Farewell to Guo Baochang: The legendary life is over, and there is still a big mansion door in heaven

"I was shocked to learn of the death of Mr. Guo Baochang, and I was saddened! After graduating in 82 and assigned to the Guangxi factory, several young people who first arrived were recommended and appreciated by 'Guo Ye', and their gratitude is still remembered. When a few people went to his house to eat, they listened to him talk about the dream of 'big mansion gate', and the bits and pieces were still vividly remembered, which was embarrassing. Mr. Guo Baochang has gone all the way, and there is still a big mansion gate in heaven..."

At 16:30 on October 12, 2023, director Zhang Yimou, who rarely speaks out on matters other than films, posted a Weibo through his personal studio account to mourn director Guo Baochang, who died on October 11. In a short space, he recalled Guo Baochang's appreciation and help to him and several young directors at the time when he worked in Guangxi Film Studio forty years ago, and his words revealed a deep sense of gratitude. At the same time, netizens also began to post lamentations, regretting Guo Baochang's departure.

Guo Baochang, who died at the age of 83, is a rare kind of director who "seals God" with a TV series. On April 15, 2001, the TV series "Mansion Gate" written and directed by Guo Baochang was launched on CCTV, which immediately became popular throughout the country and won the ratings championship. In addition to starring actors such as Chen Baoguo, Liu Peiqi, Siqin Gaova, etc., what is more surprising is that well-known directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Jiang Wen have come to make cameos.

In fact, the stories in the play of "The Gate of the Mansion" are actually a portrayal of Guo Baochang's real life. The plot and characters of "The Gate of the Mansion" are all derived from what Guo Baochang saw and heard as the adopted son of a large family. The process of script creation spanned decades in Guo Baochang's hands, and the original script was destroyed several times, but it was brought back to life again and again, and finally filmed. Because the golden time of life was spent in a special period, the first half of Guo Baochang himself was also full of ups and downs, and these twists and turns were also the reasons why his works were rare and could only bloom in his later years.

In his later years, he continued to write books and stories, racing against time to record everything, once saying that he still had a belly story to tell, and now he can only say goodbye to everyone. Fortunately enough, with his excellent works, Guo Baochang and the legend he wrote will continue in this world. His "Mansion Gate" has long been an undisputed classic in domestic dramas and will always accompany the audience.

Life inside and outside the door

Audiences familiar with "The Gate of the Mansion" will still remember the shock that this drama left to the audience. The script has ups and downs, telling the joys and sorrows of the Bai family, a large family, and everyone in the play is very personal. Whether it is Bai Jingqi with a flamboyant personality, Bai Yingyu with a complex personality, or the responsible female character "Second Grandma", it can make the audience deeply empathize in the subtleties and feel the real vitality of these people.

It's hard to imagine how the script was created. In Guo Baochang's recollections, this magnificent story took place in a small room accompanied by only a desk, a refrigerator full of food, a pot of boiling water a day, and more than 40 days. In 1995, he wrote more than 50 episodes of "The Mansion Gate" in an isolated environment. During that time, memories flooded wildly, and the teachings of the adoptive mother and the wonderful stories from the adoptive father's mouth were all reproduced on the paper. In his own words, about 70 percent of the story is true and another 30 percent fiction.

Few people can endure such a lonely life, but for Guo Baochang, who is middle-aged, the time in this small room is an opportunity he has been waiting for for many years. So hard and desperately, because in the first half of his life, Guo Baochang did not have a chance to pursue his ideals and create works that truly belonged to him. And his life was once a bad hand, almost no choice to enter a game that must lose, but often ushered in peak turns. In the ups and downs, Guo Baochang can only protect himself in order to turn the suffering of the first half of his life into material and motivation in his script writing.

In 1940, Guo Baochang was born as the son of a poor man in Beijing, his father died early, he was sold by his mother, and after his death, he was bought by his adoptive mother Guo. His adoptive mother Guo Rong, married her adoptive father in her 70s as Mrs. Zhengfang in her 20s, because she had no offspring, she had been raising Guo Baochang, and it was this adoptive mother who took Guo Baochang to start another adventure in his life. After the age of 12, he stepped into the "gate of the big mansion", and under the complex family relationship, he gradually learned to look at people's eyes, experience the warmth of people, and silently observe a personal character in the big family.

In his parents' narration and his own personal contact, Guo Baochang found many characters with great personality, and also observed them as a half-outsider and half-himself. For example, Bai Yuting in "The Gate of the Mansion", because of her "drama obsession" and infatuation with opera actors, married to the photo, in fact, this character is Guo Baochang's aunt, and she did make the same choice in life. In addition, anyone with a discerning eye can see that Bai Jingqi, the head of the Bai family with great personality, is the embodiment of the interesting adoptive father in his heart who often tells him stories.

Since then, Guo Baochang, who has been listening to plays in Liyuan since he was a child, has been brewing that one day he can write these legends himself. In 1959, Guo Baochang seemed to be "running in time" again, ushering in an opportunity to realize his ideals. He took the college entrance examination and was admitted to the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy. Soon, Guo Baochang's identity as the adopted son of a wealthy family was questioned, but his mentor at the time gave him a ticket. He successfully enrolled in school, but his dream was not so easy to achieve, he was sent to a labor camp on the way, lost the opportunity to study, and his mentor committed suicide because of this. Under this kind of happy and tragic life script, Guo Baochang seems to have no choice, for the sake of the people around him, he can only choose to "guilty", live and wait.

Writing stories is also the motivation for him to sustain him. When he was a child, Guo Baochang began to consciously record the family story in his head, and later studied directing, and this habit was preserved, and he did not stop waiting for opportunities. But I can't count how many times the story he wrote down was destroyed. The adoptive mother destroyed the script because he wrote "family ugly", and in special years, the script was also destroyed, and even in later days, because of some contradictions, when he divorced his first wife, the script was lost once. At that time, he wanted nothing from property, just the script, but his wife gave him the answer "burned".

In the end, after the script was really completed, many people no longer knew Guo Baochang, who was over fifty years old and did not have many works, and how to organize a huge team became a problem, at that time, Chen Baoguo, Zhang Yimou, Jiang Wen and others all extended a helping hand. In the end, relying on the enthusiastic support of directors and actors in the film industry, after waiting for six years, the living characters in the script were truly solidified in the hearts of the audience through the interpretation of the "old drama bones".

Righteous and kind film circle "Bo Le"

Most people know Guo Baochang, first of all, because of the popularity of "The Gate of the Mansion" and because of the identity of the director of the TV series. In fact, Guo Baochang has another role, that is, as Zhang Yimou said, he is the "Bo Le" of the fifth generation of directors in the film industry. In 1973, Guo Baochang was transferred to work in Guangxi Film Studio, at that time he had not been completely rehabilitated because of his family background, and it was not until 1979 that Guo Baochang obtained a graduation certificate from the film school, and finally could let go of his hands and feet at work. However, his name is always hidden behind his back, and even the specific credit cannot be seen.

In the early 80s of the 20th century, Guo Baochang worked as an artistic director at Guangxi Film Studio, and during that time, he began to vigorously support new talents. With his support, a new generation of directors established a "youth film crew" and launched works such as "One and Eight" and "Yellow Earth", thus laying a solid foundation for the fifth generation of Chinese directors. Zhang Yimou once said that "without Guo Baochang, there would be no fifth generation of Chinese directors", this is by no means a joke, in addition to Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang and others have also benefited from Guo Baochang. But Guo Baochang himself is humble and low-key, and rarely mentions this past himself.

In his later years, Guo Baochang began to focus on promoting drama and striving to realize his unfulfilled ideals in the past. He wrote a book about Peking Opera, changing "The Gate of the Great Mansion" to Peking Opera.

The drama will end, the creator will die, but the good work will always wait for his audience, and the story will be told from generation to generation. At the end of "The Gate of the Mansion", the three old ladies played by Liu Peiqi gradually changed from a rich family with idle loafers to a person with integrity and conscience. Now, under the many Weibo that mourns Guo Baochang, some netizens shout out the well-known line "Three Old Ladies, Flowing Through the Ages", using this classic line to express respect and condolences for Guo Baochang, and also miss the vivid face he created with his life and memory.

Reporter: Qiu Guangyu