On March 17, Zheng Dasheng's new work "Village Drama" was planned by Elephant Screening and held the premiere of 100 cities in domestic theaters. It is hard to imagine that this "Village Drama" is the first film released in domestic theaters by this director who has been famous for a long time in the Chinese art film circle and has a lot of works. For this "senior newcomer" in the film industry, the film can meet with the majority of audiences in the theater, which is naturally an important node in his film creation career, in the words of the director himself, "to be released is to sign it."
Zheng Dasheng
Director Zheng Dasheng has been in the art film industry for a long time, as early as 2000 launched the TV movie "The Death of Wang Bo", after which many of his films were in the form of customized works, broadcast on the CCTV Movie Channel. In the spring of 2013, his two films, "Tianjin Idle Man" and "Dangerous City", were once able to meet art film audiences in Nanjing, Shanghai and other places in the art film exhibition unit planned by the rear window of the domestic art film promotion and distribution organization. But in his nearly two decades of film creation, the most important channel for ordinary audiences to see the works of director Zheng Dasheng is the CCTV Movie Channel. It is precisely based on this that the release of "Village Drama" has extraordinary significance for Zheng Dasheng.
Zheng Dasheng came from a film family: his grandfather was the theater film master Huang Zuolin, his grandmother was danny, the stage screen amphibious star Danny, his mother was the famous fourth-generation director Huang Shuqin, and his father Zheng Changfu was also one of the few top artists in the film industry. Perhaps influenced by his family, unlike other independent film directors who pay more attention to realistic themes, all of Zheng Dasheng's works are based on history, and in the independent film and art film industry, it can be called "its own school".
"Village Drama" 100 Cities Premiere Shanghai Station
Five years ago, Zheng Dasheng once told this writer in detail about the reasons for his preference for historical themes. He confessed that he was a lover of historical stories and historical objects. He likes to read stories, people, and everything in history, especially likes to collect small people and stories that are submerged under the grand narrative in the historical background, that is, materials called "private history", such as letters and ledgers of characters in the Republic of China period, family diaries, photos and other objects. These "private histories" are particularly intriguing to Zheng Dasheng. "Using history to express itself has more creative space for me, more freedom, and easier expression." Director Zheng Dasheng's words are still fresh in my memory.
"Village Drama" continues Zheng Dasheng's concern about China's historical changes, but puts the time node at the end of the "Cultural Revolution" and the beginning of reform and opening up. After receiving some praise at major film festivals at home and abroad in 2017, the film was able to successfully meet with domestic audiences at the beginning of this year.
The script of "Village Drama" is based on three short stories by Jia Dashan, a writer from Zhengding County, Hebei Province. In the Chinese literary circles of the 1980s, Jia Dashan was a short story writer known for his realistic creative style, and was once known as "Erjia" with Jia Pingwa, and became famous for a while. His works "Taking the Scriptures" and "Flower Market" have been selected as national middle school Chinese textbooks.
Poster of "Village Drama"
Jia Dashan's text on the change of reality and the richness of human nature is in line with director Zheng Dasheng's historical orientation and realistic concern. Thanks to the director's long-term sense of history and historical awareness, the expression of the face of the times in "Village Drama" is calm, restrained and relatively neutral.
The title of "Village Opera" itself has the triple meaning of the small drama staged by the village theater to welcome the New Year, the fight and farce around the division of land and exercises in the village, and the home country drama in the middle of the change of times in the whole of China, whether it is many characters in the film or the director as a video creator, they consciously put themselves in the object position of a performer, and did not carry out too much preaching and self-interpretation in the film, but left the task of interpretation, analysis and interpretation to the audience in the theater.
"Village Opera" chooses to use traditional opera as the core expression clue, which is naturally closely related to director Zheng Dasheng's family origins and personal preferences. Zheng Dasheng's lover is Hua Dan Shen Yuli, the head of the Shanghai Kun Opera Troupe, and he himself has also filmed the opera film "Lian Guan Yu Jackie Chan". Therefore, in "Village Opera", we can see three representative opera works born in various eras and regions of China - "Playing Golden Branch", "Zhong Kui Fighting Ghosts" and "Wanquan River Water", these three operas play an important role in the promotion of the film's plot and the expression of meaning, and even the most important group of non-professional actors in the whole film is a private Jin opera troupe from Jingxing County, Hebei Province, who has been performing "Playing Golden Branch" for many years. It is precisely based on these elements of traditional opera that "Village Opera" not only expresses the great changes of the era of China's transition from collectivism to commercialism, but also pins on the intention of the survival of Chinese cultural traditions in the drastically changed contemporary society. And this point also has a consistent clue with Zheng Dasheng's attention perspective in his previous works such as "Antiques" and "Tianjin Idle People".
Stills from "Village Drama"
As some media and film critics have criticized, in "Village Drama", although there is no too strong subjective narrative impulse, there are still too many symbolic elements with symbolic and metaphorical colors, so that the audience will be immersed in the decoding of the meaning of these symbols, and relatively ignore the advancement of the plot and the meaning of the film's great era change. Nevertheless, whether it is the theme, image temperament, or specific content expression, "Village Drama" is still a rare genre in today's Chinese cinema films. Films of this genre and genre can be released and deserve attention.
Around the relevant issues of "Village Drama", the author and director Zheng Dasheng launched a dialogue.
Xu Jinjing: From "The Death of Wang Bo", which depicts Wang Bo, a talented man in the early Tang Dynasty, to "Tianjin Idle People", which tells the ecology of Tianjin during the Republic of China period, your film works have always had a relatively strong concern for historical and cultural changes. Why is there such a subject matter preference?
Zheng Dasheng: First, because I like it, I think history is the best script; second, for the convenience of the map, the current reality of the subject, most of them are difficult to dig deep, to a certain geological layer will not let you go down again.
Xu Jinjing: "Village Drama" is still a film that pays attention to the theme of China's major historical changes, but this time, why do you put the perspective on the contemporary era, at such a time node as the beginning of reform and opening up?
Zheng Dasheng: 40 to 50 years ago, not far away, the history is the most difficult to describe. But at the same time, this history is also the most worth recalling – how did we become what we are now? I almost don't know myself anymore.
Xu Jinjing: "Village Drama" is adapted from Mr. Jia Dashan's novel, compared with the original work, what adaptations and integrations have you made to this story? Why is this treatment done?
Zheng Dasheng: From the "Jia Dashan Novel Collection" (Writers Publishing House), the three articles of "Peanuts", "Village Drama" and "Lao Que" are selected as the basis for interpersonal relations, and from the author's "Mengzhuang" series, we repeatedly experienced the human feelings of the northern countryside in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the actions in the peanut chapter — watching a young man slap and accidentally "kill" his own daughter - is taken out and made the hardcore of the movie's story. Starting from this one action, we try to extend our imagination to imagine what else could happen before, after, and especially after that. In that situation... One action is enough to launch a movie, even if it is not the focus of the narrative in the original novel.
Xu Jinjing: The whole film of "Village Drama" is mainly based on a black tone, but when the male protagonist Kui Sheng recalls the scene where his daughter is choked to death by himself, it adopts color treatment. What is the purpose of this treatment of different colors between black and color?
Zheng Dasheng: There is nothing particularly metaphorical. In the early seventies of the last century, I first had a memory, and the colors I remember most were grass green and bright red, everywhere.
Xu Jinjing: The core story of "Village Drama" revolves around the New Year drama in the village, in order to reflect the advent of the new era, the county cadres selected the play "Hitting the Golden Branch". Can you tell us about the background of this play? Is the reason why I consider arranging this play have a special meaning?
Zheng Dasheng: The final selection of non-professional actors is a private Jin opera troupe in Jingxing County, Hebei Province, with actors plus a band, and all members come to the film. They sang Shanxi Zizi and toured the villages and towns at the eastern and western foothills of the Taihang Mountains all year round. The favorite drama of the villagers during the New Year is this "Playing the Golden Branch", which is the best play and popular drama of this drama team. I chose the play and took advantage of it. "Hitting the Golden Branch" is found in many local plays, and in the Kunqu opera it is called "Full Bed Wat". "Complete business, lively and auspicious" is the original words of the choreographer of the drama team (the actor of the village branch book in the movie). This play has a very typical Chinese ethic, the family and the country are entangled together, and the trivial contradictions of the common feelings of the people in each family are magnified to the hierarchy of the first family and the second family. It just so happens that there is also a "slap" to the princess in the play.
Xu Jinjing: In addition to "Hitting the Golden Branch", the dramas that also play an important role in the film, such as "The Water of the Wanquan River is Clear and Clear" and "Zhong Kui Fighting Ghosts", can you introduce the general situation of these two plays and their role in the advancement of the film's plot?
Zheng Dasheng: "Wanquan River Water" is a rare lyrical singing in the "model play", implying a secret male and female feeling, and is probably the only revolutionary song in that era that can pin love meaning. "Dancing the bell" is the legacy of folk sacrifices in the northern countryside, during the Spring Festival, the opera team must be invited to sing opera, must dress up as the image of The old master of Zhong Kui, sing and dance, patrol the village, at the main road entrance, in the well platform, every household can not leak, enter the courtyard door to sing auspicious words, wield the sword to catch, exorcise evil spirits and plagues ... The origin of the drama is the séance. And Zhong Kui, the ghost male, is a ghost with a bad fate and a violent personality.
Xu Jinjing: The film "Village Drama" can be described as the expression of triple drama, the small drama of the village theater, the farce of the village around the division of land and acting, and the big drama of the change of the times, does the film title of "Village Drama" have such multiple directions?
Zheng Dasheng: Behind the scenes, the play of "One Village". So later, I didn't explain how the "Golden Branch" was.
Xu Jinjing: In the film "Village Drama", traces of the Mao Zedong era can be seen everywhere, but the villagers in the film who have escaped the shackles of collectivist dogma have begun to carry out various struggles and calculations for their own selfish interests. Through such shooting and expression, what kind of attitude do you have towards the two eras before and after the reform and opening up?
Zheng Dasheng: I just try to experience everyone in that situation as much as possible, from adaptation, to shooting, to editing, I have been putting myself in the shoes of others. I'm afraid I'll make the same judgments and behaviors as he/she does. I think, it's terrible.
Xu Jinjing: In the promotional poster of the movie, you wrote something like this: "There is not a single bad person, and there is no innocent person." Can you talk about the specific meaning of this sentence?
Zheng Dasheng: This sentence on the poster is my intuition, and one day the shooting scene blurted out from my own mind. In more detail, I am afraid that I cannot say more. Dear audience, you can taste for yourself.
Xu Jinjing: If I remember correctly, "Village Drama" is your first film to be released in domestic theaters, and today you can meet with a wide audience in theaters, can you talk about your feelings about it?
Zheng Dasheng: If it can be released, it is to sign it. To be seen, or to be questioned and questioned, is not to shoot in vain.