-discuss with Mr. Zheng again
Zheng 65438+10.8' s article "We should vigorously support national films" criticized the late students, and they should accept it unconditionally. And this kind of "national film" mentioned by Mr. Zheng Lao is even more puzzling to later generations, so we have to continue to ask a few more questions here about why it is "bookish" and hope that the predecessors will be included.
Because Mr. Zheng accused me of not reading his article clearly and even "misinterpreting" his argument, "taking it for granted" and so on. So, before asking for advice, make a reply to this first. Last year 10, I wrote "What is a" pure domestic movie "? I just read my feelings and experiences after the dispute with Zheng about the authenticity of the film itself and the domestic film. Originally, both views were involved. The editor of Wen Hui Film Times changed it into a "pure domestic film" only for Mr. Zheng Lao, which is more concise. On February 4th, 65438, The Times published Mr. Zhou's reply to Mr. Zheng, which deepened their dispute. I should have nothing to do with this, but unexpectedly, Mr. Zheng Lao suddenly turned his gun and refuted me without answering Mr. Zhou. In addition to re-emphasizing that "purely domestic movies" must be "without the intervention of foreign funds", the predecessors also claimed that "... didn't they remind film creators of the authenticity of props and other details?" For this reason, I dug out the Times of 1998 and read the articles of Mr. and Mr. Zheng that caused this debate from beginning to end, especially Mr. Zheng's article on September 26, and read it over and over again. It seems that Mr. Zheng Lao did not find any "repeated reminders" about the authenticity of the details of domestic films. But repeatedly use "of course" and "but" to deny this question. We might as well waste some space copying the original text of Mr. Zheng Lao:
"... pure domestic movies ... can't be recorded simultaneously for the time being, which is related to the low level of our actors in addition to the financial conditions. Many actors can't even speak Mandarin well, and they have to find someone else to voice him. How can you record at the same time? Of course, the authenticity of details such as props is very necessary. Before the Anti-Japanese War, bandits used weapons made in the 1980s. 1938 The former Kuomintang Air Force used American-made planes and weapons. Of course not. The director and the prop team should try their best to find props that conform to the times ... all this is indisputable. But at the same time, I don't think it's necessary to make a mountain out of a molehill ... "Didn't Mr. Zheng Lao explicitly say" pure domestic films "here? "Economic conditions" and "Putonghua for actors" are the original words of Mr. Zheng Lao. How can you say that I "summarized" him? If Mr. Zheng Lao is not forgetful, he is dealing with a man as he deals with you. As for his theories such as "making a mountain out of a molehill", "sesame and watermelon" and "only Hollywood with abundant funds can achieve realism", Mr. Zhou Chuanji has given a good answer with wonderful metaphors in his reply, so I don't need to repeat them here. Well, it's time to ask Mr. Zheng Lao's new "national film" theory.
First, why must we confuse "sources of funds" with ethnic films?
Movies produced by national artists for national creation, regardless of their creative themes and genres; Style, style ... should belong to national films, which is extremely simple and should be uncontroversial. Fostering national films is also the initial wish and responsibility of everyone who cares about the development of China films. This common sense is beyond doubt. But reading Mr. Zheng Lao's article, these truths are unreasonable, these common sense is not common sense, and these unquestionable things are chaotic. Because according to Mr. Zheng Lao's point of view, ethnic films are what he or some Golden Rooster judges refer to as "pure domestic films", that is, the kind of films they distinguish according to "domestic" and "overseas" sources of funds. According to this method, Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju and some of his later works, Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine and his recently completed Jing Ke Stabbed the King of Qin, as well as Huang Jianxin's Back-to-Back Faces and Stop at a Red Light and Go Green; Siu Man Chow's "At" and "Qin Song"; Face-off, Wu; Jiang Wen's "The Devil Comes" and many other famous directors at home and abroad and their films have also been excluded from the list of "national films", not to mention the films in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Is this distinction too narrow, too harsh and too autistic? If Mr. Zheng Lao's previous views on "pure domestic films" are only a little ironic, then this time it can only be sensational to raise it to the height of "national films".
Why must "source of funds" be confused with national films? Is it the same reason that movies invested by foreigners or compatriots from Hong Kong and Taiwan are not national movies? In China, movies are imported. Just like the railway in the past, today's computers and movies should belong to our own national industry after they are integrated into our nation. Zhan Tianyou, which used to build railways, and Qiu Bojun, who produces computers today, are probably all related to "foreign investment". Do we think that their achievements do not belong to our nation? Also, when Dr. Sun Yat-sen organized a revolutionary party to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, his "source of funds" was the whole world, six parties and eight countries. Who will say that Sun Yat-sen is not a "pure" China native?
Mr. Zheng Lao's "national movies" made me feel a narrow nationalist concept. Blindly boasting and arrogant, blindly rejecting foreigners. This concept permeates all aspects of our film production, market and awards. It is not the right medicine for the sluggish situation of domestic films, but a disguise. Is it beneficial or harmful to real national films? I'm afraid it's not just "lowering the artistic and technical requirements for domestic films".
Second, are Chinese films just different in theme? Is only one theme and one narrative method allowed?
Mr. Zheng Lao named Ye Daying's work "The Red Lover" ... which is a quite standard Hollywood movie. Why? Because its theme is love, its theme is humanity, and its narrative mode is not "pure domestic film" style? But what is Hollywood's standard? It is China standard for a producer to stand up for an old woman who supports the revolution (the movie Private Zhang Ga), but it is Hollywood standard to stand up for a pregnant lover who also participated in the revolution? Are humanity and love American patents? Only Hollywood heroes and heroines deserve to fall in love? I don't see any artistic contradiction between Red Cherry and Red Lover directed by Ye Daying. I think these two works have their own achievements. Especially the latter, in 1998, when the China film market was almost completely occupied by Hollywood Titanic and Private Ryan, it was still able to occupy a place and won an extremely rare share for domestic films. For example, it won 5 million box office in Beijing market, which is incomparable to other domestic films and very valuable. If it is excluded from the "national film" and incorporated into the "Hollywood standard", what good will it do to the development of our national film!
Mr. Zheng Lao said in the article: The screenwriter of The Red Lover is from Hollywood. As a matter of fact, Ye Daying only invited two American screenwriters to participate in grasping the fragments of foreigners' lives in the script, which was made for the truth of the details of the work. Just like Hollywood filming Mulan, a large number of China people are invited to participate in it for the sake of China's characteristics, just like football clubs in all provinces are inviting foreign aid to make themselves "strong". Foreign aid in football can be called revitalizing national sports, but why can't movies invite foreign aid? On the other hand, Americans will never regard the China character in Mulan China as a non-American film. And can we regard it as our "national film"? Also, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are China heroes in the eyes of many foreigners. But there are too many foreigners in their movies. Which country should we regard them as heroes? Which nation should their films belong to?
Fortunately, The Red Lover was exclusively invested by Beijing Forbidden City Company and was nominated for the best feature film in the18th Golden Rooster Award. But in the end, the grand prize went to Anju, which could not be compared with The Red Lover in terms of production level, viewing effect, artistic innovation and market return. It's just that there is nothing about foreigners in Anju (but not something without foreign culture). It's not clear whether the judges have been influenced by this "Hollywood standard" argument. Of course, I'm not saying that The Red Lover will definitely win the prize. I just think the "best" film in China this year can't be Anju. The Golden Rooster Award, which represents the highest academic authority of the country, is always the best, but no one cheers. What authority is there?
Today's world has gradually become a highly open and highly integrated family. Despite the Gulf War and the bloodshed in Kosovo, after all, no country can completely break away from the world family. In today's information network era, the mutual penetration of human civilization and national culture is inevitable. Except for ultra-nationalist terrorists, who will refuse the participation of foreign cultures for no reason?
Third, what is "private goods of capitalists"?
The reason why the "national film" defined by Mr. Zheng Lao can't accept "co-production" is that on the one hand, it is worried that "capitalists" will be stuffed into "private goods". From a good understanding, it may be to prevent our film artists from "taking others' soft hands and eating others' soft hearts." He "didn't believe" that those "big capitalists" would be "selfless", so he came to the conclusion that "whoever pays more will have a greater say". Judging from the general business dealings and the distribution of benefits, this is of course correct. But what is film art? What is the creative law of film art? Can a movie without art be called a movie? Can a film that is not created according to the rules of film art be successful? Of course, "capitalists" will certainly not be completely selfless, nor will they "care nothing about their right to speak" when investing in movies. However, they are by no means clowns and fools. They throw a handful of money into the water and then frantically use the "right to speak" to the water that took the money: water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water, water. He just wants to get and keep that ridiculous "right to speak". Mr. Zheng Lao's so-called "private goods" of "capitalists" are nothing more than platitudes such as "exaggerating violence", "promoting pseudoscience" and even pornography. However, did the investors of Qiu Ju Tale intentionally make Qiu Ju and the village head invulnerable or have sex instead of Qiu Ju Tale? However, some of our own people who love to "talk" are always forbidden to bleed and take off their clothes while sleeping ... We have seen too many such blind interventions.
Just because the pockets of "capitalists" are private, they will not throw money at random for any face "right to speak". Apart from temporary blindness, a really savvy "capitalist" will learn to respect the basic common sense of artistic laws when investing in works of art, otherwise how can there be gains and returns? Otherwise, why do we have thousands of directors, only Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige can get overseas investment more easily? To say "bootleg goods" means that people take a fancy to the real strength of artists such as Zhang Yimou and decide that he won't engage in the scene of bandits using weapons in the 1930s and don't want to do business at a loss. As long as one tenth of our thousands of directors have such strength, then our national films will not be "strongly supported", but we can vigorously support others.
4. What is fair competition?
China movies have been involved in the tide of market economy, and it is impossible to get rid of them. Competition in a market economy certainly needs fairness. As long as it conforms to its operating rules, it is naturally fair. It is ridiculous to change the law of this competition by means of administrative intervention and awarding prizes. Actually, it can't be changed at all. For example, the Golden Rooster Award, why don't our audience buy it now? But why is the American Oscar selection so concerned? What is the principle of fair competition advocated by Mr. Zheng Lao? Is it fair to keep "cooperative films" out of "purely domestic films", that is, "ethnic films"? Aside from cooperation with foreigners, why can't films co-produced by Taiwan Province Province, Hongkong people or other overseas Chinese belonging to the Chinese nation be regarded as national films? National film should be a big concept, especially in today's return of Hong Kong and Macao. We can no longer cling to the past, rest on our laurels, and refuse our compatriots to stay away. It is ridiculous that Mr. Zheng Lao is still clinging to something in the planned economy era.
Co-production includes "unifying creativity" and "sharing risks". What's wrong with that? This means that both parties must consider the market interests of future works, and neither party can go its own way at will. Mr. Zheng Lao is worried that this kind of "unification" and "* * *" will unify our "revolutionary thought" and its ideology to "capitalist" and * * *; He was afraid that talking about "risk" would only have commercial interests, and he lost his usual "comprehensive art". This kind of worry and fear is a bit redundant. Narrow ideological view, narrow commercial interest view and narrow artistic spring view are incompatible with the present era and should be abandoned.
Mr. Zheng Lao denied today's cooperative films, saying that some cooperative films in the past only promoted Sino-Soviet friendship and Sino-Japanese friendship, which did not leave much impression on people, which was unfair. Mr. Zheng Lao forgot, isn't the Golden Rooster Award another cooperative film award because of the artistic masterpiece "The Story of Autumn Chrysanthemum" which is incomparable to pure domestic films? Mr. Zheng Lao also proved the fairness of his "pure prize", saying that the winning works of cooperative films are not necessarily better than "pure domestic films" in artistic quality, which is really contradictory. First, if the cooperative film is not as good as the "pure film" in art, there is no need to set up another cooperative film award to avoid the original intention of "unparalleled". Second, since 1994 "since the establishment of another cooperative film award", has the annual selection covered all the cooperative films of that year? Wouldn't it be more unfair to deliberately let go of famous works and choose mediocre ones to fill them, so as to ensure the quality ratio of "pure films"? Mr. Zheng Lao, let me give you an example. 1994 14 the best "pure film" in the Golden Rooster Award is Phoenix Qin, and the co-production is "Gun Beats Two Lights". But in the annual co-production, the king of the west, the green snake, the five ancestors of new teenagers, crazy stocks and so on. I think it is far higher than the winning works in terms of production level, artistic innovation and box office benefit; 1995 the best "pure film" was won by the defendant Ye Gang, which itself cannot be compared with the award-winning cooperative film Back to Back, Face to Face, while Sunny Days directed by Jiang Wen caused a sensation inside and outside the circle and even failed to get a nomination. Of course, you can say that this is a matter of opinion, and there is nothing you can do.
How to evaluate the Golden Rooster Award? I think it should be the most influential, artistic achievement and box office benefit among the films produced every year. If it is regarded as the highest award of China films, it should be tolerant and fair to all China people, and should not promote this and suppress that.
5. How to foster national films? How to form a relaxed creative environment?
Mr. Zheng Lao advocates fostering national films and forming a relaxed creative environment, which is not wrong. But how to cultivate and form it? At least his exclusive concept of "national film" and the selection method of "pure film" in the Golden Rooster Award are misleading. This reminds me of the phenomenon of sanitary box chopsticks in life: now people know that the overwhelming "sanitary box" is actually white pollution, and the ubiquitous "sanitary chopsticks" are actually eating away at our forest. But we used unique and effective administrative means, and it was popularized and developed almost overnight. Who knows that it is ourselves who suffer? A small box of chopsticks seems to make a person's dining environment "sanitary", but the earth's ecology has been destroyed and the human environment has been seriously polluted. We will use tens of millions of times of money to make up for the little bargain we made by producing this small box of chopsticks. Is this kind of "support" for ethnic films mentioned by Mr. Zheng Lao exactly this phenomenon: on the surface, it is a small-scale support, but in essence it is a strangulation of the big environment?
It is certainly good for the state to support ethnic films, but isn't it better for artists to get sponsorship from abroad? Not long ago, at the Fifth Symposium of Film Directors across the Taiwan Strait held in Nanjing and Suzhou, the participants proposed to establish the concept of "China Film", strengthen cooperation, and make a name for themselves in the international film industry with the overall level of China people. In my opinion, if we can agree with this point and do not hinder or interfere, we will foster national films and form a relaxed creative environment.