The Paper's reporter Yang Kaiting
The TV series "Mountains and Rivers Moon Ming", set against the background of the history of the Ming Dynasty, dramatically presents the life story of Zhu Di, the ancestor of Ming Cheng, in a film and television manner. The director of the drama, Gao Xixi, has directed popular TV series such as "The Sky of History", "Happiness Is Like a Flower", "Three Kingdoms", "Legend of Chu Han" and so on.
The original intention of creating "Mountains and Rivers and Moon Ming", Gao Xixi explained that first of all, it was out of his own interest in the history of the Ming Dynasty, "but he has never encountered a very valuable script."
Poster of "Mountains and Rivers moonlight"
Later, under the recommendation, I saw the script of "Mountains and Rivers Moon Ming" written by screenwriter Dong Zhe, and felt that the structure of this book was different from some previous works. "It actually carries the historical structure of a three-generation emperor, and the original script is from Zhu Yuanzhang's late years to the end of Zhu Di's life, which is equivalent to spanning three emperors in the middle, and there are many historical figures involved in the middle." I think it's interesting and rare. ”
In addition to the grandeur of the structure, Ghosh appreciates the unique portrayal of the characters in the script, "such as the description of Zhu Yuanzhang, writing out the details of his life in front of Empress Ma and in front of his children." He did not express the emperor in a more blunt and rigid way, but relatively humanized the historical figures, wrote some details of daily life, and expressed historical events with family affairs. ”
Chen Baoguo as Zhu Yuanzhang
The background of the TV series is history, which does not mean that history is listed
In Ghosh's view, details are the expression of history. "If there are no vivid details in the growth process of the characters, the characters cannot stand, and the historical structure relationship is driven by the characters, and everyone understands a period of history, but I hope that through the growth of the characters, the audience can substitute for it and feel that there is such a person in history, who lived in that era." In the process of creating "Mountains and Rivers and Moons", Gao Xixi insisted that the TV series takes history as the background and does not mean listing history, "What we do is not a historical documentary, we choose historical materials, and ultimately serve the character portrayal and plot needs." ”
Xu Da exposed Zhu Yuanzhang's shortness in front of Empress Ma
In the play, the relationship between Zhu Yuanzhang and Xu Da, a pair of monarchs, is shown to have the feeling of "many years of friends" in the modern context, which has caused some discussion on the Internet. Gao Xixi admitted, "Historically, no matter how bold Xu Da was, it was impossible for him to dare to refuse Zhu Yuanzhang's marriage, let alone point at the emperor's nose and scold. He explained, "At this point, we really want to use some contemporary contextual relationships to do the dramatic relationship of the characters, try to enrich the characters, and we try to find the details of his life that can set off these characters, to help the audience bring them in." ”
"I saw a saying on the Internet that said don't look at the ancients with modern thinking. But from the perspective of film and television drama creation, you can inevitably use the minds of today's people to bring in the thoughts of the ancients and create characters. The history expressed in film and television dramas shows people's interpretation and yearning for history in different historical periods. In addition, for costume history dramas, if you want modern audiences to believe in the story of these characters, it is necessary to find the emotional resonance of modern characters in the main theme of the work. "There are already a lot of film and television drama works about that period of history, so in terms of character shaping, a very important point is the difference in shaping characters." ”
Feng Shaofeng as Adult Zhu Di
This time, in "Mountains and Rivers And MoonLight", in addition to Chen Baoguo and Zhang Fengyi, who are familiar faces in historical dramas, there are also young actors such as Feng Shaofeng, Ying'er, and Cheng Yi who pick the beams. Ghosh admitted that the "old drama bones" are the position to stabilize the play, "because this play must have thickness and weight." But I also do not reject the so-called "fresh meat", my requirements for actors are the word 'suitable', I hope that there are excellent young actors to come in. Cheng Yi is such an actor, his appearance and his degree of hard work are good. Feng Shaofeng heard that this time he was going to act from his youth to old age, he was also very excited, he felt very challenging, after watching the film, he also said that he felt that this was one of his best personal performances in the costume drama so far. ”
Shoot a "different thing"
From "Three Kingdoms" to "The Legend of Chu Han" to "Mountains and Rivers And Moon Ming", many costume historical dramas have been filmed, and Gao Xixi said this time that he hopes to work hard to shoot a "different thing" and "how different, this is quite racked." In the current presentation, "Mountains and Rivers Moon Ming" spends more space to show the war scenes, and the beginning of the story begins with the Hongwu Northern Expedition. The war scene in the costume drama is one of the most difficult scenes to shoot, Gao Xixi recalled, the shooting of the war scene, and the martial arts director did a lot of communication, and when shooting that year, encountered the high temperature weather in Hengdian and Inner Mongolia, many leading actors and group actors, wearing thick armor under the big sun to shoot war scenes, "I remember that when I was shooting people, dozens of people fainted in a day, but we finally gritted our teeth and finished shooting. ”
Stills from "Mountains and Rivers moonlight"
These shooting difficulties are fairly routine, and when it comes to the editing stage, the real challenge comes. Originally, due to the grand structure and large span of historical years, the original script and shooting materials were 80 episodes, but when the major office was reviewed, it put forward a large number of revision suggestions, and finally cut out more than thirty episodes of the scenes. And this revision process took two or three years. Such a huge amount of deletions and changes requires the creators to have a very clear principle of revision, and Ghosh insists that it is necessary to retain the overall grasp of the historical view and the overall structure of the story, "such as the similarities and differences in the political ideas of the three generations of emperors, or to retain them."
The similarities and differences of this kind of political thinking are summarized by Ghosh as "sharing the world with the scholars" or "sharing the world with the people".
He Shengming as Zhu Biao
In many historical legends about Zhu Yuanzhang, he has written his "killing heroes". At the beginning of "Mountains and Rivers and Moon Ming", there is such a scene: Zhu Yuanzhang told the prince Zhu Biao that he hoped that his "old brothers" would eventually be able to die well, "so that I will have a person to talk to in the future." The depiction of this scene is undoubtedly to establish Zhu Yuanzhang's personal feelings for the founding heroes. Gao Xixi said, "In the face of the character of Zhu Yuanzhang, in fact, we want to show a little, whether to choose brotherhood or consolidate rule, Zhu Yuanzhang has to face this choice. ”
"Some of the heroes, after becoming famous, magnified their ambitions and constantly consolidated and expanded their sphere of influence, which clashed with Zhu Ming's rule, in order to consolidate the rule of the Ming Dynasty and eliminate potential threats, Zhu Yuanzhang had to make a decision: Whether to share the world with the scholars, or with the people? The founding emperors of successive dynasties all wanted the country to be forever solid, and he could not allow these courtiers to have the strength to besiege him. Then, water can carry boats and overturn boats, and the people are water. Therefore, according to this reason, he must consider from the perspective of the interests of the people and solve the vital interests of the people in order to stabilize the country. ”
Chen Yuemei as Zhu Yunjiao
For some film and television interpretations of historical events, we must follow the logic of this character
In "Mountains and Rivers and Moon Ming", for the two emperors Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, they used a lot of ink to describe their great efforts to maintain and stabilize the rule of the dynasty. As for the historical events brought about by these efforts, from what angle to describe in film and television dramas, Ghosh believes that it is necessary to start from the evaluation of historical figures. For example, for Zhu Di, Gao Xixi said: "We still hope to give some relatively positive evaluations to Zhu Di in history, because in the history of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di did some practical things and did some things that were meaningful to the country and the nation. Since we must grasp a positive evaluation, we must follow the logic of this character for some film and television interpretations of historical events. ”
Stills from "Mountains and Rivers moonlight"
Gao Xixi took the Battle of Jingnan as an example, "I hope not to make this a wolf ambition move, but Zhu Di in the process of being squeezed, forced to do it, if you make a wolf ambition, deliberately plotted conspiracy, the character will inevitably be easy to shape into a villain." ”
"Big things are not vain, small things are not informal", is a sentence that is often mentioned in the creation of historical dramas, Gao Xixi said, "but how to determine which is 'big things' and which is 'small things', there is no clear boundary." So in the end, it is the creator's own philosophy and values that determine his performance of the characters and the performance of the story. ”
"In addition to the historical view of TV series, I think that every director or screenwriter, first of all, is the thinking of values and philosophical views, and the creation should be loaded with some thinking, such as why do some battles be fought? What was his influence on people or history? Ghosh said, "Why should I shoot this history? I had to ask myself clearly before I dared to shoot. For example, "Mountains and Rivers and Moonlight", I think I am trying to express China's glorious history and culture in the historical context, it is not a completely empty legendary drama, but it is not a documentary that recounts history, but writes history with drama, treats people with affection, and highlights historical character with poetic narrative. Its plot line is not necessarily completely in line with historical facts, and the character is not necessarily completely based on historical records, but the drama must be ups and downs, which is what I mainly want to pursue. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Shi Gong