Introduction: The documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" is rooted in traditional Chinese culture, actively exploring and innovating the artistic display, fashion expression and communication skills of classic masterpieces, realizing the creative transformation of traditional culture and embodying the beauty of traditional culture. Practice has proved that only by basing ourselves on excellent cultural resources, inheriting and innovating, and cultivating deeply and meticulously can we brilliantly display the profound heritage of Chinese traditional culture and tell the Chinese story to the world.
Text | Qian Shao
"Full of absurd words, a handful of bitter tears. All cloud authors are stupid, who understands the taste? "A book of "Dream of the Red Chamber", since its inception, with its euphemistic and tortuous storyline and profound and rich cultural connotations, has become the pinnacle of Chinese novel history, it is unfathomable, we are struggling to find its cultural heritage and ideological mysteries in the vast sea of smoke.
Recently, the six-episode documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber", produced by the Film and Television Drama Documentary Center of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, tells the ups and downs of Cao Xueqin's life and the arduous creative process of "Dream of the Red Chamber", analyzes the content of "Dream of the Red Chamber" from the aspects of literature, aesthetics and history, and strives to answer the audience the three main questions of "Who is Cao Xueqin", "Why "Dream of the Red Chamber" is a masterpiece of traditional Chinese culture", "How to appreciate "Dream of the Red Chamber"" and takes the audience to knock on the heavy vermilion door of the Grand View Garden. Let's get close to the people in the dream of the Red Chamber together.
Polishing literary and artistic masterpieces with eternal vitality
As a "video chronicle of the times", documentaries have unique ideological value, cultural value, artistic value and communication value, and are an irreplaceable and important force in cultural construction. The documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" tells the story and fate of the six characters of the Red Chamber, Namely Xiangling, Qingwen, Tanchun, Daiyu, Fengjie and Baoyu, and relates the experience of Cao Xueqin and her family, thus trying to introduce "Dream of the Red Chamber" and its author Cao Xueqin to the audience in a comprehensive and three-dimensional way. Among them, the first episode of "A Game of Winning and Losing Is Not True" tells the story of the teenager Cao Xueqin's reversal from heaven to hell, and the second episode, "Xieyang Cold Grass Belt Heavy Door", tells the story of three generations of the Cao family in charge of "Jiangning Weaving", and his grandfather Cao Yin once became Kangxi's favorite, but he could not rewrite the story of the Cao family's slave identity and destiny.
The documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" invited Wang Meng, Hu Deping, Bai Xianyong, Min Fude, Ye Lang, Zhang Qingshan and other experts and scholars who had conducted in-depth research on "Dream of the Red Chamber" to interpret the experience of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the Cao Xueqin family and related historical background to the audience. In addition, the performance methods of live actor interpretation and scene reproduction are often used in some historical and cultural documentaries in recent years, which can make the scenes richer and the narrative more vivid. In the documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber", Cao Xueqin and her second wife Fangqing, as well as Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin, who was also the caster of the "Old Dream of Jiangnan" of the Cao family, are all played by professional actors, and their performances are naturally outstanding, both shape and spirit, which have been affirmed by many red scholars and Cao scholars, and can also attract the audience to watch immersively.
The documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" was even praised by authoritative experts as "CCTV's another blockbuster Red Chamber work since the 87th edition of the TV series", which absorbs the latest research results of red studies and Cao Studies at home and abroad in the 21st century, especially in the past 10 years, and integrates a variety of means of expression in artistic expression, which can be described as intentions and feelings.
A modern expression of traditional culture
Bring documentaries to life
The reason why a classic is a classic is that it has a rich connotation to interpret, and under the premise that its core elements remain unchanged, with the continuous interpretation of generations, more connotations of different eras are superimposed. Although "Dream of the Red Chamber" was created by Cao Xueqin, various reviews, continuations, and even content re-creation have made it form a unique "red science" landscape. At a time when various versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber" are emerging in an endless stream, literary and artistic creation in the digital age should keep pace with the advancement of artistic concepts and aesthetic pursuits.
The documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" innovatively presents the huge work "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the form of two-dimensional animation scene reproduction, and the vivid animation plot of the plot turns the flat text into a three-dimensional character shape, turns the complex plot into a figurative picture, breaks through the barrier of words, and turns the unique feelings given by digital technology into artistic inspiration and creativity, integrates into the interior of the work, and realizes the docking of profound traditional Chinese masterpieces and animation methods.
Based on the times, the innovative expression of the documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" has formed a rich cultural connotation of the "masterpiece" IP, so that the traditional cultural elements have the style of modern civilization, and this form of expression has also made effective and positive explorations in the dissemination and exchange of youth and internationalization.
Show the world the excellent and splendid traditional Chinese culture
According to the documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber", as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Morrison and other Europeans translated fragments of "Dream of the Red Chamber" into foreign languages and introduced them overseas; in the 1970s and 1980s, the english translation of "Dream of the Red Chamber" translated by Yang Xianyi, Dai Naidi and his wife, and Hawkes and Min Fude Weng was published in China and Europe and the United States almost at the same time, causing a sensation in western academic circles; in 1981, the French translation of "Dream of the Red Chamber" translated by sinologist Li Zhihua and his wife for twenty-seven years was published in France By the end of the twentieth century, almost all the major languages of the world had full translations of "Dream of the Red Chamber", which further established the proud position of this monumental work in the treasure house of world literature.
Today, more than two hundred years later, the world is experiencing major changes unprecedented in a century, and various cultural exchanges, blends and confrontations around the world are more frequent. In the face of a complex international environment, achieving the leap from a cultural power to a cultural power is a major issue facing contemporary China.
After three and a half years of filming and polishing, the documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" brings together the first-class creative forces in the Chinese documentary industry and vividly shows China's excellent traditional culture through rich audiovisual language. In the new era, how to promote the classics to go out, strengthen the exchange and mutual learning of civilizations, and build a community with a shared future for mankind, the documentary "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" gives an excellent answer that can be learned.