In the eyes of every Shanghainese, they can have their own version of Shanghai.
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Yellow River Road, Peace Hotel, Moss Garden, Xiandelai... Recently, as the discussion of the hit drama "Flowers" continues to increase, these symbolic places closely related to the plot of the drama have become popular check-ins on social media. point. Behind the landmark, what is really fascinating is the unique style of the times in the drama version of "Flowers".
As many drama critics have pointed out: As a famous director of the generation, Wong Kar-wai used his best method to create a gorgeous, romantic and mysterious Shanghai in the 1990s with a drunken halo. This shaping is undoubtedly a success. However, this portrayal is not without controversy. Some Shanghai audiences have pointed out the distortions in the drama version of "Flowers" from various aspects, thinking that the drama presented in the drama is "not the real Shanghai", or more like "Shanghai in the 1930s".
Those who raise questions often start from collective memory, saying that for most Shanghainese, the social atmosphere in the 1990s was not that romantic at all. "forms a contrast. Those who support it will take out old photos of Huanghe Road, Peace Hotel and other places, emphasizing that these places were how they were in the drama at the time, and point out that as long as film and television dramas can reflect a specific aspect of an era, they do not need to restore reality 100%.
The author has no intention of getting involved in the debate about whether "Flowers" is a good work and deserves to be rated. However, what significance and importance the concept of "truth" has to literary and artistic works is a topic worthy of discussion.
When we comment on a realistic literary and artistic work, we always use "real" as a complimentary word. Especially those period dramas that describe the past will use "reality" as a promotional highlight. However, from another perspective, when people appreciate literary and artistic works, what they expect is not to see the ordinary lives of most people, but to hope that the works can "come from life and be higher than life", bring out a unique perspective, and add some Depth or interest.
If a literary and artistic work with realistic themes is completely divorced from reality and relies solely on the author's random imagination, it will naturally be a betrayal of its essence. But "reality" is a large concept, encompassing many aspects of an era and a society. For creators, it is normal to select some aspects from them based on their own creative intentions and then further process them into complete artistic expressions.
Returning to the drama version of "Flowers", on the one hand, the Shanghai in this work is far from 100% real, on the other hand, it does reflect a certain temperament of that turbulent era, and the special background of Yellow River Road is rely on. Wong Kar-Wai's intention to blend reality and imagination into Shanghai in this drama is somewhat original. The experience of moving from Shanghai to Hong Kong as a child gave him a strong sense of nostalgia when filming "Flowers", and then superimposed reality, memory and imagination. Those real historical details, as well as local Shanghai actors who are fluent in dialect, are all the materials used to build this realistic and imaginary set.
Even if they are fans of the original work of Jin Yucheng's "Flowers", some people like the drama version very much, while others hate it very much. This very different attitude vividly reflects the extent to which the drama version of "Flowers" selectively reconstructs the content of the original work. If a person has a special liking for Po's story line when reading the original work, it will naturally be easier for him to "get into the drama". However, those readers who appreciate the depiction of the changes of the times in "Prosperity" will find it difficult to accept Wong Kar-wai's drastic deletions. The practice of reducing story characters and even changing the focus of the narrative. Having said that, the original work of "Prosperity" is a novel, and it can only reflect part of the era, rather than a complete "contemporary history of Shanghai."
There is Jin Yucheng’s Shanghai in Jin Yucheng’s writing, and Wong Kar-wai’s Shanghai is in Wong Kar-wai’s lens. In the eyes of every Shanghainese, there is a Shanghai of their own. Even if you don't have the writing power to write novels or the resources to make TV shows, everyone can reconstruct their thoughts and memories in their hearts, find their own place of longing, and then anchor the "reality" in their own perception. This principle applies not only to artistic creation, but also to our understanding of the world.
Yang Xinyu Source: China Youth Daily