From the rise of science fiction films and imagination consumption, the "essence of film" is approaching

Author: Li Jianqiang

Five years ago, Liu Cixin, a big celebrity of Chinese science fiction literature, predicted that science fiction publications are not optimistic at present, except for a small number of works, they are still small audiences, "On the contrary, science fiction film and television I am optimistic, and the near future will usher in a big stage of development... It is very likely that in the next five to ten years, China will become another science fiction film and television power besides the United States. Today, his prophecy has almost come true. With the rise of excellent domestic sci-fi films such as "The Wandering Earth" and "Walking on the Moon Alone", sci-fi films are becoming more and more favored by the market and audiences, and the box office has been rising all the way, and the number of people has increased year by year. "The Wandering Earth" has a box office of nearly 4.7 billion, with more than 100 million viewers; The box office of "The Wandering Earth 2" also reached 4.029 billion, with 90 million viewers. The box office of the two sci-fi series totaled nearly 9 billion, and both entered the top 10 Chinese film box office, becoming a new beautiful scenery for domestic genre films.

For the strong force of Chinese science fiction films, the academic circles and the industry have made various interpretations, each with its own considerations and reasons. The author would like to start from the perspective of the emerging "imaginative consumption" and make some new interpretations of this.

In the past, we used to think that real life is the source of all literature and art (including film), because all artistic creation will have one connection with "reality" and "life" in one way or another. In fact, the creation of literature and art, especially video art, must not be understood in such a simplistic way. As early as the beginning of the twentieth century, Münsterberg clearly stated in his book "Cinema: A Psychological Study" that film does not exist as a material object on the screen, but only in the mind of the audience, "in our minds, the past, the future and the present are intertwined." Cinema follows the laws of the mind, not the outside world" "The way cinema works is isomorphic with the human imagination". This insight and proclamation make us marvel at it today.

"Reality" mainly refers to what has happened and existed, while "imaginative isomorphism" examines what does not yet exist; "Life" mainly faces the things that people feel empathy for in the moment, while "imagination isomorphism" covers the composite world. Video art based on "imaginative isomorphism" should not only satisfy the reality that people feel and see, but also the reality that human imagination and fiction. Therefore, in the process of creation, film artists can and should see thousands of miles, think for thousands of years, create and gain the source of their hearts, mobilize all their experience and all imagination, withdraw from the material restoration and natural ecology provided by "real life", "look at the ancient and modern in the whiskers, and caress the four seas in an instant", and then create a colorful and super-dusty second nature to meet the growing spiritual and cultural needs of themselves and the audience.

At present, the dual revolution of information technology and biotechnology not only brings about the transformation of film media ontology, but also greatly releases the imagination of film narrative and construction, making imagination based on yearning and cognition based on reality have the same significance in film creation. Modern scientific research has also proved that imagination, as a precipitate of creative imagination and creative thinking, is a higher-level thinking activity and ability, which can be based on facts or transcend concrete things; It can be with the help of perceptual consciousness or by intellectual will; It can rely on people's innate qualities, or they can rely on the "ideological materials" accumulated by people day after tomorrow, and use rich illusions and imaginations to create "allegorical images" that hope to realize things. All this not only opens up the horizon boundary for the entire video art, but also puts flexible wings on the creation of science fiction films.

As Professor Chen Xuguang pointed out in a recent interview with the China Popular Science Writers Association, young people are experiencing more and more immersive products and services such as virtual reality, "With the development of their imagination and the deepening of their thinking on innovative technologies such as ChatGPT, the demand for imaginative consumption by moviegoers will increase." Similarly, the transcendence of science fiction movies will become stronger and stronger in the future. ”

I think there are two main reasons why imaginative consumption is so important to the creation of science fiction films:

First of all, of course, because of the peculiarities of science fiction. Film is a new medium that constantly adjusts its own scope with the iteration of technology, and as a new genre that comes later, the content of science fiction films is heaven and earth, all-encompassing, eclectic and flexible in form, and brings the openness and inclusiveness of video works to the extreme. The production of modern sci-fi blockbusters often goes hand in hand with the advancement of new media and digital technology, completely changing the mode and regulation generated by traditional films in the past, and coming out with a natural new attitude, generating extremely impactful and appealing image narratives and pictures, bringing people unprecedented audio-visual shocking feelings. From a worldwide perspective, the birth of "Star Wars" and others has suddenly pushed people's attention to distant galaxies beyond the earth, greatly expanding the space-time world of images; "Avatar" expands the possibilities of image expression like never before through naked-eye 3D motion capture, which is amazing (so far it has topped the global box office rankings). Similarly, Chinese sci-fi blockbusters, whether it is the peculiar idea of "taking the earth to wander" in "The Wandering Earth", the ultimate imagination of "the last human in the universe" in "Walking on the Moon Alone", or the spectacular mirror image of the tsunami sweeping the city, the fall of the Ark space station, the nuclear explosion of the moon, and the space battle in "The Wandering Earth 2"... It's all full of whimsy and mind-opening. Obviously, these first-class new science fiction products based on local culture, jumping out of the logical framework set by traditional time and space and causality, and fully displaying the national imagination space, without extraordinary imagination, will definitely be difficult to land.

The second is because of the psychological needs and desires of modern audiences. Modern young audiences grew up watching TikTok and playing e-sports, and they are more imaginative and exploratory than their parents. The huge changes in thinking and lifestyle brought about by the digital age have made them naturally have more yearning for the virtual world and more desire for emotional experiences different from real life, which provides the richest soil for the growth and implantation of science fiction films. At the same time, this generation has not only experienced reform and opening up, globalization, economic and social development, but also witnessed many new changes such as trade wars and "deglobalization" later, especially the impact of the sudden new crown epidemic in the past three years, forming what American economist Marcus Brennamel called the "scar effect" of the epidemic, which urgently needs psychological and emotional catharsis. Novel, broad, and deep, the Chinese sci-fi blockbuster featuring romanticism and heroism not only brings the audience into the wonders and wonders that have never been experienced before, but also satisfies their curiosity and exploration psychology to the greatest extent, forming a drainage channel and "lipstick effect"; And help them perceive and recognize reality in a detached way, bravely face all kinds of unexpected and difficult challenges, and build confidence in life and the future.

Here, imaginary stories are endowed with actual energy, allowing subjects and objects to resonate with each other, alternating between the present and the present. In the increasingly diversified and uncertain social context of the world, the erection of Chinese science fiction films coincides with the trend of social life and the psychological variables of the main audience, and has a profound foundation in sociology, economics, anthropology and culture, and also places the great development of Chinese science fiction films on the broad foundation of imagination consumption.

I also want to point out that the popularity of science fiction films is a worldwide trend. Starting from "Third Contact" and "Blade Runner" in the seventies and eighties of the last century, to "The Matrix" and "Jurassic Park" in the nineties, to "Artificial Intelligence" and "Inception" after entering the new century, until the recent "The New Batman" and "Avatar 2", American science fiction films have developed to maturity since their inception, developed all the way, and become Hollywood's veritable poster and box office king. In the past, we tend to think that the emergence of science fiction films is more accidental, the result of capital enveloping film art, and Hollywood's attempt to compete in the market, but now it seems that it is also linked to the scientific and technological revolution and the evolution and development of human imagination. Science fiction movies have never been just high-tech and high-concept light and shadow shows, but the inevitable product of the mixture of world development empowerment, technological revolution advancement and human mental growth. Hollywood is just a step ahead, a step ahead, and has led and dominated the world film scene for decades. In order to develop to a higher stage, human beings must judge the time and size up the situation, stand tall and look far, and constantly reshape and develop themselves. The emergence of science fiction blockbusters represents the rise of a new cognitive communication medium, igniting human reverie and longing for the mysterious outer space world, in line with people's wishes and ideals to try to get rid of various natural and man-made disasters in the real world, and elevating people's imagination consumption to a new stage, which can be found from the growth of human minds, the ultimate care of the world, and the powerful power of the imaginary world.

Imaginative consumption breeds new productive forces, from the attachment and single expression of real images to the beginning of accommodating the cognition of virtual and real symbiosis, to entering the exploration of the virtual digital world, which is an unstoppable stretch of the human spiritual consumption spectrum. From this point of view, the marriage and fit between the creation of science fiction films and the consumption of imagination is actually a manifestation of the "essence of film", and a development and bloom of the magical charm and unique function of images. In this process, people's imagination and the expressiveness of images are double-iterated, and the value of imagination consumption is displayed in front of the world in a solid scene.

(The author is a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and vice president of the China Film Critics Society)

Source: Wen Wei Po