Historical Remembrance: Lin Shan and "The Daughter of the Party"

Lin Shan is one of the first generation of film screenwriters in New China, and the movie "Daughter of the Party" is another classic created by Lin Shan after the movie "Shangganling". In 1958, the movie "Daughter of the Party" topped the list of "Most Popular Domestic Films" with a high vote. At the same time, it also caused quite a stir when it was screened in the Soviet Union, the GDR and other countries. After ten years of turmoil, the movie "Daughter of the Party" was not only included in the list of patriotic education films, but also repeatedly re-screened or broadcast in theaters or movie channels around july 1, but also adapted into opera, Peking Opera, Jin opera, TV series and other art forms. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Party in 1991, the General Political Department Opera Troupe adapted it into an opera, and party and state leaders came to watch the performance. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, "Shangganling" and "Daughter of the Party" were among the excellent film exhibitions and broadcast activities organized by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

The film "Daughter of the Party" was "born" at the Changchun Film Studio. In 1956, the movie "Shangganling" was still being filmed, and director Sha Meng mobilized Lin Shan, one of the screenwriters and directors of the film, to quickly create another film script. A colleague recommended Wang Yuanjian's short story "Party Fee". Lin Shan was touched by the story in the novel. What the protagonist does, does, and thinks makes him feel empathy when he was once an underground worker. However, it can't be changed: "Party Fee" is just a short story, the storyline is simpler after all, and it is difficult to adapt it into a movie of about 100 minutes based on the material provided by the novel.

Lin Shan believes that creators should be good at summarizing the times. If the work lacks a full sense of the times, then no matter how rich the plot you arrange and how vivid your characters are, it will not help. The work lacks the authenticity of the times and is fundamentally false. In order to accurately grasp the characteristics of the times reflected in the works, in 1956, Lin Shan went to Ruijin, Jiangxi, the residence of the Party Central Committee during the Central Soviet District, to collect creative materials and look back at the historical situation. He found more than 20 survivors who persisted in the struggle after the red army withdrew, and interviewed them one by one. The local Party History Office also provided relevant materials. The characteristics of the times in that period of history became clearer and clearer in Lin Shan's mind: In the autumn of 1934, after the withdrawal of the Central Red Army, white terror shrouded them, and the enemy frantically hunted down and suppressed the Communists and the revolutionary masses, turning the revolutionary base area that was once bright and happy into a dark and terrifying world. This harsh environment tests everyone, some wavering, some even defecting, and only those who are true Communists can stand still and become swift and strong, even in the absence of contact with the higher-level Party organizations, but still persist in the struggle to meet the arrival of a new revolutionary upsurge.

When Ruijin returned, Lin Shan could not calm down for a long time, and the experience of those communists who persisted in the struggle at the low tide of the revolution was so similar to his own revolutionary experience. In 1930, Lin Shan joined the revolution at the age of 16, joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 17, engaged in underground work in Shanghai, became a professional revolutionary, risked his life to return to Shanghai from Henan to pass on important information to the Party Central Committee, was arrested and imprisoned at the age of 18, and spent 5 years in the Kuomintang Zhejiang Army Prison. After being released from prison, Lin Shan, who had lost contact with the party, went to Yan'an in order to find the party, and when he passed through Shanxi, he was left behind by the organization and turned to the land of the Three Jins, from military to literature and art, and was one of the main leaders of the party's literary and artistic work in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation in Shanxi, and withstood the test of blood and fire.

The brutal struggle, the comrades and comrades who fell down, and the tragic scenes emerged one by one, making Lin Shan completely unable to help himself, and his strong desire to create pushed him to complete the creation quickly. In October 1956, Lin Shan published the film literary script in the magazine "Chinese Film" under the title of "Swift Wind and Strong Grass", and later changed the title to "Daughter of the Party" according to the needs of the film's theme. This work of the remarkable playwright Lin Shan and the infinite loyalty of thousands of communists was born.

Director Shamen was very satisfied with the script, and as soon as "Shangganling" was filmed, he worked non-stop on the sub-shots. Unexpectedly, during the anti-rightist movement, Shamen was mistakenly classified as a "rightist", and the filming of "Daughter of the Party" was stranded. Until the beginning of 1958, "The Party's Daughter" was taken over by Lin Nong and filmed by Changchun Film Studio. In post-production, the words "based on Wang Yuanjian's short story "Party Fee"" in the original film script were cancelled, and Lin Shan deeply regretted it. Later, when the script of "The Party's Daughter" was published in a single line, Lin Shan specially added a postscript to explain the situation and expressed respect for the original work and the original author.

"Shangganling" and "Daughter of the Party" are lin shan's important contributions to the new Chinese red film series. In these two works, Lin Shan established two different types of heroic images for the New China Film Art Gallery: Company Commander Zhang Zhongfa faced the smoke of gunfire and saw real gold in the fire, while Li Yumei, a communist party member, was in danger, and the wind knew the grass; Zhang Zhongfa's vigor is shocking, and Li Yumei's "in the silent place" is even more precious.

The central task of narrative literature and art is to shape characters, all works that have left a reputation in the history of literature and art are known for portraying vivid and vivid typical images, and an excellent film work is no exception, it always has one or more characters that people can say and remember, and even become a character passed down by word of mouth.

When creating "Shangganling", Lin Shan paid more attention to the analysis and study of characters, and before that, he mostly started writing after experiencing life or collecting materials, and spent more energy on the layout and structure of the work. By the time of the creation of "Daughter of the Party", he began to consciously focus on the main characters, around all kinds of antagonistic or internal representative characters, and had a contrasting effect in art, thus setting off and highlighting the main characters. Around the main character Li Yumei, there is director Sun, a Kuomintang officer representing hostile forces, Ma Jiahui, a traitor, Xiuying, a young and radical party member, Huizhen, who hesitates in everything, and the second sister who sympathizes with and participates in the revolution only for her husband. Placing Li Yumei in the above-mentioned characters to live, and letting her clash, contradict, and entangle with them or them not only contrasts and sets off Li Yumei, but also constitutes a life scene in which the party and the people of the Central Soviet Region persist in revolutionary struggle under extremely difficult conditions during the second period of the civil revolutionary war, after the withdrawal of the Red Army.

The biggest feature of narrative literature and art is not only to make a big fuss about shaping the image of the characters, but also to pay attention to the authenticity and credibility of the details of the storyline. In the massacre of the enemy, none of the party members in Taohua Township were spared, but Li Yumei was unharmed and bloodless, and escaped death. This seemingly bizarre and unbelievable plot is not something Lin Shan imagined out of thin air, but a transplant of a true story he heard when he was working in Jinbei. During the "December coup d'état," Yan Xishan gathered together a regiment of political workers in the name of a meeting, tied them all to a valley, set up machine guns and strafed them. Lin Shan applied this real thing to Li Yumei, transforming the truth of life into the truth of art, thus providing a specific environment for the development of Li Yumei's character.

After escaping from death, the situation facing Li Yumei is even more severe, she must eliminate misunderstandings among comrades, do a good job of mass work, and also deal with hateful traitors. Li Yumei's resurrection from the dead did cause quite a stir; Xiao Cheng, a guerrilla scout, saw her thinking that she had met a ghost; the traitors Ma Jiahui and his wife were shocked to see her; and the masses and Xiuying, a party member from a neighboring village, even more scorned her, lest they avoid her. Although Li Yumei felt wronged, she did not lose confidence, she used positive revolutionary actions to prove her innocence, and finally won the trust of Xiuying and Huizhen, three young female Communists studied the Party Constitution in a cave, set up a provisional party group, and Yumei was elected as the leader of the party group. The three-man party group became the mainstay of the mobilization and leadership of the masses in the struggle against the enemy at the low tide of the revolution.

Yumei's second sister is a timid and fearful Red Army family, although the second sister cannot charge like Li Yumei, she is still the basic mass of the Communist Party, and Lin Shan's positioning of the "second sister" is in line with historical truth. Through the transformation of the "second sister", from preventing Yumei from going out to supporting Yumei's revolutionary struggle, her home has also become a secret contact point between the guerrillas on the mountain and the three-person party group, to show that Li Yumei is good at doing mass work, which is also the characteristics and strengths of the party's work.

In front of the traitors, Li Yumei was awe-struck. The traitor Ma Jiahui was originally the secretary of the party's district party committee and Li Yumei's superior, but he was greedy for life and afraid of death, and after the defection, he stubbornly gave advice to Director Sun of the bandit army. Li Yumei took the case and angrily rebuked Ma Jiahui: "Thanks to your face to mention the party, you have given us party lessons, you have led us, you yourself have said that traitors are the most hateful enemies of the revolution, you have forgotten, I have not forgotten!" Under Li Yumei's thrilling rebuke, Ma Jiahui, who looked like a seven-foot boy, looked so small and despicable! One good and one evil, the contrast is stark, this scene is still a classic shot in the "seventeen years" movie of New China.

In "The Daughter of the Party", Lin Shan also succeeded in creating the image of a traitor. In the films of the 1950s, most of the character relationships are very clear and distinct, the enemies and friends are clear at a glance, innocent, especially the negative characters, and there is no need to think and guess too much, and the depiction of traitors in "Daughter of the Party" gets rid of the usual pattern and creates a "confessional" traitor image Guiying. The same traitor, Ma Jiahui and Gui Ying are different, the former betrayed the revolution with a dead heart, while the latter was ashamed of her rebellious behavior, remorseful, in order to wash away her sins and express her remorse for the revolution, she exposed Ma Jiahui in person, desperately helped Li Yumei escape from the clutches of the devil, and died tragically under the muzzle of her husband's gun. Gui Ying's "confessional" traitor was both real and rare on the screen at that time, so much so that some people commented that Ma Jiahui and his wife were the most successful traitors portrayed in the "Seventeen Years" red movie.

Immortal, "Daughter of the Party" has endured for a long time with its lofty revolutionary spirit, lofty personality and strong artistic appeal, and its creators have also been remembered by history.