As a province with large historical and cultural resources, how to enable young people to better understand and inherit history and culture is an issue that Jia Zhangke, deputy to the National People's Congress and director, has always been concerned about.
At the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, Jia Zhangke brought a bill, suggesting that the historical and cultural heritage and museum experience planning of primary and secondary school students be formulated and included in the class hours, and the cultural self-confidence of children should be cultivated through experiential and immersive education, and the cultural adhesion and centripetal force should be enhanced. "Historical and cultural journey, I think it is both historical education and aesthetic education."
Why is creation always inseparable from hometown? Jia Zhangke said in an interview with "Political Affairs", "In fact, for me, the hometown is not the first, and the extensive Chinese society represented by the hometown is the most important. Hometown is a window through which I observe the whole of China, and I will always photograph it. ”
Utilization of historical and cultural resources
"Historical and cultural journey, I think it is both historical education and aesthetic education"
Politician: What topics will your bill focus on this year?
Jia Zhangke: This year's bill is about formulating the historical and cultural heritage and museum experience planning for primary and secondary school students and incorporating them into the class hours. As a major province of historical and cultural resources, Shanxi has unique cultural conditions. However, in the preliminary investigation, I found that our primary and secondary schools did not make enough use of the historical and cultural resources around us, and experiential and immersive education was lacking.
In January this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out during a survey in Pingyao, Shanxi, that "historical and cultural heritage carries the genes and blood of the Chinese nation, and not only belongs to our generation, but also to future generations." We must respect history, culture, and ecology, comprehensively protect historical and cultural heritage, coordinate the development of tourism, special operation, and protection of ancient cities, build a solid bottom line for the safety of cultural relics, and protect the precious wealth left to us by our predecessors. The general secretary's words were heartening.
How to make the next generation understand the historical and cultural heritage is a question that I have been thinking about. I think that after the completion of the phased work such as sorting out and protecting historical and cultural heritage, the government should incorporate the utilization of historical and cultural resources into the teaching planning of primary and secondary schools according to local conditions, which is not only the use of cultural resources, but also a kind of cultural inheritance.
Politician: How should it be operated specifically?
Jia Zhangke: On the one hand, there are too many historical and cultural sites in China, and it is suggested that the state can establish a historical and cultural heritage list for primary and secondary school students, and select and recommend which ones are worth learning for primary and secondary school students. On the other hand, all localities should formulate their own policies according to local conditions and give full play to the cultural resources of their respective cities and surrounding cities. Of course, lesson requirements, supporting teaching materials, etc. are also very important.
In the past, we neglected this kind of experiential teaching, but now we need to integrate cultural resources so that children can cultivate their interest in history through personal experience. Usually children go to historical sites may be punching cards, parents help to take pictures, touch the stone lion is over. But I think it's important for children to go to the ruins not just to take pictures, but also to understand its place in the history of Chinese architecture and Chinese aesthetics, and to understand its inner culture. But at present, this part of education is missing.
Historical and cultural journey, I think, is both historical education and aesthetic education. The aesthetic competition of future talents has reached a high level, and many countries in the world are paying attention to this problem, and we should also pay attention to the aesthetic education of children from primary and secondary schools. The cultural heritage experience is a great avenue. I believe that primary schools should complete a cross-city cultural heritage experience, and middle schools should be able to complete an inter-provincial cultural heritage experience, such as children in Shanxi to see the Terracotta Warriors, and children in Shaanxi to see the ancient city of Pingyao. Now that the transportation network is becoming more and more developed, the social material conditions are abundant, and it is completely possible to cooperate with multiple departments, such as the reduction of tickets by the cultural and tourism department, the reduction of tickets by the transportation department, and the guidance of the education department, etc., through immersive teaching to cultivate children's cultural self-confidence, enhance cultural adhesion and centripetal force.
Pingyao Film Exhibition
"Can stand at the forefront of the industry, the academic frontier, bring some thinking and the latest international film industry information"
Zheng Shi: What changes do you hope to bring to the Chinese film industry through the Pingyao Film Exhibition?
Jia Zhangke: The Pingyao Film Exhibition has been held for five sessions, and we are also summing up experience, identifying deficiencies, understanding the changes in China's film industry and film industry, and adjusting strategies in a timely manner.
Last year, we formed a consensus that the Pingyao Film Festival will not expand, maintaining an annual exhibition volume of about 60 films, forming a spotlight effect. Pingyao is a small city with a population of 500,000 and a limited capacity. At the same time, it brings a spotlight effect to young directors, allowing the media to understand them, let the audience know them, and push them into the film industry. Insisting on the help and support of young directors is the original intention of the Pingyao Film Exhibition. If there are too many film focus will be chaotic, we will maintain the positioning of the boutique film exhibition as small and refined, and do not do a huge film exhibition. In the selection and setting of films, we must adhere to professionalism and internationalization. In the past two years, the international environment has become more complicated, but it is still necessary to maintain cultural ties with the outside world and communicate with each other. These are the things we should stick to.
At the same time, we are constantly improving the film festival according to changes in the environment. With the development of the Internet, many film directors began to produce short episodes. Short episodes have the advantage of large volume and large length, like the novels in the film industry. Last year we managed to do venture capital for short episodes, and that's a trend.
In the past five years, we have always hoped that the Pingyao Film Festival can stand at the forefront of the industry and the academic frontier, bringing some thoughts and the latest international film industry information.
Masako: Did it exceed your expectations?
Jia Zhangke: In the past five years, the Pingyao Film Festival has exceeded the goal at that time. At that time, it was a bit like a party, and the young directors who had a film exhibition could put their films on, and everyone could just get to know who they were. We've put out a lot of films and directors, and these directors are starting to make a name for themselves at home and abroad, and the film industry is starting to take it seriously, and we feel like we have to take it seriously. From the initial colleague nature of the carnival and mutual assistance, to the current highly academic and forward-looking international film festival, the effect in the past five years has been unexpected.
The three levels of government in Shanxi Province are very supportive of this project. Shanxi is rich in historical and cultural resources, but modernization and transformation are relatively lacking. After five years of hard work, the number of local audiences at the Pingyao Film Festival has gone from about 30% at the beginning to more than half now, which proves that modern cultural activities also have soil in Shanxi.
Film education
"Shanxi Film Academy is built in the most realistic life scene in China, which is helpful for cultivating students' film aesthetics"
Zheng Shi'er: In April last year, the Shanxi Film Academy of The Shanxi Media Institute was inaugurated, and you were appointed as the first dean. Why did you choose to do film education in Shanxi?
Jia Zhangke: Shanxi has both ancient Shanxi and modern Shanxi, and the scene here is very interesting, which is different from running film academies in Beijing and Shanghai. The Shanxi Film Academy was built in the central region of China, built in the most real life scenes in China, which is helpful for cultivating students' film aesthetics. We study and make movies in Taiyuan or in Fenyang, and we go to make a movie in a first-tier city, and the aesthetic scene is completely different, which is particularly attractive to me.
In fact, Shanxi has a deep relationship with movies. Many Chinese films are invested by Shanxi people, and many staff members in the Chinese film industry are Shanxi people, like director Ning Hao and director Cao Baoping, we all work outside the province, and it is Shanxi that has cultivated us. It can be said that Shanxi is a reserve base for film talents, and I hope that the film industry will be slowly formed through film exhibitions and film academies, and finally the "meta-universe" of Shanxi films can be formed, which is my ideal.
I think another reason for choosing Shanxi is that the social life in China's less developed areas is very worthy of attention. In such a real social and life picture, the establishment of a film academy is good for enriching the world film screen, and it is good for Chinese films to maintain a connection with reality, to maintain a connection with China's locality, and to maintain a connection with real life scenes with a large population.
Although we do not have the developed cultural resources of first-tier cities, students are somewhat unfamiliar with the development of the first-tier film industry, we do our best to mobilize resources to inspire students to transform their personal feelings and life experiences into a precious individual experience.
Now the image is very developed, children are watching movies to grow up, their creation will inevitably from the movie to the movie, character settings, story framework, etc. are learned from the movie, but the hot and real life around them, but ignored. This requires instructional guidance, so that children learn to understand and value their own lives, and to translate real feelings into movies, rather than saying that I made a movie like something. These ways of thinking need to be educated to let children know that the most valuable thing about film or any art is to mobilize personal experience and transform your understanding of this society and contemporary life into art.
POLITICS: Why is personal experience important?
Jia Zhangke: This is the cornerstone of modern civilization. Individual experience and individual feelings are the comprehensive feelings of individuals on all the influences of the operation of a huge social system, economic system, and political system, and this feeling comes from vivid people, so it is more emotional and more delicate. Throughout the history of art, it has always been emphasized that art education should return to art itself and abide by the laws of art. I think that individual experience is the law of art. We can go and shoot grand subjects, we can discuss grand problems, but none of this hinders an individual's experience and feelings.
hometown
"It's a window through which I look at the whole of China, and I keep photographing it."
Zheng Shi: Last year, your film "Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue" tells the history of China over the past 70 years through Chinese writers of different ages such as Ma Feng, Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong. What is the difference between an artist and a historian when it comes to history?
Jia Zhangke: "Swim until the sea turns blue" This film, I am more of a listener. Many of the times they went through, I also experienced. My experience basically coincided with Yu Hua, who was a few years older than me. Teacher Jia Pingwa has some experiences that I have not experienced. Liang Hong has experienced the era I have experienced, and it is different. Here there are not only specific feelings of individuals who are different, but also knowledge and understanding of the commonalities of the same era. I think that's the difference between an artist and a historian.
Historians pay attention to generalizations, numbers, causes and effects, they pay attention to historical laws and causal relationships, while artists pay attention to description, and pursue attention to specific situations and specific details, which is a kind of perceptible history. We can enter the historical environment through art and live for a period of time, and feel what the individual experienced in the process of history, which is completely different from the narration of historians. If there are only historians and no artists in this world, then we lack sensible history; if there are only artists and no historians, we may lack macro. Both are concerned with reality and are indispensable.
Zheng Shi: Your creation is always inseparable from your hometown, what does this mean to you?
Jia Zhangke: In fact, for me, the hometown is not the first, the extensive Chinese society represented by the hometown is the most important. I have been photographing my hometown of Fenyang, of course, there are emotional factors in it, but it is not how special Fenyang is, but Fenyang, like any small and medium-sized city in China, has formed a development path that is not the same as that of large cities in the process of urbanization, which is universal. If we understand Fenyang and the vast Chinese countryside, we can understand the situation and problems that are happening in Chinese cities today. Hometown is a window through which I observe the whole of China, and I will always photograph it.
Governance in the field of culture and entertainment
"There has been some chaos, which needs to be guided at the national level"
Political Affairs: In the past year, relevant departments have strengthened the comprehensive management of the cultural and entertainment fields, and put forward rectification requirements for the chaos of the "rice circle". What do you think?
Jia Zhangke: With the rapid development of the entertainment industry, there have indeed been some chaos, which needs to be guided at the national level.
Last year, some experts suggested that actors should be licensed to work, and I did not approve of it. The artistic creation is very eclectic, many of my films are performed by non-professional actors, and if they have to be certified, my aesthetic is gone. I can't ask a peasant friend to go to the test first, and then I will cooperate with him. This contradicts the laws of artistic creation, and some problems should not be solved in an extensive way.
A new reflection on cinema in the era of the pandemic
"After the epidemic, filmmakers will respond to this history with new works, new film languages, and new narratives."
POLITICIAN: I just talked about the grand narrative. Last year, many such new mainstream movies were recognized by the audience, what do you think?
Jia Zhangke: On the one hand, these new mainstream films have undergone great changes in creation, are very commercial, and have successfully realized the integration and development of the main theme film and commercial film, winning the audience. On the other hand, it is also in line with the realistic atmosphere and drives the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies. Film development is diverse, requiring both mainstream films and diverse spaces where a hundred flowers bloom, and strive to show a vivid and three-dimensional China from multiple dimensions.
Zheng Shi: Will the massive creation of short videos have an impact on the film industry?
Jia Zhangke: Short videos have changed the traditional way of information dissemination because of the massive information dissemination. From the dissemination of words to the dissemination of graphics and texts, and then to the dissemination of images, the mode of communication is constantly changing, and society is adapting. I don't treat short videos as art, I think it is first and foremost an informational attribute, and from this point of view, it puts forward a new demand on society. For communicators, whether they need to learn some image communication methods; for the public, they are also faced with the problem of how to judge image information and how to accept decoding. This is a new topic brought to us by short videos.
The film industry is more discussed about whether short videos will replace movies, and I don't see this trend at present. The film will learn some of the experience of short videos, but these are two completely different carriers. Short video is first of all an information dissemination carrier, with fragmented characteristics, it is not a work of art, and the most valuable thing about feature film is its structure and integrity, which are different ways of thinking and cannot be replaced by each other.
Zheng Shi: It's been two years since the epidemic, what are your new understandings of movies?
Jia Zhangke: In the past, there was a consensus in the film industry to divide directors into those who had experienced World War II and those who had not experienced World War II. Pre-World War II films focused on big-budget productions and lavish sets, many adapted from classic novels such as Notre Dame de Paris and The Red and the Black. Filmmakers who experienced World War II had a new understanding of human nature and film, had a vigorous desire to express, and soon produced new aesthetic trends, such as Italian neorealist films, French New Wave films, German New Wave films, etc.
The COVID-19 pandemic, as a public event affecting humanity, also has such historical significance. We never imagined that the pandemic would completely change our lives. Some Hong Kong friends have not returned to Hong Kong for two years, and some have not returned to the mainland for two years. The epidemic has triggered new thinking among filmmakers, and audiences have re-examined the world around them during the epidemic. This change has great inspiration for our understanding of the world. Although the epidemic continues and I don't know when it will end, after the epidemic, filmmakers will respond to this history with new works, new film languages, and new narratives.
"Political Affairs" (xjbzse) wrote, photographed / He Qiang proofreading Liu Jun
【Interview with the two sessions】