Recently, the realistic urban emotional drama "Journey without Confusion", starring Chen Jianbin, Mei Ting, Tu Songyan, Liu Weiwei, Yu Mingjia, Zhang Shu, Chi Jia and others, ended perfectly on Zhejiang Satellite TV and the whole network, receiving hundreds of millions of broadcasts and triggering heated discussions on the Internet. This urban drama that pays attention to the survival status of middle-aged people has killed a blood road in a number of ancient dolls, allowing us to see the irreplaceable charm and power of realistic themes, and also see the possibility of the diversity of Chinese TV drama creation at present, and what is more valuable is that the performance of each actor is remarkable, creating one role after another that makes the audience unforgettable.
The play's director, Han Jie, graduated from the Directing Department of the Shanghai Theater Academy and is now a director at the National Theatre of China. Perhaps it is such a director, who has both a stage and a screen, who makes this subject so special, both thought-provoking and literary.
Malevin's type of person is an idol of Han Jie's youth
To say that the creation of this drama can be traced back to Chen Jianbin's film "The Eleventh Time", Han Jie said that Teacher Chen set up a "Compound Eye Literature Group" for the movie "The Eleventh Time", and the atmosphere was good, including Wang Xuebing, Rao Xiaozhi, Lei Zhilong, and me. Teacher Chen Jianbin is the group leader, everyone talks about the script around his creation, that time seems to be back to the drama school, we talk about Chekhov, talk about "Uncle Vanya", "Waiting for Godot", talk about Meyerhold, and also said that it sounds very vain and great and difficult to achieve ideas, Han Jie said that that time still makes him unforgettable.
Just about that stage, in fact, even earlier, Han Jie proposed to Teacher Chen to create a drama, the male protagonist to middle age, has already realized the freedom of wealth, and talented, full of economy, in life he can be other people's beacon, for other people's lives to point out the direction, but he is living in the emotional hell, into a dead end, can not find a way out, lost the ability to act. Teacher Chen and I are both interested in this kind of person who is "incapacitated", why is it incapacitated? We realized that this is a typical symptom of some people in reality, and it is also a point of interest to both Me and Teacher Chen. So the creation began. It was at that time that the tone of the whole play was basically set. In the final analysis, the drama "Journey of No Confusion" still has something to say.
Teacher Chen Jianbin is an intellectual in his bones, and his understanding of intellectuals is very profound, so the identity of Ma Liewen in the play is locked as a bookseller with literary pursuits. Han Jie is eager to find the "typical dilemma of typical characters" in "The Journey of Not Confused", Malevin's, simple, and find a re-shooting, otherwise it is not interesting to shoot.
Teacher Mei Ting plays a simple, is the ideal female image in Han Jie's mind, she is kind and honest, the key is to have the ability to change the reality of action, when she was awakened by Malevin, she immediately made a choice, resorted to action, and bravely assumed the consequences of the choice, which is valuable. In this play, women are generally more capable of action than men.
The characters in the play, such as Malevin, Simple, Feng Chunsheng, Zhuo Xiaoting, Qiao Qingqian, and Jian Xingyan, are all observed by Han Jie from life, and he feels that these people are my neighbors, as if they all live on the edge of the fourth ring, chatting with him, drinking wine, and listening to their happiness and sorrow.
Therefore, the whole play, whether from the play or the shooting, tries to portray the characters in a realistic way, and strives to get close to the hearts of the characters. The requirements for actors are also to go deep into the heart of the character and make the character come alive, and the goal set at that time is to create several living people.
Actors are the core creativity of "Journey without Confusion"
Han Jie believes that when the script reaches the limit of passing or creation, performance is the factor that determines everything. The education of the Drama Academy is "theatrical art with the performing arts as the core", Han Jie believes that the TV series is also the same, his most hated word is "cut performance", thinking that he is a smarter director than the actor, most of them do not know what performance is.
After graduating from the Shanghai Theater Academy, Han Jie entered the National Drama Theatre as a director, he believes that the biggest gain in entering the theater is to see a lot of good actors, many times the actors are originally very good, is the director "cut" bad, he decided from the age of thirty that he will not be the kind of director who screams in front of the actors in this life.
Han Jie insisted on a principle in "The Journey of No Confusion", only choosing actors he admired to cooperate, that is, he did not like to tell actors how to perform, he only wanted to be a mirror for actors on the spot. The actor is an artist, the creativity of the actor is the most precious, he likes to look at the actor's performance with an appreciative eye, and then exchange understanding of the role with each other.
In "The Journey of No Confusion", whether it is Chen Jianbin, Mei Ting, or Liu Weiwei, Tu Songyan, Zhang Shu, Yu Mingjia, Chi Jia - and so many senior actors Gao Ming, Xu Wenguang, Ma Yingchun, Zhang Zhizhong, Li Yeping, Zhang Ying, etc. - they have different roles, but they all invariably create the image of living characters, and in Han Jie's heart, they all contribute artist-level performances.