Unexpectedly, in the closing of the so-called "strongest Spring Festival file in history", a phrase - "desperate illiteracy" became a small hot terrier.
The cause was that the starring actor of a Spring Festival movie was interviewed during a roadshow, and when asked what he felt about his works and characters, he didn't know what he asked, and was jokingly called "desperate illiterate" by netizens.
To be honest, the reporter's question is not difficult, it is nothing more than "Which book do you like the most and what did you gain?" "What's the hardest point for a character to capture?" "What would you most like to say to the character you play?" and other routine questions, but the male protagonist is vague or even overwhelmed, which is shocking.
Spit is complaining, the actor's "illiteracy" is really not just a joke.
It's scary to be uncultured
In fact, "illiteracy" in this context is not to engage in educational discrimination. We all know that there is a specialization in the art industry, and the level of education and business ability are not necessarily directly linked.
The "illiterate actors" in everyone's mouth often refer to those actors who do not have high cultural reserves, empty heads, cannot read the script, and cannot understand the characters.
After all, let the actors talk about the role, talk about the performance, and what they want to hear is nothing more than their most basic understanding and feelings about the work and the role. Unfortunately, nowadays, this can also become the scene of many actors being "publicly executed".
In the usual publicity, we don't hear stars say how hard they work and how much they sacrifice for their roles, but when they talk about their feelings seriously, their language is often embarrassingly barren.
On weekdays, some stars who like to consider themselves serious "actors" can't even answer the definition of "actor" in interviews. Surprised, he finally held out a sentence: "What is an actor?" Well...... It's me, haha, what is it. ”
For example, some female protagonists spent several months filming an entire period drama, and they couldn't tell whether the background of the story was in the early days of the founding of the party or the early days of liberation.
When describing their roles, some leading actors will only repeat the words "tsundere", "domineering" and "sadistic" over and over again, and they can't say it anymore: "Oh, I don't know."
If individual young actors still clearly exude "clear stupidity", some "old fritters" actors have learned "concave terms". At first glance, they talked about the performing arts, which made people stunned.
But listening to it, there are only a few words on the left - a sense of faith, experience, real listening and real feeling, under the gorgeous and complex theory, there is an emptiness and lack that cannot be concealed.
Look at the practical results of these "illiterate" actors - paralyzed faces, AI acting skills, flying facial features, unclear lines ... One race at a time is ridiculous.
Can an actor who has no understanding of acting, roles, and works act well?
Was it wronged to be called "illiterate"?
The performance perception reflects not only the cultural skills of the actors, but also their degree of intention.
In fact, there are not many good actors with low cultural levels in the entertainment industry, such as the teacher Zhao Lirong we know, who does not know many Chinese characters, but it does not prevent her sketches from being put into this day, and they are still well-deserved classics.
Her performance has a natural magic, as long as people think of it, the corners of her mouth will unconsciously rise. In fact, her secret to touching people's hearts is simple, that is, the ultimate sincerity. Zhao Lirong has a full professionalism when it comes to art, and her partner Gong Hanlin once said that Zhao Lirong is "very serious and never settles".
In the 1996 Spring Festival Gala sketch "Working Adventure", she was required to write brush words by hand. In order to practice her words, she bought 100 pieces of rice paper and practiced until midnight every day before she wrote impressive calligraphy. Her English song "My Heart Is Eternal" at the Spring Festival Gala was actually sung smoothly by listening to the original song countless times on the radio machine.
There is also Wang Baoqiang, who was born in a rural area, did not read much, and at first could not even understand the script, so he had to carry a dictionary with him to look up words. Others read the script for two hours, and it may take him a day to understand it.
But this does not prevent him from understanding the script with his heart and understanding the characters themselves. He understood how Xu Sanduo was "heavy-hearted, more genuine and inferior" in "Soldier Assault"; He understands that Mr. Tree, a fool in the eyes of normal people, actually sees farther than most people.
He became a movie star from a hungry group actor, and his acting skills were written into textbooks, relying on respect for the film and the audience. Who would mock him for his "low education"? Instead, it became the background sound of his glory.
Today, "illiterate" actors are ridiculed, simply because the audience does not see their awe and dedication to the performance. I didn't read the script clearly, and the characters to be played didn't think clearly, so I finished a work.
As screenwriter Tan Meimei said, "Any character's speech and behavior style have corresponding motivation support, and they are people who can meet in life." It is necessary to put each character into their own living environment and grow up, giving each person different eyebrows so that they can get their own life. If the actors do not analyze the background, personality and origin of the characters, the 'assembly line operation' will definitely not convince the audience."
So, when you use "overkill" acting skills perfunctory, don't blame someone for laughing at you for being greasy; When you don't even bother to think about the logic of the drama and are willing to be the director's puppet, don't blame people for treating you as a joke.
Of course, a large part of the reason why these "illiterate" actors can be so unscrupulous is that someone is "habitual". Nowadays, the acting skills of many stars seem to be more and more like "Schrödinger's acting skills" - only fans are desperately boasting, but ordinary audiences can't see it.
Every time a new drama is broadcast, no matter how paralyzed the idol's expression is and how ambiguous the lines are, fans can use pompous words such as "brokenness", "explosion", "explosiveness" and "infectiousness" to send their idol's name to the hot search. Over time, actors no longer need to work hard to improve their acting skills, they only need to consider how to get on the hot search and make themselves "as if they have acting skills".
If you are afraid, you will be afraid, the text will be praised a hundred times, the words will be said a thousand times, and even you believe it. "Illiteracy" is not terrible, "living in the fantasy dream of capital and fans, without any understanding of human nature and life, willing to be a puppet, there is really no hope." ”
Performance, you still have to go to the heart
Performance, as a kind of art, like all things in the world, requires giving to get it. A penny of hard work is a harvest, and sometimes even a harvest is obtained after ten points of hard work.
"The Self-cultivation of Actors" focuses on "self-cultivation" rather than "self". This cultivation involves not only external techniques, but also inner mental methods – knowing one's level, respecting one's profession, and always being in awe of performance.
No film and television character shaping does not need to be considered, the character's characteristics, the motivation of the character, the insight of the social environment, how to use your own social experience to interpret a three-dimensional character, these need to be designed and considered.
Chen Xiaoxu, in order to win Lin Daiyu of the 87th version of "Dream of Red Mansions", took the initiative to write a few pages of character understanding, and also attached a small poem written by himself, which was sent to the director of public casting. After many years, when she talks about Lin Daiyu again, she can still tell Lin Daiyu's psychological state before she died.
Not long ago, a reporter posted an article recalling his experience of interviewing actor Chen Jianbin more than ten years ago. Chen Jianbin said that the character he most wanted to play was Li Bai, and legend has it that Li Bai's hometown is in Broken Leaf City, located in today's Kyrgyzstan.
"You said, Li Bai was drunk, fell in a tavern, dreamed at midnight, a light like a bean, the surrounding was dark, what was Li Bai's mood at that time, did he want to be home?" He must have been very sad, must have been very sad. ”
It is not difficult to see that when good actors talk about performance, they will not show any concepts, do not show any personalities, and will not emphasize how much they "work hard", they are explaining "people" - people's personality, people's logic, people's texture.
It is precisely because they really understand the characters in the script that it is possible to gradually enrich human nature with acting skills, so that a virtual drama character has both flesh and blood.
This understanding can even be extended beyond the film. In 2000, at the Toronto media meeting of "In the Mood for Love", the reporter asked Maggie Cheung a somewhat difficult question: "Why did Wong Kar-wai insert a report on de Gaulle's visit to Cambodia at the end of the film, did he want to express his political position?" ”
Maggie Cheung's answer is obviously beyond her character itself, but it "explains" the meaning of the entire movie so accurately:
"He wanted to expand that world. Because the film has always been like a microscope, observing these two pieces of dust in the world, under the microscope, these two people can be important, but historically insignificant. By the end of the film, he zooms out of the camera and tells us that the world is big and that there are other things going on, and that what happens between them is small and personal, like the camera zooming in and out. ”
Stills from the movie "In the Mood for Love"
It is not "illiteracy" that is desperate, but "blind heart". I hope that more and more actors can also ask such questions when performing:
"You say, Li Bai, will he be homesick?"