Unexpectedly, the recent urban emotional dramas are all on the bar with "Jane Eyre". In the just-concluded "Star Sea", Liu Tao's role in the play is called Jane Ai; another "Journey without Confusion" starring Mei Ting and Chen Jianbin, the female number one is called Simple. In addition to the name of the heroine, there are many places related to the Famous English Literary Book "Jane Eyre". For example, Liu Tao's Jane Eyre, when she was a child, listened to her mother recite "Jane Eyre" over and over again, and even the name was taken according to the book; and Mei Ting's simple acting, the emotional entanglement with the male protagonist Male-Lewen was copied from "Jane Eyre", and some netizens jokingly called Chen Jianbin "Rochester Jianbin".
The Brontë sisters, who died prematurely, failed to see their novels gain recognition from readers. However, nearly two hundred years later, this literary classic is being used as a reference blueprint for the plot of the TV series, which is probably unexpected by the Brontë sisters.
At the beginning of the broadcast, "The Journey of No Confusion" was sought after by the audience, and the ratings ranked in the top three of the popular dramas. Although some of the plot is confusing, the audience actually feels that it is watchable. Part of the reason is naturally related to the word-of-mouth effect of Mei Ting and Chen Jianbin's "Parental Love" and "Zhen Huan's Biography"; the other part is because of the theme of "Journey without Confusion": the confusion and confusion of middle-aged people.
When people reach middle age, it is a very embarrassing stage: life is a chicken feather, the ideal has not been extinguished, but it can only be hidden in the heart, it is difficult to go further, and it is not necessary to take a step back but it may not be the sea and the sky. The taste of life at this stage can really inspire the resonance of too many people. From this point of view, the hit of the show is to grasp the pain points of the audience.
Secondly, the character shaping that stands up is also an important factor that the play is talked about.
In the play, Mei Ting plays a particularly real and simple people's teacher, and she went to the president Malevin's house to do tutoring, not out of taking people's money to do things for people. Although her life was not easy, she never "bent her waist for five buckets of rice". On the contrary, she believes that "income is important, but teaching is not a business, as a teacher, you must put yourself in the right position." ”
After encountering the betrayal of her boyfriend, she also hesitated or even compromised, but in the end she did not ask Feng Chunsheng, "Why should I become your second choice", and put the contemporary topic of "Is middle-aged people unworthy of love" to the front of the stage. Her character struggle history and growth process are not only extremely real, but also show the self-awakening and resilience of contemporary women.
Ma Liewen, played by Chen Jianbin, is a watchman of physical books. In this era of fragmented reading, new ways of reading are eating away at books, and Malevin is helpless about it. As a businessman, he was "paranoid" about retaining the location of brick-and-mortar bookstores in the city, sacrificing commercial profits to protect them, his spiritual home. He had a unique view of literature, but sometimes he used books to guide life. Under the pressure of the company's board of directors, he signed the copyright of the new book against all opinions, determined to operate at a loss, and sought a spiritual "shield" to resist the pressure of reality in the book. He uses the method of "communicating" to talk about copyright, and talks to writers about his understanding of "loneliness". At the same time, these also represent Malevin's attitude towards emotion.
Such a character setting is rare in urban emotional dramas in recent years. The commonality of the spiritual world makes the affair between Simple and Malevin, two middle-aged men and women who can't fight together, real and believable. The heating up of the two people's feelings occurred during the period when the two accompanied Ma Mujia, Ma Mujia, the daughter of Malevin, to treat their legs abroad. Between treatments, they visited Tolstoy's favorite bookstore and went to the Tolstoy Museum together. On the night of a sudden blizzard, two people who have removed their "social attributes" exchange their innermost secrets while heating up in the lumberjack's log cabin. Simply and slowly reciting the dialogue between Maslova and Nekhlyudov in "Resurrection", the two intimately joked with each other with "the frog at the bottom of the well" and "the poor worm in hell"... Unconsciously, the two slept hugging each other in the cabin... However, after the snow stopped, it was as if nothing had happened. The experience in the cabin is like being deeply sealed by the vast snow... How many people are deeply moved by this delicate and touching emotional drama. The performances of Chen Jianbin and Mei Ting make the lines in Wen Crepe's famous works particularly vivid. One of the two characters is a bit tall, a sour and rotten literary popularity, with a little cute comedy; one is plain and has two dark circles. Using literary sentences to intimidate each other in life, it is easy to change the general actors, and it is especially like the same thing when these two actors say it. The performance is an extra point for the play.
The most criticized thing about "The Journey of No Confusion" is the core story line of the two protagonists, which is almost a reproduction of "Jane Eyre". The governess breaks into the life of the rich and intersects with the arrogant and domineering president, and over time, the two have a good feeling for each other, but what hinders the development of the two people's feelings is not only the view of the door, but also the crazy wife of the president's family, the thousands of gold of a principal, and the stumbling blocks of various things. The drama is the same as "Jane Eyre", the male protagonist Malevin was also blind for a time, the crazy wife almost burned the home, relying on the strength of the tutor to turn the tide, the male protagonist and daughter finally survived. Presumably, the choreographers did not want to avoid suspicion, because the classic sentences in "Jane Eyre" also appeared in the play. When the heroine of the "North Drift" was abandoned by the boyfriend of the "Yulian style" who had been in love for eight years, in the face of Malevin's concern - "You are not young, you look average, how do you plan", Mei Ting said the famous line in the declaration of "Jane Eyre": "Do you think that I am poor, not beautiful, and have no feelings?" ”
The original intention of "Journey of No Confusion" through the shell "Jane Eyre" is exposed here. It is not impossible to tell a contemporary emotional story from a well-known book. But the choreographers overlooked that the reason why "Jane Eyre" has become a classic of Western literature is that its realistic speculation is far higher than the simple emotional entanglement of female independence or male and female love. What is more profound is, of course, the profound insight and criticism of the social problems of the early 19th century by women writers.
Specific to the work itself, although "Jane Eyre" has the framework of a love novel, it is far less rich in love description than Austen, and the blindness in love, unexplained emotional changes, and loss are almost invisible in the novel. After reading the whole book, the reader can't find or understand how Jane Eyre fell in love with Rochester, and why Rochester has a special love for Jane Love. Because charlotte Brontë wants the reader to understand first and foremost – strong self-esteem and equality.
So we see the struggles of male and female protagonists with huge class differences, which stem directly from Jane Eyre's extreme self-esteem. Rochester's former wife was devastating, and the former's constant outrage, her youthful ignorance, and her own victims of the marriage scam were not enough to keep her. It was only later, when Jane Eyre, who had left the manor with a fierce heart, had an inheritance and gained financial independence, and Rochester's situation was just the opposite, a fire left him with nothing, blindness, an arm amputated, and a drastic exchange of status between the two people, that she was willing to return to Rochester to accompany him. Therefore, the love that Jane Eyre finally obtains is a symbol of perfection in a higher sense. For contemporary readers, this is precisely the limitation of the work, and this limitation was determined by the era in which the Brontë sisters lived. Back to contemporary women, even if they encounter similar situations, their choices will not be the same as in Jane Eyre. If the simplicity and Malevin in "The Journey of Not Confused" can not repeat the old path of "Jane Eyre", but may be able to find a contemporary "not confused" on the blueprint of classic works.
Regrettably, the TV series has not made a breakthrough in adaptation, in order to make contemporary people resonate with this ancient love story, the screenwriter has chosen to add to the twists and turns of the plot and character conflicts, and introduce some social hotspots into the encounter between men and women in the three pairs of untangled years. This makes the sub-line jump to the point of gradually replacing the main line after the episode is more than halfway through, and the literary emotional drama of the initially attractive "slow car and horse" disappears, and the humanistic afterglow that was once half constructed in "The Journey of Not Confused" also disappears. It can be seen that the advantages and disadvantages of "The Journey of Not Confused" are pulled by the famous book. We can clearly appreciate the deeper pursuit of the creators from it. And we also like to believe that the original intention of borrowing famous works is to make people realize that although there are always many practical problems to be solved in the adult world, in addition to human fireworks, there should be romantic poetry and distant places in the year of confusion. Only from the perspective of the screenwriter, some of the full reproduction of famous works in this TV series still exposes the lack of imagination.
Author: Chen Xihan
Editor: Fan Xin
Planner: Shao Ling