The Paper's reporter Wang Yi
Editor's note: On the big screen, a monument to the glorious image of outstanding communists has been erected, along with the development of the new Chinese film industry. Whether it is Jiang Jie, Zhao Yiman, Dong Cunrui, or Jiao Yulu and Kong Fansen in the 90s of the last century, Ren Changxia, Yang Shanzhou, Zheng Peimin, Zou Bihua and so on since the new century... The image of these outstanding Communist Party members on the screen has touched the audience from generation to generation.
In particular, in the past two or three decades, the images of Communist Party members who have emerged in the documentary of heroic models and the theme of poverty alleviation and poverty alleviation have been particularly vivid and vivid. Different from ordinary drama films, adapted from real people and real events, depicting typical environments according to existing historical materials, art imitations and presentations of their own affairs, and the protagonist in the film is to show people with the real name of the master, so that such films that reflect the deeds of outstanding communist party members are collectively gathered into a rich and meaningful communist image genealogy, and actively expand the connotation and extension of domestic character biopics.
From March 18 to March 31, 1978, the National Science Congress was held in Beijing. This was a grand gathering of Chinese scientists after the end of the "Cultural Revolution" and an important breakthrough in rectifying chaos. Deng Xiaoping made an important speech at the meeting, pointing out the development direction of China's scientific undertakings. At the end of the conference, Guo Moruo, 86-year-old president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered a written speech "Spring of Science", which was read by the famous announcer Hongyun on the spot. The venue suddenly burst into a spring wave of applause...
From the 1950s when the "march to science" was proposed, to the "spring of science" proposed by the current science conference, until the end of that year, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee established the policy of implementing internal reform and opening up to the outside world. Chinese filmmakers sensitively captured the changing times — in 1979, the biopic Li Siguang was released, directed by Ling Zifeng and starring Sun Daolin. On the big screen in the new period, for the first time, the image of an intellectual party member was erected, which was the first to open up the atmosphere.
Stills from the movie "Li Siguang", starring Sun Daolin
Throughout the 1980s, with the introduction and deepening of the "policy of further implementing intellectuals", a number of films reflecting the face of contemporary Chinese intellectuals were released, represented by "Middle-Aged People". In 1992, "Jiang Zhuying" launched by Changchun Film Studio can be said to be the master of such films, especially in biographical films. After the founding of New China, the image of a generation of intellectuals educated by the party was truly established.
As one of the representative figures of China's intellectual class after the implementation of the party's intellectual policy, Jiang Zhuying does not, in a certain sense, not the biao bingxun of Qian Xuesen, Li Siguang and other great scientists, but his identity as a grassroots scientific research personnel, as well as his touching deeds of always encouraging himself, working hard to tackle key problems, and teaching and educating people with "Red Candle", have just become the epitome of the vast number of intellectuals, which has aroused strong resonance.
Jiang Zhuying ,1938-1982, associate researcher of Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He compiled the "Color TV Zoom Lens Technical Standard Method", designed the color separation characteristics and coating requirements of China's first electronic color separation machine, and made outstanding contributions to the development of China's film and television industry. Source of the picture @ Guangming Daily
Ishikawa, vice chairman of the Shanghai Filmmakers Association and professor at the Shanghai Theater Academy, believes that "although Jiang Zhuying was a model figure in the 1980s, for a period of time in the early 1990s, the phenomenon of 'brain body upside down' in society was still relatively serious. The launch of "Jiang Zhuying" also shows the filmmakers' response to the crux and call of the times. ”
After the release of the movie "Jiang Zhuying", at the 13th Golden Rooster Awards of Chinese Cinema (1993) the following year, he was nominated for Best Feature Film and Best Actor, and finally won the Best Screenwriter Award. At the 1st Beijing University Student Film Festival (1993), the film won the Special Award of the Organizing Committee, and actress Xi Meijuan won the Best Actress Award.
Stills of "Jiang Zhuying", Xi Meijuan played Jiang Zhuying's wife Lu Changqin, and Weizi played Jiang Zhuying
For the film's director Song Jiangbo, this "Jiang Zhuying" is also a watershed in his directing resume - since he entered the film industry in the 1980s, Song Jiangbo has directed seven films in a row, mostly in artistic experiments and commercial genre exploration, "Jiang Zhuying" is the first main theme film he directed, but achieved both social and economic benefits. Since then, his films such as "Lighthouse Family", "Splendid Season", "Towards the Sun", and "Ren Changxia" have won almost all major national awards and achieved international reputation.
On the occasion of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Song Jiangbo was interviewed by the surging news reporter in Changchun, where he earnestly talked about how to put "the first generation of intellectuals cultivated after the founding of New China" on the screen before and after. The following is presented in his oral form.
The opening of the movie "Jiang Zhuying"
【Dictation】
Jiang Zhuying's personality charm and spiritual quality are the soul of the film
I know that the name Jiang Zhuying was in 1982, the year he died. At that time, I was working as an assistant director for "Man to Middle Age", which was also a film that reflected the theme of intellectuals, and newspapers and radios introduced many of his deeds. Ten years later, when I received the script of the film and literature of "Jiang Zhuying", his main deeds had been blurred, and the deepest impression left was: he died young, and the white-haired people sent black-haired people, which caused a lot of shocks in the country.
"Jiang Zhuying" can be said to be the first film with the main theme that I directed, and I remember that I was sending "Divorce Comedy" to the Radio, Film and Television Film Bureau at that time. Teng Jinxian, then director of the bureau, had a conversation with me, "'Jiang Zhuying' is a key film funded by the bureau, and I hope that you will go down to life well and make this film well." Another point is to make the film look good and be popular with the audience. Can't create the impression that state-funded films are not liked by audiences! ”
At that time, the situation was not much the same as now, first of all, some colleagues in the industry thought that this was a "follow-through film", and the audience also had prejudices, thinking that watching this kind of film was to organize the viewing and be educated. Ordinary people feel that it is not good, it is precisely the pain point of this kind of movie, Teng Ju's sentence "shoot well", said to the point.
Stills from "Jiang Zhuying"
Changchun Optical Machinery Institute is the place where Jiang Zhuying worked before his death, although Jiang Zhuying is a hangzhou native, but he has lived and worked in Changchun for half his life, and it can be said that changying to shoot this exemplary figure can be said to be an unshirkable responsibility.
Script creation is our factory screenwriter Wang Xingdong, we all know that intellectuals are difficult to write, and it is even more difficult to write scientific and technological intellectuals. Wang Xingdong did a lot of desk work in the early stage, and later when talking about the script, he said that he found inspiration from Xu Chi, a master of reportage, "I don't understand science, but I can understand people, understand the people of scientists, and I can write a little science." ”
I don't know anything about the profession of a scientist, and likewise, most readers, viewers don't. In addition to properly expressing his contributions in his professional field, focusing on portraying his attitude towards life, his emotional life, and his spiritual world is the key to writing a person.
It is in this principle that it is said that when he later let the typist enter the script into the four-way typewriter, the typist was a female comrade, crying while typing... I was also very touched to get the script, which was full of many details.
For example, in the eyes of people now, Jiang Zhuying is a science and engineering man, life may be more boring, but in fact he can be said to be talented, can speak English, French, German, Japanese, Russian five foreign languages, at the party once recited Marie Curie's poems in French.
There is also the fact that they all think that intellectuals are self-possessed, or have low eyesight, but Jiang Zhuying is famous for "nosy things" - when he sees a typo written on the blackboard selling vegetables, he must correct it; for a woman with a child who can't squeeze into the car, he has to help the mother and son get on the bus, and as a result, he quarrels with the car conductor... He is jealous of evil as a vendetta, dares to uphold justice, and dares to fight against unhealthy trends. This is really the point that people who have just come from that era have a very precious and simple and cute spirit.
Many details of the script I have presented in the movie, these valuable qualities are in the small, but the small view is large, especially with some bad habits in the current society, it has become a contrast. In this sense, the movie "Jiang Zhuying" is often watched changxin, at least now it will still be moved, and it will definitely be touched.
Speaking of shooting, after getting the script, the first job of our film crew was to come to Changchun Guangji to hold several symposiums, and interviewed Jiang Zhuying's colleagues, classmates, friends, wives and children, and many people who were familiar with him, and gradually the thing we wanted to focus on became clear.
For example, at the Changchun Institute of Optics and Machinery, when Jiang Zhuying is mentioned, people will talk about the two largest and most advanced laboratories - the optical transfer function test laboratory and the X-ray telescope testing laboratory. It was these two laboratories with the international advanced level built by Jiang Zhuying himself that laid the foundation for the optical detection technology of Changchun Institute of Optics and Machinery. What kind of significance these two laboratories have for contemporary industrial manufacturing, especially how important the relationship with national security is, how much is in the movie, people who understand it naturally understand.
For example, the people at the Changchun Optical Machinery Institute originally called him Old Jiang. The so-called "old Chiang Kai-shek" was only forty-three years old when he died. When the bad news came, it first shook the light machine. A memorial service of more than 200 people was scheduled, and the auditorium of more than 1,000 people was full. Outside the auditorium, many people also spontaneously gathered, and many units that had business contacts with Lao Jiang before his death sent wreaths and tents, and also sent representatives, and the memorial service was very moving.
This incident alarmed the Jilin Provincial CPC Committee and the press, first of all, guangming daily made a report, and then a large number of media followed up, which alarmed the party Central Committee and the State Council. The death of an ordinary middle-aged intellectual formed a strong shock wave. Since then, the central authorities have successively introduced a series of policies and measures to improve the working and living conditions of intellectuals.
It can be said that the spread of old Jiang's deeds is not summed up by xiucai's pen, but the remembrance and remembrance in the hearts of all those who are familiar with him, and there is an undercurrent of the world's Taoist hearts. The name Jiang Zhuying can be precipitated in the long river of history and become a footnote in the transformation of a big era, with his own personality charm and unique spiritual qualities, which must become the soul of the film.
Jiang Zhuying's family composition is not good, but politics has always demanded progress. He had just filled out an application to join the Party before his death, and after his death he was posthumously recognized as a member of the Communist Party. Jiang Zhuying's wife, Lu Changqin, introduced us to us, and the old Jiang always said, "It is the party that has trained me for so many years, and I have graduated from college and graduate school, and I must do my work in a down-to-earth manner in terms of business and work." At that time, there was a kind of national inferiority psychology in society, to put it bluntly, it was to be sublime and flattering, but Jiang Zhuying saw the gap, was not pessimistic, not discouraged, but inspired more angry and strong, and changed the determination and strength of the motherland.
In the movie, we focus on portraying his patriotic and party-loving side. In particular, the scene in which he participated in the negotiations with foreign businessmen, that reasonable, beneficial and disciplined conversation, not only stunned the foreign businessmen, but also said the voice of the broad audience, "Our door to China is open, to introduce the world's advanced equipment and technical products, but I must solemnly warn those who regard China as a waste collection station and a broken market!" ”
There is also a scene, which was the popular tide of going abroad. Before going to Chengdu, Jiang Zhuying had a very wonderful debate at the airport with Sima Sen (played by Shao Bing) who was bent on going to work in the United States, "Some of our material conditions are inferior to others. It is precisely because we are poor that we want to change, and it is precisely because of change that we urgently need talents. He warned Sima Sen: "You better not be an international migratory bird, where warm to fly, your nest is in China!" "Patriotic enthusiasm can be said to be beyond words. Such a scene, when filming, many people present shed tears. So this movie, it's a bone.
Bring drama with love, and make love with drama
There is a big problem in shooting such a film, that is, the main characters we show are real people, and they are real people who have passed by time and are not far away, and the plots that appear in the film are almost all based on real life. If you leave the character too far, people who are familiar with Jiang Zhuying will feel different from this person, and will also cut the unique personality charm of this character. If there is no typical artistic treatment of this real person, it may become a flowing account for Jiang Zhuying's good deeds, which cannot resonate with the audience, and the film is bound to be boring.
After carefully analyzing the script, I felt that it was based on lu changqin's thousand-mile funeral after receiving the news of Jiang Zhuying's "hospitalization", and took the memories of Lu Changqin and Jiang Zhuying's father, colleagues, students, and daughters of Jiang Zhuying as the latitude, and intertwined the whole film.
Colleagues pretended that Jiang Zhuying was ill and hospitalized, and asked Lu Changqin to "visit".
Lu Changqin's funeral was mentioned in time at the beginning of the funeral, becoming the total suspense of the whole film, at this time, the audience already knew that Lao Jiang had passed away, but Lu Changqin did not know it, and the audience would especially want to know how the plot would develop downwards. From Lu Changqin's eagerness to meet her husband in Chengdu, and from her uneasy speculations, the audience also has a strong desire to understand what kind of a person Jiang Zhuying is, so that the wife's flashback will come naturally. Most of Jiang Zhuying's image shaping is completed in the flashbacks of many characters, thus constituting different aspects of him.
The flashbacks in the film are not only a narrative means, but more importantly, the emotional power that stimulates the audience's emotions. There are many intrinsic connections between the present tense and the past tense, the past tense and the past time, so that the audience is gradually introduced into the carefully created artistic atmosphere. The original literary script was composed of nine flashback paragraphs, and I was worried that too many paragraphs would cut the plot too much, so I condensed the nine paragraphs into the current six, each of which was mainly based on lao Jiang and flashback characters to unfold the plot and reveal his spiritual world. The whole drama basically does not have any major confrontational conflicts, but is written from the small things in daily life.
At that time, Yan Minjun, the director of the Long Film Factory, half jokingly and half seriously told me, "This film has to be touching, you have to make the audience cry three times, and the little one has to cry six or seven times." "I'm quite grumpy (laughs). When I received the task, I was doing the post-production "Divorce Comedy" on hand, which was to amuse the audience, and I turned my face and wanted to make a "big crying film". After thinking about it, I finally decided to present the emotional world of an ordinary person.
The film focuses on his marital love, comradely love, teacher-student love, father-son relationship, and uses more pen and ink to show his family life, trying to avoid some more conceptual things when shooting such films in the past. Bring drama with love, generate emotion with drama, and reveal his noble feelings in the emotional world of the character. I think that handling these things well is very important to the success of the film, and the audience is easily attracted to the emotional life and easily moved by sincere emotions.
Among them, the relationship between Jiang Zhuying and his father is a relatively large emotional wave in the whole film. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, his father was wrongly sentenced to prison for historical problems, when Jiang Zhuying was only 15 years old, it can be said that he had long been saddled with the burden of life. He was admitted to the physics department of Peking University in 1956, and if he was a year late, he might have been delayed for a lifetime. Therefore, Jiang Zhuying's feelings for his father are complicated, on the one hand, he believes in his father's kindness and respects his father; on the other hand, he does not understand his father's "historical problems", and at that time, he must also "draw a clear line".
In the film, we set jiang Zhuying to meet his father (played by Gu Lan) in Hangzhou before his death, and the father and son met, from the unnaturalness of not seeing for a long time, to talking and gradually opening their hearts, caring for each other and advising each other, and the performances of the two actors echoed and made people cry. At the same time, on the one hand, it shows the social atmosphere that after the chaos is rectified, the "unjust, false and wrongly decided cases" will soon be corrected; on the other hand, it also lays the groundwork for the white-haired people to send the black-haired people after the release of the old man at the end of the film.
Shooting the living conditions of intellectuals, I was the assistant director of "Man to Middle Age", and I still had some experience. It was also a film about middle-aged intellectuals, which did not show any big people, but touched the hearts of hundreds of millions of viewers.
One of the details that impressed me the most was that when the male protagonist Fu Jiajie (Da Shi Chang) took off his sweater, he revealed a sweat vest with several holes in the vest. On this detail alone, the film crew later received hundreds of letters from the audience, all of which said that this point was too gripping, and one look was to understand the living conditions of intellectuals at that time. At that time, I deeply felt that the success of "Man to Middle Age" was based on the spiritual charm of realism creation, and it was the choreographer who caused a strong emotional resonance between the unique discovery and performance of life and the audience's perception.
The husband and wife relationship of Jiang Zhuying and his wife in the film is a mature emotion of middle-aged people, not in the moon before the flower, Qingqing and me, but a tacit understanding of life and career, as well as a mutual understanding and support of the soul. So we painstakingly designed many scenes and details.
For example, in the scene of "Husband and Wife Talking at Night", Jiang Zhuying is bare-backed, constantly dripping with beads of sweat, and he uses a large fan to fan from time to time, crouching on the bed to design his optical transfer function. There are all kinds of books and materials piled up around, large design drawings hang on the walls, and inside the bed lies a sleeping child, and his wife Lu Changqin sits on a small bench next to him to sew quilts for the children. Jiang Zhuying talked with his wife to see his father who was in labor camp, talked about his optical career, talked about the love of scientists, and talked about Madame Curie. I think many middle-aged intellectuals are familiar with such scenes, and they will enrich our creations with more associations.
Ge You said that the director was too sensational
"Jiang Zhuying" is the seventh film I have shot. "Red Room, White Room, Black Room" starring Liu Wei and Ni Ping, "The Story of a Female Singer" starring Wei Wei and Zhang Guoguo, "Divorce Contract" starring Feng Gong and Ren Meng, these actors are good CP in today's words, and their excellent interpretation undoubtedly adds a lot to the film.
The male and female protagonists of "Jiang Zhuying" are played by Weizi and Xi Meijuan. I have seen Wei zi's previous film "The Ballad of the Yellow River" and have an impression of his image on the screen. Xi Meijuan has acted in few movies before, and it is generally believed that her appearance is not very eye-catching. My previous films "City Masquerade Ball" and "Red Room, White Room, Black Room" were all filmed in Shanghai, and I didn't have to go to the drama often, at that time, Xi Meijuan was very famous in the Shanghai drama industry, and I also liked her performance very much, and invited her to play Jiang Zhuying's wife.
The movie "Jiang Zhuying" Xi Meijuan set makeup photos
Xi Meijuan had never been to the Temple of Heaven, and Weizi and another actor, Bi Yanjun, took her on a trip, and the three of them made a wish at the Temple of Heaven. When we took the bus to Chengdu to shoot the location together, I asked these two people what they had made, and they all hoped that our film would be successful. I was particularly touched, it just so happens that they are both sheep, I will say you two, "Sanyang Kaitai", this piece must be on fire.
The crew of the movie "Jiang Zhuying" did gather a group of good actors, especially Weizi and Xi Meijuan, two people from Beijing Renyi and Shanghai Renyi, respectively, are the pillars on the stage, the two people came to the crew and got excited, is to take out a heart to shape the role. They went to the Changchun Light and Machinery Institute, took the initiative to meet Jiang Zhuying's widow, and his children also mingled together, which was all deep life. And in the filming process, they also participated, before the start of a scene, everyone sat down to repeatedly deliberate and propose a plan.
Now that I think about it, the creative atmosphere was really harmonious. For example, we discussed that Jiang Zhuying's bedroom is a study, which should be full of books, Jiang Zhuying should be "buried" in the book to do research, the wife is doing housework on the side, and the two people are doing things for two days. However, on the day of shooting, it was found that the artist had only arranged a few books on the table, and Weizi insisted that the scene be arranged in the atmosphere that was originally envisaged before he was willing to shoot.
Xi Meijuan's best scene, I think, is that Lu Changqin, played by her, went to Chengdu, and after learning that her husband had passed away, she shaved the child's head - in the past, their family was Lu Changqin giving haircuts to father and son. The child was clamoring to see his father, so she propped up the white sheet that was covered for the child during the haircut. One after another, tearing from the middle, making filial piety cloth for the child.
Screenshot of "Jiang Zhuying"
This scene is the total outbreak of the characters' feelings in the film, along the way the two women vaguely feel ominous, Lu Changqin learned the news of her husband's death, but also has been suppressing her grief, to this point, to tell the cruel truth to the child, really can't help it, the emotions have to be vented, the torn sheet is like a torn heart.
In the past twenty or thirty years, many viewers have mentioned this scene to me, saying that when I saw this, the tears were like being plucked out of my eyes, and I couldn't stop flowing. Ge You later also watched this movie, and saw that this was also crying while watching it, saying that this director was too sensational.
When we interviewed Sun Guoliang, an old friend of Jiang Zhuying's, in Chengdu, he said: "Before the old Jiang got married, we lived in a dormitory at the Guangji Institute. He worked all day during the day, had dinner and went into the lab, had never slept before 12 o'clock at night, and got up at 5 o'clock every morning on time to recite a foreign language. I told Lu Changqin that a candle cannot be lit at both ends, and old Jiang is too tired, he wants to be a strong person in his career and life, and burns too fast. ”
The two ends of a candle should be said to be a very vivid portrayal of Jiang Zhuying's life. Moreover, before his death, he liked to smell Mr. Yiduo's "Red Candle" poem, and often used it to encourage students and self-encouragement.
At the end of the film, we designed a scene of more than 3,000 students of the College of Light and Mechanics holding candles to mourn Jiang Zhuying.
The end of "Jiang Zhuying"
The flickering images of rising candlelight, coupled with the exciting, high-pitched melody of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B minor, push the visual and auditory effects of the film to the saturation point. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, also known as the Youth Concerto, expresses a youthful brilliance and strong perseverance. The appearance of this melody that is more familiar to the audience is a deep aria of Jiang Zhuying's life force and spiritual strength!
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Luan Meng