Guan Hu's interpretation of the director's style (one dry goods per day to help the media art examination)

Guan Hu directing style

Guan Hu is one of the representative figures of China's "sixth generation director", its unique film style has always been praised by people, from 1992 to 2014 today, Guan Hu has shot a total of eleven films and seventeen TV series represented by "Migrant Workers of Survival" and "Black Hole", of which the film works are "Hair Is Messy" (1992), "Romantic Street" (1996), "Super City" (1997), "Goodbye, Our 1948" (1999), " Get in the car and let's go! (2000), Xi Shi Eye (2002), Bullfight (2009), Who Moved My Happiness (2009), Eight Hundred Heroes (2011), Killing (2012), Cook, Drama, Leper (2013). With the in-depth discussion of the theme and always adhering to the personalized way, Guan Hu has shown extraordinary talent in film and television works although he is not limited to it as a "sixth-generation director".

Guan Hu's works are sharp, cutting-edge, personalized and mature, embodying a strong humanistic care spirit and realistic critical characteristics, not only have the universal characteristics of the sixth generation, but also are independent, so he is called the "geek" in the "sixth generation of directors". This article will mainly analyze the stylistic characteristics of Guan Hu's films from the aspects of the choice of themes, narrative methods and the experience of his creation.

First, the humanistic and caring spirit expressed in the choice of themes

Like many contemporaries, Guan Hu often chooses small people who can be seen everywhere in our lives but rarely paid attention to in film creation, such as the confused youth in "Hair Messed Up", the taxi driver in "Romantic Street", etc. They are ordinary people in life, of course, they are also small people, but few people write about them from a literary point of view or film and television themes. However, in Guan Hu's film works, he marked his pursuit of personalization in the thematic dimension with his rare entry into the world, introverted and sharp, and critical means rich in individual ideas. Through the specific depiction of the fate of the lowest characters in society, it reveals the real life of ordinary people and the extraordinary pursuit and yearning of ordinary life. In the film world depicted by Guan Hu, although youth is always confused, life is full of thorns, and everyone seems to be unhappy, but this setback has not become an excuse for the characters to waste their youth, and this stumbling has not become an obstacle for them to be submerged in society and life; on the contrary, in a challenging life, they go up against the current with a stoic attitude, move forward against the wind, interpret the colorful youth, and show the life of sour, sweet, bitter and spicy.

The characteristics of the times are one of the most important influencing factors for the creation of film and television. Whether it is political change, economic development or cultural system, the impact on a person and the impact on an era make Guan Hu vividly depicted in his film works. Guan Hu is the sixth generation of directors, and the era he grew up in is more free than that of the fifth generation of directors, and it is precisely this reason that the sixth generation of directors has become more personalized under the impact of modern multiculturalism. Guan Hu's success is not only to create a good movie, a good TV series, but a kind of description that depicts real life but is higher than a simple description, he shows the face of life in detail and describes the fate of small people, and does not forget to find a way on this basis, a solution that can let them get rid of their fate. Especially on the topic of youth, "Hair Is Messy", "Romantic Street" or not, the intervention of the director's consciousness is actually looking for a way out of the sentimentality of youth for those young people with the same characteristics and the same problems, guan Hu's debut work "Hair Is Messy", this film was filmed in 1992, the background of the film is the era of reform and opening up, the female college student Ye Tong returned to Beijing from the gateway of reform and opening up - Guangzhou, and Beijing at this time is also undergoing great changes. Everything is not the way it was. Ye Tong misses her childhood time and friends, and hopes that everyone will be reconciled as before, but as she grows older, her former partners have diverged and contradicted, and things have long been wrong. After several twists and turns, she was exhausted, disappointed and helpless, and finally Ye Tong chose to leave Beijing and seek a new life in Wushan. Although "Hair Is Messy" is Guan Hu's debut work, it is a valuable "awakening work" that is higher than the works of the same period: he not only expressed the confusion and sentimentality of youth in the film like a director, but more importantly, after expressing emotions, he tried to find a solution and method for the vitality of youth to realize its own value. At the end of the movie "Hair Messed Up", although Guan Hu did not give us a specific solution, Ye Tong only carried her luggage and embarked on her journey with tears after singing the song at the celebration, but most importantly, she left Beijing, the place that made her cry and miss her childhood, and left rock and roll, the lyric of youth sentimentality. After all, Ye Tong has a positive attitude towards life, she has walked out of the shadow of adolescence, found the right direction of life in the long journey of life, and entered a new stage. There is no only solution to adolescence, and such an open-ended ending is undoubtedly a cure.

In contrast, the more similar film works of the same period, such as Zhang Yuan's "Beijing Bastards", did not reach the height of Guan Hu in all aspects. We can't say that this movie is not good, as if it is a complete hysteria of youth confusion, rebellion, and restlessness, and we have no way of knowing a specific background of the times. If "Beijing Bastard" is to tell people that "I" will re-energize after the hoarseness is exhausted, then "Hair Is Messed" is to tell everyone that there is always a reason for the restlessness of youth, the youth at that time because of the change of the times - reform and opening up, and all kinds of adaptations, the important thing is that adolescence has an end, all this will pass.

The theme of people is still running through Guan Hu's film works. He has his own meticulous observations and incisive views on society, culture, history, war, etc., and puts the theme of people into these different conditions or backgrounds, and reflects the value of small people through the big era background, and has received better results. Guan Hu's debut work, created in the 1990s, is written in the context of reform and opening up; then to the taxi driver's pursuit of life and the hidden tolerance of encounters in "Romantic Street"; and then to the reflection on traditional culture and national spirit in the context of war in "Bullfighting", "Killing" and "Cook's Play" in recent years. In fact, from "Hair Messed Up" to "The Cook's Play", the transformation from a state film to an allegorical film [2], from the struggle of modern social life to the sublimation of personal values and fate in the context of war. Not only have times changed, but he himself has changed from his initial restlessness to his current calm humor.

"Bullfighting" can be said to be a turning point in Guan Hu's film creation career, and since then, Guan Hu's style of work has always been calm and unobtrusive, accompanied by black humor. Taking "Bullfighting" as an example, the film is set in a backward village in the Yimeng Mountains, which is a microcosm of conservative and backward China, whether it is a yellowed plaque on the yi gate at the entrance of the village, the Guandi Temple that has been through vicissitudes and dilapidation, or the ancestral hall stage that has fallen into disrepair, these historical relics are an important part of traditional culture. The background of the film is the War of Resistance Against Japan, although it is in the context of a war, it does not depict a magnificent war scene like a general work, there is no distinct confrontation between good and evil, but a war that has lasted for decades, through the perspective of a very ordinary peasant to show the war scene in their hearts and the cruelty of war. A person is undoubtedly small under the trampling of war, and the power of a culture is undoubtedly fragile and helpless under the impact of guns and bullets, but China's cultural traditions of thousands of years have been passed down from generation to generation, and this kind of adherence and belief in national culture condensed from individuals cannot be extinguished by any external oppression. The peasant Niu Er was selfish, he took good care of his own cattle, and gave the concentrate given to the cows by the Eighth Route Army to his cattle to eat, and the cows were hungry. Niu Er was also afraid of death, and in order to save his life, he managed to run out of the village occupied by the Japanese, and at this moment, the cow actually cried out. At this time, the cow is not just a mouthful of livestock, it has become a kind of perseverance, it has become a carrier of responsibility and commitment that cannot be put down, calling on Niu Er to hurry back to protect "himself". Niu Er was crying and shouting, and after a long ideological struggle, he chose to go back to protect the cow and take the cow with him, and the only thing that drove him to do this was that he had promised to wait for the eighth way and wait for them to come back and take the cow? This commitment to death is the spiritual symbol of a national culture that ordinary lives cannot abandon.

Guan Hu once summed up "Bullfighting" this way: "Probably the story is about the survival experience of a person and a cow in a cruel environment, and they are in love with each other, and life and life take care of each other." [3] At the end of the film, Niu Er persistently returned the cow to the People's Liberation Army, and after receiving the signature of the People's Liberation Army, he was completely relieved, because after experiencing the baptism of wind, frost, rain and snow, Niu Er had already jumped out of his own small circle, broke through the narrowness and selfishness of the peasant class, fulfilled his promise with his own actions, and finally achieved the "great righteousness" of his life. This is the baptism of his life, and it is also the return of other people's humanity.

Second, the individual adherence of artistic techniques

Guan Hu's film works have always adhered to the tenet of "writing people" in the selection of themes, and his thinking and exploration of film creation have made him stand out among the sixth generation of directors and form his own unique and personalized adherence. If you look closely, it is easy to find that in Guan Hu's film works, the combination of "polyphony theory" and flashback narration is his consistent and unique film expression technique.

The term "polyphony" was originally a musical term that refers to the simultaneous progression of two or more melodies, each with a relatively independent meaning. In the late 1920s, the famous Soviet literary scholar Bakhtin first proposed "polyphony theory" in his book "Dostoevsky's Creative Problems", implanting the word "polyphony" from music theory to literary theory. Since then, the new critical perspective of "polyphony theory" has appeared in literary and art criticism circles. At present, the film industry is developing rapidly, and the single narrative method developed according to the storyline can no longer meet the growing requirements of the audience for the film. [4] The "polyphonic structure" that has gradually penetrated into many artistic fields is one of the ways in which film breaks through the single narrative structure. The most distinctive feature of "polyphony theory" is "dialogue", through the analysis of polyphony theory, it will be easy to find the distinctive characteristics of a work in the arrangement of the plot, the setting of time and space and many other aspects. "Dialogue" generally includes: dialogue between the director and the characters in the play, dialogue between the characters in the play and the dialogue between the characters themselves, and dialogues between time and space connections. The most representative use of polyphony theory in the film is the 1981 film "The French Lieutenant's Woman", in addition to the movie "Lola Run" and the domestic film "Auntie's Postmodern Life" are examples of the use of polyphony theory.

In Guan Hu's previous creations, from "Hair Messed Up" to "The Cook's Play", he has always adhered to this combination of "polyphonic theory" and flashbacks. He often sets up two or more different time and space, so that the narrative is carried out in multiple time and space, in which the end-to-end connection, the inquiry and answer in time and space form a unique intersection and dialogue, so that the boring plot becomes vivid and vivid, while the rigid and difficult part is vivid and more interesting to communicate. We can divide a film of Guan Hu into several parts according to the story line, and these parts constitute a way of expression of polyphony theory in terms of plot connection; and when we look at the specific content of each part, we will find that the beginning and end of the film as a whole, and the beginning and end of each part are told in a flashback way. The use of polyphonic theory is macroscopic and crude, while the way flashbacks are microscopic concrete. In Guan Hu's Chinese film and television drama creation, the most representative, polyphonic theory and flashback form are the most obvious combination of "Killing" and "Bullfighting", we take "Killing" as an example to dig deeper into the performance of this style in the film.

It can be said that the combination of "polyphonic theory" and "flashback" narrative is an inevitable choice. For example, polyphonic theory separates a story into two, the end of the first part is also the beginning of the second part, the effect presented to us by the film must be to choose the end of a part as the beginning of the film, in order to meet the visual needs of the audience, the beginning of the film for the audience to leave an interesting ending, but also will inevitably lead to the next interpretation and narrative of this ending, so in the polyphony theory "instigated", the narrative structure of flashbacks is slowly presented from the first second. In the case of the film "Killing", there are three main clues: the doctor happens to save the cow that was thrown down the mountain; the doctor finds the cow lying in the mountain dying; and the child's narrative unfolds. At the beginning of the movie, a group of people throw the cow sturdy bundle down the mountain, Guan Hu takes this plot as the beginning of the whole movie, in fact, according to the chronological development order, the end should be the doctor played by Ren Dahua who found that the cow was sturdy and dying. The director's separate removal of the part of the cattle sturdy bundle down the hill for a few minutes is the application of polyphony theory, which is also the use of flashbacks from the order of the development of the whole story. A few minutes after this part, the film camera changes, and the doctor played by Ren Dahua finds the cow lying in the coffin in the mountain, and the doctor carries the cow back to the village, and happens to meet a small child, which is the second part that was taken down alone. The part presented to the audience through the child's recollection is the real narrative, and it is also the beginning of the whole story. The subtlety of the film narrative method is also here, all the movies are actually telling stories, the key is how to present to us, a well-received movie is actually to test whether the director can let the audience enjoy the movie at the same time, let the audience into it, let people who do not understand the storyline to speculate to conceive of the next development.

As a young director who began filming in the 1990s, Guan Hu deliberately went against the classic fifth-generation films from 1984 to 1987, such as "Yellow Land" (directed by Chen Kaige, 1984) and "The Hunting Ground Miscellaneous" (directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1985). In the film "Hair Is Messy", he avoided the symbols commonly used in those films, especially traditional Chinese costumes, cultural rituals and colorful visual elements, cut the traces of expressionism, and adopted a more realistic approach to expressing the people and things he was familiar with. The more traditional linear narrative, clear images, and smooth rhythm in the film also break through the new tradition of jerky (or "avant-garde") narratives of the early fifth generation and other so-called "sixth generation" films. Guan Hu, the "bellwether" of the sixth generation of directors, integrates social change, political system and personal feelings into it, while describing social life in the context of time and space, it avoids making personal sentimental emotions appear too casual, and most importantly, while expressing the life and destiny of a generation, he tries to find a solution through his own efforts, which is a valuable film "Hair Is Messy" It realistically shows the great social changes brought about by the economic prosperity of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the influx of some modern behavior habits, lifestyles, and entertainment projects in the West, and the ideological understanding of the younger generation has been greatly impacted. Under the integration of this Eastern and Western culture, young people have a strange sense of social identity and the sense of historical belonging of their country, while middle-aged people and the elderly are incomprehensible and unacceptable, especially represented by rock and roll, the young generation is in the confusion of adolescence, just with the help of rock music to express emotions that have nowhere to release and to escape the troubles of growth and various rebellions. This technique is ordinary and simple, making the film real and credible, strong objectivity, an action and an edit can show the author's capture and reproduction of the most real scenes of life, and its thinking and humanistic care contain Guan Hu's seriousness about the production of the film and a rigorous attitude towards all things. Niu Er in "Bullfighting" is an authentic peasant image in a remote mountainous area, and Guan Hu truly summarizes his selfishness, fear of death, and greed that he contains as an ordinary person, such as inheriting morality, keeping promises, and finally protecting the cows and returning them to the Eight Roads. The cow in "Killing" is certainly domineering and fierce, teasing the timid people in the village, even the children and the elderly, not abiding by the traditions of the village, not abiding by the rules established by the ancestors, and being incompatible with the village, but when he learned that the village was discussing to beat up his flesh and bones, the child in the widow's belly, he knelt in front of the whole village and cried out, "The baby is innocent", and was willing to give up his self-esteem and life in exchange for the right of the two women to live in the village. This most real person, this most ordinary thing, has become ordinary and great under guan hu's lens, simple and essence.

Guan Hu has his own style, but he is not stuck in this, but with the perception of real life, constantly adjusting, changing the style of the film, the film style is gradually maturing, especially in several works in recent years into the 21st century, in order to better express the theme of life and people, Guan Hu is more inclined to use the "black and white tone" to set off and contrast the method in artistic characteristics. For photographic works, "shadow tone", also known as tone or tone, refers to the relationship between the light and shade levels of the picture, the contrast between virtual reality and the hue of the color; through these relationships, the viewer feels the flow and change of light.

All colors in nature have three main characteristics: hue, saturation, and lightness of color. But for black and white, a variety of visible colors are reflected in black and white, forming only three levels of black, white and gray, and the difference between them is only in brightness, so that the ever-changing colors in nature lose the two most important characteristics - the hue and saturation of the colors, and only retain the brightness (brightness). In an interview, he once commented on "Killing": "It is a world, this world is created with a sense of absurdity, in fact, there is a color of performance, it does not allow you to go to another color, it can only be like this." In fact, if it is relatively realistic, I think it will be much easier, which is related to the ontology. [6] That is to say, the thing that Guan Hu wants to describe itself determines the overall tone, and if it is presented with colorful images, it will lose its essence and seriousness to a certain extent, and not only that, but the intention conveyed to us by the thing itself will also be greatly reduced.

What we mean by "black and white" here cannot be understood as black and white in color. Although the black and white image styles are used in some of Guan Hu's films, in films with bright colors, the higher meaning refers to a display of essential emotions and styles. For example, the expression of the black and white tone of "Bullfighting" conforms to such a situation: in a remote mountain village in Yimeng, here is closed, isolated from the world, relatively backward, people are conservative in their thinking, the black and white recording style is in line with the simple but old phenomenon, you can not use the colorful form to show the survival of this environment, and too much color ink also loses the feeling it should convey to us, so in this film, the only brightness is jiu'er's slightly red cotton jacket. In "Killing", the cow is strong and conformist, and the self-contained villagers are incompatible, forming a clear "color difference": representing the isolated villages, villagers, and all abstract training and dogmas are black and white; the untamed cow is the "heretic" in this "feudal collective", this red life that breaks the convention.

Third, the reasons for the formation of Guan Hu's film style

With small characters as lyrical objects and realism as the main way of expression, directors like Guan Hu have stabilized their foothold in the torrent of the times and formed a unique creative style, which has made him stand out among the sixth generation of directors. This is inevitably related to the great changes in Chinese society in the 1990s, the drastic changes in society and economic changes will inevitably lead to the renewal of culture, a mutually integrated cultural element began to rise slowly in the China of that era, the people's lives underwent tremendous changes, but also affected the fledgling literary and artistic creators. In the process of continuous exploration and creation, Guan Hu has embarked on a film path with the characteristics of the times and the characteristics of personality, which is inevitably related to Guan Hu's family environment, the background of the times and the cultural intergenerational changes under the influence of great social changes.

It can be said that Guan Hu's origin and childhood encounters are "fatal" to his choice of film themes. Born in 1969, Guan Hu graduated from the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1991, although he was born in a film family, and his father and mother were famous actors at that time, and played important roles in many classic movies, however, in 1956, his father Guan Zongxiang was beaten into a rightist faction and sent to be sent to be in beidahuang to receive labor reform, and his mother loyally followed his father, and in such a harsh environment and period, Guan Hu was born. Guan Hu's birth did not bring much improvement to the family, and Guan Hu did not have much influence because he was born in a film family, until the age of 12 he had been fostered in the neighbor's grandfather's house, and Guan Hu, who had not been loved by his parents since childhood, also developed a stubborn, independent, competitive personality in the most important childhood. It is precisely because of the personality cultivated in childhood that he did not listen to his parents' wishes when choosing the direction of life- medicine, and finally chose to embark on a career in literature and art. Since he graduated in 1991 and filmed his debut film "Hair Messed Up" in 1992, we have seen the sadness and restlessness of young people who are in adolescence, then the heresy in "Killing", and finally the black humor and calm artistic style in today's "Cook's Play", we can find that the influence of childhood is decisive, it determines the small characters that Guan Hu chooses, and the "aliens" in the film who are uninhibited and unconstrained by the world determine that he will eventually embark on the peak of film art!

If the influence of his childhood family environment on him was decisive, then the change of times played a catalyst role. The fifth generation of directors refers to the directors who entered the Beijing Film Academy in 1978 and began film creation in the early 1980s, with Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang as the main representatives. The fifth generation of directors mostly showed the feelings of the country and the nation, and attracted the world's attention with China's long-standing and profound culture and colorful national customs [7]. The changes of the times have led to the convergence of cultural fields, and the directors who began to create in the 1990s, which we call the "sixth generation of directors", began to rise slowly. Because it is in a period of social transformation, under the influence of new worldviews and values and the fusion of modernization, the creation of the early sixth generation is too avant-garde and restless, and its main character selection and main ideological elaboration are also aimed at the teenagers of this period. At the same time, the grand theme ideas to be displayed by the fifth generation are gradually difficult to understand, the artistic atmosphere is too strong, and the artistic style and aesthetic enjoyment of the fifth generation of directors have made the newly grown public lose their sense of identity, and the films they shoot cannot reflect the confusion and lost thinking of the audience in the context of the current era. Under this economic and cultural impact, the directors of Guan Hu's generation avoided the fifth generation of film ideas that showed the large categories of the country and the nation, conformed to the trend of the times, and showed the Chinese society under this impact and the changes brought to the people in the form of the younger generation, who implemented them to the micro, paid attention to themselves, expressed themselves, and captured every action of "China in adolescence".

With the changes of the times and the mastery of the director's skills, after entering the 21st century, Guan Hu's creation gradually departed from adolescence and took the city in the great change as the main object of depiction, and the film gradually added elements such as national culture, national legacy issues, war, politics, etc., while depicting people and describing life, it also explored the chinese appearance of the entire nation in the context of history and war. For example, the story of "Bullfighting" is set in the 30s and 40s of the last century, which involves elements such as politics, war and national culture; the most important element in "Killing" is national culture.

Guan Hu, as one of the main representatives of the "sixth generation of directors", contains the characteristics of the sixth generation in terms of the overall presentation style and the realistic expression method. However, just like the rock singers in "Hair Messed Up" and "Beijing Bastards", they are excluded from mainstream culture, and such characters seem to metaphorically refer to the embarrassing position in the history of the sixth generation of Chinese cinema: in the face of the great achievements established by the fifth generation in the history of world cinema, the sixth generation of directors is like a child in a haven, sometimes under great pressure, even breathing has become extremely difficult, how to establish their own position in the history of Chinese cinema, establish the identity of this generation, It is guan hu who seeks the common goal and expectation of survival in the cracks.

epilogue

Since the shooting of the first film "Hair Messed Up" in 1992, Guan Hu has been concerned by the film and television industry, and has been widely praised by people, which is not only related to his consistent and personalized artistic style, but also his attention to ordinary people, attention to life, attention to the value of people, concern for the most common things, good at seeing the big in the small, using special ways of expression of personal thinking to reflect the value of things and the status and role of individuals in the collective and in history, and has won many awards at home and abroad! We have to say that Guan Hu is to some extent a model of success for Chinese filmmakers, who has not been overwhelmed by the torrent of the times and who has also adhered to the special style of creation, setting an example for the next generation.

With the passage of time, more and more films have become blindly commercialized, and there are more and more problem movies. As the first pure commercial film in Guan Hu's creative career, "The Cook's Drama", it has won wide acclaim while receiving high box office. Therefore, how to not only express a thing through the lens of the film, but also integrate personal exploration and reflection into it, so as to achieve a qualitative leap; communication while filming, not only to achieve the communication of the characters, but also to achieve the communication between the film and the audience, so that the film is more "humane", has become a topic of common concern to the current directors!