Let's start living your people again...
"Life" is Lu Yao's novella and his famous work, and the open-ended ending gives readers room for imagination: What kind of life will Gogarin choose next?
41 years after the publication of the novel, the TV series "The Road of Life" directed by Yan Jiangang and starring Chen Xiao, Li Qin and Zhang Jiani was broadcast. There is a line of small print under the title: Part of this play is based on Lu Yao's novella "Life".
For continuing the fate of many characters such as Gao Garin and Qiao Zhen, director Yan Jiangang frankly said in an interview that he hopes that the TV series will bring the novel "Life" closer to today's audience, so that the novel itself has a contemporary expression.
Is "The Road of Life" the icing on the cake or the icing on the cake?
one
"The Road of Life" starts in 1984, and the singing of the letter to the sky, coupled with the unique style of the nine bends of the Yellow River and caves, all prove that this is a story that takes place in northern Shaanxi.
Since this drama is partly based on Lu Yao's novella "Life", we must first understand this novel.
Lu Yao's "Life" novel was originally published in the third issue of "Harvest" in 1982, and after its publication, it won the National Excellent Novella Award at that time. In 2018, "Life" was also selected as "the most influential novel in the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up".
Director Jia Zhangke once recalled that he was a middle school child when he read this book. "I have seen many works over the years, but the one that has influenced me the most is this "Life", which has made me start to have a new understanding of society and start thinking about my life."
In the novel "Life", "choice" is an unavoidable keyword.
As a representative of aspiring youth, the protagonist Gao Garin has repeatedly faced the choice of love and career, and his real dilemma and struggle have given the post-60s and post-70s more space to question themselves and reflect on life.
Lu Yao himself once recalled that after the novel was published, countless letters were sent from all directions, "In addition to talking about my feelings after reading the novel and various life problems and literary issues, many people also regarded me as a 'mentor' who mastered the mysteries of life, and asked me for 'how people should live'..."
The ending of the novel "Life" is open, and Lu Yao even marked the words "not the end" in chapter 23. Gogarin's unfinished life makes readers remember: after experiencing pain and choice, what will happen to Gogarin when he returns to his hometown, and where will he go?
The TV series "The Road of Life" has to answer the answer that this novel has not finished.
Director Yan Jiangang said that the series was filmed from Gao Garin's high school days to the new century, and he wanted to expand his understanding of the word "life" through the expansion of the story time and space. Yan Jiangang hopes that the audience will see the fate of Gao Garin from "The Road of Life" and get a reflection on his own life path.
"The adapted "Road to Life" has far exceeded the definition of the original time and space, and has extended the story space to today, which I think is a creative change, it will bring the novel "Life" closer to today's audience, and the novel itself has a contemporary expression."
In Yan Jiangang's view, if the new "Road of Life" can have a dialogue with today's young people as strong as the resonance he had back then, it will be a meaningful thing.
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Judging from the episodes currently broadcast, "The Road of Life" has been quite expanded and fleshed out after combining the current hot events, such as the opening of the scene, which is quite a dramatic conflict - Gogarin's college place is replaced.
Gao Jialin (played by Chen Xiao), a senior in high school, is a well-known reading "champion" in the village, and he is about to take the college entrance examination, and he is very likely to become the only college student in the county in 5 years. Gao Garin also attached great importance to this college entrance examination, and he knew that to get rid of this yellow land, the college entrance examination was the only chance to change his fate.
The college entrance examination was released, and Gao Garin was admitted to his favorite university. However, the university quota was replaced by Gao Shuangxing in the same village. The one who operated this matter was Gao Minglou (played by Lin Yongjian), the secretary of the village branch.
In order to make up for the guilt, Gao Minglou recommended Gao Garin to become a private primary school teacher. In the teaching work, Gogarin not only does his best to teach the children, but also strives to create a good learning environment for the children...
As the starring actor, Chen Xiao has many highlight moments in the opening, and the more impressive is a scene where the Liu family encourages Qiaoling. In the play, Liu Liben, played by Liu Wei, did not want his third daughter to continue to high school, and he thought that studying was useless, so he asked Gao Garin to judge.
Is learning useful at all? In fact, this is a topic that has been discussed for many years.
Gao Garin, played by Chen Xiao, replied:
It's really not easy to get into college
Just because you go to high school doesn't mean you can get into college
But I never regretted it
Because of going to school
It's not just about getting into college
Waiting for commercial grain in the future
It's about changing the lives of our rural children
We read books
So we know how big the outside world is
Because we read books
So we have thoughts
If we think about it, we may change
……
Although this is a cliché topic, and what Gao Garin said is simple and even simple, combined with the era background in the play and Chen Xiao's performance, when Chen Xiao, who has shining eyes, says this powerful sentence, it can make people empathize.
three
But judging from the episodes currently broadcast, "The Road of Life" has enhanced the drama after the adaptation, but it has weakened the profound expression of the original work.
In the original novel, the background of the story is the 80s of the 20th century, due to the rapid development of the commodity economy, breaking the original boundary between the countryside and the city, more and more rural people want to go out, especially some educated young people, Gogarin is one of the typical examples.
Gao Garin went to high school, because he did not get into college and returned to the village to become a private teacher, in high school he behaved differently from others, he was well-informed, loved to read, and talked about some international patterns and the world economy. Gogarin had big ideals in mind, and he hoped that he could break out and realize his ambitions.
But in the social environment at that time, it was difficult for rural people who were firmly bound by the land to have the opportunity to go out, and Gogarin was an ideological "urban person" and an identity "rural person", and the two completely different values and identities became the biggest contradiction in his heart, and also created his ambivalence of inferiority and arrogance, self-confidence and humiliation.
In the episode, Gogarin's character has actually changed considerably. He is no longer the introverted rural youth who does not like to talk in the novel, but has become a sunny, cheerful, and quite energetic young man.
In the play, he can talk about the review questions of the college entrance examination to his illiterate parents, and he also went to the podium in anger and participated in the 100-day oath meeting of the college entrance examination.
The kind of poor family origin in the original work, the low-standing Gogarin basically does not exist.
Another example is that in the play, Gao Garin is set to be a top student, but he was replaced by a university place. Such "drama" is somewhat clichéd. Last year's dramas such as "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes" and "War of the Roses" have such plots. There is a topic, but it is not new.
What is even more incomprehensible to the audience is that Gao Garin's good results are known by the whole county and even the county magistrate, and he failed the college entrance examination, but no one questioned it, which is not logical.
Such a hard injury, it really shouldn't be.
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In terms of presentation, there are also many "suspended" settings.
For example, the appearance of the protagonist Gogarin at the beginning of the series, if you change to a luxury mountain bike, it is simply an advertisement.
As soon as Gao Garin appeared, he rode the 28th bar with his friend and classmate Gao Shuangxing. Bend, tail flick and even ride down stairs tens of meters, and finally drop the tire out ...
Such an appearance may be to show the high spirit and vigor of young people, but does a poor rural baby really have the money to buy a 28 bar that was very scarce in the 80s? Even if there is, are you willing to toss so much?
I have to say that this design is indeed a failure.
Another failure appeared in the head of the horse unit of the county education bureau. In the play, Chief Ma is invited by the school principal to mobilize the children for the college entrance examination, who knows, this Chief Ma has an exaggerated expression, standing there is seven disobedient and eight unhappy, as a result, as soon as he came up, he slapped himself in front of the students, saying that he had been the head of the unit for 5 years, and there was not a single college student in the county, "Where do I still have a face?" This was followed by a roaring speech, coupled with body movements, which were embarrassingly exaggerated.
Is it appropriate that such a character suddenly comes in a serious realist drama, like Stephen Chow's nonsensical suddenly appeared in "In the Name of the People"?
I can't help but think of the words that Lu Yao once wrote when reviewing the creation of "Life": I wrote "Life" repeatedly for three years - this work was written in 81 years, but I started writing it in 79 years. I got into the creative process very nervously, but after writing it, I tore it up because, I was very dissatisfied, even though it could also be published at the time. I even rubbed it out of my memory and never wanted to think about it again. I tried to write again in eighty years, but I didn't think it would work; Many character relationships have not yet been intertwined.
This passage shows Lu Yao's highly engaged and tormented creative mentality at that time.
TV series creation, really should learn Lu Yao's sincerity: satisfied, publish again.
Red Star News Reporter Qiu Junfeng Editor Qiu Junfeng
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