In the history of the development of Chinese cinema, Yuan Muzhi is a very important figure: at the age of fifteen, he set foot on the stage, became proficient in theater performance, creation, and theoretical research, and became an outstanding theater artist; At the age of twenty-five, he entered the film world, set writers, directors and actors in one, and became a generation of film masters.
Yuan Muzhi may not be familiar to many people, but he is the founder of our film development, let's get to know this film master today.
Because of the creation of many vivid stage art images with different identities, different ages and different personalities, Yuan Muzhi is known as the "stage thousand-faced person" in the theater industry.
Yuan Muzhi, formerly known as Yuan Jialai, a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, was born on April 12, 1909. From a wealthy family, he studied drama at an early age and later turned to film.
Yuan Muzhi's father, Yuan Zizhuang, was a comprador who did business with foreigners, and he had married several wives, but most of his children died prematurely, and before Yuan Muzhi was born, there was only one sister in the family who was much older than him.
Yuan Muzhi's mother gave birth to a son and a daughter after passing through the door, Yuan Muzhi was 5 years old, his father died, and soon his mother remarried with his sister, Yuan Muzhi, as the only son of this family, was raised by the wife of the former house.
This nun-turned-woman had a kind heart and regarded the young Yuan Muzhi as if she were her own, and not only loved him very much, but also provided him with the best educational conditions. For this mother who raised herself as an adult, Yuan Muzhi has always had deep feelings.
When his adoptive mother died in March 1929, Yuan Muzhi rushed back to Ningbo for funerals, and later he specifically talked about the sadness and sadness of his adoptive mother's death in the article.
In the 1920s, Yuan Muzhi, who was attending university in Shanghai, began to participate in the theater innovation movement and became the main actor of the Xin You Opera Society. Yuan Muzhi's precise design and conception of the characters and the realism of the shapes are the essence of Expressionist art.
In 1934, Yuan Muzhi wrote and starred in "Tao Li Robbery", which caused great repercussions at the time and became a classic of left-wing films, which was also the first truly sound film in China.
The second film starring Yuan Muzhi is "Children of the Storm". In the film, he played Xin Baihua, a young poet who fled from the northeast to Shanghai. In this film, Yuan Muzhi firmly grasps the tone of Xin Baihua, a young intellectual's character of kindness, integrity, and pursuit of progress, and vividly and vividly shows the ideological foundation of his embarkation on the battlefield of national liberation and the process of development and transformation from poet to warrior.
It is particularly worth mentioning that during the filming of this film, Tian Han, one of the playwrights, was arrested and imprisoned by the Kuomintang reactionaries, and the lyrics of the theme song "March of the Volunteer Army" that he wrote in prison were brought out by his daughter and composed by Nie Er, becoming a strong voice of the times. It was Yuan Muzhi and his young comrades who sang the song that later became the national anthem of the People's Republic of China in the film.
In 1937, his "Road Angel" became a classic in the history of Chinese cinema. The film, starring Zhao Dan and Zhou Xuan, is considered a sign of the maturity of Chinese sound film art.
In the 1980s, the famous Italian film critic Darcirac exclaimed: "'Road Angel' is a miracle. It embodies a 'neorealist' approach to creation much earlier than the post-war Italian approach.
After 1954, he left his job for a long time due to illness. During his illness, he continued his creative activities. On June 30, 1978, Yuan Muzhi died of illness in Beijing at the age of 69. Yuan Muzhi is buried in the Overseas Chinese Cemetery in Beijing. The tombstone is built in the form of film film, which also represents his contribution to the film industry, with the words "Founder of Chinese Cinema" written in large golden characters.
Yuan Muzhi is an artist belonging to the Chinese people, his decades of stage and film performance and choreography art practice, he created those flashing and dazzling artistic images and moving images, has become the historical wealth of the Chinese people. Chinese filmmakers will not forget him, Chinese film audiences will not forget him, Chinese people will not forget him.