half-month talk reporter Duan Jingjing
50 billion yuan, this is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Three gift films led by "Me and My Motherland", "Captain of China" and "The Climber" jointly created a new National Day box office record .
started from "The Founding of a Nation" 10 years ago. "The Sound of the Wind", "Take the Tiger Mountain", "Operation Mekong", "Operation Red Sea" and "Wolf Warrior" series have successively become screen hits, and the main theme movies have gradually grown into the movie market. An important level that cannot be ignored. The "Gift Array" in the National Day file in 2019 further reflects the growth of the gift film in narrative breakthroughs, deep cultivation of genres, and industrial exploration: when "patriot" finds the most effective way of telling, the gift film will naturally become a hit on the National Day file.
From the epic of the big hero to the close-up of the little figure
Since the birth of the National Day gift film in 1959, major revolutionary historical events have always been the "highlights" in the gift films at major time points. The series of films represented by "The Great Battle" will be grand The war narrative has improved to a point where future generations can hardly surpass it. Insufficient new ideas made the gift-tributing films in the mid-to-late 1990s fall into the dilemma of "applauding but not popular", and it is urgent to open up new creative space. The
breakthrough occurred in 2009. The 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, "The Founding of the People's Republic", "The Wind", "Nanjing! Nanjing! "Bring the new attitude of the gift film to the audience. While maintaining the tradition of praising the times and looking back at the country’s history, they have turned to boldly innovate in narratives, turning their perspective from the grand hero group to the flesh and blood individual characters.
Since then, the gift-giving films have gradually transitioned from big shots to small shots, and "normalized" and "popularized" small shots gradually moved to the center of the screen.
In the National Day file of 2019, no matter which movie they watched, the direct feeling of the audience is "remember people".
The audience remembered the engineers in "My Motherland and Me" to ensure the safety of electric flag raising, and the scientists who chose incognito for the atomic bomb career; remembered the captain who turned the tide in "Captain China" and used his own power to stabilize the emotions of passengers The flight attendant; remembers the photographer who slept on Mount Everest in order to record precious shots in "The Climber"... The era of
agitated the little people, and the little people merged into the history. This type of film takes small people as the protagonists, connects major historical events, and freezes a moment with a representative meaning. In "My Motherland and Me", it is difficult for the little people in many short films to find identity tags related to history, and they have become individual symbols of the group portraits of the times he lives in.
from the main theme to the new mainstream
As the Chinese film industry gradually relaxes the barriers to entry of private capital, films are paying more and more attention to the market. At the same time, a group of directors born after the founding of New China took over the main melody creation task from their predecessors. They pay more attention to civilian heroes and are willing to try to learn from commercial films. From this, there is a genre film that integrates commercial elements in the "Presentation Square".
As early as ten years ago, there was a trend toward various types of gift-presenting films, trying to make the audience "want to watch" and "can watch". The extension of the genre film in the National Day file "Pan Array of Gifts" in 2019 is getting wider and wider. "Captain of China" and "The Climber" combine the attributes of gift offerings with disaster and professional genres, and integrate the glory of humanity in aviation accidents into the narrative logic of the main theme film, which makes the viewability and empathy of gift films new Steps.
"I don't want to call the gift film the main theme film, but prefer to define it as the new mainstream film." Once participated in the production of "Party Founding", "Take the Tiger Mountain out of Wisdom", "Army Founding", and "Mekong Operation" Director Huang Jianxin believes that at this stage of the development of Chinese films, the main theme of the film has long been gone. "Different types of movies can be mainstream value movies as long as they have positive content." Sun Jiashan, associate researcher at
China Academy of Art, believes that the mature film industry should handle the relationship between mainstream discourse and business logic in the country, that is, through mature business types To tell the mainstream story, so that the "new theme" can not only achieve commercial success, but also produce the effect of "moisturizing things silently" at the level of social value and cultural style. The exploration of film industrialization behind the
gift film The gratifying progress of the
main theme gift film is also a manifestation of the progress of China's film industrialization. Yin Hong, vice chairman of the Chinese Film Association and a professor at Tsinghua University, said that the phenomenon of this year’s National Day files shows that Chinese films have reached a stable level after years of development.
"This is in line with the film market reforms in recent years and the overallFactors such as the improvement of the industrialization level of each industry are closely related, reflecting the results of China's film reform. "Yin Hong said.
is the most important visual aspect of film industrialization, China is gradually narrowing the gap with the world's top film visual effects. The shooting team of
"Chinese Captain" created an Airbus A319 simulation with a 1:1 ratio. The three sections of the cabin were bumped at different frequencies, which realized the first overall action shooting under the bumpy state of the aircraft on a global scale. The Climber has more than 2,000 special effects shots in the entire film, which will bring the turbulence down. Scenes such as peaks, high-altitude avalanches, and strong winds are vividly displayed.
It is undeniable that the road to China’s film industrialization is still in its infancy, and the film industry is still in the process of adjusting "from high speed to high quality". But the good news is that, The bubble in the Chinese film industry is being squeezed, and the disruptors are forced to leave the scene, and professionalism and rationality are gradually returning. The sales of the three gift films have convinced us that Chinese filmmakers have embarked on a new path to establish a mature film industrialization system. One step.
