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When the characters are not restricted by the logic of life, the sense of levitation arises

 Original title: When the character is not restricted by the logic of life, the sense of suspension arises

Feng Xiaogang’s “The North Zhe Nan Yuan” was very popular from the beginning to the end, and the score was very low (online score 4.8).

The story takes place in contemporary Beijing. The opening story is Dai Xiaoyu, played by Jin Chen, breaking up with her soon-to-be-married boyfriend in Norway because she accidentally discovered that the other party has not yet divorced. So angrily, he flew back to Beijing and lay down in his grandma’s big house. Bao Xue, played by Lan Yingying, is Dai Xiaoyu’s cousin, an 18-line actor, and she usually starts work on the fly. The sisters met You Shanshan, who played Wang Luodan at the dinner. The screenwriter used a large line to introduce You Shanshan’s situation: graduated from university, his son is 12 years old, has divorced, and opened an investment company. The financially free Sister Shan was generous and very righteous, so she bought a shop directly. With two other female characters, five girlfriends who didn’t know each other well decided to open a restaurant together. Until the end, the main line of the plot revolved around their respective emotional twists and turns.

I carefully read the negative reviews on the Internet, and basically focused on two words: suspension. The protagonists are all wealthy people. They live in either big villas or high-end apartments. Most of the time they spend tea and chat, buy a shop when they are happy, and open a restaurant when they are happy. They are seriously separated from the lives of ordinary people and are not grounded.

Unexpectedly, the word “ungroundedness” will one day be used in Feng Xiaogang’s works-he was once the most grounded director in China. I think this netizen is right, but it is not accurate. If you say “Feng Xiaogang can only take pictures of the hardships of the low-level civilians, but not the rich lives of the middle class!” then it is definitely wrong. Speaking from the heart, the lives of the Chinese people have indeed undergone earth-shaking changes since the reform and opening up, especially in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chaozhou. It is obvious to all that everyone’s lives have become rich. Writing about the new life of the city, the new look of the times, and nothing wrong.

The biggest problem with “Northern Ruins” is not to choose the wrong object, but not to follow the rules of realistic creation.

The positioning and shaping of the role is not a typical person in a typical environment

The plot developed all the way, except for the strong woman You Shanshan who opened a restaurant, she didn’t see any serious business with other investment companies. This character seems to have no main line contradictions in the play, and the biggest role is to be responsible for “sober in the world” and solve problems for the sisters and sisters. As an unknown little actor, Bao Xue runs around and rents a wing room in what looks like a courtyard. Does such a Beijing girl have actual life pressure and workplace anxiety? There are only two dramas about her career as an actress. Apart from using Huang Bo to satirize the “digital actors” in the circle, she has not seen a more three-dimensional explanation of her living conditions. In love. After returning to China, Dai Xiaoyu immediately got a job in public relations with his beauty, with five insurances and one housing fund. The specific job is to accompany the boss to sign the contract at the wine table. A single promotion can get a generous commission. And her main line contradiction? It’s love again. Leaving aside the contradictions, among the three women who are alive, which one is familiar to the audience? These three characters must be present in real life, but they are not typical.

Engels summarized the creative theory of realist literature: to create typical characters in typical environments. The character is not typical, which is the primary reason why the audience shouted “ungrounded”. Most ordinary people in first-tier cities, even if they hold one or two properties in their hands, and drive a famous car when entering and leaving, they can be regarded as a happy and prosperous life, but they are always limited by their financial ability. They settle accounts for their monthly mortgage and are professional. Anxieties about development bottlenecks and worrying about the involution of children’s education are the real living conditions of the urban middle class. Although the fun and eating and drinking in the play are not less experienced, they are not the main line of life.

The life of the middle class in the city can be written, but it cannot be separated from gravity. It needs to follow the rules of realistic creation. After all, people of every class must see the constraints of life on him. If Yu Shanshan’s constraints are not economic, there must be. But what is it? It seems that Dai Xiaoyu has received benefits from the moment she comes up with her beauty, embarking on the road from the canary to the independent woman, but does beauty also need to have a counter-effect against this character in some plots, which is a good drama design? Lan Yingying’s acting skills in variety shows were almost zero by the time “Northern Ruins”, playing a flamboyant tomboy pretentiously. Does the problem also lie in the flatness and paleness of the character itself?

In addition to being unique, typical characters should also be complex. Look at these women in the play again: What are the characteristics of Dai Xiaoyu? Smart and delicate? I haven’t known for five years that my cohabiting boyfriend hasn’t divorced yet; dare and perseverance? I was very reluctant to invest in a hotel, but I was dragged by my cousin and followed; Gentle, kind and considerate? His girlfriend made a mistake because of a broken relationship and ruined a very expensive fish. She was furious; stubborn and spine? The boyfriend came back and asked for a couple of sentences, compounded… This is not the complexity of the characters, this is the chaos of the screenwriter.

Let’s look at the problem of atypical environment. A typical environment must include new things, new phenomena, and new social relationships. There is no shortage of new things and new phenomena in the play. Feng Xiaogang has photographed many new fashions in cities, such as driving wild cars, free-standing rock climbing, horse riding, mountain skateboarding, etc. The scenes of the protagonists eating, drinking, chatting, etc. are also beautiful enough, but What about new social relations?

Back and forth in the play, there are only days when the “rich people” are singular and not restricted by the logic of normal life. The main contradiction in their lives is emotion back and forth, only emotion-the housewife is falsely derailed by the “husband”, and the “accompanying girlfriend” is tragically abandoned by the scumbag. The main content of the drama is not to write about love, but to write about typical love, placing the love relationship (social relationship) in the contradictions of the new era.

Not long ago, because of the divorce of Suzuki Honami, there was another wave of “memory killing” on the Internet. The love story of “Tokyo Love Story” took place in the early 1990s, Akana Rika is a neon glowing red dust for Nagao Wanji. He both loves and fears her, and he both yearns for it and fears it. Lixiang is Tokyo, but Satomi is homesick. When a young man in a small town has not yet completed her urbanization transformation, Lixiang’s fire (representing the metropolis) has already smashed her precious and heavy love and responsibility. It is reasonable to choose Rimi for Wanzhi. Rimi is always introverted and cautious. Although he is cautious, he carries the breath of pre-modern life in a small town. The character’s consistent personality ultimately determines the direction of love, and emotional ups and downs are also related to the duality of developed cities. The activities of the characters in the play are often located in the representative spaces of the city, such as office buildings, cross streets, gardens in the middle of the street, rented apartments, shopping malls, Shinkansen… Their love sorrow is not only between two small selves. The conflict of temperament is more the incompatibility between the urban logic and the urban logic. This is a typical person in a typical era and a typical environment. First of all, the creative path is right, and the drama is well-founded, creating a generation of classics. This little love is naturally beautiful and profound in a big city.

Today’s Beijing has far surpassed the old Tokyo. In “Northern Ruins”, the fashionable vigor of food, clothing, housing, food, drink and fun is gained, but the love dilemma of women in this city is still the same. The audience saw new things and new phenomena in the play, but they did not see new social relations or new emotional contradictions.

Have a clear narrative purpose but lack a reasonable plot to effectively support

In addition to its lack of typicality, “The North Zhe Nan Yuan” also exposed some common problems of many domestic urban dramas in recent years.

Looking at the large number of urban dramas that have appeared on domestic screens in recent years, the weak narrative often directly affects the perception. The audience simply said “not good-looking”, then what is the professional reason for “not good-looking”?

In the 1960s, narratology was formally established as a discipline under the background of structuralism and influenced by Russian formalism. Narratology believes that “story” and “plot” are actually two concepts. “Story” refers to all the events narrated in the work in actual chronological order, while “plot” focuses on the actual situation in which the event appears in the work. The basic unit of a story is not a character, but a “functional event”. In the film and television profession, this term is called “narrative purpose”. When writing a play, the screenwriter should first define the “narrative purpose”, and then design specific lines for the characters and weave specific plots for interpretation, in order to reflect the “narrative purpose” of a play.

In this regard, “The North Zhe Nan Yuan” is the same as many domestic urban dramas. After clarifying the narrative purpose, the plot that serves it is made up randomly. In one scene, the veteran agent who played a guest appearance by Song Dandan had a dispute with Dai Xiaoyu’s boss for the benefit of the actor. The narrative purpose of this scene is to make Dai Xiaoyu’s work ability affirmed by the boss, and at the same time to dispel the boss’s thoughts about her. However, in the face of a big-name figure, Dai Xiaoyu, who went to work the previous day and just entered the industry, said a few words based on his own temperament, and he actually contributed to the signing of the contract. Even if the actors’ acting skills are online, it is really difficult to convince the audience.

Give another example. For the role of Dai Xiaoyu, emotional drama is very important. But in the scene where she reunited with her boyfriend, the reason given by the creator was only that her boyfriend had completed the divorce. A good narrative needs to use plot layout and accumulation to show the characters’ deep-level behavior motivation. Does she really like her boyfriend, or is she reluctant to walk together for five years, or just for the house?

Feng Xiaogang is one of the representatives of realism that emerged in the Chinese film and television industry after the reform and opening up. He once photographed very good realism works. Today, netizens use the suspended nihility of “Little Times” as an analogy of “The North and the South”. I really don’t know how he feels. (Author Chen Daixi)

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