[Viewing the tide of literature and art]
my country has a vast territory and vast land and resources. Different geography, climate, history and other factors have nourished the different customs and customs of each region.
In the creation of TV dramas in my country in recent years, the rich and colorful regional culture has become a bright spot.
"Shan Hai Qing" shows the local customs and customs of Xihaigu, Ningxia, and many viewers learned the northwestern dialect from the characters in the play; "The Age of Awakening" wrote about the changes in the situation in Beiping a hundred years ago and the splendid stars, which made many young people yearn for it; The Shaanxi flavor of Taiwan is like a bowl of vigorous oil-splashed noodles; the Shanghai flavor of Heart Residence is like a local dish mixed with sweet and salty. Idolized works also introduce certain regional cultural elements to clearly outline the sense of space and the times of the story.
The integration of rich regional elements into TV dramas not only adds layers and changes to the visual space of TV drama art, but also adds thickness and strength to the realistic texture of TV dramas. More importantly, regional characteristic culture has also been effectively spread through TV dramas.
Typical characters still need typical environments
In the creation of some realistic themes, the urban landscape has the same purpose, often appearing under pseudonyms and similar high-rise buildings, and many regional spaces have become a kind of cultural "enclave", which is criticized by the audience as a "suspended drama".
This is not unrelated to its pale regional spatial expression.
In fact, in the tradition of Chinese TV dramas, regional culture was once an important feature.
Especially when many provinces do not yet have satellite channels, or provincial satellite channels have not yet gained national influence, and TV stations in various provinces and cities rely on their own production and sales, the content of the programs broadcast by local TV stations is mainly to serve local audiences.
Chongqing TV's "Silly Teacher" and "Mountain City Bang Bang Army", Guangdong TV's "Miss Public Relations", Dalian TV's "Fence·Women and Dogs", "Ruilu·Women and Wells", etc., often take the local area as the place where the story takes place. , with local stories as the main content, laying out the local social outlook and details of life.
Later, provincial satellite TV gradually became the most important broadcast channel among provincial and municipal TV stations.
As their influence gradually covers the whole country, their operational positioning has also changed from the previous pursuit of local characteristics to the focus on the whole country.
The threshold for non-public capital to enter the radio and television program production industry has been lowered, and the separation of production and broadcasting in the film and television industry has become popular.
The film and television companies specializing in program production must serve the program needs of national TV stations. When creating and producing, the priority of finding the cultural commonality of national audiences is often placed in front of mining regional elements.
After that, commercial elements such as IP and traffic stars were introduced, and the production costs of some film and television dramas were more inclined to the copyright fees of big IP and the remuneration of traffic stars.
In order to save costs, some works focus the shooting scenes in a few simple indoor spaces, resulting in the absence of real regional landscapes. The complexity of different cities is simplified into a sample room-like residence or office, and the geographical space of TV dramas has gradually become a story-carrying space. Simple stage.
Engels pointed out: "Realism means, in addition to the truth of the details, but also to truly reproduce the typical characters in the typical environment." Regional culture is a complex system of meanings, including not only the natural environment, customs and rituals, and daily habits. It also includes the world above this.
For a period of time, the simplification and simplification of geospatial expressions in TV dramas brought a cultural, aesthetic and meaningful void to the creation.
This phenomenon has aroused the attention and deep thinking of practitioners.
Local accents arouse emotional resonance
Industrialization and urbanization cannot cut off the local accent.
In recent years, "nostalgia" has been repeatedly mentioned in literary and artistic works.
Specifically in the field of TV dramas, creators pay more and more attention to the use of regional characteristics.
From the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou to the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest, all of them have become the geographical space for the description of the works, which evokes a different kind of "nostalgia" from the audience.
Beijing, as the capital, has always been the focus of TV dramas on regional space.
In recent years, Beijing-style TV dramas such as "Sesame Hutong" and "The Sideburns Are Not Begonia Red" have used pickles and Peking Opera as the core images of their works, consolidating people's impression of Beijing's historical changes and cultural accumulation.
Also a work with a sense of the times, "Age of Awakening" expands the space presentation of the TV series to old Beijing.
In the works, historical landmarks such as the Red House of Peking University, Changxindian, and Taoran Pavilion appear frequently, and even the soil of Dashilar, the wall tiles of Arrow Shan Hutong, and the grape shelf in Chen Duxiu's courtyard are carefully arranged, trying to restore the style of the past.
And TV series such as "I'm Good in Another Country", "Little Joy" and "Shichahai" have shaped Beijing today.
It contains both the traditional Beijing flavor and the modern atmosphere of the metropolis.
Chinese people from all over the world gather here to compose the spiritual outlook and cultural heritage of Beijing from different levels and dimensions.
The same is a first-tier city, but the TV series presents Shanghai's regional characteristics in a completely different way.
One is the old Shanghai in "Secret and Great" and "Old Chinese Medicine". It is the battlefield of spy shadows with open guns and dark arrows. Shanghai historical atmosphere.
One is today's Shanghai, a trendy city with a commercial atmosphere. In "Ode to Joy", "Settled Home" and "Thirty Only", it is a dream place for strugglers, a showcase for fashion culture, and a daily life for different social classes. display.
In addition to the changes of the times reflected by the metropolitan landscapes of Beijing and Shanghai, the wider geographical shaping in the TV series presents a differentiated Chinese story, depicting the style of China from the south to the north.
When it comes to the Northeast in TV series, people often think of the "Country Love" series.
In fact, the presentation of TV dramas to the Northeast has already surpassed the level of rural comedy and developed in a pluralistic direction.
The Northeast in "I Don't Want to Be Your Friends" has a steaming bathhouse, and the Northeast in "Old Tavern" has the boldness of "falling to the ground as brothers, why should we be flesh-and-blood", and the joys and sorrows of the Northeast family in "The World" With sincere emotions, the TV series has both the warmth of the Northeast and the grand charm of the Northeast.
From "White Deer Plain", "The Flowers Bloomed That Year and the Moon Was Full" to "Installing a Stage" and "Mountains and Seas", the scenery of the Loess Plateau in the northwest and the eight hundred-mile Qinchuan flows in the TV series. What impresses the audience is both in "Installing a Stage". The bitterness and sweetness of the urban villages in Xi'an also have the vicissitudes of Xihaigu in Ningxia in "Shan Hai Qing".
In "Everything is Good", the sound of Suzhou Pingtan is gurgling, and in "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy", the people of Chongqing climb the hill, giving the audience a distinctive audio-visual freshness and a sense of intimacy with the regional culture.
The recovery of regional culture in TV dramas is inseparable from social development.
With the increasing mobility of our residents in work and life, coupled with the development of tourism and the convenience of the Internet, for the audience, many scenery in other places are not only unfamiliar and alienated, but more novel and appealing.
When TV dramas with dialect accents arouse the audience's interest in learning dialects, and when specific drama filming locations become an endless stream of Internet celebrity check-in spots, we feel the audience's fondness for TV dramas that combine regional culture, and the people The enthusiasm of the masses for the motherland.
Artistic value and cultural value complement each other
The rise of regional culture in TV dramas first reflects the high-quality improvement of TV dramas at the level of visual arts.
With the improvement of the industrialization level of my country's TV dramas and the increasing demand for high-quality TV dramas by audiences, the enrichment of TV drama vision has become a sign of the refinement, specialization and quality of TV dramas.
And this refinement is not only the improvement of computer effects or lens language, but also the information content of the picture itself.
Art comes from life, and TV drama is a media art that is highly close to daily life.
The vast territory of our country itself brings "a thousand miles of different styles and a hundred miles of different customs", which is a treasure trove of resources that enriches pictures and multiple visual elements.
Regional culture is displayed in TV dramas, providing more differentiated and novel content and details for the spatial landscape of TV dramas, forming a rich level of visual aesthetics.
In addition to being a visual spatial landscape, regional culture can also be a source of auditory effects.
The lines and dialogues of the TV series are seasoned according to local dialects, authentic sayings, and friendly local accents are integrated into the auditory system of the TV series, which not only enriches the words and phrases of the TV series, but also increases the audience's sense of freshness.
And regional musical elements, such as local opera, have also been requisitioned into the sound system of TV dramas. Every time the Suzhou Pingtan of "Everything is Good" appears not only in line with the characters' emotions, but also infiltrates the flavor of Suzhou. , The plot of Li Dazhao's leaflet is matched with the paragraph of Peking Opera "Pick the Pulley", which not only enhances the atmosphere of the story, but also renders the emotion.
Regional culture is also a rich library of story materials.
There are so many places to write about the history and culture in various parts of our country. Yiwu in "Chicken Feather Flying to the Sky" and Xihaigu in "Shan Hai Qing" are like a history book, which records the years passed by Chinese children.
In addition, clothing, food, housing and transportation, as another representation of regional culture, also add a lot of flavor to the TV series.
The frozen pears in "I Don't Want to Be Friends with You", and the Roujiamo and Hu spicy soup in "Installation" all made the audience feel hungry and yearn for them.
In general, regional culture not only makes TV dramas artistically richer, more delicate, real and grounded, but also culturally, the integration of regional culture and TV dramas is important for promoting the rich culture of various parts of our country and increasing cultural exchanges and inheritance in various parts of our country. Cultural traditions across the country have played a positive role.
With the help of TV series, regional culture can strengthen people's spiritual connection with their hometown, region and country, thus establishing a deeper cultural cognition and emotional connection.
There is still a lot of room for exploration and improvement in the presentation of regional culture in my country's current TV dramas. It is believed that with the deepening of creation, there will be more masterpieces using regional culture, telling more authentic and vivid Chinese stories, and conveying more intense Rich Chinese sensibilities.
(Author: Yang Hui, Lecturer, Department of Cultural Industry, College of Literature, Capital Normal University)