From January 8th to 9th, during the 8th Guangzhou International Documentary Festival Golden Red Cotton Film Festival, the documentary film "Post-90s" returned to the Guangzhou offline cinema for screening. The film interviewed 16 alumni of Southwest United University with an average age of more than 96 years old, including Yang Zhenning, nobel laureate in physics, Pan Jiluan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Xiji, winner of the "Medal of Merit of Two Bombs and One Star", ma Zhitu, a famous writer, yang Wei, a translator, and others; Xu Yuanchong, a giant in the translation industry who died in 2021, and Zheng Zhemin, winner of the highest national science and technology award, left precious images of their lives in the film. The interview of a group of elderly people did not have the slightest twilight, but was full of youthful passion.
On December 30, 2021, the film won the "Best Documentary/Science and Education Film Award" at the 34th Golden Rooster Awards of Chinese Film. Director and writer Xu Bei said in her testimonial that when the awardees read out the three words "Post-90s", she was excited and had mixed feelings. "The film first started in 2017, and today, most of the old people in the film have gone through a century. Thank you to all the audiences, each of your movie tickets, is to build our time and the spirit of the Southwest United University connection and inheritance. ”
Nandu and N video reporters interviewed Xu Bei to talk about how to hook this "legend" in the history of modern education, and use light and shadow to complete the "cross-era connection" between these national treasure-level masters and contemporary young people.
On December 30, 2021, Xu Bei, director and writer of "Post-90s", took the stage to receive the award.
【Dialogue with Xu Bei】
From "The Great Rear" to "Post-90s"
Nandu: The background of "Post-90s" is a real history of Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University moving to Kunming during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and forming the National Southwest United University. This university has existed for a total of 8 years and 11 months, and the teachers and students are as heroic as clouds, leaving a variety of historical materials. As a director, when you cut into this topic, what information did you read that impressed you, or had an important impact on you?
Xu Bei: I remember that I bought the first batch of books about Southwest United University in August 2016. There are two materials in it that particularly impressed me.
One is a set of "Historical Materials of National Southwest United University" that I found on the Internet, which is particularly well-documented and detailed, such as how many students there are this semester, what classes are held, and what are the rules and regulations... It also includes some documents reflecting the concept of education, including the article "A Solution to the University" proposed by Mei Yiqi (former president of Tsinghua University, who was a member of the Standing Committee and chairman of the Council of Southwest United University in 1938) and "the so-called university is not a building, but also a master", and some cognition of higher education by Pan Guangdan (then the head of the Social Department of Southwest Union University). The "generalist education" advocated by Pan Guangdan and the profound insight into the whole higher education gave me a great shock at the time, and also made me realize that this school is really not a so-called "temporary school", it has a very mature educational concept and a perfect management system.
Southwest United University under Shen Shuping's lens.
The second particularly big touch came from Yi Sheqiang's "Southwest United Congress in War and Revolution". His interpretation of Southwest United University is different from the other dozen books I have seen, and has a more international perspective. In 2017, I first made 5 episodes of the documentary "Southwest United Congress", and I wanted to use 5 groups of relationships to frame. It is easy for me to think of the relationship between the three principals of the three schools, the relationship between the school that suddenly moved west and the local area of Yunnan, and the relationship between it and the anti-Japanese battlefield at that time. But in the choice of the other two groups of relationships, it is indeed inspired by Mr. Yi Sheqiang.
Nandu: With a general grasp, how do you select materials and determine the main line characters?
Xu Bei: In this regard, I had a very painful exploration.
Earlier, I was making reality documentaries, and my first contact with historical documentaries was as the general director of "The Great Rear". That series has 12 episodes, each 50 minutes long, which is equivalent to combing through the history of China's War of Resistance from the perspective of the rear. Among them, there is an episode of "Mobile Desks", which talks about the southward and westward migration of colleges and universities, and southwest United University is part of it. In fact, in the 3 years of doing "The Great Rear", the biggest obstacle I encountered was the problem of trade-offs, and after experiencing failure, I slowly honed an inner "feeling" and the ability to make trade-offs.
By the time I made the 5-episode documentary "Southwest United Congress", I was already very clear that I could not let myself fall into the "swamp of historical materials". I strictly adopt a scientific and logical way of advancing. First of all, the framework of the 5 episodes must be built very precisely, and each episode clearly knows what they want to do; they must be particularly firm in their decision-making and must serve this framework. Wonderful stories are seductive, and like the Kraken in Greek mythology, you have to "tie" yourself up and not be bound by it.
Group photo of teachers and students of the department of Chinese of Southwest United University (from left in the second row: Pu Jiangqing, Zhu Ziqing, Feng Youlan, Wen Yiduo, Tang Lan, You Guoen, Luo Yong, Xu Junzhai, Yu Guanying, Wang Li, Shen Congwen).
Each episode is within the framework, and a few key characters are selected, which must be sufficiently representative and have the feasibility of telling the story, with relevant people to interview, and relevant images to rely on. After selecting the characters, it is easy to do, and if you put together all the stories of these characters, you will find that there are cross-relationships and parallel relationships between them... You'll enjoy the process.
Nandu: After the framework is set up, a lot of liaison work needs to be done. As can be seen from the scrolling subtitles at the end of "Post-90s", you have completed the collection of video data across multiple countries. Have you encountered any particularly great difficulties?
Xu Bei: When I do historical documentaries, I often think, what is the reason for the audience to watch it? I think that the depth of the production team's thinking about this period of history must be there first; on this basis, it is necessary to make the historical facts as rich and complete as possible. This corresponds to the question you asked.
The salvage of historical facts, after so many years, has become our "muscle memory". If you want to say that it is difficult in some place, it may be particularly trivial. Almost every key person has to go to their descendants or memorials to dock and copy back the materials we want.
Yang Zhenning won the Nobel Prize.
It also takes some luck. For example, in "Post-90s", there is an award ceremony in which Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao won the Nobel Prize in Physics, which is our newly added material, and there should be no such video in China before, only photos. Although we already had some breakthroughs in the historical data when we made the documentary "Southwest United University", this time we still want to make a breakthrough in "Post-90s", and we want to find a video of the 1957 Nobel Prize ceremony. First in the foreign video website to find, how can not find, and then I think, at that time the photography technology has been popularized, it is impossible not to have, then where will it be? Is the TV station doing this? We wrote an email to Swedish television. When they checked, there really was. For two or three months, because of the epidemic, we could not receive a reply, and then we found another department of the TV station, and finally reconnected and got what we wanted. Basically, every point, as long as we feel that there is a possibility of a breakthrough, we will not give up easily.
Nandu: I also saw a video of Wu Dayu (Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao, professor of physics at Southwest United University) in "Post-90s", recorded in 1995.
Xu Bei: It was helped by Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Chen Juntian. This old gentleman, we met in Shenzhen, and later he invited me to dinner in Taipei, and I told him that he was doing a documentary at Southwest United University, and he said that this is a particularly good topic, and there is one thing to give to me, that is, Wu Dayu's interview, engraved on the CD. wow! I was very happy at the time, and it was really like a treasure after I got it. In our film, the first generation of teachers of Southwest United University, this is the only piece of information, he gave us.
Yang Zhenning's shooting will be "stuck"
Nandu: When it comes to the interviews with the documentary, I'm curious, how do you choose the interviewees? Mr. Bi he, who is a famous historian and translator himself, also wrote "School Record" that recalls the experience of studying at Southwest United University, and was still alive at that time, why was he not included in the interview list?
Xu Bei: The reason is that when we started shooting, there was no way to interview him.
In 2017, when I started the interview, one of the people I most wanted to interview was Mr. He Zhaowu. But at that time, Hu Kangjian, secretary general of the Beijing Alumni Association of Southwest United University, told me that if I could come a year earlier, I could interview him. Yes, that's the reality. Because when we came, mr. He's state of mind could no longer be effectively told in front of the camera. I am very sorry.
Nandu: Every interview is precious. When you got this opportunity, how did you design the problem? How long can the old gentlemen give?
Xu Bei: The most strict time for the interview was Mr. Yang Zhenning, who gave us 1 hour. At that time, I thought that 1 hour is ok, and we interview people should first respect people's ideas, so we designed the interview content very carefully.
There was one detail during the interview that impressed me. Because Mr. Yang Zhenning is an excellent interviewee, his thinking is very clear, his expression is very accurate, and he is in a very relaxed state in front of the camera, so I actually forgot about time. At that time, I asked him a question, talk about his relationship with Deng Jiaxian. He immediately looked up at the clock on the wall, and then said: I remind you, we still have 4 minutes to go until 11 o'clock, then I will first answer one of your questions, "What impact does the Southwest United University give me", and then I will come back and talk about my affair with Deng Jiaxian. In the end, the interview really ended on time at 11 o'clock, a full hour.
I think Mr. Yang Zhenning is an extremely self-disciplined person, doing everything very clearly "how I see, how should I do, what are my requirements", decided to do it. We communicate with each other in the form of Chinese writing emails, and it is very comfortable and smooth to communicate with him, and you will know very well the progress and sense of proportion of doing a thing. In fact, these are all particularly important details in life, and they are no less important than if you do your profession well.
Nandu: In "Post-90s", the presentation of the translator Mr. Yang Wei is very delicate, and you can see the depth of the communication between you.
Xu Bei: Yes, (interview) there is plenty of time, 1 day (laughs). I do feel that my feelings for Mr. Yang Wei are different from those of other old gentlemen, that is, I have a lot of fate and appreciate her. When you use "appreciation" to describe a woman who is much older than you, it proves her charm.
Translator and poet Yang Wei.
She gave me a book called Tang Di Hua: Two Brothers of Barkin. Mr. Yang Wei has a crush on Ba Jin's second brother Li Yaolin, and she should miss him for a lifetime with a girlish feeling. On the title page of the book, she wrote: "Xu Bei Xiaoyou Cun Nian, Yang Wei, November 18, 2019, when she was 100 years old. Then he wrote a "wait a hope" in English, which is wonderful! What hope are you waiting for? I didn't say it.
Another episode is that the first time we went to visit her and just chatted, I told her that the assistant next to me was "post-90s", and she had a twinkle in her eye and said very enviously: "It's so good to be young!" "That expression is very moving. The next day, when the official interview was filmed, she said two seemingly contradictory sentences at the beginning and end of "Post-90s", "Living is victory" and "I am over 100 years old, but I have a life without shame, but it is also a waste." I later understood that there was a kind of recollection of the love of youth in her exclamation, because she had a favorite person, but for many reasons, especially probably the atmosphere of the whole society at that time, there was no way to boldly chase love. She feels that today's young people don't have this kind of problem and have a lot of options, so "it's good to be young."
Nandu: The oldest interviewee in "Post-90s" is the famous 108-year-old writer Ma Zhitu, who heard that he suffered from cancer before the interview and later miraculously recovered.
Xu Bei: Right. Including Mr. Wu Dachang, who appeared in the film, he was 102 years old at the time and had undergone an operation, and I was particularly worried at one time. Mr. Ma Zhitu is also, when I visited him in 2017, the contact person said that he could not be interviewed because he had lung cancer. I think we missed another respondent. As a result, a year later, someone suddenly reminded us, why didn't you contact Ma Zhitu? He's so good now! I was shocked, I said ok, let's hurry up and get in touch!
Ma Zhitu, a hundred-year-old writer in the lens of "Post-90s".
At that time, the documentary "Southwest United Congress" had already been broadcast, and we just felt that no matter what, we should leave Ma Lao's interview behind. He waited for almost half a year, and didn't interview him until the end of April 2019, when he was 104 years old.
Compared with many other students at Southwest United University, of course, it can also be said that Ma Zhitu embarked on another path, that is, revolution. However, whether these students chose to save the country through science or to save the country through revolution like Ma Zhitu, their ambitions were very far-reaching, they considered the problems of the country and the nation, and had no selfish intentions. When Mr. Ma Zhitu reached his 100th birthday, he still wanted to "do something good" and donated millions of yuan to Sichuan University.
All texts and soundtracks are sourced
Nandu: Looking back now, many viewers think that the title of "Post-90s" is very clever and has a unique charm.
Xu Bei: The name came about after we finished filming "Southwest United Congress" and talked to the producer in Kunming. At that time I had an emotion, I said that after walking such a circle, I had a new feeling about the age of people. Before, I would think that being in my 80s was an advanced age, but if someone now told me that I was 90 years old, I would feel from my heart that I was still very young and a "post-90s". Our producer and director Yu Rongguang listened to it and suddenly said, "Or else, the title of the film will be "Post-Nineties", right? At that time, everyone did not react, because in the topic of the Southwest United Congress, the names we took were "eight-tone ensemble" and "Jiayin Long Stay", which were thick and heavy, and suddenly changed the style of painting, and I did not know whether it was established.
Later, in the process of making up the film, we felt more and more that this was a "youth film". Although the interviewee is a group of elderly people, we convey the story of their youth; although the subtitles are typed out, they are already in their nineties and 100s, but the status of this group of people actually reminds us of young people in their twenties, that is, today's "post-90s". So the more I think about it, the more I think that the title of "Post-90s" is very appropriate.
Nandu: Looking back at the history of the Southwest United Congress after nearly 7 years, it is easy to list and lay out the grand scenes at that time, but it is very difficult to restore the texture of youth and make people have a sense of substitution. How did "Post-90s" do it?
Xu Bei: Conveying a feeling, or a kind of tonality of the era, is a very mysterious thing, in fact, the difficulty of this film is exactly here. If we try to summarize it, I think there are probably several aspects.
First of all, of course, it is necessary to use the oral accounts of the alumni of Southwest United University. The way they talked and the content they spoke naturally had a sense of age, showing the spiritual outlook of that era; the second was to choose other words to "wrap" the entire dictation in the film. In fact, most of the text that appears in the film is not written by me, and my job is more to combine the text on the material in a way that I think is interesting. These words themselves are written by the students of Southwest United University themselves, and they are a "bridge" back to history.
With the blessing of these words, it is easier to do on the image, after all, there are photos to refer to. On the other hand, sound, including music, is also an important element that takes the audience back to the historical situation. A lot of the music in our film comes from the scattered information I found when reading historical materials and doing homework, for example, some students recalled that they watched a movie called "Cui di ChunXiao", and the interlude "One Day When We Were Young" was very popular, so we used this song as one of the theme music of "Post-90s" (also the English translation of "Post-90s"); In addition, many people said that students at that time liked to sing "Songhua River". We adapted the song and appeared about 5 times in the film. The pure music at the end of the film is adapted from the Southwest United University school song. All sounds have a provenance, not a pat on the head.
Nandu: "Post-90s" has a lot of lyrical passages, but it is not cheap sensationalism. How do you grasp the "degree" of this emotional transmission?
Xu Bei: This may be related to my age. When people reach middle age, they have experienced a lot of life, old age, illness, death, and separation, and they will know that what can be said out loud can only be relatively superficial emotions, and real pain is indescribable. So I told the dubbing that what I wanted was not a particularly full, exciting, and ostentatious arrangement, but a deep emotion at the same time as the introvert. They often wonder, "How can I get this done?" And then I kept trying until I said at a certain point, that's what I want.
On the other hand, I am indeed a person who is particularly sensitive and delicate emotionally. I think that "people have the same heart, the same heart", if something pokes into my heart, it can impress others.
Nandu: "Post-90s" ends with Deng Jiaxian's "pure (pure)", and the last narration, "Let's remember this naughty smile", has become the tear point of many viewers. How did you come up with this ending?
Xu Bei: My own favorite is the "pure" paragraph. Because I think that the accumulation of this student number, and finally the "naughty smile" as the landing point of the whole film, is my own way of presentation, is my own interpretation of southwest United University.
Illustration in the film "After 90": Deng Jiaxian's "naughty smile".
And the end of the whole film is the first to be thought of. In the film, I quoted the memories written by the alumni of Southwest United University, "Yang Zhenning is two classes higher than Deng Jiaxian, and has the reputation of 'the heavens will descend on the Si people', but it is also common for him and Deng Jiaxian to read ancient poems together..." I am curious about how this article ends at the end, and at the end, they end like this, "Let's remember that naughty smile." "I was screaming, I said, the end of the film has come. And I think it's very advanced.
Illustration in the film "Post-90s": Yang Zhenning and Deng Jiaxian chanted poems and nostalgia.
Don't ask for "contrast", but can "talk"
Nandu: On May 8, 2021, when "Post-90s" premiered in Beijing, it is said that more than 100 alumni and descendants of Southwest United University were present to watch the film. Wouldn't you have been a little nervous at the time?
Xu Bei: It's a little nervous, but not as nervous as when the "Southwest United University" documentary was launched. Because I heard that the work was recognized by many descendants of the alumni of the United Nations University, so this time they wanted to see this movie, and I had basic confidence in my own grasp.
But of course there will be a little bit of nervousness, and I feel like in front of them, I am like a "candidate". After all, we are all outsiders to the Southwest United University, and we have built a Southwest United University in our hearts through books and materials. Is our build accurate enough? Their opinions are incredibly important.
As a result, on the night of the first screening, when the school emblem of Southwest United University came out (at the end of the film), the whole audience applauded for a long time, and finally after the subtitles were completed, everyone warmly applauded. So I think I've passed the "exam"!
Nandu: From the interview in 2017 to the release of "Post-90s", has this 5-year creative experience brought you any changes?
Xu Bei: In fact, after the film is made, the first thing that benefits is really myself, and in many aspects of doing things, I am constantly getting better. For example, as I just mentioned, by writing an e-mail to Mr. Yang Zhenning, I learned a lot, including how to accurately express my needs and how to get along with people happily and comfortably.
After dealing with their generation, I felt a strong sense of upbringing from the inside out, kindness from the heart, and of course diligence, self-discipline, and curiosity about the world. I have the habit of continuous learning, but when I see these "post-90s", people over 100 years old, they are not only seeking knowledge, but also "output", some do translation, some are still studying the welding of high-speed rail... I would feel that I could have done a little better.
Nandu: Nowadays, many young people are discussing "whether to struggle", but rarely talk about "what to fight for". This film actually answers this question.
Xu Bei: (Interviewees in the film) They never doubted the purpose of their reading. The answer I gave may not be particularly complete, but it can analyze a large number of historical reasons, such as they were in the context of the Anti-Japanese War and were influenced by the masters when they were young... We cannot completely ignore this difference in the times, and make a gap between these alumni of Southwest United University and today's young people, which has no practical significance. As a director, what I want to do is to take the audience back to the historical situation, to trace the hearts of those people, how they came to the present step by step. Then, a caring viewer may see themselves in it.
Nandu: It is not necessary to compare, but it is possible to have a dialogue.
Xu Bei: Right. In the past, when people summed up the spiritual legacy of the Southwest United Congress, they would mention patriotism, democracy, science, etc., which of course are beyond doubt; and returning to the state of a person himself, I think there is a point that is particularly important, that is, the love of the field in which he is engaged throughout his life. This love is not utilitarian, has nothing to do with any real calculations, but emanates from the core of life. There is always a pure land in their hearts that is reserved for these spiritual pursuits. That's why we say that these people's eyes are very bright, they are very "young", including the "pure" distilled in our films, all come from this.
Nandu: On the subject of Southwest United University, you have already done a series of documentaries and documentaries, and do you have other types of creative plans?
Xu Bei: There will also be a TV series called "Our Southwest United Congress", which is also led by the Propaganda Department of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and will be broadcast soon this year. In this way, about the Southwest United University, there is a documentary, a documentary film, a TV series, and a matrix of film and television works basically formed.
Producer: Nandu Instant
Written by: Nandu reporter Hou Jingjing Provided by the interviewee