What does "The World" rely on to keep the audience in the future
◎Yang Jinsong
The original party is definitely dissatisfied with the 58 episodes of "The World", but the TV series is an independent text, regardless of the source.
"The World" has formed a peak in the ratings of domestic dramas in recent years, which shows that once Chinese TV dramas return to the track of realist creation, once they express the feelings of a good person illuminated by traditional Chinese virtues and philosophy, and once they follow the drama aesthetic tradition of TV dramas, the audience will enjoy the greatest Follow it with tolerance and enthusiasm, with tears and praise, even if it has many regrets.
The novel "The World" is Liang Xiaosheng's universal creation based on his personal history, and the TV drama of the same name is also the author's expression of director Li Lu, to be precise, the author's expression in 2021.
Allocating houses to the descendants of the martyrs who fought against America and aided Korea, Zhou Nan died in the United States, the Soviet aircraft carrier gave Zhou Bingyi the opportunity to revive the military factory, and Feng Huacheng left France. These international vision symbols in the play all have obvious tendencies.
Li Lu, who was born in Changchun, changed the background of the original work from Harbin to Changchun, cut out the more profound historical background and social connotation in the original work, and clearly positioned Zhou Bingkun as the image of a worker without literary and artistic flavor. The familiar life is conducive to the director's art. The reproduction also facilitates the construction of class differences in the images of Zhou Bingyi, Zhou Rong and Zhou Bingkun.
The first 20 episodes of "The Human World" were really good, successfully established the overall temperament of the whole drama, and firmly grasped the audience's torrent of ratings for "The World". The last 18 episodes produced an unexpected slide, but it did not affect the audience's Overall experience.
Although the fate of many of the main characters in the TV series is not as profound as the ups and downs in the original work, the writers and directors justify it and ensure the relative integrity of the independent text of the TV series.
The middle of the play is a youthful tragedy revolving around the last days of Zhou Nan's short life.
After learning the truth of his life experience, Zhou Nan and his cousin Feng Yue's childhood love became a natural love, but they encountered opposition from their parents; Words become invisible moral judges, they become the majestic annotations of history and society.
Zhou Nan and Feng Yue, the lovers who represent the future, fought against this huge hidden network of history. Zhou Nan's death was accidental. The scar was only publicized at the moment, and the dive net was finally shattered.
The confrontation between Luo Shibin's money empire and the family kingdom of Zheng Juan and Zhou Bingkun made Zhou Nan choose to fight on his own. At the airport security check in the United States, Zhou Nan called Luo Shibin "Dad". To surrender to the bloodline is to let go and release the history of the father's generation, which reflects the moral breadth of the younger generation.
The love scene between Zhou Nan and Feng Yue is particularly moving, and the pain that cannot be achieved by love exudes the light of youthful idealism.
Heartbreaking is Sun Xiaoning, who had a crush on Zhou Bingkun, and even Wang Zi, a poetess who kidnapped Feng Huacheng, told Zhou Rong that her real name is Wang Yuling. This calm and luster is not lacking. Their struggles and choices all exude the dignity of love. .
The last chapter of the play gave up writing about the restoration of suffering and broken hearts, and gave up writing about the bridging of the respective rifts of the two groups of characters representing history and the future.
In fact, the demolition of the light-character film was also an opportunity to "demolition and write together", but the director gave it up again.
The choice of dramatic events is external and conventional, and it is difficult to reach the depths of the characters' hearts.
Especially if Bingyi and Bingkun are the two brothers who are the main contradictions in the demolition incident, it is difficult to form audience expectations beyond the dramatic barrier, because our audience faces the same society published by the media every day. The sharing of events has also talked about the artistic authenticity of TV dramas such as "In the Name of the People" and "Sweeping the Black Storm". Once the official-civilian conflict or causal relationship involves blood, this puts forward higher requirements for the director. Obviously, " The last stroke of "The World" is still lower than the height of the audience's accumulated experience.
Zhou Bingkun's repeated descriptions after he was released from prison, and the characters were flat and simplified, which provided arguments for the audience who criticized the unfinished play of the show.
The best treatment in the latter part of the play is the several scenes of visiting supervisor Zhou Bingkun. The same scene, the same behavior, and different characters visiting the supervisor show the changes of time. The breadth of information and emotional depth are very rich, which conforms to the basic aesthetic norms of TV drama indoor dramas.
This technique is also quite the secret of the narrative aesthetics of Chinese opera. The most famous "eighteen gifts" in Yue Opera "The Liang Zhu" is that Liang Shanbo sends Zhu Yingtai home, singing while walking, expressing Zhu Yingtai's spring spirit and Liang Shanbo's The foolishness and incomprehension were all sung through; later Liang Shanbo knew the truth of Zhu Yingtai's gender and went down the mountain to Zhu Yingtai's house to ask for relatives. A classic aria of Yue Opera, expressing emotions heartily.
The Taiwanese TV dramas "Want to See You" and "The Beginning of Hua Deng" also have the same way of expression. They sing slowly in the simple plot, and describe the characters with fine brushwork.
Although the second half of "The World" is weak, it can still firmly grasp the audience. One is the inertia of ratings, and the other is relying on Song Chunli, Sui Junbo, Xu Songzi, Xu Baihui and other supporting roles to give extremely accurate performances in a limited number of scenes—— This kind of performance is rooted in the accumulation of theatrical performances and supports the deficiencies of the script.
In fact, it is a pity that the life of the younger generation of light-character films in the play chooses to pass by in a blink of an eye.
If the drama of Feng Yue, Zhou Cong, Niu Niu, and the overtaking son and the son of the National Day are placed in the foreground, maybe the last part of the play will have a more open era of vitality, which is far more painless than Zhou Bingyi's old comrade-in-arms Yao Lisong surrendering himself. The play is good.
There are dramas like "In the Name of the People" first, "The World" chooses to express the honest official Zhou Bingyi with great attention, and puts him in the relationship of family and neighbors to write honesty, which makes the final drama dynamic and emotional tension weak and weak. "Yan" official.
It can be said that "The World" is a warm sample of the realism of TV dramas, with soft light, freckle removal, and suspension. The defocused area also leaves a cognitive square of emotional resonance for the audience, especially the middle-aged and above. All audiences will find familiar projections of life and historical echoes in the play.
The aesthetic completion of TV series is not only between the audience and the screen, but also depends more on the social discourse space of discontinuous aesthetics.
Ethics is the theme that can inspire this space the most. For many TV dramas with strong plots, it is difficult for audiences to enter the drama and have a weak sense of participation in commentary. Therefore, the word of mouth and ratings are not as good as TV dramas with the same theme of ethics.
Liang Xiaosheng's "The World" is solid. In another 20 years, if we reread the fifty years of changes in China written in the original book, we will have new historical cognition and realistic thinking. I believe that the new generation of screenwriters and directors will Liang Xiaosheng's original work is full of creative impulse to adapt film and television, because these 50 years are worthy of our affectionate look back again and again.