promoting patriotic ideas and cultivating the people's national consciousness in an entertaining way.
The national consciousness of the Chinese has slowly awakened during the wars of aggression since the end of the Qing Dynasty. Liang Shuming put forward in "The Essentials of Chinese Culture": "Chinese often replace the concept of the state with the concept of the world, and only wish for peace in the world, rather than the prosperity and strength of the country."
The "concept of the world" is the traditional "Yixia concept", which only distinguishes nationalities and not countries, showing Sinocentrism, which is also the core content of traditional nationalism.
However, imperialist aggression has shattered this concept of "the whole world", made the Chinese people aware of the existence of the concept of "state", and also challenged the traditional concept of nationalism.
Introduce the idea of hope nationalism
Most of the period of modern Chinese intellectual history was a process of making 'the world' a 'state,' that is, a process of forming a national consciousness.
Recognizing the importance of conceptual change, Liang Qichao took the lead in introducing Western nationalist ideas and put forward the idea of establishing a nation-state in order to unite people's minds and achieve the goal of saving the country and resisting aggression.
According to Gucci: "Nationalism is the awakening of members of a nation (latent or real) that is combined with the desire to realize, maintain, and perpetuate that nation's identity, integration, prosperity, and power." As an ideology, it refers to a state of mind, that is, the psychological condition of a person who regards the nation as the most efficient object of loyalty, and it contains the belief that the nation is superior to other nations. ”
Benedict Anderson proposed that the nation is an "imaginary political community", a cultural artifact, and this imagination is not a subjective imagination, but a social process, which runs through the whole process of the generation, development and evolution of the nation, and the nation is born on the basis of the nationalist imagination.
The advanced intellectuals represented by Liang Qichao pinned their hopes on nationalism, in order to awaken the people's "national consciousness" and realize their identification and allegiance to the "country" as a community.
At the same time, due to the profound Confucian cultural accumulation, Chinese nationalism is combined with culture, which is manifested as a kind of cultural nationalism.
Relying on traditional culture, intellectuals advocated regaining the Confucian concept of loyalty and filial piety, rewriting historical heroes, so as to inspire people's wisdom, transform national character, and unite the centripetal force of resisting aggression and saving the country.
The concept of Confucianism returned at a time when the nation was in peril, and in the general righteousness of the nation, the historical heroes who originally belonged to the category of Confucian morality jumped out of the horizon of history with the attitude of defending the country and defending the country.
Family and social responsibilities
Mulan, who has legendary military experience, also "took the lead" to complete the "awakening" of heroes and became a national hero with the image of a patriot.
What makes Mulan special is that she is a heroine. In the midst of nationalism, Mulan's heroic image alludes to the society's call and expectation for women to be "heroic females".
"The Confucian of the world, praise the figures of history, say the great husband, not the big woman, say the hero but not the hero. The rat's eyes are narrow, success or failure is judged, and the stain of my history is also true. ”
The opposition between "heroic females" and "heroes" symbolizes the equality of female heroes and male heroes. Mulan completes the career of a man as a daughter, which is the best annotation of the title of "heroic female".
In the play, Mei Lanfang embodies Mulan's martial arts, patriotism and heroism as a "heroic female" everywhere.
The film expands some of the plot and refines the war scenes. First of all, he wrote that He Tingyu met the enemy several times, but he was defeated and returned, which just alluded to the several defeats experienced by the mainland at that time.
When Mulan arrived, she rescued the general from the enemy's horse, strengthened Mulan's personality charm of wisdom and bravery, and established a heroic character. He also saw through the enemy's tricks and annihilated the Turkic soldiers in one fell swoop.
At the same time, Mei Lanfang's Mulan bears the dual responsibilities of family and society. In the first scene, the song "Women have few eyebrows since ancient times, but they are virtuous and laborious by weaving", pointing out the inherent expectations of society for women's social roles.
In the fourteenth scene, a small soldier said: "The hard work is done by our men, and the women are happy at home", and in the last scene, Mulan restores her daughter's outfit and says when she meets her former comrades-in-arms, "When I joined the army, the strong man once said that it was cheap to be a woman, do you remember?" ”
Mulan not only bears the social responsibility of saving the country, but also proves that she can compete with men in a cross-dressing way, and completes the interpretation of the image of "heroic female" in the transformation of male and female identities.
epilogue
At the moment when the nation is in danger, heroes emerge one after another. Mulan is a "heroic female" born in that special era. She stepped forward and joined the army to defend her family and country, reflecting that women can also shoulder the mission of saving the world.
In times of peace, she restored her daughter and took care of the housework, showing another side of traditional women. She became the perfect combination of a national hero and a traditional female character.
We should be like Mulan, always with patriotic fervor and stand up at critical times; At the same time, it is also necessary to abide by traditional virtues and take on her due family responsibilities. Only in this way can our country be in peace and stability for a long time.
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