【Audio-visual Observation】
【Sponsored by the Literature and Art Department of Guangming Daily, China Television Art Committee】
Author: Yi Weiping (Literature and Art Criticism Group of China Television Art Committee)
On February 1, 2024, the "Revisit the Classics" channel will be launched, making the classics a hot topic of discussion again. Many classic TV series carrying collective memory, such as "Four Worlds in the Same Hall", "Journey to the West", "Dream of Red Mansions", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Desire", "Crossing the Guandong" and many other classic TV series carrying collective memory have once again formed a hot spot among the audience, showing the enduring artistic vitality, and inspiring current creators to decode the internal and external factors that have become classics, and find experience and paths for casting new classics.
Stills from the TV series "Journey to the West" profile picture
Because classics have the power of ideological penetration, they can exert spiritual value across time and space
Thoughts and values are the soul of a work, and all art forms are carriers that express certain ideas and values. How to enlighten people's hearts in a silent way, convey the concept of goodness and progress, and make the works have the ability to penetrate ideas across time and space is an important proposition for creators to think about. Classic TV dramas often use vivid brushstrokes in character building, emotional construction, audio-visual rhetoric, etc., naturally integrate profound ideological themes into the story, and compose a three-dimensional and rich life and life sample, so that they have been repeatedly appreciated and interpreted by generations of audiences, and have been passed down for a long time.
On the one hand, these works focus on the theme of the plot and the characterization without a trace. For example, "Crossing the Guandong" places the spiritual qualities of unremitting self-improvement and perseverance in the vivid portraits of the characters represented by Zhu Kaishan; "Soldier Assault" attaches the life creed of "not abandoning and not giving up" to Xu Sanduo's close-to-earth, amiable and touching image; and "Bright Sword" uses a plot full of dramatic tension and the wise and brave character of the anti-Japanese heroes to interpret the "bright sword" spirit of Chinese soldiers. On the other hand, these works allow spiritual values to have an interpretive power across time and space, thus acting on the human and emotional levels, reflecting a certain deep historical accumulation and cultural structure, so that audiences of different generations can resonate and find a mirror from them. For example, the audience can still comprehend the twists and turns of life experience and persistent and resolute enterprising heart from "Journey to the West", feel the rich texture of history and the heroic spirit of heroes from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and realize the sincere love and long-term life attitude from "Parents' Love".
The ideological theme is not "duckweed without roots", but "taking root and sprouting" in vivid and touching plots. Although there are generational differences, the audience can't help but immerse themselves in an eternal love and a mighty atmosphere, savoring the profound connotations of the works about history, culture and human nature, so as to gain spiritual strength and emotional value.
Stills from the TV series "Parents Love" profile picture
Because classics have aesthetic insight and can interpret timeless cultural values
Classics have a timeless artistic charm, and the roots of this artistic charm come from the people. People's life is an inexhaustible source of creation for film and television art. Many classic dramas construct a self-consistent art world by dramatically refining and arranging real life and life experiences, revealing the essential truth of life in fictional stories. "The Happy Life of Poor Zhang Damin" is based on a small courtyard, integrating the trivial matters of life into the plain and detailed plot, and measuring the shortcomings of parents and the world with temperature. "Desire" depicts the world of fireworks with real and delicate brushstrokes, tells the complex love experience of several young people, reveals people's desire for a better life, and thus gives birth to a profound taste of life situations. Both dramas allow the audience to see themselves in fictional stories, and this resonance stems from the in-depth excavation and presentation of society, times, and emotions in the works, reflecting the cultural value of classic creation.
The people are not abstract symbols, but concrete people with flesh and blood. In the creation of TV dramas, the height reached by typical characters is often the height of the work, and it is also the height of the art era. How to make the characters deeply rooted in the hearts of the people? Classic dramas bring us inspiration. The first is to pursue the typicality of image building. For example, in "Looking for the World to Come Back", those teenagers who have lost their way on the road of growth and strive to return to the right path reflect the same spiritual trajectory of young people of different generations from a certain angle. The second is to show the three-dimensional character of the character. For example, Li Yunlong in "Bright Sword" has distinct advantages and disadvantages, he has a low level of education, is hot-blooded and reckless, but he is good at using his brains, and he often wins surprisingly on the battlefield. This three-dimensional shaping makes the characters real and sensible. The third is the drama of using the "dilemma structure". For example, Qi Ruixuan in "Four Generations in the Same Hall" fell into the dilemma of whether to be loyal or filial piety at the critical moment when the country was invaded by foreign enemies, and his inner struggle and life choice to finally embark on the road of anti-aggression highlight the work's excavation of the depth of human nature and the praise of the noble spirit.
The reason why classic dramas can burst out with such a lasting artistic charm is the result of the creators going into the depths of life, understanding the essence of life among the people, and understanding the essence of life. Only by thoroughly understanding life and internalizing the laws of art into creative thinking can we transform the spirit of the times, the true meaning of life, and the truth, goodness and beauty of human nature into wonderful stories and moving images, and can the works warm the soul and nourish the spirit for a long time with timeless beauty.
Stills from the TV series "Dream of Red Mansions" profile picture
Because classics have formal creativity and can show the artistic charm of leading the trend
Classics are not static, their vitality lies in innovation. Therefore, the creation of TV dramas must work hard to improve originality, work hard to expand the theme, content, form, and technique, and strive to inspire and lead the creative direction and expression of a period and a class of works through iconic artistic innovations, and such dramas are naturally more likely to become classics.
The history of the development of mainland TV dramas is, from a certain point of view, a history of artistic innovation. At the end of the 80s of the 20th century, the rural drama "Fence, Woman and Dog" met with the audience, and a group of flesh-and-blood Chinese peasant group portraits were constructed with characters with distinctive personalities such as jujube flowers and Maoyuan old men, which radiated a strong artistic appeal and cultural penetration. In the new century, in the face of the marketization trend in the creative field, the military drama "Soldier Assault" went the opposite. There is no so-called star selling point and love story gimmick in the play, and the spirit of "not abandoning or giving up" of ordinary soldiers alone has gained super popularity and rave reviews, and it is still talked about today. In addition, "Jigong" and "The Right Way in the World is the Vicissitudes of Life" all use creative concepts or expressions that seemed to be full of novelty at the time, and have been recognized by peers in different eras and favored by audiences.
Throughout the history of the development of mainland TV dramas, along with the tireless innovation and exploration in the field of production, the award reviews also play an important role in encouraging innovation and promoting classics through the selection and interpretation of a large number of works. "Revisiting the Classics" channel broadcast "Desire", "Breaking through the East", "Bright Sword", etc., are all excellent works selected by the Feitian Award and the Golden Eagle Award at that time, and these masterpieces lead the creative trend for a period of time with distinctive innovative characteristics. In the same way, in the process of canonizing the work, the shaping role of criticism is also indispensable. The accurate and influential comments of the mainstream media on the artistic quality and innovation of a work can basically set the tone of its historical evaluation, and even directly affect its social repercussions and historical status. Therefore, the award review is very important to explore the innovative value and classic potential of the work.
To measure the literary and artistic achievements of an era, we must ultimately look at the works. Excellent literary and artistic works reflect a country's and a nation's artistic creativity and cultural development level. Therefore, to promote the prosperity and development of literature and art, the most fundamental thing is to create and produce excellent works worthy of our great nation and great era. Today, we come to revisit the classics and interpret the classics, not only to better meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the audience with cultural people and serve the people, but also to fully demonstrate the practical significance and value of the classics, explore the creation rules and generation mechanisms of the classics, and promote the emergence of more classics in the new era.
Guangming Daily (2024-04-24 Edition 15)
Source: Guangming Net-Guangming Daily