Living a small life under the big history, feeling the big history in the small day; fireworks and dust, thin water and long flow, drama conflicts show the value of thought, and the thickness of the period drama is rooted in this. Left: Poster of "The World"
Su Zhan
In the folds of the years, most of the rubbing is ordinary life, and the parents are short, sad and happy. Time does not hesitate to stitch these ordinary into people's memories. As a result, there are the steaming days of the three generations of the Zhou family in the light character film in "Human World"; there is Jiang Defu's gentleness towards Anjie day after day in "Parental Love"; there is the firmness of Song Yunhui step by step in "Great Rivers and Great Rivers"...
When the ordinary is branded by the times, it is no longer the appearance of individual life. It is a collective memory, but also the afterglow of history, but also a footnote to change, presented in a jagged and polymorphic appearance in a high-quality period drama. In the dialogue between big history and small days, we know how to examine.
Something that is dissolved in the gaze
The past is more than just the past. Period dramas usually take a family story as a typical example, with dots and faces, reflecting the appearance of a group or even a generation. Typical does not mean that it is partial and comprehensive, nor does it mean that the absolute is strictly in line with reality. In the words of Liang Xiaosheng, the original author of "The World of Man", he said of the alarm of realism in literature, "Realism must reflect how people should be in reality, how they can be, and only reflect what they are, that is the function of mirrors, and they vary from person to person, perhaps concave and convex mirrors." What should be done, what can be done, to make literature more literary. ”
Of course, "How it should be, how it can be" is more of a task menu for the novel text. After all, literature is the art of imagination, but TV dramas are the art of gaze, and there is an essential difference between the two in artistic expression. Tv dramas inevitably dissolve the profundity of the characters and times in the novel.
The portrayal of Zhou Rong in "The World of Man" has caused some controversy, and as an intellectual, she looks selfish and double-standard. The richness of this character is largely limited by the creator's imagination of the intellectual image. At the same time, Luo Shibin, who seems to be a "bad guy", is designed as a successful person in reform and opening up, although there is no lack of possibilities in the actual situation, but the pain of realism may have a broader narrative.
Moreover, although the period drama has a large historical framework, it still needs to be rooted in the drama, "drama" means drama, and drama will at the same time deconstruct the seriousness of history. Zhou Bingyi's plot of running alone to the Soviet Union to finalize the decommissioning of cruisers and solve the urgent need for the military-to-civilian arsenal looks extremely legendary and personal heroism at first glance, but in fact it is a simplistic treatment of the conversion of the military to the civilian and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises. The hardships of the transformation process are dissolved in the legendary narrative. History has historical continuity, and this kind of dissolution is to avoid the importance of issues at the practical level, to reduce the richness of characters, and to damage the profundity of literary and artistic works. As a work of epic significance, a deeper exposure of the problem is a higher level requirement for this type of period drama, such as the role of Zhou Bingyi, the problem that ordinary people cannot see, he can still see and express it as a cadre with a certain level, and people's emotions should not only stay on suffering.
Even high-quality period dramas cannot avoid the distortion of the character image brought about by the presentation of the "concave and convex mirror". Literary and art creators need to realize that China's family has a hundred forms and a thousand faces: the success of "Parental Love" does not mean that the military has only one image and personality of Jiang Defu; the popularity of "The World of Man" can only show that Zhou Bingkun is a sample of ordinary young laborers who stayed in the city to fulfill their filial piety in the era of going to the mountains and going to the countryside, not a specimen. The vastness of China' territory, the majesty of social change, and the turbulence of the times have provided creators with countless materials. There is no routine in the story, life is rarely repeated, how to excavate, enrich, and tell the story of China and the story of the Chinese people is a test for the creators of literature and art.
The possibility of an ambush in a dramatic conflict
Period dramas are the epic of Chinese family life, but family life is composed of daily life, after all, it is chai rice oil and salt, and it is indispensable to have a chicken feather. If the meaning of "history" in this epic is only understood from the perspective of chronicles, the narrative will inevitably fall into the layers of chicken and dog, and the dramatic conflict will also be limited to trivial trivialities or sword-rattling between family members. Although such a drama can be eaten, it is difficult to say wonderful, let alone profound.
Dramatic tension and realism are difficult propositions to combine, and the period drama provides a common sense trigger point for dramatic conflict with a unique historical framework. The times are magnificent, and the major social events that follow give rise to the narrative of the fate of the individual with many possibilities, and dramatic conflicts are buried in these possibilities. High-quality period dramas can always give echoes to the times.
Several scenes of Zhou Bingkun's conflict with his father in "The World of Man" are built on the background of the era when the college entrance examination is restored and reading changes his destiny. Zhou's parents and brothers and sisters who were admitted to Peking University became the face of their father when they paid new year's greetings to their neighbors, and also became the "little nine-nine" in Zhou Bingkun's heart - he was obviously the most hard-working and resentful one in the family. The same pair of parents, brothers and sisters have since developed a gap, this gap has become the source of Zhou Bingkun's eyes of the father's "differential treatment", the contradiction between father and son is about to erupt. The marital conflict and sister-in-law conflict in "Parental Love" are built on the differences between people with different backgrounds in life and growth in special times.
The small days of the Ichijing family have changed due to major historical events, and the plot pays special attention to this causal connection. The fate of the individual is deeply linked to the background of the times, and this kind of attention gives a sense of daily change: in "The World of Man", this sense of change is going to the mountains and going to the countryside, the recovery of the college entrance examination, the return of young people to the city, the reform of state-owned enterprises, the business boom, the reconstruction of shacks... In the two "Great Rivers and Great Rivers" are Song Yunhui's life resumes: college students, state-owned enterprise cadres, entrepreneurs in the sea, and private entrepreneures. The broad social background makes the dramatic tension unnecessary to be presented by piling up people and creating contradictions - living a small life under the big history, feeling the big history in the small day; fireworks and dust, thin water and long flow, the dramatic conflict shows the ideological value, and the thickness of the period drama is rooted here.
Look for the power hidden in the depths of time
Croce said that all true history is contemporary history. Each era has its own iconic symbol that circulates as a representation of social memory. High-quality period dramas are good at visualizing this representation, thus creating a sense of substitution and dragging the audience into the narrative background. There is no doubt that the contrast in audiovisual details must be a necessary condition for creating a sense of immersion, and it is also the texture that the two fonts of "era" in the period drama should now have at the sensory level. But the symbols that truly reach the depths of collective memory must have a lasting value that transcends the times.
There was always a scene that brought everyone to tears. In "The World of Man", this scene is the Zhou family's parents going hand in hand on the same day. For the children of the Zhou family, there is no way back from life. This is the unavoidable and unavoidable sorrow of the world. In "Big Rivers and Great Rivers", this scene is the unfortunate early death of Song Yunping, the loss of love by Lei Dongbao, and at the same time, there is a touch of white moonlight in the audience's heart. Life and death, grievances, right and wrong, and gathering and dispersing constitute the elements of being born as a human being; ordinary people can also walk with the word "respectable", and the upward and good power displayed in it cannot be completely dissolved even by the wind and rain of the times.
The texture of the human heart, of course, is the poetry presented by the period drama as an epic of Chinese family life. But at the same time, excessive reinforcement of the human heart texture will also become the filter of the times for the period drama, restricting the expression of profundity.
The good people in the "Human World" episode look too bitter, disasters, accidents occur intensively, and there is more than enough sensationalism, but they inevitably fall into the "cliché" of bitter love dramas, because good people always endure and give in repeatedly. All the injustices and teases given by fate, the good people represented by Zhou Bingkun chose to accept. The good people in the play only accept all the orders, and there are few objections, which is difficult for the audience to empathize, let alone be awe-inspiring.
Recognize the truth of life and still love life. Romain Rolland's heroism celebrates not suffering itself, resignation is not about recognizing life, what is really respectable is that while adhering to truth, goodness and beauty, there is still the ability to fulfill oneself and the courage to surpass oneself.
This strength and courage is hidden in the depths of the years.
Source: Wen Wei Po