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Aesthetics has always been dominant in the history of aesthetics, and the relationship between beauty and ugliness has long been in a state of asymmetry.
In the classical aesthetic period, "beauty" is the eternal theme and the highest law, all creations must take "beauty" as the core, "ugly" is rejected and can only be committed to "beauty".
Until the Renaissance, Hugo developed the aesthetic principle of contrast between beauty and ugliness, and he said in the Preface to Cromwell: "Ugliness is next to beauty, deformity is close to beauty, vulgarity is hidden behind the sublime." ”
The coexistence from rejecting ugliness to beauty and ugliness is a major progress in the history of aesthetics, and it has also laid the foundation for the independent development of ugliness.
In 1853, the German aesthete Carl Rosenkranz's "The Aesthetics of Ugliness" officially classified ugliness into the category of aesthetics, although it cannot be separated from the existence of beauty in artistic expression, but there is no need to lower itself to set off beauty.
Since the rise of the concept of ugliness in the twentieth century, ugliness, which is characterized by disharmony and irrationality, has shined in major genres, showing the emptiness and alienation of society with exaggeration, distortion and deformation.
After "ugliness" has established its aesthetic status, the definition of "ugly" in the aesthetic community is also divergent. Mr. Pan Zhichang believes that ugliness is a comprehensive dissolution of beauty, and is the imperfection and disharmony of life.
In terms of form, "ugliness is a non-formal deformation, abstraction, distortion. In other words, it is the representation of irrational things in a formal way. ”
For example, absurdity, black humor and other abstract concepts are difficult to express in ordinary ways, so it is necessary to create ugliness by twisting and deformation, when ugly successfully expresses this abstract concept, it is beautiful, and the form of ugliness is the characteristics of aesthetic objects;
In terms of content, "ugliness is the release of irrational, immoral emotional existence. This release is actually a sense of liberation, excitement, guilt, guilt, indulgence brought about by the unconscious rebellion against reason."
Although the aesthetic experience of "ugly" to the audience is not beautiful, the power of "ugly" far exceeds "beauty", through the ugly experience to make irrational, non-moral release, people will think about the deep meaning behind it, thinking and spirit are transformed, so as to obtain the enlightenment of beauty.
Scandal is rooted in every artistic field, and directors before the sixth generation in Chinese cinema are more like revolutionaries in a sense, who preach the grand narrative of the country to people in their films, with deep historical thinking and humanistic care, with the goal of awakening the next generation of people.
By the sixth generation of directors, the aesthetic changed, they were more willing to shoot some of the world in their own eyes, and the aesthetic concept of ugliness as beauty led to the appearance of a large number of clowns in the film.
In this period of rapid social development, everyone is facing great pressure to survive, and in this state more spiritual and emotional stimulation is needed, the short and momentary poetry brought by beauty is no longer enough to make up for the rift in people's hearts, compared with beauty, ugliness has a greater impact.
Ugly trial is a kind of mixed and complex psychology, Freud believed that the production of ugly things is a special psychology of "emotional contradiction", and the real ugliness will make people feel the inside behind ugliness.
Ugliness is the true state of human society, since there is ugliness in life, then in entertainment and commerce, you cannot refuse ugliness, nor can you do without ugliness.
Ugly judging is also a major aesthetic feature of Ning Hao's films, and the audience's admiration is dissipated through ugliness. He is obsessed with building an "ugly" world for the audience, and uses "deformed characters" in the character settings.
"Except for a small number of these characters in the intellectual class, most of them are on the fringes and bottom of society, and they have a degree of deformity or distortion in psychology or body, but in reflecting the creative intention and artistic expression of the choreographer, even if it is only a small role, it is often more concentrated than some main or positive characters, which can show the author's creative deep meaning."
The deformity of the characters is highlighted by the ugly shape and the ugliness of the character, and this ugly world is full of deception, betrayal, professional unspoken rules, copycat culture, one-night stands, and so on.
Through the ugly review activities of Ning Hao's films, it can not only turn the ugliness to aesthetics, but also enable the subject to discover the reasons behind the "ugliness" at a deeper level, and then take the initiative to reflect on himself. From an aesthetic point of view, this aesthetic experience is more profound than the aesthetic experience.
The "ugliness" of character styling
In traditional movies, the protagonists are mostly tall and complete flat images, those who are dignified and look extraordinary are positive characters, and those who look ugly are negative characters.
Ning Hao's film creation breaks the aesthetics of traditional films, instead emphasizes ugliness, and examines life through the ugly way of film.
The protagonists in Ning Hao's movies are special, they are characters with ugly tendencies, and in this ugly movie world, the ugliness of the shape is the most intuitive display.
The characters in the film are mostly gray characters and grassroots characters, and gray characters mostly refer to some groups outside the fringes of life, such as criminals, thieves, prostitutes, etc.
Grassroots figures refer to "the bottom class including some workers in the business service industry, the industrial worker class and the agricultural labor class with very few organizational, economic and cultural resources, as well as the urban and rural unemployed, the unemployed and the semi-business class with basically no three resources."
They are at the lower end of the five classes, workers, peasants and semi-workers living in poverty and lacking job security. ”
They cannot be as harmonious as "beauty" in appearance, but they play an important role in film creation, these ugly shapes, truly reflect the current situation of life, meet the requirements of the audience's aesthetic diversity, and have shocking power.
In the choice of actors, in order to create an ugly world, Ning Hao did not choose to use small fresh meat and foreign trade actors, but also a very ordinary appearance that can be seen everywhere in life.
For example, actor Huang Bo is destined to be an ugly image in the film, and Ning Hao believes that Huang Bo's appearance is very dominant, because such a look will not make everyone feel a sense of distance.
He once commented: "He relies on his own efforts, he competes with Virgo's personality, and he is a very competitive actor I have ever seen."
There is also appearance, he has a very representative face - an ordinary person's face, not such a person who looks like a distanced and handsome guy. He's quite real, and it's really what everyone likes. ”
In "Crazy Stone", Huang Bo plays the little thief Black Skin in the play, crawling out of the sewer twice, his face is full of dirt, covered in black mud, and his long hair is even uglier after crawling in the sewer pipe, and the appearance of running with bread in the dirt at the end of the film is ugly and ridiculous.
In appearance, some little people originally want to beautify themselves, but this deliberate excessive beautification makes them ugly images.
Brother Dao, Black Skin, and Xiao Jun stole the equipment of the international thief and competed to try on clothes, but the appearance of wearing them was very absurd and exaggerated. When Black Leather wants to get into the car to "cheat "cheat", he also has to deliberately arrange his hair and pay great attention to his appearance.
Xie Xiaomeng's appearance is even more exaggerated, a mink coat and a hat, making the playboy's appearance very fancy and ugly.
Zhou Lijuan, a non-mainstream girl in "Heart Flower Road", is proud of her Killing Matt style and considers herself very trendy and fashionable. They are not deliberately ugly, but the contrast after exerting too much force makes the ugliness more intense and intuitive.
People exist in the world, and the environment they live in, the people they come into contact with are always connected, the external form has become the carrier of life, artists and writers have always focused on the appearance of people, in order to achieve the purpose of examining the world.
However, people's aesthetics are limited, and the acceptance of beauty is also limited, and the audience has always been in a beautiful environment, which will produce a sense of superiority, decadence, numbness, and then the suitability of beauty will weaken itself.
The subversiveness of Ning Hao's films is no longer obsessed with expressing beauty as the main form, fading the gorgeous appearance of traditional films, and shaping the distorted and deformed clown in appearance.
Through these created harlequins criticize and reflect real life, with unique audio-visual techniques to make the audience obtain aesthetic pleasure through ugly trials.
The "ugliness" of the character's personality
From the content point of view, the ugliness of Ning Hao's film is the release of irrational and non-moral emotional existence, which is specifically manifested in the ugliness of the characters' personalities. In this consumer society, people blindly pursue money and material things in order to seek the satisfaction of desires.
Ning Hao once said: "Except for "Green Grass", all my works are talking about one thing, that is, desire. ”
All the characters in the film are in the cage of desire, and in the process of chasing and achieving a benefit, the distortion of human nature and the rebellion against reason are shown.
"After the ugly side of people is shown, the audience will be happy, laughter is actually criticism, laughter is always negative things of human nature, bad things."
Although the ugly side of human nature shown in Ning Hao's film is not beautiful, he knows that exposing ugliness is not the ultimate goal, but to criticize and expose the alienated reality and human nature through ugly trials, and to let people withdraw from the ideal world.
Knowing that the real world is not only beautiful, but also ugly, so as to achieve the salvation of human nature. His ugly judgment is not an indiscriminate belief and worship, he dares to approach the ugly, looks at the ugly, and takes saving people's hearts as his fundamental purpose.
In the first two crazy series, there are some small characters that make people impressed, Black Skin, Dao Ge, Xiaojun, and the non-professional killer who entered the city all act as harlequin characters in the film, and what they hide behind are dirty money transactions.
Brother Dao faced Jade and the little brother who was trapped in the sewer to ask for his help, and chose Jade without hesitation, leaving Black Skin to fend for himself.
Hao Yi in "Heart Flower Road" appeared as a puff girl from the beginning of the story, spending money on the nurses in the hospital.
Taking Geng Hao to contact his online girlfriend on the way, the payment station picked up the toll salesman, and Tianmen Mountain even deceived the trust of the dancers who performed and had a one-night stand with him.
The girl in the hair salon has a non-mainstream dress, which is very inconsistent with the aesthetic view of the current public, and others impulsively put on an earring, and she wants to make a promise. The woman in the bar Xun Xun returned to the hotel with Geng Hao and Hao Yi, confessing to Geng Hao for money.
In this film, Ning Hao shows the ugly side of love in the current society through the plot of pick-up, one-night stand, and hunting for beauty, satirizing the laughing love.
The ugliness of human nature is vividly portrayed in Ning Hao's films, where he releases the forces of ugliness and darkness, trying to let the audience improve their aesthetic psychology through the examination of ugliness, and have the courage to face and overcome ugliness.
Ning Hao's pursuit of desire as the starting point for narrating events is actually a profound reflection and restraint on desires such as money, and this ugly tendency is a kind of progress in aesthetic understanding.
The aesthetic connotation of turning ugliness into beauty
In aesthetic activities, the reason why ugliness becomes an object with aesthetic value is either attributed to the result of aesthetic creation turning ugliness into beauty, or to the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluation.
That is to say, the value of ugliness is not in itself, but in the fact that it sets off beauty, which can be transformed into beauty to a certain extent, or can be associated with beauty through ugly phenomena.
Beauty and ugliness are to a certain extent opposites and unified, beauty in life can become beauty in film and television works, and ugliness in life can also become beauty in film and television works.
Any artistic creation is rooted in life, and movies are nothing more than that.
Ning Hao's film and television works deal with social phenomena, life events, character images, and language actions to form an infectious expression of ugliness, but they do not directly turn ugliness into beauty.
Instead, let ugliness expose its own appearance, so that aesthetic subjects can intuitively see the essence of ugliness, and make ugly things have a way to beauty.
Geng Hao in "Crazy Racing" is a harlequin image in appearance, but after a series of accidents, the teacher is paralyzed in a wheelchair and it is difficult to move, Geng Hao tries to make a living and make money.
After the teacher's death, he tried to give him a funeral, even in the face of Taiwanese drug dealers with unequal strength, he still had to recover the teacher's ashes.
But Ning Hao's ugliness is not ugly, turning ugliness into beauty requires the creator's correct aesthetics, noble sentiments, and healthy mind, without these, it can only get uglier and uglier.
In the current impetuous era, some creative subjects have vulgar and obscene aesthetic tastes, which makes the works go to the road of passivity and ugliness.
For example, Guo Jingming's "Small Times", the actors use a large number of handsome men and beautiful women, the picture is extremely exquisite, but in fact, under the guise of the theme of youth, it promotes the worship of drunken gold fans, and uses false betrayal to create contradictions and conflicts in the pretentious friendship of the four.
The whole movie is full of lust for power, obsession with money.
If a person can only be aesthetic but does not have the ability to judge ugliness, then his aesthetics are also unsound, and only by daring to face all ugly things can people have the strength to overcome it.
On the surface, ugliness is evil, but in the long run, ugliness has negative aesthetic value, and by violating moral standards, social purposes, and objective laws, it causes the subject's negative aesthetic emotions, and ugliness promotes the development of human beings, which is an indispensable force for building human nature and ethics.
Ning Hao used ugliness to disintegrate the image of beauty, bringing visual discomfort to the audience, but this will also give people a more complete psychological construction of discernment, no longer be confused by the appearance of beauty, and understand that in real life there is ugliness in addition to beauty.