Liang Xiaosheng's novel "The World of Man" won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Award in 2019, and the novel is set in a civilian community in a northern provincial capital city, Gongle District, and through the growth experience of the three brothers and sisters of the Zhou family, the character groups of many laborers, builders, reformers and entrepreneurs are created.
Adapting the novel into a film and television drama, Liang Xiaosheng was not optimistic at first, and even "poured a lot of cold water" on the young people who came to discuss the adaptation, until director Li Lu clearly stated that "this is the work I want to shoot" after contacting the original work of "The World of Man", and the two reached a consensus in the process of communication to shoot a work that "pays tribute to the people".
The 58 episodes of "The World of Man" ended on the evening of March 1 in a set of golden files on CCTV, and the real-time ratings of that night exceeded 3%, setting a new high for CCTV in the past five years, and the popularity value exceeded 10,000 in iQiyi Station, becoming the first TV series with a popularity value of more than 10,000 this year. Some viewers sighed that the nearly two months of the broadcast of "The World of Man" opened a new experience of chasing dramas, invested huge emotions in the viewing process, updated every day the episodes, and friends around them have opened the sharing mode, "sighing sometimes, angry sometimes, crying and drooling have become commonplace." ”
The cast of "The World of Man" is strong, but the ratings trend is not a little burning, but after word-of-mouth fermentation, full of stamina. The China Writers Association recently held a symposium on "From Literature to Film and Television" as the theme, which is one of the few symposiums on the theme of film and television adaptation held by the China Writers Association in recent years.
Tie Ning, chairman of the China Writers Association, said that the success of "The World of Man" once again strongly proved the intimate relationship between literature and film and television, showing "a magnificent scene formed by the integration of literature and film and television". From literature to film and television, it is not only describing a process, but also marking a vast space for vibrant creation and acceptance.
Zhang Hongsen, secretary of the party leading group, vice chairman and secretary of the secretariat of the China Writers Association, proposed that "The World of Man" adapted and transformed from the award-winning works of the Mao Dun Literature Award, the birth of this "hot spot" and "explosive style" is inspiring and inspiring, fully proving that literature can expand its own value in a more three-dimensional way, at the same time, today's literary creation to better integrate into the modern communication pattern, it is necessary to more fully and more actively communicate with many art disciplines and cultural forms, mutual learning, integration and integration, "the initiative consciousness of literature is gaining wide support and response, and ' The essence of creation and the quality of the work are the greatest common denominators between literature and film and television. ”
"The World of Man" was first published at the end of 2017, and soon after, Tencent Pictures and director Li Lu jointly decided to shoot it. In November 2018, Tencent Pictures acquired the film and television adaptation rights for 8 years from Yiwei Wenhua, who was then the copyright agent for Liang Xiaosheng's "Human World"; in August 2019, "Human World" won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Award, the highest award in Chinese literature, with a high vote. Subsequently, Tencent Pictures, Xinli Media, and Yuwen Film and Television formed a "troika" to jointly create this work.
According to statistics, "The World of Man" has accumulated 40,000 sets before winning the Mao Award, and as of the end of last year, 160,000 sets have been issued after winning the Mao Award; since the launch of the TV series of the same name this year, more than 50,000 sets have been sold on the two e-commerce platforms of Dangdang and Jingdong. In Liang Xiaosheng's view, the use of the Northeast dialect in the play, the richness of the actor's performance of the character image of Zhou Mu and other characters, and the detailed design of the drama version such as "Father Zhou Recognized Zheng Juan" that are different from the original plot are extremely inspiring, "If the novel can be rewritten, these wisdom points are worth learning and absorbing." ”
Screenwriter Wang Haiyu is also a novelist who has hardly accepted the work of adapting other people's works in the past. This time, in order to avoid creative interference, she "avoided" the original author Liang Xiaosheng, and never visited the crew during the filming process. The success of the TV series, she proposed, the future should emphasize the seriousness of novel creation, "the atmosphere of film and television has become artistic, writers should insist on independent thinking and writing, rather than pandering, in order to be long-lasting."
Yan Jingming, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, compared with another high-heat and high-reputation TV series "The Age of Awakening", and the author Long Pingping completed the transformation from a party history expert to a television screenwriter to a novel rookie, "From the "Age of Awakening" to "The World of Man", it is time to reconsider how to define and understand the connotation and extension of serious literature. ”
In the eyes of Cheng Wu, producer of "The World of People", vice president of Tencent Group and CEO of Yuwen Group, the organic cross-border and integration of literature and film and television is an innovative path for two literary and artistic forms from "plateau" to "peak". Yang Qingxiang, deputy dean of the School of Letters of Chinese Min University, believes that the success of the adaptation of "The World of Man" has enlightened original literature and mass art, "The more original literature and mass art that adhere to personalization and achieve the ultimate, the more it can 'break the circle', and the process of shaping fine products in the future should also include product awareness and industrial concepts." ”
In fact, while "The World of Man" has a huge influence, serious literature has become a sign of becoming the "outlet" of film and television adaptations. In the previous 2022 film list released by the three major platforms of "Youaiteng", the adaptation of a number of serious literary works has been put on the agenda. In iQiyi's series of films, in addition to "The World of Man", there are adaptations of Lu Yao's novel "Life" and Shuang Xuetao's novel "Moses on the Plain"; Yu Hua's new work "Wencheng" and Jin Yucheng's "Blossoms" appear in Tencent's 2022 film list; Wang Meng's "This Side of the Landscape", Jia Pingwa's "Qin Cavity", Su Tong's "Yellow Bird", Xu Zechen's "North" and so on have also announced that they will be filmed. Among them, "Qin Cavity" is the winning work of the 7th Mao Dun Literature Award, "Blossoming Flowers", "This Side of the Landscape" and "Yellow Bird Chronicles" are the works of the 9th Mao Award, and "Going North" and "The World of Man" are the winners of the 10th Mao Award. Shanghai Mesozoic writer Teng Xiaolan's two novels", "City in the City" and "Heart Residence", were also written by the writer himself and adapted into film and television dramas, which aroused the audience's expectations for realistic dramas.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the strong realism and profound spiritual core are the advantages of serious literary adaptations of film and television dramas, while the reconciliation of artistry and commercialism tests the ability of producers. In recent years, the popularity of realistic film and television dramas such as "Mountains and Seas", "The Age of Awakening", "Xiao Minjia", and "Sweeping The Black Storm" has proved that the audience's demand for this type of literary and artistic works should not be ignored. Especially since the broadcast of "The World of Man", it has unexpectedly gained the love of post-90s and post-00s audiences, and the logic and creative laws of this are worth exploring.
Talking about the "IP" development of literary works, critic Pan Kaixiong believes that the novel "Human World" is a veritable big "IP", and when its classicity is gradually recognized and determined by the public, the space for interpretation is also constantly enlarged, which means that the space for development as "IP" will be larger. Wang Yichuan, a professor at Beijing Normal University and vice chairman of the China Literary and Art Critics Association, believes that the popularity of "The World of Man" has become a landmark event in which "literature and TV dramas jointly push the Paradigm of Chinese Realism literature and art" towards maturity.
The success of "In the World" is also the success of the creative concept of "paying attention to the stories that are happening in this era". After "The World of Man", which will be the next "blockbuster" of serious literary IP? Readers and viewers are looking forward to it. How to promote the production of more "Human World" has put forward a topic for workers in the literary world, film and television circles and even more literary and artistic creation fields.