The 12-episode documentary "Fresh History" produced by the Film and Television Drama Documentary Center of the Central Radio and Television Corporation selects four "gentlemen" in Chinese history, such as Lu Xun, Su Shi, Cao Xueqin, and Bai Juyi, as the recording objects.
Aiming at their food, and using food as a medium,
It tells the life experiences of these literary masters as people and writers, as well as their intersection with others, with society, with the region, and with the times.
This documentary allows us to see the food written by the literary master, and it also allows us to re-recognize the different "Mr. " personality and life style in food.
Fireworks in the world, delicious food.
Time travel, the master's heart.
Food map
A culinary journey from your hometown
The four "gentlemen" in "Fresh History" have traveled to many places in their lives and eaten many delicacies that haunt their dreams.
The first stop on their culinary journey is their hometown.
Lu Xun likes drunken shrimp, fish balls, fennel beans, dried vegetables, pickles and other hometown delicacies.
Cao Xueqin was born in Jinling, spent her childhood in a rich family in Jinling, and has a special love for the duck series of dishes in Jinling today in Nanjing.
Some "gentlemen" bring their hometown cuisine to other places, or go to other places to interpret the taste of hometown food.
Su Shi was deposed a lot in his life, and as soon as this "literary old man" arrived in the degraded place, he "invented" food according to local conditions;
Bai Juyi, who loves to eat fish, ate sashimi when he was released in Suzhou.
The director of "Fresh History", following the footsteps of the "gentlemen" and their culinary journeys, vividly painted a vivid and fragrant food map for the masters.
Gastronomic personality
Foodie hobbies and personalities
The documentary "Fresh History" presents the "gentlemen's" love of food and its special features.
Lu Xun loves sweets. Because of this hobby, I often see a dentist.
However, every time Lu Xun saw the dentist, he always had to buy a few pieces of sweets as his reward.
From Lu Xun's dedication to certain types of food, documentary filmmakers have found the reason for his personality as a literary fighter.
Su Shi's open-minded and never lonely personality, the documentary also glimpses a glimpse from his lifelong food hobby.
Su Shi was demoted again and again, and finally demoted to Danzhou on the island, but a dish of roasted oysters made him leave his troubles behind.
He also wrote a special article saying: "Every time you have abstained from saying anything, you are afraid that the gentlemen of the north will hear about it, and they will strive to do what Dongpo does, and ask who hainan will share my beauty!" ”
Gastronomic literature
The color and fragrance between the lines
Literary masters not only love food, but also like to write food into poems and novels, and sometimes simply record it in the form of diaries and miscellaneous notes, so that today we can peek into the gastronomic heart of "gentlemen".
Bai Juyi loves to drink, play the piano and compose poetry, and calls himself "Mr. Drunkard".
He began to complain wildly about the mode of writing poetry in Chungju, but fortunately bamboo shoots were abundant in the local area, which was the food that Bai Juyi wanted to eat in the capital but could not eat, so he wrote a poem praising:
"Purple dragon old brocade, su stock new jade."
Eat more every day, and don't think about meat after a while. ”
Eating bamboo shoots is actually better than eating meat, which shows how much Bai Juyi loves this delicacy.
Cao Xueqin wrote a lot of delicacies in "Dream of the Red Chamber", one of which is the bun of the tofu skin bun that Qingwen likes to eat, which is now named "Qingwen Bun".
A delicacy that opens up the virtual art world and the life of the fireworks world.
Lu Xun kept his food in his diary and wrote a special article describing his favorite food.
The documentary picks up some of the words from his "Snacks":
"As long as the appetite is good, you can eat it from the morning to the middle of the night, but the appetite is not good, because this is not bigger than the fat fish, the amount is very small, the effect, it is said, is in the leisure, get the benefit of health, and the taste is good."
At this time, the documentary uses the first-person dubbing method, allowing Lu Xun to use Shaoxing dialect to tell the goodness of eating snacks, and the state of mind of food and "Mr." is suddenly so clear.
Through food, the documentary allows us to see a different "sir";
Through the food text written by "Mr." We see different "gentlemen" attitudes towards food, literature and life.
Gastronomic narrative
Three lines, three personal names and time travel
The documentary "Fresh History" has an innovative approach to gastronomic storytelling.
In conventional documentary production, there are more single-line narratives, and occasionally there are double lines.
But "Fresh History" unfolds the narrative in three lines: literati, cooks, and diners.
"Fresh History" takes the gastronomic heart of literary masters as the main line,
First, it begins with telling how "Sir" loved food in the past, writing food into poems, novels or diaries, and then commenting on the gourmet cuisine cooked by the chef, and finally returning to the literary masters in the documentary, pointing out the themes in a targeted manner.
The second line is to make the food that the masters have read about.
The foodie, there are ordinary people, more are chefs.
This line mainly narrates to the audience how the food is refined, and shows people the wonderful and gorgeous food products.
The third line is the situation of diners in the current reality, highlighting the practical effect of food being sought after by people.
A dish of food forms a plate, and the three narrative threads in each plate are logically ordered, intertwined and blended, and the nature is switched.
The combined use of three personal names in the documentary is also a big innovation.
The third person is used in the documentary to introduce the life experiences of the "gentlemen" in history, the love of food, and sometimes into the hearts of the characters, to explore the thoughts and feelings of the masters on food.
The third-person commentary on the food is objective, authentic, and interesting.
When quoting private texts such as letters and diaries, the documentary "Fresh History" often uses the first person for dubbing to achieve the purpose of restoring the truth.
In addition, "Fresh History" uses a second-person perspective with great novelty.
For example, after the Sachima was made, the second-person Lu Xun jumped out and said in Shaoxing dialect: "This Sage horse, if I give it to my dentist to taste, he should understand me." ”
The second person is used in conjunction with time travel, and these literary masters jump out of history and make all kinds of praise, or envy, or humor, or questioning comments on the food in the current reality.
The flat, monotonous impression of the masters as historical figures shows their naughty, funny, funny, and cute sides.
The documentary's narrative language is a mixture of history and the present.
For example, the documentary says, "More than nine hundred years ago, Mr. Dongpo already knew that there is no trouble that a hot pot cannot solve." ”
To paraphrase the buzzword of the moment, the ancients.
Witty jokes make the audience understand and sharply increase the sense of closeness.
The three narrative threads in "Fresh History", the use of three kinds of personal names and time and space travel techniques, plus the mixing and collimation of words, make the film's vein overlap and loom, the narrative jumps out of nature, and the style is colorful.
No one can really travel through time and space, and food can, and the words that record food can, so the people who write these words can also be.
"Fresh History" presents the "Mr." in the cuisine and cuisine of "Mr." "Mr.", which is a "fresh history" without compromise.
Commentator Chen Liqiang