text | Linghu Boguang
Let’s talk about the great Chinese directors today. Here we mainly focus on the fifth and sixth generation mainland directors. After all, when it comes to Wu Jing, Guo Fan’s generation is obviously different. The films they shoot have long been winning awards in the West, and their various expressions have a strong sense of pleasing the "West". This is also the point where netizens are increasingly criticizing them.
So why is this happening? There are actually objective reasons for the answer, and there is no need to deny this fact.
Nowadays, many netizens talk about the fifth and sixth generation great directors who are rushing to criticize. When it comes to Zhang Yimou, they just want to please the West. An old lady told her, "China is not like this, why are we taking these pictures?"
Have you never thought that the China in the eyes of the old lady is the China in the eyes of everyone? She has never thought about the general environment of the national root-seeking cultural trend that began in the 1980s, and directly uses this sentence as an argument. Then she probably has not seen the real life scenes of the vast number of Chinese farmers, nor has she analyzed it in a specific historical environment. A person from that time?
This is like the content of a movie shot by Jia Zhangke. In fact, it is the same as the historical background behind "Killing That Shijiazhuang Man" of Wanqing Youth Hotel. It has the background of the times. This is an objective fact. In the final analysis, it is the general environment that shapes a group of people. concept, and in this way that kind of culture was born. Culture is inseparable from social background.
And their biggest problem is the formation of path dependence, and they are getting further and further away from the current young Chinese audience.
Zhang Yimou is, after all, a literary and artistic film director.
Zhang Yimou, the fifth generation of great mainland directors, started his career in making artistic films in his early days. He always regarded himself as an artist. However, at that time, whether their films were representative of Chinese films or not, artists did not matter. The public is opposed to it. In recent years, all kinds of art have become more and more abstract. Film, an art that is highly integrated with capital, may not be obvious, but it is already obvious in painting. It is driven by the times, and so is the aesthetic level of the people. Overall, it continues to increase (capital and real interests create a temporary illusion).
Art does not produce any physical value. Art is simply a carrier tool to convey emotions between people.
The artist is the initiator, so who is the recipient?
The so-called chaos in the art world can be seen clearly at a glance when we return to this essential issue.
Art is the same as all academic research. It is divided into ends and means. Some artists are engaged in the study of means, which are the so-called avant-garde artists. They will try some weird and innovative research, but it is like an academic salon. , it is a matter of communication within the art circle. In that small circle, it is okay for them to study the 'Deliberate Nine Turns', but if it is to be presented to the public, it must be clean.
Art is art, and popular art is popular art. Real art is something that is ahead of popular art. Even if it is not understandable now, it may become popular art over time. Don’t talk so badly about those who make cutting-edge experiments, because no one can predict the future in advance.
Art is not a castle in the air, but a carrier that carries human emotions. This is also an important premise for evaluating art. There is also a classic perspective on the composition of art: ends and means.
has the highest artistic level and worships the West the most? Why do we need "Zhang Yimou"
Culture cannot be separated from the environment, and the environment cannot be separated from history. The historical stages of the mainland are divided into the first thirty years and the last thirty years.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, teachers gave clear instructions on this issue - to produce works that the people would like to hear and see.That period was our standard for defining people's artists, and the power of definition was placed in the hands of the public. As an art worker, it is natural for us to withstand the test of the public - in this case, everyone caters to the market and caters to the public, and the artist produces something that the people like to hear and see. works and bring returns to capital; this is the most ideal win-win situation. After
html was opened to the public in 2078, we quickly became commercialized and market-oriented, but we left behind the previous institutional environment.
At the cultural level, this performance follows macro narratives such as "The Armageddon Trilogy" (which has been declining under the liberalism of the time), as well as author films that reflect the craze of the times, that is, representatives of Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang The work of the fifth generation of directors.
Actually, I don’t think it makes sense for today’s young audiences to criticize the expression issues of the works back then. Because those films were made for audiences born in the 1950s and 1960s. Was their environment then the same as it is now?
The more people criticize, the more it proves that "gold will always shine", because these works have been thirty or even forty years old. What does that mean? It means that they have become contemporary works of that era, artistic representatives, and cultural representatives, which is an affirmation in itself.
Just like Van Gogh, he does not need to be an art leader or an art rich man during his lifetime to make his works great. The kind of truly great works will stick to their own direction regardless of the artist's circumstances. The elegance an artist pursues can be done within his or her own circle, just like underground music or death metal. There is no doubt that some people like it and there is depth to it, so just play within your own niche circle. If
is to be given to the public, then the public's acceptance must be given priority. No matter how popular it is, it must be popular and contemporary, so that it can be appreciated by both refined and popular people. Zhang Yimou and others have obviously done it, right? Just like Cui Jian's rock music, it is very successful in every aspect.
The current audience criticizes Zhang Yimou and others for worshiping the West, which actually makes no sense. And to a certain extent, Jia Zhangke, who rose to prominence in the late 1990s, continued to express his literary and artistic expressions in the mainland environment at that time. In comparison, our current literary and art is the saddest. The ban is quite serious, and the skits must be positive. I scold you for making dumplings every day, but then you turn around and scold the expressions made thirty years ago.
And this kind of expression is exactly the kind of literary and artistic works that audiences are clamoring for every day. This mentality is quite interesting.
Success is a business, failure is a business? The "fall" of Zhang Yimou and the fifth-generation directors
What is the biggest problem for Zhang Yimou and the fifth-generation directors? That is, after 2000, our historical environment has actually changed. After joining the WTO, commercialization was further carried out, and the market box office grew rapidly. However, due to the transformation of our market economy, the cultural industry was not mature enough. for twenty years.
This is like the decline of American animation studios. Chinese animation did not rise immediately, but was harmed for more than ten years.
Like Chinese movies, at that time, the mainland did not cultivate a new generation of commercial film directors who could adapt to the times. Instead, they were succeeded by Hong Kong and Taiwan filmmakers who went north, and the fifth generation themselves, and started with "Hero" and "Assembly" It has created a new market myth, and I would say that it is absolutely meritorious, in every aspect.
The problem is that path dependence eventually formed (China-U.S. relations were good at the time), and at the same time, the general environment at that time was eager to use commercial films to win awards abroad. From "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to the Oscar, to "Hero" almost won it Awards, and then in the next ten years, Chinese commercial blockbusters will want to win awards, gain recognition from foreigners, and go out to achieve success in foreign markets.
("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has a box office of more than 100 million US dollars in North America, and "Heroes" has a box office of more than 50 million US dollars")
You see, this is path dependence. If the ten years from 2000 to 2010 are still remarkable, (The general environment is the friendship between China and the United States, China's rapid economic growth, the literary and artistic films represented by Jia Zhangke reflect the sorrow of reality, and the commercial blockbusters represented by Zhang Yimou conquer the city).
is obsessed with liberalism. After 2010, represented by capital, these people not only did not retreat, but instead formed a monopoly and began to affect the entire film industry and cultural industry. As financial logic became a business logic with a higher and more stable return ratio for capital, , hiring popular celebrities, shoddy production, and buying super words to occupy the public's attention have become the most stable and controllable methods, and there is no need to make profits through box office - "Man Jiang Hong" is a classic case.
There is actually no audience in this process, so naturally there is no power to define good or bad.
If you want to say that "Man Jiang Hong" is too new, look at Feng Xiaogang's previous criticism of traffic, Guan Hu's "Old Paoer", Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall", etc., in fact, they are still used overwhelmingly, that is, they are converging. In fact, at this stage they are completely commercialized and have no thought of pleasing the West.
Because after the experience of the first ten years, major Chinese directors found that they could not win awards anyway, and the films submitted for selection by the country also deviated from the experience of the previous ten years. It was obvious that everyone gave up, so they concentrated on making money and doing If you do this, you will no longer have any pursuits, and it will become money making.
10? Or 20 years? Zhang Yimou and other great directors should really quit.
The question of why artists flatter capital is very similar to the profession of teachers. There is no answer to the question of whether to be a high-income wage earner or to be a soul engineer for some people in a mountain village. However, what the public can do is at least respect and praise those great soul engineers, try to ignore those who use education as a means of making money, and when those who have received financial benefits bribe the media to let the public sing praises for them too , carefully screen and rebuke.
It would be great if it were traditional capital. In fact, the logic of "capital catering to the public" is true; now it is financial capital that has the strongest combat power and is also the most guilty. The profit method of financial capital is really the same as that of all our consumers. It doesn’t matter, it is a continuous and operable way of plundering public wealth by capital itself.
The biggest contradiction in the world now is the contradiction between financial capital and the real economy - this is the most effective way for a few people to exploit the wealth of the vast majority of people, and the investment is very low. For example, why did "Man Jiang Hong" buy box office? If we look at the income, isn't this a loss of money? How can capital do such a thing?
In fact, people don’t need real box office revenue at all. As long as they have box office numbers, they can make a lot of money through the stocks of their own shell companies. In this profit model, public preferences are not important at all. Most of the public opinion channels just let them publish hymns.
No matter what, China’s cultural industry has indeed been unhealthy for a long time, and it’s really time for China’s great directors to retire.
