In the movie, Jiao Yulu took a group photo of the whole family when he returned to his hometown to visit his mother. (Photo courtesy of the tablet)
More and more historical figures have become new idols for contemporary young audiences through the younger and more humane presentation of current film and television dramas. Chen Duxiu in "The Age of Awakening" and Li Dazhao in "Revolutionaries" are the Republic of China group "Southern Chen and Northern Li", and Li Da and his wife Wang Huiwu in "1921" become "national couples". The next "net red" may be Jiao Yulu, a poverty alleviation cadre.
In the eyes of generations, Jiao Yulu is a familiar stranger. The textbook writes that when Jiao Yulu was the secretary of the county party committee in Lankao, Henan from 1962 to 1964, he was "close to the people and loved the people, worked hard, was scientific and realistic, faced difficulties, and selflessly dedicated", and these spirits were regarded as the "Jiao Yulu spirit" by posterity. In 1990, the movie "Jiao Yulu" starring Li Xuejian made the image of Secretary Jiao, who was dressed in Zhongshan clothes and had a sallow and thin face due to liver disease, deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In 2021, Secretary Jiao frequently appeared in film and television works. In the 49-episode TV series "Armageddon", two episodes mainly present Jiao Yulu during the Liberation War. During the Battle of Huaihai, Jiao Yulu, a 26-year-old young Communist Party member, served as the former commander of the district branch and led a team of more than a thousand people to walk thousands of miles to deliver food and ammunition to the front line. Unexpectedly, the road was intercepted by enemy aircraft bombing, and the trolley delivering food was blown up. The situation was urgent, Jiao Yulu led everyone to borrow grain from the local villagers, but the newly liberated farmers were very resistant to them, and Jiao Yulu moved to understand the reason, and finally won the support of the villagers.
The film "My Father Jiao Yulu", released on August 6, 2021, is based on the dictation of Jiao Shouyun, the second daughter of Secretary Jiao Yulu, and the books and documents written by her mother Xu Junya. In the film, you can see Jiao Yulu in life, he and his wife do housework together, disguise themselves and follow their daughters along the street to drink and sell goods, sleep with the old mother in Kangtou, and play like a child...
Actor Guo Xiaodong plays Jiao Yulu in the film, and he spent five months preparing. When he was fine, he spent all day with Jiao Shouyun and listened to her tell his father's story. Jiao Shouyun grew up with his grandmother when he was a child, and was only taken to Lankao when he was ten years old and lived with his parents. She never expected that less than half a year after a family that had lived apart for many years, her father would die. During the chat, Jiao Shouyun said: "Xiaodong, my biggest regret is that I called my father too little when I was able to call my father. ”
"I often wonder, when a person leaves, what can be left for this society? I am an actor, an actor is a sower, sowing responsibility, responsibility, love, but also to transmit the temperature, I have the opportunity today with the help of Jiao Yulu's role to transmit these temperatures. Guo Xiaodong said.
The following is Guo Xiaodong's self-statement.
<h3>"Comfort each other like two fathers"</h3>
I think it is possible to play Jiao Yulu in the dark. Before that, I had been looking for a person with positive energy, responsibility, love, responsibility and temperature, hoping to play more characters who released this amount of information. When they asked me to play Jiao Yulu, I thought that this was not the role I had been waiting for.
I was known to the audience before, starring in family urban dramas, playing "China's good husband", these roles are all fictional, the character's growth background, historical background, all of which can be grafted, imaginary, and casually combined. And Jiao Yulu is a living biographical figure, many of his examples are real, how to truly pass these examples through our understanding, the speculation of the characters, without any sense of violation, this requires a lot of effort.
I am a post-70s, and people of our generation, including the previous generation, have a large part of their understanding of Secretary Jiao Yulu from Teacher Li Xuejian. It is not only a monumental movie, but also a peak of Xue Jian's portrayal of the character.
It probably took me more than five months to get to know Jiao Yulu and walk into Jiao Yulu. During this period, I did not take on other work, but only did desk work: taking the road that Secretary Jiao had walked, doing a lot of things he had done before, interviewing the workers who had worked with him, interviewing some villagers who fought with him at that time, some cadres at that time, and such a group of comrades-in-arms who went with him to check the internal waterlogging and salinity, including going to Secretary Jiao's hometown, the villagers in his hometown, and the neighbors left and right, I would interview. Of course, the most important thing is Secretary Jiao's family, his second daughter, because this movie is based on the biography of the second daughter Jiao Shouyun. I talked to her a lot, and almost every time in the past five months, the second sister (Jiao Shouyun) was with me, and I listened to her talk about her various impressions of her father and all the feelings of communication with him.
At the beginning, a sentence from the second sister really touched me, and it was also this sentence that made me find a breakthrough at once. She said, "Xiaodong, do you know what I regret the most?" My biggest regret is that I called too little when I was able to call Daddy. These words immediately pierced into my heart. Because I have also been married and had children for many years, at that moment, I faced Secretary Jiao, just like two fathers, comforting each other, hugging each other, and warming each other, and I especially understood that feeling.
In the movie, Jiao Yulu's family reunites in Lankao, and Jiao Yulu and his son have a rare moment of affection. (Photo courtesy of the tablet)
The second sister lived with her grandmother from childhood, and it was not until she was ten years old that Secretary Jiao took her to Lankao to live with her, but at this time, Secretary Jiao's health was no longer good. Since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety are difficult to complete, for mothers, for wives, including children, many people will lack a lot, after all, everyone's energy is limited. For Secretary Jiao, he put more energy into his work and must be guilty of his family, so when he is with his children, he tries to make himself do more and think more about his children and families.
In order to get closer to Secretary Jiao from the image, I spent a lot of effort to lose weight. At that time, I was 80 kilograms, and my face was round, and I had to reduce it to be able to convince myself that I had the physical feeling of Secretary Jiao from the external form. When I started the camera, I had lost 22 pounds, and I had been losing the whole shooting process, eventually from 81 kilograms to 66 kilograms, and then I was a little anorexic, I didn't want to eat, and even the magic was scared, I felt that the thinner the better.
In addition to losing weight, I asked myself not to drink water during the shooting, especially when shooting this part of Lankao, I tried to look for the feeling that the wind was blowing my lips dry and cracked. I was so thirsty that I drank a sip of water with a straw, but I didn't dare to let my mouth get wet, for fear that I would destroy the feeling of drying and cracking by the wind again.
Finally shooting the scene in the hospital bed, it was really a few days and nights without sleep, just hope to have a trance feeling, before the start of filming I will do a lot of push-ups on the spot, I need that feeling of extreme collapse, extreme lack of strength, let myself completely enter that state.
When I first entered the group, I asked the whole crew not to call me Guo Xiaodong and Teacher Guo from that day, hoping that everyone would be called Secretary Jiao and Lao Jiao, and everyone was also extremely cooperative with me. Since then, I haven't worn my own clothes and have been wearing the clothes in the play. I went over and over to listen to the songs of that era, "Unity is Strength", "We Workers Have Strength", "Follow the Communist Party", "No Communist Party, No New China", every day as long as I open my eyes, I listen to these songs, on the way out of work, on the way to finish work, I play such music, including also listening to party lessons, taking notes, and every aspect helped me enter that role, that era.
Every scene is basically a mature script over there, those events are there, and my job is to figure out how to make the events come to life and rationalize. I never thought about how to play him well during the whole process, I was feeling him. When it comes to that feeling, the character should do it.
<h3>What is a "good guy"</h3>
We think that we are very familiar with Jiao Yulu, but in fact, we are familiar with what we see in textbooks, in the previous version of the movie "Jiao Yulu", knowing that he is a good party member, a good son of the people, and a good county party secretary. When we slowly approach him, you will feel that he is an extremely ordinary and ordinary person, he is our friend, a father, a son, a husband, an ordinary cadre, but he does have compassion for heaven and man, and he is an ordinary person who shines with humanity.
In the 1950s, in the Luoyang Mining Machinery Factory, in order to independently produce a 2.5-meter double-barrel hoist, Secretary Jiao vigorously overcame the public opinion and boldly used Chen Jiguang, a young high-caliber student who was then beaten as a rightist. In that historical background, he carried a lot and shouldered a lot, and his lines were very clear: "At present, there is nothing more important than the task of the 2.5-meter twin-barrel elevator, which is the heavy weapon of the country and the soul of the country." ”
In the movie, a 2.5-meter drum hoist was developed, and the whole factory cheered and lifted Chen Jiguang. (Photo courtesy of the tablet)
After the Sino-Soviet confrontation, the Soviet experts left, took all the drawings with them when they left, and left a sentence: "You China cannot rely on your own strength to manufacture (2.5 meters twin cylinder lift), if you want to build, you will transport all the parts to the Soviet Union, we will help you build." This contemptuous attitude deeply stung Secretary Jiao, who asked Chen Jiguang, are we really dumber than others Chinese, and are we really worse than others. This series of difficulties in front of him made him feel that nothing was more important than this matter, and he felt that he could take on this responsibility and let Chen Jiguang come and fight side by side with everyone.
The experience of poverty alleviation in Lankao was a period of great color in Secretary Jiao's life. In 1962, in order to be able to do a good job in agriculture, some enterprises dispatched some cadres to the grass-roots level to engage in agricultural production with everyone, and Secretary Jiao was also transferred to Lankao in that context as secretary of the Lankao County PARTY Committee. I visited many people, and I also read a lot of information, and learned that Secretary Jiao did not take the initiative to invite Miao to Lankao, but directly assigned him to go.
At that time, everyone was not clear about the concept of poverty alleviation, and poverty alleviation was the current statement, but Secretary Jiao himself had the feeling of compassion for heaven and man. When he came to Lankao, he saw the masses who could not open the pot and eat goose at home, and saw the masses who went to the train at the railway station to pick up the train and went out to escape the famine to ask for food, and he felt that he had to shoulder this responsibility and must lead everyone to overcome the three evils of waterlogging, wind and sand, and salinity.
I remember when I was filming, Secretary Jiao said to his children on his deathbed, "You must see the tears of the suffering", and his old mother's words, "You must be a good person". The word "good guy" is actually very abstract, what is a good guy? In my understanding, that is, every bit must have a certain temperature, warm others, but also warm themselves.
Because of this, when he arrived in Lankao, he saw that the newly graduated college students wanted to leave Lankao and return to the city because of the situation at that time, closer to their families, and could take care of their mothers, and he would not coldly persuade and educate young people or block them, but said, It does not matter, I can help you and let you get out of here.
At the last moment of his life, he went back to his hometown where he had not returned for ten years to visit his mother, he knew very well that his life had come to an end, and he knew what this return meant to him and his mother, so when he saw his mother, he would be like a child, shouting "mother" without stopping. I was thinking at the beginning, he felt that one shout would be less.
In the last moments of Jiao Yulu's life in the movie, he returns to his hometown to visit his mother, whom he has not seen for ten years. The picture shows him saying goodbye to his mother before leaving. (Photo courtesy of the tablet)
My wife was deeply touched after watching this film, she said that she had been in a trance when she watched the movie, and she did not know whether this person was Cheng Lisha's husband Guo Xiaodong or Xu Junya's husband Jiao Yulu. My son is 11 years old and I said, you see? He said hmm. Maybe the deepest emotions he can't read, at least he can see them. When he watched the movie that day, he watched it with several classmates, and everyone saw the end. For an 11-year-old child, it is quite unexpected to be able to understand and insist on reading it.
I feel too much about this scene, maybe a lot of words are still very excited or feel very big words, in fact, are my real feelings in my heart, even more bloody than these, that is, a person's spirit will penetrate into your blood, body, recall the bits and pieces are still very exciting. Now everyone is talking about "idol", I prefer to use the word "role model", I think Jiao Yulu is a role model for all men, responsible, responsible, loving, inclusive, and he does not give up, does not give up. I don't know what an idol really is, but I think the role model is very clear, and the role model in my life is a direction, a weather vane. I think Secretary Jiao is.
In "My Father Jiao Yulu", to be honest, we didn't discuss how to attract young audiences, but more about how to restore this event and this character as much as possible, this kind of thing can't be modified to cater to everyone, because the very real event is here. The greatest spirit of Jiao Yulu is scientific and truth-seeking, you must seek truth from facts, you can not do things that are fabricated, which itself is contrary to his own spirit. But I think that human emotions are universal, no matter what dynasty or social form, when your humanity is glorious, this thing cannot be covered, it is common.
Southern Weekend reporter Li Yilan