"The fireworks in the world are the most soothing to the hearts of mortals"!
Although "Four Springs" is just a patchwork of daily life, it reflects the most real state of life.
The emotions revealed are also not mixed with a trace of impurities, they are so real and calm.
Perhaps under the plain and delicate lens, love and family affection are the most eternal topics......
Expect to build under the vision of anticipation
In recent years, documentaries have returned to the public eye, and the public's requirements for the quality of documentaries have become higher and higher, and the audience has become more and more active in the selection of documentaries, and more and more willing to express their own views on the works.
"Expectant vision" is an important concept of receptive aesthetics, which refers to the fact that the audience has formed a structural schema in the subject's psychology before viewing the work, and has made a psychological prediction of the artistic techniques and ideological connotations of the work.
When appreciating a work, if the work meets the audience's desired vision, then the audience will gladly accept it, and vice versa, there will be conflict.
(1) Role expectations: The warmth of the family is reflected in the details
Before watching a film or television work, the audience must first imagine the appearance, personality and relationship between the characters in it. "Four Springs" is a documentary with a documentary theme, in which the characters play an important role, and through the narrative, the characters can be completely portrayed and the emotions can be revealed.
In "Four Springs", the love of parents supporting each other, the old man's thoughts on their children, and the children's dependence on their parents are the most touching emotional tone of the film. Love and warmth flow freely in daily life: when Dad plays erhu, Mom dances to the music, Mom and Dad dye each other's hair and cut their hair, and the two know the details of their wedding 50 years ago......
seems to be a plain and trivial life, but it is full of the love of parents and husband and wife. This film started from the Spring Festival in 2013 to the end of 2016, in the past 4 years, a family of three has experienced the Spring Festival reunion, daily labor, visiting relatives and friends, and the life and death of relatives.
Her sister Lu Qingwei was still talking and laughing in the spring of the first year, but she was very sick in the spring of the second year, and the illness came very suddenly, and finally left her.
The deepest love between parents and their children is reflected in the relationship between parents and sisters: in the hospital room, the mother is playing with Buddhist beads and chanting, and the father rubs his hands helplessly. The detailed processing allows the audience to perceive the parents' restrained emotions of deep love and reluctance for their daughter.
After her sister died, her parents often came to her grave to clean up, plant trees and flowers, and she hadn't sung and danced for a long time.
"Showing the poetic life of parents in old age" and "the first publicly released family video", the audience has already had a psychological expectation of the relationship between the characters and families in "Four Springs" before watching it, combined with their own life experience.
As the plot unfolds, the audience looks at the lives of the old people in their later years, feels the love flowing between their parents, and feels the love of parents for their children. "Four Springs" caters to the audience's aesthetic expectations for parents, children and other characters, thus conforming to the audience's expectations in character building.
(2) Formal expectations: fragmentation of daily life narratives
Before watching the movie, the audience will have a certain psychological premonition of the narrative of the movie. For a film, it can not only attract the attention of the audience, but also surprise the audience, and meet the aesthetic expectations of the audience, which poses a challenge to its narrative innovation.
Daily life is inherently complicated and trivial, and the record of the two old people's later lives also sets the tone for the casual and relaxed narration of "Four Springs".
Except for the part where my sister died of illness, the others are all fragmented. For example, the daily work of parents is like the trivial things in life, there is no purpose and no story, but it is these trivial things that are constantly repeated that can make the audience feel the truth of life.
At present, the Chinese film market is mainly dominated by commercial films, narrative and drama-based narratives, and documentaries also have this trend.
For viewers who are tired of watching videos of visual spectacle, realistic works close to life can better meet their psychological expectations of the works: the characters are ordinary people, doing trivial things in daily life, and showing scenes of life.
"Four Springs" is one such work, which uses a fragmented narrative to give people a sense of immersion, allowing people to better feel life and think about the essence of life.
(3) Emotional expectations: the epitome of the ideal family
With the acceleration of the pace of life, the distance between relatives is getting bigger and bigger, and the original warm core of the original family is gradually being consumed and replaced by estrangement and indifference.
In this atmosphere of anxiety and doubt, the audience's choice of film and television works is often inclined to make up for their psychological shortcomings with beautiful and perfect stories.
Through the depiction of parents' love and warm and harmonious family relationships, "Four Springs" shows an ideal family image and pokes at the softest place in people's hearts.
In the movie, the love of Mom and Dad fills every detail of life: Dad sings in the house, and Mom unconsciously steps on the beat while doing housework next door; They went to the mountains to pick some herbs and prepare for the New Year.
The younger generation who grew up in the online environment has a feeling that they can't accept all kinds of complicated information, but the Lu family's parents in the movie showed the true face of love to the audience and touched the hearts of many people. This is the love that parents have for their children.
After the New Year, the wanderer who returned to his hometown for a short time was about to leave, and the mother looked at the back of her son until she was out of sight, and the mother was still standing outside the door, waving to the distance.
The shots in this series show the parents' reluctance to wander their wanderers, and the strong dependence of the wanderers on their parents. There is the joy of reunion in the movie, but also the grief of losing a loved one.
There is the love and companionship between parents, and the deep love between parents and children. For the audience, the joys and sorrows in "Four Springs" outline the real life in their impressions, and also depict the appearance of the ideal family they yearn for.
Artistic expression in the summoning structure
When the audience watches the film and television works, they will be "called" by the works, substitute their previous expectations and feelings when watching, and set up "blanks" in the works, so as to obtain a unique aesthetic cognition and aesthetic experience.
For film and television works, it is necessary not only to meet the audience's aesthetic expectations, but also to deny the audience's original expectation vision, leave a suitable gap for the audience to fill by themselves, stimulate their curiosity and imagination, and enable them to gain creative experience, so that film and television works can get a good response.
(1) Looking back at the hometown to stimulate emotional identity
"Emotion is not only the driving force of aesthetics, but also a special emotional state." Beauty and emotion are inseparable, and film and television works are content-oriented, which can arouse the psychological resonance and emotional identity of the audience.
Although the documentary is real, for the audience, it still belongs to the "virtual world" created by the director, and there is a certain distance from the audience's psychology.
This distance will affect the empathy effect, and the narrative of the film can greatly shorten the distance between the audience and the film, so that the audience can truly integrate into the film, feel the emotional flow in the movie, and thus produce emotional identity.
From the perspective of a bystander, the director of "Four Springs" uses real pictures and details to reflect the ordinary and ordinary life of his parents, and writes the joys and sorrows of the family in the four springs.
This is not only a record of life, but also Lu Qingyi's expression of his feelings for his parents and hometown. Through the video, he completes the look back at his parents and hometown, which is also the resonance of the film.
Now the phenomenon of "empty nesters" is very common, and the three children of the Lu family in the film do not live with their parents, so the Spring Festival reunion has become the top priority of the family.
The parents smoked the dachshund with a dirty face, prepared the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, and greeted every wanderer who returned home for a short time with a joyful and solemn attitude, while in Lu Qingyi's shot, the parents went up the mountain to collect medicine, raise flowers and feed fish, write brush words, play musical instruments, sing and dance. The director's casual and scattered record of the life of his parents is what many wanderers are most likely to ignore, but they will regret it after losing it.
The director saw his relatives from the Lu family's parents, and thus resonated with the love and gratitude for his parents expressed in the movie.
Parents are well, wanderers return home, and people and nature coexist in harmony, this is the hidden longing of many people's hearts for home and hometown, and "Four Springs" just shows their hometown in their hearts, and the audience has an emotional identity and psychological sense of belonging.
(2) Dealing with suffering, calmly and restrainedly, creating a "blank"
With the development of social media, the audience has a broader platform for speech, they are no longer passively accepting information, but more subjective initiative, on the basis of obtaining information, express independent views, and make up for the lack of film and television works.
The most dramatic scene in "Four Springs" is the death of his sister, but the director shows extreme calmness and restraint in this regard.
There is no mention of my sister's condition in the movie, and there is no picture of any treatment. In the ward, the elderly parents were by their daughter's side, looking helpless and worried. The mother sat on the edge of the bed, playing with Buddhist beads in her hand, and chanting words in her mouth. My sister moaned because of her illness, and her parents gently comforted her.
While protecting the privacy of the family, the gaps that appear due to the incomplete narrative also provide the audience with greater room for imagination. Through the subtle lens presentation, the audience can feel the pain of the sister, and can also feel the worry of the parents under the silence.
My sister died of illness, and in the funeral scene presented by the director, there were no intense scenes with great emotional fluctuations, just silent parents and fellow villagers singing about sorrow and sorrow.
After the death of my sister, my parents stopped singing and dancing, and the originally relaxed family atmosphere became depressing. The grief brought to the family by the sudden death of a loved one is huge, but the director did not use any conflicting scenes to present it, but let the audience experience the sorrow brought by the suffering to the family from the silent emotions of the parents and the changes in their living conditions.
The theory of "summoning structure" believes that within the possible space provided by the video text, the viewer can imagine the unclear parts and undisplayed information, and actively participate in the interpretation and recreation of the video text, forming their own understanding of the video text.
The emotions of the characters in "Four Springs" do not completely appeal to language and pictures, but construct an emotional "summoning structure" in a calm and restrained way of emotional processing.
It creates an imaginary space for the audience, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps in the film with their own thoughts, so as to better guide the audience into the inner world of the characters and feel the feelings to be conveyed in the film.
In the narrative of a documentary, emotion is a form of expression. The emotional expression of the film can guide the audience into the inner world of the characters and obtain a deep emotional identity and aesthetic experience.
"Four Springs" takes simple and primitive family life as an example, showing the audience the love of parents, family warmth, and memories of the homeland, which conforms to the audience's expectations and arouses the audience's emotional resonance. At the same time, the appropriate narrative blank space can also enable the audience to go deep into the inner world of the characters and take the initiative to "recreate".
The expression of human nature and emotion is the eternal narrative theme of the documentary, and the inspiration and experience of "Four Springs" lies in the fact that we should not only pay attention to the narrative, but also pay attention to the exchange of emotions, and create an open and free dialogue space for the audience.