China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Shen Jiequn intern Yu Bingyue
This year's Spring Festival file, the reality theme TV series "The World" was on fire, douban 8.1 points.
Adapted from Liang Xiaosheng's novel of the same name for the Mao Dun Literature Prize, the drama takes the life trajectory of the three brothers and sisters of the Zhou family in a civilian community in a northern Chinese city as the story line, telling the social upheaval and life of ordinary people in China from the late 1960s to 2016.
Liang Xiaosheng, the original author of "The World of Man", and Wang Haiyu, screenwriter, were interviewed by reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network to share their creative experience.
Adapted from a million words of serious literary works, spanning 50 years of "sense of age", a group of non-flow actors... Why can you still circle the current young audience?
Liang Xiaosheng: Young people staying in the city are absent in the literary image gallery
Liang Xiaosheng said that he once talked about a point in his college lectures, the main mission of writing is to write about all kinds of others, and then give more others to see.
Liang Xiaosheng's original novel "In the World" totals 1.15 million words, taking the life trajectory of a commoner surnamed Zhou in the northern provincial capital city as a clue, depicting the ups and downs of the lives of more than a dozen civilian children.
Serious literary works that write more than one million words are rare in the current literary world. Liang Xiaosheng said: "Writing is a difficult thing for me, and cervical spondylosis is very serious. In this case, I have written so many years and written a lot of works, as a long-cherished wish, that is, to write another work. ”
In the early 1980s, Liang Xiaosheng published "This Is a Magical Land" and "There Is a Snowstorm Tonight", becoming a representative writer of Chinese Intellectual Youth Literature. Since the late 1980s, Liang Xiaosheng has turned to speaking for the common people, paying attention to the return to the city, ordinary workers, peasants entering the city, Xinxin students, etc., these civilian figures appear in his fictional writings such as "The Age of Returning to the City", "The Ring of the Year", "Zhiqing" and "Analysis of Chinese Social Classes" and "Depressed Chinese" and other works.
The long-cherished wish of "writing another work" is, in Liang Xiaosheng's eyes, a tribute to realism and a tribute to the working class. Liang Xiaosheng wrote about the old workers of the "third line" in the book, and also wrote about the young workers who stayed in the city at that time. "Looking back at Zhiqing literature, so many people are writing, but the younger brothers and sisters who stay in the city, they have a closer relationship with the city and a closer relationship with the times, but they are almost absent in the image gallery of literature, so I want to create a few images for them, as a kind of thing to fill in the gaps." "The World of Man" has fulfilled my wish."
Liang Xiaosheng said that the concept of "worker" has undergone essential changes. "The first is that the concept of the factory has changed, and today it is no longer the case in the past, where a master and a number of apprentices guard a lathe. At that time, the relationship between master and apprentice was very influential, just like the relationship between master and apprentice in martial arts films. Now the factory does not exist, it is all assembly line."
Liang Xiaosheng pointed out that being an ordinary worker is Zhou Bingkun's fate. At the end of the original novel, Zhou Bingkun is still an ordinary worker with a retirement salary.
"But he didn't live out like a human being because of this fate." When we see the end, we will feel that if I have Zhou Bingkun by my side, he will help if he has difficulties, I will comfort him when he is sad, and he can be trusted when we encounter difficulties. An ordinary person who lives to this part is both ordinary and remarkable on the platform of this society. Liang Xiaosheng said.
Wang Haiyu: "In the World" is a unique stroke in the "Screenwriter List"
Adapting a million-word novel into a TV series inevitably involves the choice of original content. But for the film and television adaptation of "The World", Liang Xiaosheng is quite open-minded.
"Original authors are generally willing to present their work as it is, rather than 'subtractive'. But in all novel adaptations, this is impossible. The reason why adaptation is called adaptation is because it is created twice, and there must be a trade-off. "This trade-off includes an artistic level, but also includes the consideration of commodity attributes.
Liang Xiaosheng said that literary creation is his personalized expression process of "preparing pen and paper by oneself". "Writers can do 'you love to see or not', nothing more than printing a little more or less printing, but film and television is not the same, the film and television creative group should take into account the audience's feelings, after all, it is for such a wide range of people."
In the view of screenwriter Wang Haiyu, Liang Xiaosheng's original work of "Human World" is a pure and serious literary work, and adaptation is a big challenge.
"Holding Hands", "Chinese Divorce", "The Colonel's Daughter"... In the creative trajectory of screenwriter Wang Haiyu, family and emotion have always been the main position, "a well is dug deeply, not to the wide". And "The World of Man" is a different but equally colorful stroke in her "screenwriter's list", "The book writes about the hardships and tenacity of the people's lives in the past 50 years, and I see hope and strength in it."
In the creative stage, Wang Haiyu and the main creative team decided after consultation to brighten the background of the TV series on the basis of Liang Xiaosheng's novel. Wang Haiyu said: "The original is lead gray, steel color, is a tough, hard color. I am an optimistic person myself, and in the face of difficulties, I will not chew repeatedly, but move forward. So I and the creative team together hope that the series is warm, bright, empowering, and hopeful. ”
The script was written for two or three years, and countless drafts were changed, until the middle of the shooting, the script was still being adjusted. Through "The World of Man", Wang Haiyu truly perceived the life of ordinary workers in the 1970s for the first time. "The details are the focus of all aspects of the whole play's creative process. If the macro level is a large skeleton, then the details are the flesh and blood on the skeleton. Of course, the skeleton is very important, but in the end, it is flesh and blood that is presented to others and determines whether you look good or not."
Message to young writers: Writing about normal life is a test
In "The World of Man", major historical events such as the years of youth and reform and opening up are displayed one by one with the advancement of the plot, but these "big events" eventually emerge through the "small stories" that happened to the Zhou family.
Wang Haiyu sighed: "How is history composed? There are macroscopic imperial generals, and there are small homes. "The World of Man" is a work with three brothers and sisters as the main line, if the family does not write well, this play is bound to levitate and is bound to be suspended. ”
The life of the old industrial base in northeast China is a blind spot in her understanding of Chinese history, "This kind of life attracts me, and the things hidden behind life also attract me." They are complete and full of my body of knowledge, my life experience, so I want to give it a try."
Although he lived in Beijing far longer than in his hometown of Harbin, the northeast is still the regional context that runs through Liang Xiaosheng's writing.
Regarding Northeast literature, Liang Xiaosheng said that he had read novels by young writers Shuang Xuetao and Zheng Zhi before and thought it was very good. He also admits that the younger generation of writers has difficulties in creating.
"Unusual things like Zhiqing going up the mountain and going to the countryside will make the fate of the characters have greater ups and downs, and will put love and friendship in this uncertainty, so writing has become a 'resource for looking back', and it can be operated with a part." These are all natural resources for writers of my generation. ”
Liang Xiaosheng said that the life faced by the younger generation of writers is now more "close to the waves." Therefore, this becomes a test of the writer's ability to write about normal life. "Without big plot ups and downs, can you still write the characters?" It's a test for them."
Entering the university to teach 20 years ago, it had a great influence on Liang Xiaosheng's literary creation.
"Creation is no longer your personal business, what is it that you have to stand on the podium and talk to the students about literature?" The meaning of literature must be addressed. In the past, we just looked down and created, and we didn't think about it very well. When you want to talk, you will go back to the origin of literature, why are good works good? Why are the classics that have been handed down? ”
Liang Xiaosheng said that telling students is also a process of "making up lessons" for themselves, so they continue to think deeply about the meaning of literature.
At the beginning, "The World of Man" was born in this kind of thinking. "Can I use my works to maximize the meaning of literature that I have finally realized?" Approach it, complete it, give yourself something you like and have done for so long, an account that is acceptable to yourself."
Source: China Youth Daily client