One
In the comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the characteristics of the creation and broadcast of Chinese TV dramas, "annual characteristics" is an important summary and evaluation angle. And every year's "annual drama" is often iconic and leading for the creation of dramas throughout the year and in the future. For example, "The Awakening Age" broadcast in 2021 pushed the creation of revolutionary historical themes to a new artistic peak; "The World", which will be broadcast in 2022, has become a civilian epic drama that is difficult to surpass so far; "Hurricane", which will be broadcast in 2023, has become a collection of anti-corruption cases and suspense themes. They are not only the most influential and excellent works of the year, but also become representative works in this genre.
At present, 2024 has passed the halfway point, looking back on the creation and broadcast of TV dramas in the first half of the year, the concept of "annual drama" is no longer a scene of "lonely peak independence", but a series of works with annual characteristics have come one after another, forming a drama lineup with diverse themes and types. Even works of the same genre provide the audience with a fresh aesthetic experience with differentiated content and diverse artistic styles.
The following only analyzes and discusses some breakthroughs and gratifying changes in this theme field, as well as the enlightenment and reference significance for future creation, based on the five representative works with "annual characteristics" of reality dramas in the first half of 2024.
Two
At the beginning of the year, the sudden bloom of "Flowers" stirred a pool of spring water in Chinese TV dramas. With an amazing personalized art style and aesthetic narrative, it subverts the content and shooting and production techniques of realistic dramas in the traditional sense, bringing surprises to the screen.
The main story and scenes provided by "Flowers" are the events that happened on the Yellow River Road in Shanghai in the 90s of the last century, and there is a 30-year gap between it and the real life of the present. There are many successful precedents for this kind of creation that stands in the present and looks back at the past. Like the trilogy "Big River" and "The Wind Blows in the Summer", etc., it can be said that in recent years, the creation of realistic themes has expanded and extended in terms of ideas and vision. They awaken the impressions and experiences of those who have passed by, and they also reflect on history to a certain extent. In these respects, Blossom is not the only breakthrough work. The description of the legendary life story of the reform and opening up era can be said to be a common narrative theme of this type of work in recent years.
But the sensational effect caused by the broadcast of "Flowers" is unique. This kind of sensation is different from the topic heat caused by popular and out-of-the-circle works in the general sense, and it brings a rich and extreme artistic temperament to realistic works: the lens is colorful and dazzling, the picture is overlapping with light and shadow, the narrative is tactful and twisty, the performance is delicate and nuanced, the environmental atmosphere is strong, and the characters are swaying. It brings a new narrative aesthetic to Chinese TV dramas, and also shows the diversity of real life and the colorfulness of artistic creation. This kind of artistic breakthrough provides a unique work for how to enhance the aesthetic expression of realistic themes from various artistic dimensions in the future. At the same time, in the heated discussion and hot comment on "Flowers", it also touches on the relationship between the adaptation of literary masterpieces and film and television creation, the pursuit of cinematization and the aesthetic construction of TV drama ontology, and other related topics of literary theory and commentary, which also illustrates the unique weight of this work.
If "Flowers" has brought a strong and unique wind of artistic innovation to this year's realistic theme creation, then the following "South to North" is a more solid, steady, mature and heavy style, showing that realist creation has reached another height in the traditional and classic sense. Screenwriter Gao Mantang and director Zheng Xiaolong, with their profound skills and artistic attainments accumulated in the field of realistic themes for a long time, once again witnessed the eternal charm of classic creation. This work takes the career and life fate and growth of the railway police as the main narrative line, opening up a new subject area for the audience. The crowded and lively carriages and the flow of passengers from north to south constitute a condensed social landscape. In the speed of the speeding train and the rapid development and change of the times, vivid details of daily life are integrated, so that the work has distinctive content characteristics, characteristics of the times and quality of life. At the same time, the traditional Chinese personality style of "it is better to settle the dispute" runs through the setting of the dramatic contradictions and character conflicts in the play, which not only completes the construction of the dramatic contradictions and the shaping of the characters, but also highlights the value of the times of traditional culture.
The inheritance and promotion of the experience of classic art creation in "South to North" and the breakthrough of "Flowers" in opening up a new artistic path have achieved a certain sense of perfect combination for the creation of realistic themes in 2024 in the two-way dimension of integrity and innovation.
After "Flowers" and "South to North", the broadcast of "City in the City" represents a new level in the pursuit of the depth of reality and humanity in the exploration of the sharpness of the theme.
First of all, this drama deliberately avoids the crowding of conventional tracks and mature themes such as urban, emotional, family, female, workplace, inspirational and other popular ones in the current market. At the same time, it does not search for stories in the past reality, but focuses on the current high-end financial field, witnesses the strength of the country's financial reform by telling the career and life of bankers, and sees and shows the major theme of finance as the bloodline of the real economy. This is not a "cold" figure in a simple sense, but a kind of courage and responsibility to pay attention to the major social realities in the creation of realistic themes.
Secondly, in terms of the conventional understanding of the creative concept of realism, this drama has also made a "progressive" exploration. It does not take "warmth" as the main color, but uses a real and objective cold gaze to wipe away the "mannerism" vein and warmth in some realistic works, profoundly revealing the cruelty of money and desire devouring human nature, thus reaching the broad road opened up by realism in a complete sense. This kind of "disenchantment" gesture in the creation of realistic themes allows it to contribute to the audience an image of Zhao Hui who has fallen with human grayscale and pathos. His resistance, struggle, helplessness and final loss between light and darkness are the most wonderful depictions and perspectives of human nature in this work, and they are also breakthroughs in the complexity and contradiction of realistic themes in shaping characters in recent years.
After the broadcast of the gorgeous and rich "Flowers", the solid and heavy "South to North" and the cold texture of "City in the City", "My Altay" has brought a fresh and simple wind to the creation of realistic themes. With the beauty of nature, the beauty of life and the beauty of narrative, it brings the audience a long-lost sense of intimacy and comfort, making people feel as if they have tasted a bite of food without any additives and chewed the mellow aroma of a natural grain. It swept away all kinds of design sense in the creation of realistic themes, there is no well-built scene, no atmosphere created by lighting, and there is no strong plot and fast-paced artificial drama elements, Xinjiang's vast grasslands, rivers, mountains, sheep, horses, and human living conditions constitute a harmonious relationship, so that the audience can obtain a casual and free viewing mentality, and relieve the tension and anxiety of urban life. The plot slowly unfolds with the life exchanges between Zhang Fengxia's family of three and the Kazakh people, and in the seemingly idyllic and flowing water rhythm of life, it also brings out the entanglement and sorrow between the characters between tradition and modernity, emotion and reason, survival and development. "No matter how bumpy the life is, you have to live it shiningly", this is the life attitude of the characters in the play, and it is also a solid life concept to be conveyed to the audience through the narrative of the scattered life flow.
suddenly walked into a confined space from the vast grassland, and the rotation of the theme of "New Life" caught the audience off guard. This bold and steep turn to the subject matter is also an example of this year's realistic theme creation trying to break the mundane and the ordinary, and pursue survival in danger.
"New Life" tells the story of the protagonist Fei Ke disguised as different identities, gained trust in the name of family, lover and friends, cheated money and then completely disappeared with everyone's secrets, and finally the truth was revealed by everyone.
The play is a work that pursues genre expression and has an exploratory meaning. Its popularity, on the one hand, shows that the creator tries to enrich the content depth of suspense dramas in a more modern way on the basis of the realism of traditional realistic themes; On the other hand, it shows that the audience also has a more ardent expectation and recognition of suspense stories with a novel sense of form. There are no bizarre murders in "New Life", it focuses on showing the cause and effect of daily life's desires. Through many flashbacks, interludes, and flashbacks, the fragility and loss of human nature in the huge deception carefully laid by Fei Ke are outlined. The suspense and uncertainty of the plot, the slight absurdity in the reversal, the mystery of the atmosphere, the surreal environmental setting, the metaphorical color of the image of the island of people's hearts, and the danger in human interaction, the use and expression of these slightly modernist literary and artistic techniques enhance the audience's desire to follow the drama, strengthen the skills at the narrative level, and make the style of the work unique. In terms of the theme of the story, it also has a certain pioneering significance: on the surface, it is a story of anti-fraud, but its deeper meaning is to interrogate humanity and reflect on life.
After the broadcast of "New Life", it topped the global streaming platform Netflix daily list, and it also sparked ratings and discussions overseas. Such a Chinese suspense drama can capture audiences at home and abroad at the same time, which also provides a useful reference for Chinese dramas to go overseas.
Three
"Flowers" has brought a new artistic style to the creation of realistic themes, "South to North" has witnessed the profound skills of tradition and classics, "City in the City" has shown a new ideological and artistic edge in the advance to the depth of reality and human nature, "My Altay" depicts the naturalness, spontaneity and authenticity of the state of life in the style of scattered culture, and "New Life" has woven a chain composed of social, psychological and human nature, expanding the capacity of real life in suspense dramas. These five annual hit dramas, with their different theme ideas, excavation angles and artistic practices, make the creation of reality dramas in the first half of 2024 present a diversified artistic style. At the same time, they are also a response to the world and people's hearts in an artistic way in the face of the increasingly complex real life and the spiritual world of people.
These five works not only give a distinct annual imprint to the creation of dramas in 2024, but also represent the latest achievements in the creation of realistic themes in recent years, and have inspiration and reference significance for future creation:
First, it is necessary to break the current normalization and mediocrity brought about by the cycle of subject matter and the solidification of artistic thinking, to overcome the similarity of content and the tendency of artistic superficiality and superficiality in some works, and to grasp the balance between art, market and commerce. The second is that the creator's eyes should pay attention to every different corner of life and the hearts of the characters, whether it is a speck of dust on the white shirt of a person in the urban financial workplace, or a ripple blown by the wind in the heart of a girl on the frontier grassland, or the flowers swaying under the neon lights of Shanghai back then, the interaction between the railway police and passengers in the train, and the distortion and confrontation of human nature in the secret room, all of which should become the secrets explored by the artistic tentacles, and then reveal the truth of life and human nature. Third, it is necessary to enhance the artistic expression of realistic works with richer and more diverse innovative artistic styles, and to have the artistic courage and pursuit of innovation and innovation, so as to be worthy of today's rich and colorful reality. Fourth, in the face of new subject types and styles, it is necessary to have more layers of art theory criticism and criticism methods to encourage the creation and evaluation of works. The monolithic and narrow nature of art theory and criticism sometimes imprisons the creative thinking of creators.
Text: Li Jingsheng (Vice President, China Federation of Radio and Television Social Organizations)
Editor: Fan Xin