Director Fei Mu's "Spring in a Small Town" is a film that I re-watch several times a year.
Until recently, when I clicked on Youku, I was deeply hurt by the editor's title and plot node hints.
The first is a one-sentence synopsis of the film, which is outlined as: The Empty Young Woman Empathizes with the Old Lover.
With a feeling of extreme anger (hao) anger (qi), I decided to continue to see how much they had done to this classic work of film history, a model of "oriental aesthetics".
Don't look and don't know, a look of fright (zhen) a (qi) jump (miao).
The whole film was beaten by 7 plot points in 93 minutes, and there was a kind of "ingenuity" of the title of zhiyin, story meeting, and chapter back.
Before showing these titles, I would like to briefly introduce the plot for your reference.
Around 1948, in a small southern town with broken walls.
Wife Zhou Yuwen grabbed medicine for her sick husband Dai Liyan every day, and the days were tasteless.
Until Zhang Zhichen appeared, "stirring up a pool of spring water".
He is Li Yan's former friend, but he is also the old lover of Yu Wen, and has also become the object of his sister Dai Xiu's admiration.
In the end, nothing happened, and after Zhang Zhichen left, the town returned to tranquility.
Okay, the story begins.
1. The young master was depressed and dissociated from his wife
2, good friends rejoice in reunion, surprised to feel that the old love has become a sister-in-law
3, the old love is in the same room, and the hands and feet are ambiguous
4. The young woman acts as a matchmaker for her sister and endures the pain of sending old love to others
Interestingly, the node text here has also been modified, and last summer it was:
The dilapidated city walls are romantically dated, and they want to refuse to guess their hearts.
5. The empty young woman threw herself into her arms and was heartbroken when she was rejected
6. The sick and weak young master was comatose, and he saved his life after rescue
7, deep love hidden in the heart, quietly watch the lover leave
After watching these titles, fans who have seen "Spring in a Small Town" will definitely feel that this is another 2015 online movie adapted from the network, such as "The Desire for Love of Sadistic Love Story".
However, the use of this title reminds me of the popular "Zhiyin body" in 2007.
In August 2007, someone in the Tianya community posted: Please rename familiar fairy tales, fables, stories, etc. with the invincible, elegant, and cold "Zhiyin body title".
The poster first renamed "Snow White" "The Bitter Girl, Seven Brothers of the Righteous Thin Sky Hold Up a Little Piece of Heaven for You".
Many film and television dramas can not escape the fate of being renamed.
For example, "On the Beach" - the baby daughter is obsessed with the ancient puzzle boy, and the gangster father has no choice but to kill.
"Deer Ding" – Thank you for the love you have given me: to the seven women in my life.
Harry Potter – Disfigured Teenager Self-Reliant: I Fell in Love with This Scar!
Just when I was indignant, I decided to go back in time.
It wasn't until 1948 that the situation in which "Spring in a Small Town" was released did indeed find some different information.
In addition to the familiar title, its other name is "Desire for Fire".
And on the poster, the heroine has two vertical lines on the left side of her face: the sick man's ability is weak, and the young woman is widowed.
On the left side of the body there are two vertical lines of large red signs in bold: there is no man without sexual impulses, and no woman without sexual desire.
The words of the movie poster on "Declaration" at that time were:
Near to Ye Dang, all innocence, rare and unrestrained, not as good as chaos, such as the alcohol of wine, such as the sweetness of honey, such as chewing old fruits, such as drinking liquan spring.
The first four sentences also appear on the poster of "Desire for Fire".
The work, which was released in October 1948, was also untimely.
Despite the above-mentioned promotional packaging, it was not welcomed by the audience.
Progressive film critics at the time gave ruthless criticism, saying that it "simply forgot the times", "so pale, so sick", and exhorted Famu "not to be too self-appreciative, self-absorbed".
What's more, it is said that "Spring in a Small Town" "has no epochality, no nationality, and is entirely the product of the fantasies of neurotics"; "no thoughts, no feelings, pure formalistic things ... ... it is an unforgivable sin."
Of course, there are also "knowledgeable goods" who praise "the author of "Spring in a Small Town" uses oriental colors to write a beautiful story of oriental people with ——— diluted brushwork", "Fei Mu's rigorous production attitude makes "Spring in a Small Town" reach the peak of the unprecedented art of national films".
Similar rhetoric was not revived until the 80s.
Before the reform and opening up after the founding of New China, this work was characterized as negative and gray: "Its negative influence can not be ignored, at that time it actually played a role in paralyzing people's will to struggle... It once again reflects Fermo's duality as a petty-bourgeois artist and his weak character, and reflects the bitterness, contradiction, gloom and depression of his central feelings in the great era of the Liberation War. ”
It is no accident that Spring in a Small Town was "rediscovered" in the 1980s.
The anxiety of seeking roots in the context of globalization has made it once again assume the responsibility of "literati films", "oriental films", "poetic films", "screen poetics", "modernity" and "nationality".
This public case is not listed today, and we return to its encounter in the Internet era again.
In Douban's review, a short review of October 12, 2016 surfaced, which should have been written by a film school undergraduate:
[7]: The pioneering work of modern Chinese cinema. "Spring in a Small Town", the title of the film is too heavy in the heart, as soon as you see these four words, you will have a sense of awe. Today's school screening, I don't know where the laughter came from, the whole time the students laughed wildly, and in the end, they unconsciously laughed, too ashamed... It felt like the crucified Jesus laughing in the church pointing at the saints praying. The old film screening course became a ruined classic series.
The scene described in this short review is familiar.
In July 2014, the famous actor Yang Lixin sent five consecutive microblogs, lamenting the performance of ""Thunderstorm" performed by Beijing Renyi Public Welfare Field.
If we also go back to August 1933, Cao Yu had just finished the first draft of "Thunderstorm" and immediately handed it over to Jin Yi, a classmate of Nankai Middle School, who was also one of the editors-in-chief of the Literary Quarterly.
Jin Yi took the manuscript to the first editor-in-chief Zheng Zhenduo, but Zhenduo saw it and "thought that the script was written too chaotically and shelved it."
Jin Yi also gave it to li Jianwu, a famous theater artist and tsinghua assistant teacher, but he did not approve of it and "refused to recommend this script" for publication.
This made Jin Yi very embarrassed, so he had to put the script in the drawer temporarily.
It was not until it was handed over to Barkin half a year later, and Barkin said that he liked it.
"In the dark room next to the living room in the south room of The Fourteenth Gate Street in Beiping, where the walls of blue paper are pasted, when I read hundreds of pages of the original manuscript of the script, few people knew about the production of this masterpiece. I was the first reader to be deeply moved by it. I read it all in one sitting and shed tears for it. ”
With Barkin's recommendation, Thunderstorm was published.
It is also "opportune", when the country is in danger and the nation is in danger, it is arranged into a drama and goes to the national universities and stages.
However, on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve 1937, Hu Shi remembered two plays presented by Yang Zhensheng in the Ta Kung Pao Literary and Art Supplement, namely Cao Yu's "Thunderstorm" and "Sunrise".
"I read it tonight and thought "Sunrise" was very good, and "Thunderstorm" was really not a thing. The attitude of the self-prologue of "Thunderstorm" is very bad... "Thunderstorm" is obviously influenced by Ibsen and O'Neil (Ibsen, Oni), and the characters are all foreign characters, none of them are really Chinese, and their affairs are not Chinese. ”
This article does not intend to judge the film "Spring in a Small Town" and the drama "Thunderstorm" in terms of historical status and artistic achievements, but feels that "renaming" or "rediscovery" is not a special case of a certain period.
Rather, it is the result of the conspiracy of mass recipients, art communicators and works in any era.
Any one of these variables will change, and each change will have a similar situation that is either pleasing or embarrassing.
bibliography:
Alexander. "Spring in a Small Town": A beautiful poem
MA Bolian. Comment on "Spring in a Small Town"
Mu Yun. Pale Feelings – I Watch "Spring in a Small Town"
CHENG Jihua. History of Chinese Cinema (Volume 2)
Ye Ming's Remembrance of "Wenhua" (1947-1951)