Directed by Chen Li, starring Liu Ye and Gong Zhe, the film "ShouDao People", which is based on the 32-year touching deeds of "people's model" Wang Jicai and his wife Shoudao, is being screened, and many viewers evaluate the film: ordinary and great, real and touching.
The Beijing News interviewed Ding Han, the screenwriter of the film, and she handed over a good answer sheet for her first big-screen work. Before writing the script, Ding Han went to Kaishan Island three times to collect wind, lived with the prototype character Wang Shihua, and obtained a lot of first-hand information. She wrote on and off for three years, with large and small adjustments, and probably wrote a total of 13 drafts of the script. In fact, before Ding Han determined the screenwriter of the film, this project had been tried to create a time-space concept similar to "Groundhog Day" of "32 years of trapped day", and had also considered making a literary film similar to the literary temperament of scars.
The whole film of "The Guardian of the Island" does not want anything deliberately sensational or deliberately sublimates the theme, and strives to be simple.
Until the director Chen Li and the team joined in, the creative direction of the script was finally determined: do not add contradictions and conflicts to the story according to the routine of commercial genre films, do not please the audience to make up stories, do not elevate the protagonist's intentions according to the main melody model, do not have a slogan-style line in the whole film, and do not want anything that deliberately sensationalizes or deliberately sublimates the theme, just tell the two people's 32 years of life on the island, do this well, you can impress the audience.
The screenwriter went to the island three times to collect wind and became a relative of Wang Shihua
Before writing the script, Ding Han collected a lot of information, watched the documentary of Wang Jicai and his wife, and found more than 100 pictures of the two living on the island, but this was far from enough. Director Chen Li pays special attention to the sense of reality, she has always adhered to a concept: "No matter how much you write a screenwriter, you can't write real life", so it is necessary to collect style. To this end, Ding Han went to the island three times before and after to collect wind.
The first time was in October 2018, Ding Han followed the survey team to Kaishan Island, that day just caught up with the typhoon, the ship was seriously bumpy at sea, everyone vomited badly, after going to the island to see the environment, and the prototype character Wang Shihua briefly chatted, he was notified that the typhoon was coming, hurriedly went to the island, Ding Han felt "very sorry" .
Screenwriter Ding Han went to Kaishan Island three times before and after to collect wind.
In the Spring Festival of 2019, Ding Han and director Chen Li went to the island for the second time, wanting to make the script more solid, this time Ding Han stayed on the island for three days, compared to the first time, Wang Shihua's heart was slowly opened, and some of her and Wang Jicai's real and touching stories were excavated. Ding Han also looked through the logbook of Wang Jicai and his wife, and accompanied Wang Shihua to raise the flag every day, and that time she felt that she had feelings for Kaishan Island.
In order to refine the script, Ding Han went to the island for the third time. This time, she went alone as a creator or as a friend, without outside interference, and really threw herself on that island and entered the world of Wang Shihua. This time, Ding Han lived on the island for 7 days, slept in a bed with Wang Shihua, lay in a bed, and talked about the story of Lao Wang, "Sometimes we talk and talk, we don't know who fell asleep first." Naturally, Ding Han accompanies Wang Shihua every day to repeat his daily life, patrolling the island, raising the flag, taking care of the flowers and grass planted by Lao Wang before, and wang Shihua in the middle will tell the story of her and Lao Wang, this process is particularly valuable to Ding Han, and he got a lot of stories that he didn't know in the previous collection, "In fact, this time is also very deeply nourished for my soul, and when I see (Wang Shihua) Aunt again, I feel the same as seeing my relatives." Ding Han said.
Screenwriter Ding Han and Wang Shihua took a group photo.
Use the fictional "Spring Festival Gala Performance" to show the time span
Before Ding Han went to the island for the third time, the script had been written to the fourth draft, and the big framework had been set, but it needed some more vivid and textured, real and moving details, which could not be compiled. After returning from the interview, she combined some screenwriting skills with the real story to make the story more comfortable and smooth, but also more moving.
In one detail, Wang Shihua said that after her deeds with Lao Wang were concerned by the outside world, the two went to the city to participate in an event, which was the first time that the two really went to the island to a bustling city. Ding Han asked Wang Shihua how she felt at that time, and Wang Shihua said that she felt that the world was so noisy, and the cochlea was shaking. Wang Shihua remembered very clearly, the couple wanted to go to a road, but never saw so many cars, would not look at the traffic lights, did not know when to go, the person who came to pick them up stood across the road, 10 minutes, that road they both did not pass.
Because there is basically nothing to eat on the island, that is, some seafood and grain sent by the government, Wang Shihua and his wife's children have no toys on the island, nor have they eaten snacks, when the child first went to the island, others bought him an ice cream, his first reaction to eat is not to say that it is cold, but that it is hot, and it feels that the tongue is burned. Ding Han felt that these were very real details, and if he had not really lived on the island for so many years, he would not have been able to imagine it. In the script, Ding Han wrote that after Wang Shihua's son Wang Zhiguo went to the island, he went to school for the first time, walked into the campus and suddenly heard a bell, and he suddenly had an emotional breakdown and couldn't stand it.
The picture above is Xiao Bao, the daughter of "The Island Keeper", and the left picture below is Wang Jicai and Wang Shihua's daughter Wang Su.
There is a passage in the film, in the Spring Festival of 2014, Wang Jicai and Wang Shihua prepared a Spring Festival Gala for their families on the island and performed a program. This passage was invented by Ding Han.
In previous interviews, Ding Han knew a detail that Wang Jicai and his wife listened to the Spring Festival Gala on the radio every year. But in the play, Ding Han felt that it was too static, and she thought that the two should perform a Spring Festival Gala without others watching. At the beginning of the Spring Festival Gala, only two people performed in the empty chairs under the stage, and later made adjustments, thinking that this Spring Festival Gala should be seen by their families and performed by their children. Just this scene can also show the time span, the daughter has a husband, the son is admitted to college, it is necessary to celebrate.
Do not follow the routine of commercial films to add contradictions and conflicts to the story
Before finding Ding Han as a screenwriter, the "Island Keeper" project had found other teams to create the script. One of the commercial film teams took a fancy to the concept of time and space such as "one island, two people" in this project, and wanted to make a genre film similar to "Groundhog Day" - a person trapped in the same time and space, 32 years as a day; there is also a very powerful literary film team, they want to make a temperament similar to scar literature, emphasizing that the protagonist is a person who is not valued in the real world and finds his inner things on the island. Of course, both of these screenwriting directions were ultimately rejected.
Liu Ye plays Wang Jicai.
Ding Han said that it was not until director Chen Li entered the project that the direction of the film was determined. Director Chen Li said that this is a very touching real thing in itself, don't make up some stories to please the audience or commercial value, and give it some of our own understanding. Its valuable point is not how important the strategic position of this island is, but an ordinary person who has insisted on his post for 32 years because of a promise he once made, "In this life, if he can do one thing well, he will not lose his heart", which is the most simple and beautiful quality of modern people.
Chen Li told Ding Han that first of all, do not add contradictions and conflicts to the story according to the routine of commercial films, and add arc light to the characters. Secondly, don't elevate the protagonist's intention according to the pattern of the main theme, just talk about the life of the two of them on the island, and do a good job of this, you can impress the audience. In the end, it was determined that the whole film did not need a slogan-style line, and did not want anything deliberately sensational or deliberately sublimated the theme, so that the current script was born. >>> Liu Ye: The biggest challenge in filming "Island Keeper" is to make the audience believe that they must remove the traces of performance
A shot of a storm in the film.
Ding Han said that director Chen Li himself is also a creative director, in the director's script made some adjustments to the script, she was most impressed by the opening of the film, the description of the storm in the original script is still quieter, but moved to the screen, the director made the feeling of the storm more extreme. In addition, she feels that the director also added some character things to the role according to the temperament of the actor Liu Ye himself, the archetypal character Wang Jicai himself is very thick, there are very few words, the original interview with him people will have this feeling, Liu Ye not only performed the character's sense of stubbornness, sometimes with a humorous and cute side.
Tell the story from the objective perspective of the ship's boss
The entire script, Ding Han wrote intermittently for three years, large and small modifications or plot adjustments, a total of about 13 drafts. In the middle, there were several relatively large adjustments in the narrative perspective, and at the beginning she wrote this story from Wang Jicai's point of view: I was tasked with the organization, and I could not go to the island under any circumstances. Ding Han felt that it was too right. After that, she wrote a draft from wang shihua's perspective, but she felt that Wang Shihua's perspective was not comprehensive enough and too feminine. In the end, she chose the perspective of the ship boss played by Chen Chuang to tell this story.
In Ding Han's view, the boat boss is a ferryman, a person who has witnessed the 32-year journey of Wang Jicai and his wife. In the 32-year greeting, the ship boss connected the landing land and the island, his perspective is very objective, and some of the fresh breath on the island is brought by the ship boss, including the changes in the life of Wang Jicai and his wife, eating instant noodles for the first time. Because every time you go to the island, the boat boss will bring some good things for them to try.
Through the perspective of Chen Chuang as the boss of the ship, the film witnesses the 32-year journey of Wang Jicai and his wife to guard the island.
Ding Han said that in the process of script creation, in addition to Wang Shihua, the ship boss in the realistic prototype helped her the most. Ding Han also talked to him a lot, thinking that he was a person who was both born and entered the world, "there are very innocent things, influenced by Wang Jicai, and at the same time an ordinary person in the real world." Before that, all the people who went to the island to interview Wang Jicai first listened to Wang Jicai's story at the ship boss. His relationship with Wang Jicai is very deep, and every time the film team goes to the island, he personally sends it by driving a boat.
There are many warm and touching scenes of family affection in the film.
The script spans 32 years, how to set such a long time? Ding Han said that 32 years is a long river of time, she did not deliberately divide time into segments, "if it is what the coordinates are, it is actually the three dimensions of family, friendship and love, around the change, the relationship between the island and this family", for example, the first time is Wang Jicai himself on the island, the second change is Wang Shihua on the island and he lives with him, the third change is the birth of a son, a family of three lives together, the fourth change is the child returning to the land... At the same time, there is a side line in the script, that is, the changes in time and space outside the island, which are more characteristic, one is the feeling of the 80s of the last century, the second is the changes in the city in the 90s of the last century, and then the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the social landscape after the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
Edited by Huang Jialing Proofreader Chen Diyan