Memories of a veteran soldier of the Corps: I was a film projectionist in the Great Northern Wilderness
In 1968, I went to the countryside and went to the Eighth Regiment of the Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps. In those years, in addition to their heavy work, in addition to listening to programs broadcast on cable radio, the cultural life of the educated youths and workers of the company was very boring, and watching movies became a major part of their spare time. As long as I heard that the movie was shown in the evening, the company could finish work early in the afternoon, and the workers would go home to cook, and then bring a small stool to the field early to occupy a place, and the children would be even more happy to run around on the field, just like a grand event.
Company comrades-in-arms together
When we first arrived at the Eighth Regiment, there was a film projection team at the regimental headquarters, equipped with 35mm charter machines, 35mm landlines, and 16mm projectors, which showed movies in the club and in the company in turn. Due to the limited personnel and equipment, there are more than 40 screening points in the group, and each point cannot watch a few movies a year. In order to enrich the amateur cultural life of the soldiers and workers of the Corps, in 1971, each battalion set up a film projection group, equipped with a Nanjing-made Changjiang brand FL5202 16mm mobile projector.
We put on a movie together
A film projectionist is a technical position, which requires training and a projectionist qualification certificate before he can work on the job. Through the two-level training of the division and the regiment, under the patient guidance and hand-in-hand guidance of the masters, through the disassembly and assembly of various parts of the projector, we gradually have a clear understanding of the performance and structure of the five major systems of film transmission, light source, sound reproduction, mechanical transmission and control circuit, and master the basic methods of maintenance and troubleshooting in the future. The 16mm projectors equipped for each battalion are single-camera projections, and each film copy usually has four to five reels of film, each of which lasts 20 to 30 minutes, so that a film needs to be stopped three to four times for film changes.
In order to shorten the waiting time for the audience to change the film, the projectionist must have a good skill in changing the film. A film should be operated in less than 20 seconds from the time it is hung on the feed shaft to the receiving tray on the reeling arm. We used an old piece of film to practice the machine repeatedly, and finally we were able to complete the process smoothly and quickly.
In the actual operation training, the master told everyone one by one what to do if the power suddenly ran out, what to do if the amplifier was silent, what to do if the film was broken, and so on. After more than a month of training, we passed the examination and received the "Film Projectionist Certificate" stamped with the steel seal of the Corps
On the day of the first movie show on the playground of the camp school, we set up a shelf on the playground early, hung up the curtain, connected the power supply, laid the speaker cable, fixed the speakers, and set up the projector on the desk moved from the school, and everything went well. It was getting dark, and the playground was full of adults and children, perhaps to see how good our novice screening skills were, and it seemed that there were a lot of people watching the movie this night.
When we were ready to show the projector, we turned on the projector, pointed the camera at the screen, and adjusted the size, when the bright pillar of light hit the screen, and we saw countless fine dust flying in the pillar of light, and the children put their hands on the pillar of light, showing the image of a rabbit on the screen, causing a burst of shouting. We took out the microphone again, tried the speakers, heard the sound, and got ready to go.
When the screening began, we took a film from the cassette, expertly loaded it into various parts of the projector, and then flipped the switch, and the film studio logo and music on the film's title were clearly displayed in front of the audience. The first independent screening without a master was successful.
When we went to the company to show movies, the company sent a rubber-tyred tractor or a horse-drawn carriage to pick us up, and the closer company sometimes sent an ox cart, and the old cow was slow and leisurely, and the machine was stable on the car. Once, when we went to a company mainly engaged in animal husbandry, we were sent to a carriage driven by a large stallion, and the tall stallion made the cart high in front and low in the back, and the machine box was placed on the cart, and as soon as the horse ran up, it slipped straight back, so we had to sit behind the box and hold the box with our bodies to prevent it from falling under the car. Only when a new film comes, and it is only given for one day, and then we want to show two more shows, and sometimes the battalion sends a car to pull us around.
There is almost no auditorium in the company, and the movies are all shown in the open air, and the spring and autumn days are fine, but not in the summer, mosquitoes and small bites are flying all over the sky, and they fly to the bright place, and the area around the projector has become their gathering place, so we have to bombard mosquitoes while showing movies. But when it comes to changing the film, the two-handed operation doesn't care about the mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes take advantage of the void to enter, and every time a movie is played, several big bags will be bitten out of the face.
The winter temperature in the Great Northern Wilderness is often around minus 20 °C to 30 °C, under these conditions, people's enthusiasm for watching movies in the open air is still undiminished, but no one sits and watches it anymore, all of them cover themselves tightly from head to toe, stand in front of the screen with their hands to watch movies, and stomp their feet from time to time to keep warm.
We don't sit next to the projector anymore, but walk around and watch the projector work. I remember once showing "Waves of the Danube" on the playground of the camp school, and after letting go, my hands were so cold that I couldn't be flexible, so I had to quickly run into the classroom next to it, and took advantage of the residual warmth in the stove to calm down for a while before going out to clean up the machine again.
Movies are shown in the open air
In 1972, during the wheat harvest season, it was the turn of our battalion to screen the new film "Ode to the Dragon River", but there was only one day, and according to the custom, it could only be screened once in the camp headquarters that night.
In fact, it is said to be a large auditorium, but it is a large room, with one-third of it used as a canteen, and the remaining two-thirds used for meetings, and there is an earthen platform at the top, which is considered a stage, and there are no fixed seats under the stage, but rows of wooden planks made of bricks.
Although there is a room, the absence of shading measures will also greatly affect the projection effect. Unexpectedly, when we arrived at the company, several large windows of the entire auditorium were tightly blocked by the educated youths with their own blankets, quilts, and tarpaulins on the yard, and the adults and children of the company crowded the auditorium in the dark.
In order to let every soldier and worker see the movie, the company leader specially called back all the people who were working in the field. At that time, the company was fighting the flood to harvest wheat, and some young soldiers even learned to sing the song in the film while resting in the field: "Stand on the heels of the field, turn your heart to the red sun, strive to be a new general of the times, and let the youth shine with revolutionary light."
The most memorable scene was the scene when the North Korean film "Flower Girl" was released in the group in the winter of 1973. "The Flower Girl" is a widescreen color film, in order to put this movie well, the troupe film team equipped with widescreen lenses, installed a widescreen screen in the club, and covered the stage.
Unexpectedly, two days before it was our turn to screen, it snowed heavily and the roads were closed. Unexpectedly, the regiment specially sent a jeep driving the front and rear to pull the projectionists to pick up the film, and ordered the companies along the line to send bulldozers to shovel snow all the way in front until the car that picked up the film returned early the next morning.
Since it was the first time that a widescreen film was screened, the soldiers and workers were enthusiastic about watching the movie, and the club was crowded with people sent by various units to buy tickets, and the film team had to increase the number of screenings, and the projectionists were divided into two groups to rotate, one after the other. Quite a number of company members braved the snow to travel dozens of miles in big trucks, rubber-tyred tractors, or horse-drawn carts to the regimental club to watch movies; without exception, on the highway leading from each battalion to the regimental headquarters, there were bulldozers from neighboring companies shoveling snow and opening the way.
"The Flower Girl" was once hailed as a tearful film, in which the tragic fate of the protagonists Hua Ni and Shun Ji sisters and the bleak and sour episodes were tear-jerking, and the club was choked and sobbed. In this way, from the opening of the film at more than 6 o'clock in the morning to the delivery of the next group in the middle of the night, I don't remember how many shows were shown in a day.
Brave the snow to line up at the group club to watch "The Flower Girl"
In addition to showing movies to the company, sometimes they will also be tasked with showing movies in condolence activities. Every winter, the regiment sends people to the Xiaoxing'an Mountains forest area to cut wood. Once, the troupe sent a film team into the mountains to show condolences and show movies, and I was also fortunate to participate.
After the car departed, it went straight to Heilongjiang and drove towards the northwest forest area on the frozen and solid river. It was the first and only time I walked on the ice in a car, and I was a little uneasy when I heard the sound of ice rattling under the wheels. Leaving the river and entering the mountains, the road is lined with towering trees, which is really spectacular, and I can see what the big forest is like.
The logging team lived in a wood-made house, flanked by planks, and in the middle of a large oil drum burned broken wood. We set up the projector in the hallway, hung the curtain at one end of the room, and let go of the movie. The loggers all sat and knelt on the kang, watching with relish, and the movie brought fun to these comrades fighting in the depths of the mountains. Later, there was a new FL-8.75mm small projector produced in Beijing, which was more suitable for projection in a relatively small room.
In the two years I showed movies, there were very few films that could be screened. There are few film sources, so I have to play back and forth the only few films. I have watched the same film many times, and everyone can not only tell the plot well, but also remember many of the classic lines and use them in life to vividly express empathy and humor.
For example, when we need to comfort and encourage each other in our lives, we often use the line that Lenin's personal guard Vasily said when comforting his wife in "Lenin in October": "There will be bread, there will be milk, everything will be there"; when everyone praises a person for coming up with a good idea, they often use Commander Tang's ass in "Tunnel War" to say, "High! It's really high"; when they see someone they don't know coming, they will whisper to the people around them the classic line in "Railway Guard": "Someone from overseas is coming"; When people volunteer to undertake a certain task, they often quote the line of the soldier Wang Cheng in "Children of Heroes" at the last critical moment, "For the sake of victory, shoot at me", and the line "500 work" in "When Picking Apples" is often secretly described by everyone as those fat and strong women.
In addition, "the ladies of the telephone office have fainted!", "Hurry up and occupy the Winter Palace!", "Let Comrade Lenin go first!", "No devils, no strings." "Can a beautiful face bag grow rice?" "The Old Fox" in "The Invisible Front", "What book did you hold?" "What song?" Arirang!", the guerrillas' code words in "Coastal Wind and Thunder", "Destroy the fascists!" "Freedom belongs to the people!", "Amir, rush!" in "Visitors on the Iceberg", etc., were all talked about by everyone for a while.
Forty years later, the projectionists returned to the club and reunited
Of course, watching a movie is a lot of fun, but if you want to watch a film several times in a row, it is not fun, but boring, and the projectionist has to endure this boredom. However, seeing the expectations of the company employees for the movie and the satisfaction of watching the movie, I am also glad that I can bring them joy. (The source of this article is the old intellectual youth home, thank you for Mr. He's recommendation!)
Author: Yu Wanlin