Editor's note: Directed by Zhang Yimou and Zhang Mo, with Chen Yu as the screenwriter and Chen Yongsheng and Zhang Yu starring, the film "Sniper" will be released in major theaters across the country on February 1, the first day of the Lunar New Year. On January 10th, the Beijing Municipal Film Bureau, the Film and Television Drama Research Center of Peking University and the Magazine of Contemporary Film, co-organized by the Editorial Department of Audiovisual Theory and Practice, and the Expert Seminar on the Works of the Film Sniper, guided by the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Peking University, were held in Beijing.
Chen Xuguang, professor of the School of Arts of Peking University and director of the Film and Television Drama Research Center of Peking University, co-chaired the meeting with Huang Fuyichuan, president and editor-in-chief of the China Film Art Research Center, and Wang Jiequn, Wang Yichuan, Zhang Wei, Zhou Xing, Wu Guanping, Zhao Weifang, Dai Qing, Gao Xiaoli, Tan Zheng, Hu Jianli, Li Daoxin, Chen Yu, Li Yang, Han Pei, Tang Jinnan, Wang Changtian and other film and television industry experts and government leaders attended the seminar.
This article is the keynote speech of Chen Yu (below), screenwriter of Sniper and professor of Peking University School of Arts, at the expert seminar.
Hello everyone, I am the original author and screenwriter of the movie "Sniper", and today I want to explain the basic three-layer creative ideas for the text creation of "Sniper". In the creation of this film, I followed three principles, which are both principles and original intentions.
■ Zhang Yimou's three requirements for the script creation of "Sniper"
Today is January 10th, and Sniper has three January 10ths. From here back a year, last year's today, the movie started in Jilin Changbai Mountain. Going back a year to January 10, 2020, director Zhang Yimou said to me on the phone to create another film.
At that time, we had already cooperated in two works, one was "Rock Solid" and the other was "Manjiang Hong", and he proposed that "Manjiang Hong" be postponed first, "Let's get this first". Because it is the third film that is about to be cooperated, and the director also has a certain tacit understanding, he will not make any presets first, but often bring a very broad "hat", basically a few words, giving me enough creative space to carry out original design. In "Sniper," too, he said only three things:
The first sentence is that this is a film with the main theme of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. The second sentence is to avoid shooting the content of total war and grand narrative, because "Chosin Lake" in production at the same time has adopted this strategy, so it is necessary to present a slice of war, from small to large. The third sentence is that the whole process should be tense, dramatic, cleverly conceived, and there should be no urine spots throughout the whole process.
■ Narrative first principle, to tell the audience a good story
Based on these three requirements, I first established the first principle of creation- the principle of narrative first, which is the starting point of my own creation, and I think it is also a turning point in director Zhang Yimou's creation in recent years.
The so-called principle of narrative firstity can also be roughly boiled down to three sentences: First, storytelling is the highest goal of a film. Second, telling a good story is the fundamental reason why a film can be put into filming. Of course, a film should be based on a good story to decide to make, but in fact, there are often contradictions, it may also be because of the actors, because of the concept, not necessarily because of the good story itself, but I think only if the story is worth making.
Third, the various elements of a film, including the performance of the actors, all the performances will be incorporated into the narrative, whether the actors act well, whether the design is handled in place, must be based on the principle of narrative, that is, whether the narrative angle is excellent as a criterion. In a sense, regaining the ontological status of narrative and raising the banner of narrative primacy is the trend of the development of film art today.
Director Zhang Yimou is recognized worldwide as a first-class master of scene scheduling and film form design, but at one point there were also critics who believed that he did not reflect a considerable emphasis on narrative in his usual film genealogy. But in the past two years, especially since I worked with the director, I have felt that the director has changed a lot, that is, the first principle of narrative has gradually become clear, and even the form has been suppressed to the minimum, and the storytelling itself has become the first principle in him. Under this consensus of principles, we reached a very compatible state to create a story.
Chen Yu (right) poses with Zhang Yimou.
■ Hardcore narrative principles, hoping to achieve a high degree of tension throughout the process
The second creative principle, which I summarize as a hardcore narrative. Just now, teacher Wu Guanping also mentioned this concept, hardcore narrative is more like the internal narrative in closed time and space, which is a narrative driven by internal conflicts in the case of time and space being relatively closed.
This stemmed from my training during my PhD at the Central Academy of Drama. Essentially, it is to exercise narrative skills in a minimalist way. The stage is empty, a chair is placed next to it, which is equivalent to a park, there is a person from the east, a person from the west, two people come here, they don't know each other, and then they want to have a story, they need to constantly use the inside to drive the story, constantly escalate, and escalate until the final climax.
We can't influence the narrative with other external factors, only internal problems, driven by character relationships, character personalities, and character positions, which we call hardcore narratives. What this film hopes to present is also a hardcore narrative, as just said, to eliminate all other elements and retain only the core dynamics.
For example, in the creative process, we often have various needs, the intervention of external factors, the grand background, and some other factors that affect the progress of the story, but then we gradually and firmly eliminate them all, and replace them with constant escalation of contradictions and conflicts. It is hoped that in this way, the whole process of tension will be achieved, and the reproduction of the drama trinity will be achieved to the extreme, which is relatively rare in the genre of films with the main theme.
■ The theme of man: highlighting the individual feelings under collectivism
The third principle of creation is the theme of man. I also repeatedly discussed and debated with the director during the creative process, and finally he asked me what was the theme of this film? I only answered one sentence, that is, human sacrifice. It is not only the sacrifice, it is the sacrifice of man, but everything in the middle revolves around man. The initial scenario is to write about one thing, and then to write about the person. Although this film narrates major events about history, in the theme expression, the patriotic documentary is created into a genre film about people, and finally it is restored to people.
In my opinion, today's new mainstream films have gone through three stages, the first stage is "The Founding of the Nation", and we have completed the process of commercialization of the traditional main theme film. The second is "Captain China" and "Chinese Doctor", which make the heavy industry of the main theme type a blockbuster.
And this film we want to try the third stage, aiming to make a genre film under the main theme ideology and enhance the overall dimension of the film. Just now all the experts have also mentioned the genre film, not to say that the genre is fragmented, but it is really to make a genre film, which requires that it must be implemented to the level of people, not just the national ideology.
One of the most difficult is to highlight the individual feelings under collectivism. Chinese main theme films have always had a creative tradition of collectivist expression, but it is quite difficult to write about the arc of personal growth while including it, so some attempts have been made in this regard.
Back to the theme of people. In Sniper, this principle is embodied in the image of a lonely man with a gun against an American soldier Chinese armed to the teeth and armed with an aircraft cannon. Through such arrangements, an attempt was made to describe the individual feelings under collectivism on the theme, and as for the effect, it was left to the teachers and the audience to comment, hoping and expecting the experts to criticize and correct.
These are my three creative principles in the text creation of Sniper, thank you for listening!
■ Biography
Chen Yu, born in Zhejiang, China, received a doctorate in literature, director, screenwriter, professor of Peking University School of Arts, Zhang Yimou gold medal partner, successively served as Zhang Yimou director "Rock Solid" and "Sniper" two works of the original author, screenwriter. The representative works of the film are "Egg Fried Rice" (starring Huang Bo), "Starry Sky Diary", "Ancient Puzzle Town Fighting Teenager", "National Hero". Published the treatise "Comparative Outline of Film and Drama Ontology".