Life rises and falls like a play: Guo Baochang's "big mansion gate" life

How much grinding in life / The boy runs amok / Standing is a person / There is affection and responsibility / There is no dependence and self-improvement / This body is proud and knocks up...

A "Mansion Gate" opened the legendary era of period dramas, and also made Guo Baochang and his mansion a household name. On the 11th, legendary director Guo Baochang died of illness in Beijing, and his life was frozen at the age of 83. Red Star News reporters confirmed the incident from Guo Baochang's family, and the obituary said, "I would like to thank all relatives and friends who care about him with this obituary."

After experiencing ups and downs in his life, the old man has long looked down on life and death, and he is quite free. Before leaving, he instructed his family to announce the funeral and not hold any farewell ceremony.

In 2021, in Guo Baochang's self-essay collection "All Big Characters", he recalled his life before the age of 12 - in the 1927 Hebei disaster, carpenter Guo Shaochen fled to Beijing with his wife and daughter. After Guo Shaochen's death, his 10-year-old daughter Guo Rong was sold into a wealthy Lejia, and at the age of 23, she married the 70-year-old Le Si master. Guo Rong had no children, and in 1942 bought Li Baochang, the son of a beggar (Xiao Baochang lost his father at a young age, and was first sold by his biological mother to the Wu family, and then sold to the Guo family). Later, Li Baochang's fourth master called his aunt, and his adoptive mother Guo Rong called his aunt, and only in 1953 did he change his name to his mother and change his name to Guo Baochang.

Guo Baochang and his adoptive mother

After that, Guo Baochang stepped into the door of the mansion and suddenly changed from asking for food to "people on people".

Guo Baochang once recalled that before he was 12 years old, the door of the house was still quite mysterious for him. Occasionally go in once, that is, to eat fruit, or suddenly say that the Spring Festival fireworks are set off, someone brings them in, and then sends them out.

"After my grandmother died, my mother took me in, which was officially the door. It was so impressive that I will never forget it. Because I suddenly got out of my poor small home, I clearly realized that a new life had begun, and my identity was different: you could eat whatever you wanted from the kitchen, and people could make it for you alone. Give you a fixed allowance every month, and in the 1950s I was given $40 a month, when a worker's salary was only $36 a month. ”

Guo Baochang's life can be described as wonderful. He himself believes that this life has great ups and downs, but it is a great fortune. This fortune comes at the cost of life, and no one wants to repeat this kind of luck, and this kind of struggle is not something that ordinary people can bear.

In 1959, Guo Baochang was admitted to the directing department of the film school, and his status at home suddenly changed dramatically. "Most of the young masters and ladies in the family eat the ancestors' meals and are idle at home, and people like me who are both enterprising in studies and politics are very promising, in the words of those "grandfathers": OK, Baoye, college students are still in the party! ”

However, the good times did not last long. A few years later, when he was studying in the fifth year of the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy, Guo Baochang was classified as a "reactionary student" and experienced life and death. Guo Baochang recalled that when he returned from the labor camp and stood at Donghua Gate, he didn't know where to go for a while, "I didn't know where my mother and the rest of my family were. ”

After that, Guo Baochang came to Guangxi. While working in Guangxi Film Studio, Guo Baochang supported directors such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige to launch works such as "One and Eight" and "Yellow Earth", laying the foundation for China's fifth generation of directors. Zhang Yimou once said: "Without Guo Baochang, there would be no fifth generation of Chinese directors."

In October 1983, Guangxi Film Studio officially established a "youth film crew" and put into production "One and Eight". Zhang Junzhao is the director, Zhang Yimou and Xiao Feng are the photographers, He Qun is the artist, and Guo Baochang is the "not named" art director. The newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, they have ideas, courage and courage to shoot their own things, and when they are happy to finish the film, they have not been recognized by the leaders of the film studio, and they have been greatly criticized.

At this time, Guo Baochang said in a row: "It's not easy for young directors to make a play, change it, I think I can act!" With this sentence, the movie was released.

Until now, Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang and other fifth-generation directors collectively call him "Baoye" or "Guo Ye", which shows Guo Baochang's status.

Guo Baochang's most famous TV series is "The Gate of the Mansion". The "Great Mansion Gate", which has been written after several drafts, is like a miniature version of the legend of the Red Chamber in the late Qing Dynasty and early Min. In the play, Guo Rong became Xiangxiu, his adoptive father Le Jingyu (the fourth master of Tongrentang) became Bai Jingqi, and Guo Baochang himself became Li Tianyi. Viewers relish the plot of the play and the correspondence of the Chinese medicine family.

"The Gate of the Mansion" was first written when Guo Baochang was 16 years old, thinking of writing the story of his family. But by chance, Guo Baochang's manuscript was discovered by his mother, who set fire to Guo Baochang's hard-working manuscript on the grounds that "family ugliness must not be publicized".

Later, Guo Baochang wrote again, but it was destroyed again. When he divorced his first wife in 1980, the manuscript of The Mansion Gate was once again burned by fire. In 1994, Guo Baochang locked himself in his home in Beijing, which was only more than 40 square meters at the time, and began to write "The Gate of the Mansion" again.

In 1995, Guo Baochang began to write the script of the TV series "The Gate of the Mansion". He spent half a year, first wrote the first fifty-two episodes, even the preparation and desk work, basically did not go downstairs for 8 months, locked himself in the house, and saw no one. "I write alone behind closed doors, I endure loneliness, and I write very smoothly. Because it's something I've been forming in my head for decades, just reorganizing it. ”

In the same year, the TV series "The Gate of the Mansion" began filming. At that time, Chen Baoguo was the first actor to enter the group, and he also received a good remuneration, 90,000 yuan. Because of the wrong investor, the first version of "Mansion Gate" just filmed three episodes, and various problems appeared. Guo Baochang was vacated and the copyright of "The Gate of the Mansion" was taken away. After learning the news, Chen Baoguo directly photographed the 90,000 salary that had been received on the table. "I'm sorry, as long as it's not director Guo Baochang, I won't participate. Director Guo spent forty years writing such a great work, we have to respect. ”

After 3 years, the copyright of the script finally returned to Guo Baochang's hands. In order to continue filming "The Gate of the Mansion", Guo Baochang talked to more than 80 investors in four years, and the results were all yellow. In 2000, producer Yu Shengli approached Guo Baochang and wanted to cooperate with him. In the end, "The Gate of the Mansion" was filmed.

Guo Baochang has said on many occasions that if "The Gate of the Mansion" cannot be filmed, he will not be able to live peacefully in this life and die blindly, "When I started filming "The Gate of the Mansion", I also had that sense of panic, I felt that I couldn't start anymore, I couldn't do it anymore. When I'm old, my energy won't be good, maybe one day I will 'bang' it, it's really dead! ”

On October 15, 2001, "The Mansion Gate" premiered, winning the ratings championship of that year with a rating of 17.74 points, and quickly became popular all over the country.

Since then, "The Gate of the Mansion" has launched a drama version and a Beijing Opera version. At the press conference of the drama "The Gate of the Mansion", actor Zhu Yuanyuan once revealed that the old man loves this play too much! During the rehearsal process, he went to the rehearsal hall early every day, and he insisted on working without hindrance from wind and snow, without resting for a cold. "He told us about plays, about the people of old Beijing, and about his life. Watching us rehearse, he would shed tears, which shocked me! ”

Over the years, although he has not filmed, Guo Baochang still has not stopped, launched dramas, Beijing opera "Mansion Gate" tour, and wrote books such as "All Big Characters" and "Great Games".

Guo Baochang said that he hurriedly finished everything he wanted to do, but he was afraid that if he didn't write again, he wouldn't have a chance, and this is also his way of being worthy of his ancestors.

Red Star News Reporter Qiu Junfeng Editor Su Jing