In the interdisciplinary expansion of neohistorietism, film has also become the object of its investigation. The movie "Ode to Qin" is set against the background of the unification of the Six Kingdoms by the Qin State in the last years of the Warring States, showing the intricate relationship and life and death love and hatred between Qin Shi Huang, Gao Wanli and others. The film pays attention to historical details, but in terms of narrative, it is not limited to the examination of historical facts, history has become the context of literary texts, and the aesthetic meaning and ideological connotation of the text are the most important things presented by the director in "Qin Song". The article analyzes "Ode to Qin" from the perspective of new historicism from the perspective of new historicism from the perspective of rewriting historical events, the cross-section of history and the "lower case" of history, and the expression of political ideals.
New historicism originally emerged as a social and cultural trend of thought, which can be regarded as a concept of "intertextual" observation of historical facts and texts, which is the product of the general dissolution, deconstruction and even criticism of traditional thinking and views in the postmodern era, and is a supplement and reversal of historical materialism. In the interdisciplinary expansion of neo-historicism, film has also become the object of neo-historicism. Zhou Xiaowen's film "Ode to Qin" is set against the background of the unification of the Six Kingdoms by the Qin State in the last years of the Warring States, showing the intricate relationship and life and death love and hatred between Qin Shi Huang, Gao Wanli and others. The film pays attention to historical details but does not stick to the examination of historical facts in the narrative, history becomes the context of literary texts, and the aesthetic meaning and ideological connotation of the text are the most important things presented by Zhou Xiaowen in "Ode to Qin".
The greatest feature of new historicism is the interdependence of "the historicity of the text" and the "textuality of history.". From the perspective of "the historicity of the text", the specific narrative events in the film are all specially historical, showing the material conditions of a specific era and the contradictions that are difficult for human beings to overcome in a specific historical period. For example, in the "Ode to Qin", the Qin state acquired the land of the Six Kingdoms of Shandong through military conquest, and also captured a large number of soldiers and civilians. For these captives, Qin Shi Huang either sent them as a civilian husband to build a platform and build the Great Wall, or simply brutally put them to death. This stemmed from the fact that under the constraints of productivity at that time, manpower was a valuable asset, but the underdevelopment of transportation, communications, and grain production made the Qin state, a country that operated a county system to manage an unprecedented unified country, face many administrative inconveniences and threats to the regime. When Qin Shi Huang decided that the Qin state could not control these captives, he was bound to eliminate them in order to maintain his rule. In the movie, the heroine Princess Oak Yang is undoubtedly a positive character, but she cannot look at the captive problem beyond the limitations of history. She had no sympathy when she was carried by a large number of slaves who were about to be burned to the face with iron, and the question she considered was how to ask her father and king several slaves to replace these eunuchs to carry herself. When Gao Wanli shouted to her, "Bitches have such a big pomp", her first reaction was to ask Wang Ben to come to the soldering iron to personally brand Gao Wanli with the word "prisoner". The "textuality of history" denies the notion that history is monolithic.
Neo historicism holds that for contemporary people, they have no access to the real and coherent history, and even if it is written in the history, there are still a large number of fictional discourses and artificial selection and erasure of the truth. In other words, there are a large number of blank spots in history that people can continue to interpret, and this is where textuality lies. In the film, the creator has to use fiction to fill and reorganize these blank spots. For example, in the "Ode to Qin", Gao Wanli is the son of a Woman of the Yan Kingdom, and he and Qin Shi Huang lived together in the Zhao Kingdom from childhood. Since his father, Zi Chu, was a proton left in the State of Zhao in the State of Qin, Qin Shi Huang's childhood was not pleasant. In his troubled childhood, Gao gradually left his mother's breast milk and his playmate Gao Wanli, who played the piano since childhood, gave him a few warmth. This is also the reason why Qin Shi Huang still couldn't bear to kill Gao Wanli, and still wanted to hear Gao Wanli call himself "Big Brother" after being called "Big King" by as many people as "ants". Even the two were almost beheaded as slaves because of Qin Yan's feud, which directly led to Qin Shi Huang's obedient, dark, fierce heart and contempt for human life after he became an adult. It can be said that this fiction is full and real. Whether it is the historical or historical textuality of the text, there is an emphasis on personal experience.
For example, historically, the order of the last three kingdoms of Qin was Chu, Yan, and Qi, but in the movie it was changed to Yan, Chu, and Qi, and Li Si reminded Qin Shi Huang of this, and Qin Shi Huang's reason was "because there is a person in Yan who can write 'Qin Song'". At the same time, the State of Yan was overthrown first, gao gradually left Qin, fell in love with Princess Liyang, and had a relationship, and later Wang Qi's father and son led a large army to attack the State of Chu in parallel, forming a narrative and visual double correspondence. Another example is Gao Wanli's attitude toward Jing Ke's thorn Qin, which was reversed in the movie. Historically, Gao GradualLy Departs is to bid farewell to Jing Ke at the edge of the Easy Water, while in the movie, Gao Fade Away means "Unified is good, and the sound can be the same." Gao Wanli also proposed to play a song for Jing Ke and Fan Yu, saying that "the world is beautiful, and it is not easy to live.". Jing Ke said that letting Gao gradually leave Qin was like letting him play the piano, which was a fool's dream. From unwillingness to stab Qin to active stabbing Qin, The change in Gao's attitude has become a clue to the film's unfolding plot. The "Tu Poor Dagger See" when Jing Ke stabbed Qin was also adapted to hide Gao's right index finger in the map of Jing Ke's deception of Qin Shi Huang, highlighting Qin Shi Huang's emphasis on Gao Wanli.
In "Ode to Qin", the film takes into account the real historical background to the greatest extent, and also shows the description of the causes and consequences of the event, such as the film repeatedly shows Zhao Gao manipulating everything behind Qin Shi Huang's back, instilling cruel and inhumane ideas to Hu Hai, first beheading and then executing Wang Ben, imprisoning Wang Qi, etc. Before qin shi huang's enthronement ceremony, Zhao Gao said compassionately that "the qi of the Qin state is also running out." Even if the film ends after the death of Qin Shi Huang, the audience can feel that compared to Li Si, who still has a straight face in the movie, Zhao Gao, who is full of ghost tricks in his heart and has a venomous curse on the future of the Qin State, is undoubtedly the gravedigger of the Qin State.
The "lowercase" side of history in "Qin Song" is reflected in the love story of Gao Wanli and Princess Liyang. The background of this love story is the time when Qin Shi Huang destroyed the three kingdoms of Yan, Chu and Qi, and was called the First Emperor. With the great cause of reunification being accomplished, interests are facing redistribution, and some people must be sacrificed, and sacrifice means the outbreak of conflict, so this cross-section can be said to be the intersection of contradictions. In the main history, Qin Shi Huang unified the world, Gao Gradually left as a friend of Jing Ke, in the case of no enmity with Qin Shi Huang and no gratitude with Prince Dan of Yan, he assassinated Shi Huang only because of his friendship with Jing Ke, and Sima Qian's display was this touching pure friendship between men. After traveling with the First Emperor on the Eastern Tour, Wang Qi and Wang Ben's father and son, as the greatest heroes of the Qin state to unify the world, almost disappeared from the record, and the subsequent tasks such as attacking the Xiongnu in the north were undertaken by Meng Tian and other generals, as a famous general of almost the same age as Meng Tian, Wang Ben's concealment in the history books can almost only be explained by death. In the Qing Dynasty's "Shaanxi Tongzhi" and "Fuping County Chronicle", there is a legend that Qin Shi Huang married Princess Huayang to Wang Qi. Therefore, in the movie, the love triangle between Gao Wanli, the princess and Wang Ben becomes the historical explanation of Gao Wanyuan's determination to stab Qin and the disappearance of the Wang father and son. Princess Liyang was the most beloved eldest daughter of Qin Shi Huang and the object of Gao Wanli's love, and Gao Wanli even composed the "Ode to Oak Yang" for her, and she was the fiancée of the great general Wang Ben, which was the focal point of contradictions. When Gao gradually divorced the princess and said that he wanted to give it to Wang Ben with a handkerchief printed with the princess's blood, the contradiction of this love triangle was destined to erupt. The death of Princess Oak Yang is a "Rashomon"-style mystery in the movie.
From Zhao Gao's account of Gao's gradual departure, Princess Liyang bit her tongue and committed suicide, and was subsequently dismembered by Wang Ben. In Li Si's account of Qin Shi Huang, Wang Ben brutally killed the princess by beheading, cutting off limbs, and cutting off breasts. And the audience can have two interpretations of this incident: Wang's father and son have long expected that after the unification of the world, they will likely face the end of "cunning rabbit death, lackey cooking", just as Qin Shi Huang explained to Gao Wanli before: at most two years, Wang Ben will die on the battlefield of the Xiongnu, and then he will marry Liyang to Gao Wanli. However, Li Yang's suicide led to Wang Ben's inevitable treatment by Qin Shi Huang, first, the great shame of feeling that the third emperor was a general but not as good as a person who made fun, and second, knowing that he would die, so that Wang Ben mutilated the remains of the princess. The second possibility is that the princess's body was mutilated under Zhao Gao's design, and Zhao Gao's purpose was first to marry Wang Ben, which can be seen from his decisive execution of Wang Ben and the imprisonment of Wang Qi, so as to further achieve the purpose of expelling Mengtian, supporting Su, and supporting Hu Hai to ascend to the throne; the second is to use the tragic anger of Li Yang's death to provoke Gao Wanli, which can be seen from his deliberate gift of Oak Yang's hand to Gao Wanli, which directly led to Gao Wanli's angry decision to attack Qin Shi Huang even when his eyes were blind. Once Qin Shi Huang was successfully assassinated, Hu Hai's ascension to the throne would be advanced, and even if the assassination attempted, Qin Shi Huang's health, who was deeply hit by the double blow of the killing of his beloved daughter and the assassination of his confidant, was bound to deteriorate rapidly. Li Si became Zhao Gao's accomplice.
In the abundance of these historical details that are more reasonable for the film's creators (judging from the fact that Wang Li, the son of Wang Ben, is still serving as a general of the Qin State, the Wang family has not been devastated by the princess incident), the human evil of the people at the center of the power vortex who will stop at nothing to achieve their own goals is vividly expressed. The more the selfishness and power of Zhao Gao, Li Si, and others were exaggerated, the more dazzling the light of the true feelings between Gao Wanli and Oak Yang became. On the other hand, the change in the dynamics of The Thorn Qin made the high praise given to Gao Wanli and Jing Ke's friendship in the "History" weakened in the movie.
In neo-historicism, the creators are by no means outsiders to historical events, they adopt a dual perspective of both a distant view and a close look, and they are insiders of the story. Under the insider's narrative, the line between history and reality is broken. This kind of breakage serves the creators in the expression of political ideals. The new historicist narrative of historical events is "fragmented collage", such as in "Qin Song", the dispute between Wang Qi and Li Xin over The Chu Chu, Qin Shi Huang turned to Pinyang after Li Xin's fiasco to plead with Wang Qi, Wang Qi proposed to ask for a large number of good fields and beautiful houses to dispel Qin Shi Huang's concerns about these historical facts, or it can be used to generate a fictitious event base (such as Qin Shi Huang's further entrapment of Wang Qi, princess of Liyang with Wang Ben, etc.) are abandoned by the film; the fragmented narrative leads to the openness of the center. The meaning of the text is not enclosed in an inherent interpretation of the object of the object. The narrative under the new historicism opposes the constant interpretation of history, such as the simple positive or negative stereotypes of Qin Shi Huang's great talent or tyranny, which are avoided by the Qin Song. The text becomes an onion "composed of many layers (layers, systems), stripped to the head and without center, without a core, without a secret, without a clear origin, only a layer of membrane enveloping itself and its surface.
Like Chen Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin (1998) and Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), films based on the history of the Qin Dynasty often permeate the spirit of the times and the director's personal political ideals. As a director with courage and creativity, and who believes that the narrated history is pseudo-history, Zhou Xiaowen also expresses his sense of political criticism in the film.
This critical consciousness is mainly reflected in Zhou Xiaowen's interpretation of the relationship between power and human nature. In "Ode to Qin", Qin Shi Huang is a great man of history, but also a poor person whose human nature is gradually corroded. In the movie, Qin Shi Huang can sacrifice everyone (the movie deliberately shows the plot of his car splitting his own parents), enslave everyone, and the song in the movie shows the labor undertaken by the people under the unification of the Qin State with the song of "Transporting Stones to the South Mountain, a thousand pounds on the shoulders; ten thousand people hanging their necks, one person going to heaven". Finally, at the enthronement ceremony, his fragile inner world was clearly seen under the lonely back. Gao Wanli's last attempt against him was not so much to avenge Li Yang as to retain the last vestige of humanity of Qin Shi Huang, so Gao Wanli would say the phrase "big brother" before he died, he had no hatred and accusations for Qin Shi Huang but only pleading and pitying, and Qin Shi Huang was also the most dazed and helpless when he stood at the peak of power.
And what is tied to human nature is music. Gao Wanli and Oak Yang, two characters with beautiful human symbolism, can play the piano and are proficient in music theory. In contrast, Wang Ben, who only knows how to appreciate the drums of war, is a symbol of rudeness. The reason why Qin Shi Huang wanted Gao to leave as a "Qin Song" in order to negate "Wang Le" was precisely because he hoped to carry out spiritual unification and construction on the level of human nature, because the original Wang Le "had no human flavor at all, and it was not as good as a nursery rhyme by Gao Wan". The nursery rhyme of "two puppies, biting for a night" in his childhood when Gao gradually left his mother is a symbol of Qin Shi Huang's humanity and a beautiful memory of him. Qin Shi Huang and Gao gradually left these "two puppies" one wins the other with the help of power, while the other becomes the winner in the soul struggle.
In summary, the new historicism has opened up a narrative method that not only subverts history, but also has a more rigorous narrative method than "joke". But this narrative is also mixed. "Qin Song" on the magnificent Qin Wang sweep liuhe story of the literary interpretation, so that the film in the history itself at the same time, but also has a valuable humanistic care value, although the film because of the selection of historical facts, amplification and compilation and criticism, but from the perspective of new historicism, "Qin Song" creator in the face of historical themes this kind of play on the subject of the initiative is worth affirming, the aesthetic value of the film is also worth excavating.