Looking back at the history of Chinese documentaries, "Looking at the Great Wall" is like an immortal monument, standing in the early 90s of the last century, marking the division between the period of politicized documentaries in the history of Chinese documentaries and the period of human culture documentaries, setting off a vigorous documentary revolution of tracing back to the roots and returning to the truth, thus separating feature films and documentaries, and laying the mainstream trend of Chinese documentaries. Humanistic concepts and documentary spirit have been vividly displayed in this epoch-making documentary, from concepts to means, they have established a new benchmark for the industry, making Chinese documentaries return to the ontology of true records and becoming an important milestone in the history of the development of Documentary films in China.
It has been exactly 30 years since it was broadcast simultaneously on China Central Television and Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation in 1991, and "Looking at the Great Wall" set a record for the highest tv documentary rating in China and Japan with more than 40% ratings. But now, pressing the play button again, the simple and stubborn face, the strong choking of the country tone, with a rough and primitive vitality, without any embellishment, from the four-to-three picture of the spray out, is still enough to make people shudder, let people cry.
In order to commemorate this revolutionary documentary, the 30th anniversary series of articles of "Wangwang Great Wall" will deeply interpret this documentary of great significance in the history of Chinese documentaries from five aspects: the story of the "Wangwei" documentary itself, the background of the times, the creative method, the epoch-making significance, and the creator team, so as to pay tribute to the original group of Chinese pioneer documentarians who dared to subvert and consciously pursue the spirit of documentary.
This article starts with the documentary "Looking at the Great Wall" itself:
"Looking at the Great Wall" its film
On December 2, 1988, China Central Television and Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation (TBS) signed a cooperation agreement at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to jointly shoot a large-scale TV documentary "Looking at the Great Wall" (the title of the Japanese film is "The Great Wall").
"Looking at the Great Wall" is 626 minutes long, a total of four films, each part of the upper, middle and lower three episodes. The first part, "The Great Wall is Long", the second part, "Both Sides of the Great Wall are Hometowns", the third part ,"The Millennium GangeHua Yu Shuai", and the fourth part "Wind and Smoke Scattering the Vicissitudes", respectively introduced to the audience the military functions of the Great Wall, the folk customs around the Great Wall, the ethnic integration inside and outside the Great Wall, and the ecological balance of the Great Wall.
Its clues can be roughly summarized as examining the Great Wall - paying attention to people - paying attention to the contradictions and conflicts between people - paying attention to the coexistence and development of man and nature, which is now - ancient - present in time, and almost covers the southeast, south, and northwest of the land in space. "Looking at the Great Wall" in the selection of materials and theme refinement are all around the humanistic care, from the people who pay attention to the individual to the people who pay attention to the group, from the development of people themselves to the relationship between people, and finally to the relationship between people and nature, the whole clue presents a progressive structure.
In the first part, the host examined the exact length of the Great Wall to the Great Wall experts, traveled from east to west to investigate the end points of the east and west ends of each dynasty, and demonstrated the powerful and flexible combat defense function of the Great Wall in the Jinshanling section of the Ming Great Wall;
Following in the footsteps of the host, we enjoyed with him in the second part the daily life of people who walked to the west entrance and entered the Kanto region, and although people outside the Kanto Pass were in different places, they were emotionally related. Mongolians meet and exchange snuff bottles, build yurts, milk goats, pound tea cakes, boil milk tea, shanxi people outside the mouth singing mountain climbing tunes to convey information, July 15 kneading dough people, making sour pulp tofu, building fire dragons, receiving spring officials, watching shadow puppets, the people of Gansu make mooncakes, playing cowhide drums, Heilongjiang Arctic village villagers spend the spring making ice lanterns, dumplings, watching the Spring Festival Gala...
In the third part, from the Pilots of the Manchu Han and their own children flying in the skies that are not distinguished from the inside and outside of the Guan, the Han people Bao Erhu (Han name Wei Changhai) who grew up on the grasslands reunite with their families, and the "Yong'an Temple" built on the Great Wall full of fireworks, we see the nomadic and farming peoples who are far away, and they only have one common name - the sons and daughters of China.
In the fourth part, more than 50 meters of wells that still cannot be watered, the dry Lop Nur, the Julucang that has been cut off by the wind, and the worship of water by three families living around a freshwater spring make us feel the warning of the earth to mankind, which is shocking and makes people reflect.
Among them, the second part of "Both Sides of the Great Wall is hometown" is the most moving, and it also makes the audience shed a lot of tears. It is the empathy with the simple people, the lament of the poor days, and more importantly, the truth, goodness and beauty of human nature, the undiminished love for life, and the unabated vitality of the original and rough peasants in the Chinese rural areas, which are so exciting that people can feel the burning pain across the screen.
Look for Wang Xiangrong
On that day, the film crew came to Fugu County, Shaanxi Province. He was resting at a watermelon stall by the river when he suddenly heard the old man selling melons singing folk songs from northern Shaanxi while cutting watermelons. When the host was about to focus the camera on the old watermelon farmer, the old man stopped singing and said another name: Wang Xiangrong. This strange name, the host has never heard, but it seems that the villagers of the ten miles and eight townships have acknowledged that Wang Xiangrong's folk songs are the best. Therefore, the film crew temporarily decided: to find Wang Xiangrong.
Wang Xiangrong's family lived in Shangma Ruyuan, Xinmin Township, Fugu County, and searched along the road, and heard a burst of mountain songs coming from the opposite hillside in the distance. It turned out to be a farmer who was farming in the fields, wearing a straw hat and a thin undershirt, singing mountain songs while working. The host greeted him, and the farmer said he sang the "mountain climbing tune" of northern Shaanxi - "here the mountains are deep and deep, and people can only convey information and understand each other by singing mountain songs." "It turns out that most of the people here can sing mountain songs, and they will also sing while working. The host asked him about Wang Xiangrong's home, and he said, "After passing this beam, the next ditch, and then turning over another one is his home." ”
Continuing on, the host met a shepherd again. When I inquired, it turned out that I had sung mountain songs with Wang Xiangrong when I was performing in the countryside before. The host encouraged him to sing two more sentences, and facing the camera, his face, which was blown black by the wind, was suddenly full of shyness. He said that when the sheep were herded, he did not dare to sing loudly, for fear of scaring the sheep away. He also said that we don't sing love songs, and he also said that he sang better than Wang Xiangrong. After insisting on it again and again, he finally agreed to the film crew to sing only a small song and opened his mouth: "In June, the three and five brothers herd sheep on the grass beach, I put on the felt hand and took the umbrella, one hand, took a small shovel for sheep grazing..."
Finally, under the guidance of a peasant woman who collected firewood, the film crew followed a bare-chested little boy to Wang Xiangrong's house. As soon as you enter the courtyard door, the typical northern Shaanxi cave dwellings come into view. A room made of yellow earth, a wall of wood, and a dark-skinned young woman squatting on the ground and working—it turned out to be Wang Xiangrong's wife. Unfortunately, Wang Xiangrong worked outside the home and had not returned home for a long time. The only people in the house were his wife, children, and his old mother, who was nearly deaf.
As she spoke, the old mother walked over on crutches. Just like the most typical old lady in northern Shaanxi, she was short and short, her clothes were simple but clean, her hair was coiled into a bun, neatly combed behind her head, and her face was a kind smile. The eldest lady could not hear us, but she was cooking for the film crew with her daughter-in-law: "You see what you eat, there are noodles, there are white noodles, what do you see and eat?" Raising the volume, I asked the eldest lady, do you want your son? The eldest lady said, "I think about it, I cry every day when I think about it, and I cry when I think about it." He said and took out a handkerchief and wiped it on his face. And when she said that her son sang well, she smiled happily.
The film crew planned to use the tape recorder they carried with them to play Wang Xiangrong's tape to the old lady. The old lady was surprised when she first saw the tape, showing a surprised look, and as soon as she put on the headphones, the old lady heard her son's voice from the tape recorder for the first time, and her face was filled with an unprecedented happy smile, and she turned to write full of disappointment, staring at the tape out of her mind...
The film crew is leaving and is ready to go to Yulin to find Wang Xiangrong himself. Wang Xiangrong's wife gave Wang Xiangrong a lot of faces, but the old lady only carried one sentence: "Ask him if he wants me, when will he come back?" The film crew got into the car, but in the distance they saw the rugged mountain road, the old lady staggered with crutches to chase the car, and walked a long way up the mountain road just because she remembered that the film crew did not eat a bite of food and left. Waddling footsteps, the old is her shrunken body, not old is the enthusiasm of life in the blood of the people of northern Shaanxi.
The film crew really left in the car, the old lady and Wang Xiangrong's family still stared at the back of the car for a long time, and the old lady's expectant eyes clearly saw the figure of her son Wang Xiangrong returning home. The car goes farther and farther, and the people are getting smaller and smaller... The crowd went away, and the eldest lady said goodbye with a song: "Big red rooster feather legs and legs"... The figure of the eldest lady is gradually blurring, and what will never be blurred is people's good memories of the people of northern Shaanxi, the feelings hidden in the song, and the vastness of the yellow land in the song.
Thirty years later, this old mother should be long gone. The yellow land caves, turbid water, and the land with longitudinal ravines have forged the tenacity and boldness of the people of northern Shaanxi, and it is the bold enthusiasm of the people of northern Shaanxi that makes this vast and lonely yellow land full of immortal and warm vitality.
epilogue
Real people, real stories, real touches. These moving stories in "Looking at the Great Wall" are naturally inseparable from its simple and unpretentious documentary style, refreshing sound and painting effects, and profound cultural awareness, which are inconsistent with the general environment of Chinese documentary creation at that time. The second in a series of articles commemorating the 30th anniversary of "Wang great wall" will start from the background of the era in which "Wang Great Wall" was born, and explain how "Wang Great Wall" stands out from the ocean of politicized feature films. Stay tuned!