"The Little Prince" is a classic children's literature created by French writer Anthony de Saint-Exupéry in 1942. On the surface, the work is pure children's literature, but it actually contains adults' philosophies on life and life. Thinking, has a huge readership worldwide, and it is popular today.
The Little Prince and the Fox
In 2015, the film version of "The Little Prince" directed by the famous American director Mark Osborne came out. After many years, this children's literature finally appeared on the big screen. The
movie "The Little Prince" is not a literary adaptation film in a simple sense, and did not copy the original story content, but boldly created a new story frame, embedding the familiar "Little Prince Story" into it, and further generated a brand new Inspirational themes and emotional appeals, writing themes about individualism and American culture.
The Little Prince
"The Little Prince" Original: Children's Dream Kingdom, Adults' Solitude and Reflection
French writer Antoni de Saint-Exupéry created "The Little Prince" based on an adult's life and life Reflection is not a literary work created specifically for a child audience.
Because of the fairy tale form of "The Little Prince", the audience coverage of works is very wide. Both children and adults can read different content from it and obtain different spiritual insights.
In the eyes of children, the little prince is a soft-hearted, pure and kind-hearted teenager. The roses, foxes and snakes in his life are of great significance to him, and the stories full of fantasy are even more intoxicating for children.
The little prince and the fox in the rose bushes
In the eyes of adults, the little prince represents ourselves. The loneliness of the little prince is the loneliness of all adults. Facing the indifference of other adults, the little prince guards lonely His rose became friends with "his" fox and was deceived by the snake.
Anthony de Saint-Exupéry’s "The Little Prince" will receive different interpretations in the eyes of different readers. The content of the story full of life philosophies has moved countless people.
Saint-Exupéry borrows the "child image" of the little prince to lead all adults to work hard to find the true nature of life and find the innocent self that has been forgotten in their hearts.
The Little Prince and the Snake
Cross-domain adaptation: From fairy tales to inspirational movies
For the film adaptation of the children's literature "The Little Prince", if it fully complies with the original content, the movie version is bound to become a romantic and beautiful animation work.
However, in the hands of the famous American director Mark Osborne, known as the "Father of Kung Fu Panda", the movie version of "The Little Prince" successfully transformed from a fairy tale to an inspirational movie, broke away from Saint-Exupéry literature The narrative mode of fairy tales created by the work brings the little prince into the real world in a unique way, discovering the taste of surrealism from realism.
is a planet inhabitant who likes to listen to praise very much.
In the original work, Saint-Exupéry is sealed in the "Little Prince Story" because of his disappointment and loneliness in the adult world, as well as the weight of his precarious marriage life. Reflecting on , in his eyes, adults grow up with the passage of time and unknowingly give up the innocence, directness and kindness of a child.
seems to be shaping the little prince from planet B-612, but it actually extracts the commonality of each of us. The little prince represents the most ordinary human being. Mark Osborne extracted realism and fantasy from the story of Saint-Exupéry, and combined these two completely different colors to create a new story content for the movie "The Little Prince."
The little prince and the pilot
The little girl and mother in the film are cold and coldThe life of the mother character in the film is to be able to let her daughter enter a prestigious school and train her to become a mother in the film. In the strict study plan drawn up by her mother, the little girl is constantly learning like a robot every day. The life of the mother and daughter of is as cold and lifeless as this boxy, well-regulated metropolis.
The little girl studying
compares with the mother and daughter who obey the rules of urban life. The owner of the broken house next to their new home is planted with greenery and incompatible with the surrounding environment is undoubtedly an outlier in this city. The
film focuses on the narrative on how the lives and thoughts of the little girl and mother have changed step by step , how they bid farewell to their indifferent life, and began to establish a bit of emotional connection with the grandpa next door , How the heart gradually melted.
The little girl and the grandfather next door
"The Little Prince Story" becomes a fairy tale that people living in the urban jungle can't believe in, even the underage girl is reluctant to believe it, thinking that the grandfather next door Is lying to her, all the stories are lies. The whole story of the
movie "The Little Prince" is also the story of about how the indifferent and innocent little girl once again softened her heart and found her innocence again. The inspirational theme of the
film is not a broad sense of career success or academic success. The director regards people's return to innocence, return to kindness, and the establishment of warmth between people as a success.
Grandpa encourages little girls to look at the telescope
Theme changes: cross-cultural expression of ideas
American director Mark Osborne’s film "The Little Prince" although inherits the theme of the original book in his own way, he still uses American culture replaced French culture and wrote themes about individualism and American culture. The film adapted by
is actually composed of two stories, one is the little girl’s real life experience, the other is the "little prince story" described by the grandfather, the reality story represents American culture, and the "little prince" "Story" represents the ideally romantic French culture . The narrative process of the film itself is a process of cross-cultural expression.
The real life encounters of the little girl in the film
The "Little Prince Story" in the mouth of the grandfather
From a cross-cultural perspective, we can clearly feel the American culture in the movie "The Little Prince"-rejection of the collective Assimilation, the pursuit of individual independence and free will, is completely different from the loneliness and introspection of the original story. The
movie first visually creates a cold real world, gray streets and houses, straight streets criss-cross, all houses are squarely arranged in the picture, visually showing the boring and boring real world indifferent.
Therefore, in this icy urban space, the mother and daughter lead the same indifferent and fast-paced life. The mother takes her daughter as the center of life, and the daughter takes study as the center of life. Driven by the gears of life, both people have expressions. Live seriously, indifferently, and mechanically.
Indifferent, mechanical mother and daughter
In an interview at an elite school, the little girl was at a loss because the examiner did not ask "the most important question" and was at a loss to answer the question, and finally fainted in the examination room, while the shrewd mother faced her daughter. After the interview failed, she didn't feel discouraged, and immediately worked out an alternative plan. Her daughter went to this elite school to become the ultimate goal of life. The image of mother in
is exactly the "adult" in Saint-Exupéry's works. She only emphasizes practicality and uses tenacious willpower to live hard.
is imperceptibly, the role of mother in the film deprives her daughter of her free will and the right to have an independent personality, trying to build her into a cold and cold person like her in the indifferent city.
The mother image in the film
In the story told by the grandfather next door, the little prince’s innocence, gentleness, kindness and innocence are all traits that the little girl never imagined, and they have been forgotten for a long time.
So, the little girl completed the self-recognition process of "curiosity-inquiry-negation-verification-affirmation", and finally affirmed her independent personality and free will, and also affirmed the relationship between herself and the grandfather next door Precious friendship.
The story of the grandfather next door and the little girl
The little prince is more like an enlightenment of free will for the little girl, touching her heart to find the long-lost innocence and childlike , familiar with people. The inner satisfaction brought about by the emotional communication finally made her actively want to be what kind of person, and draw a line from the standards of the indifferent society represented by her mother.
Therefore, the theme of expressed in the movie "The Little Prince" is to return to innocence and pursue oneself, which is an American culture and individualism through and through. The
movie discards the adult's reflection on life contained in the "Little Prince Story", but instead expresses the theme on the surface, simply interpreting the necessity and importance of children returning to innocence and pursuing themselves. The thousands of lonely people represented by the little prince
have not been shown and expressed in the movie. From literary works to film works, American culture played a leading role in the adaptation process. , commercial culture gave the two a unique "chemical reaction", and different themes were expressed in the process of cross-cultural expression.
The lonely little prince
Conclusion
The bold adaptation of the movie "The Little Prince" is a process of cultural fusion , pursues the romantic poetic French culture and the reality of the direct American culture in the fusion of the two stories.
The audience not only recalled the warmth brought by the little prince story in the old grandpa’s mouth, but also affirmed the necessity of returning to innocence through the little girl’s pursuit of individualism and free will, and satirized people’s feelings in reality. Eager for success and indifference.
The friendship between the little girl and the grandfather next door represents that the people in the film need to be close and warm to each other. Only the emotional connection between people can make the world no longer cold.
*Note: The above pictures are all from the movie "Le Petit Prince"
