One monk carries water to drink, two monks carry water to drink, and three monks have no water to drink. This easy-to-understand folk proverb is well-known in China. It is full of wit and humor and contains strong oriental characteristics.
The movie "Three Monks" is adapted from the proverb. It is a classic animated music film that has influenced generations of Chinese. In the
film, in addition to the plot of three monks drinking water, the movie version also adds a plot of a temple fire, three monks working together to put out the fire, and finally working together to hang water, making the story contradictory more prominent and the narrative more complete.
In addition, this movie has Chinese national characteristics, closely combining national music and ink painting. The whole film is close to 20 minutes without a single line. The soundtrack of traditional Chinese music replaces the language and blends perfectly with the picture, creating a three-dimensional character image and promoting the development of the plot.
Children who have watched this movie will be deeply attracted by it. While watching the movie over and over again, they feel the meaning behind the movie. The emergence of
"Three Monks" not only brought joy to children and thoughts to adults, but also a milestone in the development of Chinese animation films. It won many awards at domestic and international film festivals in the 1980s.
The following article will talk about the traditional art and cultural beauty of the film, and how to use the film to give children related art and cultural enlightenment.
01
shows the beauty of traditional Chinese art
"Three Monks" is an ink-and-wash animation created by Chinese animation creators. Each picture fully incorporates the artistic characteristics of Chinese painting.
1. A minimalist approach to portray Shen Yun
"Three Monks" is the simplest movie produced by Shanghai Art Film Studio. The pictures are simple, showing the essence of the characters and the artistic conception of the pictures. The refined content directly hits the key points and conveys emotions, which is unforgettable.
- character refining
The three monks are simple in shape, but distinct in personality, and each image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
is short and clever; one is slender and cunning; the other is chubby and greedy. Everyone's appearance brings vivid feelings to people.
- plot refinement
plot plot refinement: three monks, each repeating the scenes of playing, walking, carrying water, and chanting. In the end, a fire—contradictions intensified, extinguishing—contradictions resolved. The refined plot of
concentrates the content of the story, pave the way for the emergence of contradictions, and deepen the theme. It highlights the psychological process of the three monks appearing because of selfishness, which makes people laugh and laugh.
2. Traditional Chinese painting composition techniques
- l Diagonal composition
In ancient Chinese landscape painting, diagonal composition is used more. Break the balance of the picture by arranging the picture elements on the diagonal, forming a sense of dislocation.
In "Three Monks", whenever there are only two elements in the picture, they are often placed in the upper left and lower right corners of the screen. The purpose of this is to eliminate the rigidity of the composition and make the picture more interesting. .
diagonal composition
- l triangular composition camp
In traditional painting, triangular composition refers to when the overall outline of the picture elements or the lines between the elements are triangular. It makes the picture look more complete, solemn and stable.
"Three Monks", when representing the surrounding environment of the temple, arranges the three main elements of the temple, monk and water surface into three corners of a triangle. Such a picture arrangement not only clearly explained the position and relationship of the monk, temple, and water surface, paving the way for the progress of the following story, but also highlighted the tall and stable mountain.
The three corners of the triangle formed by the temple, the monk and the water surface are
- l Blank
Chinese painting pays great attention to white space and pays attention to profound artistic conception.
In the animation of "Three Monks", except for the necessary shrines, incense tables, and wooden fish, no other items are drawn in the temple. Is the application of traditional ink paintingThe technique of reality generation makes the picture as simple and refined as possible, leaving plenty of room for imagination. In the
film, the pole stands upright on a blank background. Although the wall in the background is not drawn, through life experience, the audience can also understand that the pole is leaning against the wall.
Mr. Huang Binhong once said:
the reality in the imaginary, always the artistic conception outside the layout.
The artistic conception produced by the blank space is infinitely reverie.
02
shows the beauty of traditional Chinese music
The soundtrack of "Three Monks" uses the most expressive erhu and banhu among the Chinese national musical instruments as the main musical instruments, as well as extensive use of percussion, with excellent artistic effects.
At the same time, the soundtrack is still the core of the film, and it has excellent performance in shaping the image of the characters, telling the story, and depicting the environment.
1. Use different musical instruments to create different character images
The three monks, short, thin, and fat, have the same theme music when they appear. They are played with three different instruments, namely Banhu, Zhuihu, and Zhuozhen, thus creating three Characters with distinctive characteristics.
When the little monk appeared on the stage, accompanied by the jumping movements of the little monk, the banhu played a bright theme music. The sound of Banhu is bright and high-pitched, which fits the lively and lovely image of the little monk. When the
thin monk appeared, his movements were dull and his expression dull. The appearance of the falling Hu is similar to that of the Erhu, with a wide range, a slightly hoarse and bright voice. The same theme music is played with the falling Hu, which vividly portrays the simplicity of the thin monk.
The fat monk came out, walked around and hummed, sweating profusely. The theme music uses 筚篥 (commonly known as "guanzi"). The sound is strong and slightly nasal, and the volume is louder. This tone vividly portrays the naive image of the "fat monk".
2. Use musical instrument sounds to express heartfelt and emotions
Banhu, Zhuihu, and Zhuozhu three different musical instrument sounds, which not only represent three people, but also express the voices and emotions of three monks.
When the three monks quarreled about carrying water, Banhu, Zhuihu and Zhuozhu took turns to play, as if the monks were talking.
After drinking all the water, the three monks stretched their faces, and the three musical instruments "chirped" constantly, representing the three people arguing.
When the three monks were fighting the fire, the Banhu, Zhuihu, Guanzi and the folk band played together, one after another, and the scene of the three monks working together to carry water and finally put out the fire was fully displayed.
In addition, the film also uses three wooden fish with different pitches to depict the psychological activities of the three monks chanting, which strengthens the film’s artistic expression.
The penetrating and fast sound of the wooden fish expresses the cleverness of the little monk in red; the steady but slow sound of the wooden fish expresses the dullness and stubbornness of the high monk in blue; the sound of the wooden fish with fluctuating rhythm and loud tone expresses the stubbornness of the fat monk. impatient.
When they concentrate on chanting sutras without distracting thoughts, Muyu's rhythm is smooth and neat. When they calculated their hearts, Muyu's hostile sound became uneven.
3. The music highlights the comedy effect.
The three monks are awkward because of carrying water. They eat dry food in the hall, and the plot of choking and the soundtrack is just humorous.
They gnawed, swallowed, choked, and beat each other in turn. Every movement and expression matched the sound of percussion instruments, vividly depicting their ugly state of suffering because they were selfish and unwilling to carry water.
03
"Three Monks" teach children the beauty of traditional art
1. In terms of artistic performance, it is in line with children's absorptive learning methods
This film not only allows children to see ink paintings visually, but also to hear national musical instrument playing. More importantly, there are a lot of repetitive pictures and music throughout the work, and repetition conforms to children’s cognitive laws.
children, especially preschool children, acquire knowledge through repeated learning.
They repeat what they like over and over again: ask their parents to tell him the same picture book, listen to the same music, sing the same song...noTired of it. Until learning, proficiency, comprehension, get satisfaction from it.
Montessori said:
repetition is a child’s mental gymnastics.
Montessori proposed that in the stage of the formation of a child's willpower, the first task he faces is "repetitive practice."
repetition is the process by which children recognize things. Learn
only once, and the child cannot understand the meaning. But as the number of times increases, there are new experiences, new cognitions and new gains every time. From simple to complex, from single to multiple, is the process of gradual development of children's cognition.
2. Feel and learn the beauty of traditional Chinese art through repetition
- l The repetitive pictures help children understand the repetitive plots of
"Three Monks" and make them understand the content better. There are obvious changes in expressions and movements during the repetition, which makes the child feel vivid and interesting. When children watch the paintings, the layout of traditional Chinese paintings are printed in their eyes and minds, and they can experience the artistic conception in the paintings.
Parents can also take advantage of their children’s interest in stories and draw stories about three monks with their children.
- l Repetitive melody deepens the experience
The same melody is repeated with different instruments, different rhythms or different tones of the same instrument, allowing children to appreciate the beauty of music over and over again in the repetition of the melody, and feel the melody, tone and ethnicity when watching. The timbre and expressiveness of the instrument.
"Three Monks" can not only watch and listen, but also play.
After the child has watched the animation several times, and is familiar with the music in the film, he can listen to the animation and play games with the child. The way
plays is very simple: select the clips that the child likes, and play the role with the child. Hear the music and act out the corresponding plot with the child. The
game is not only simple and interesting, but also allows children to further feel the rhythm, melody and emotional changes of the music while playing, and exercise their musical perception.
04
Feel the beauty of Chinese traditional culture
"Three Monks" This animated music film is mainly watched by children. The creators of the
film did not shoddy and perfunctory because of the young age of the subject audience. Instead, they used professional attitudes, rigorous methods, and worked together to create this classic children's work. Let children understand the beauty of Chinese traditional morality while feeling the beauty of traditional Chinese art.
1. Traditional culture suitable for children in "Three Monks"
"Three Monks" embodies many traditional cultural morals. Among them, working together, knowing mistakes and making corrections, and awareness of rules are things that children can easily understand and learn.
- l united and cooperated
When three monks were selfish, ununited and irresponsible, leading to the subsequent fire. Through unity and cooperation, the three monks not only put out the fire, but also thought of ways to collect and drink water through cooperation. The
film promotes the traditional cultural ideas of concerted efforts, solidarity and cooperation. According to the current statement, it is through cooperation to achieve a win-win situation.
The idea of unity and cooperation has existed since ancient times.
"The Book of Changes" says: if two people are in the same heart, it is profitable to cut gold; the words of the same heart are like orchids.
means that two people working together, their strength is enough to cut off the hard metal, and the opinions of the same people are like smelling the fragrant orchid fragrance.
later evolved into a more common saying: brothers work together, and it is profitable. The
idiom "single is easy to break", from "Northern History·Tuguhun Biography". The original intention was that one arrow is easy to break, and twenty arrows are hard to break. I hope everyone can work together to stabilize the country.
folk saying:
people are united, and the mountains will move.
Monofilament does not form a line, and a single tree does not form a forest.
......
all express unity and cooperation.
- l Knowing mistakes can be corrected
After the three monks worked together to fight the fire, they came to their senses and realized that they were selfish.Lee's fault. So they put aside their selfishness, reformed, and continued to unite and cooperate.
This film starts from the perspective of educating children, and hopes to guide children to understand that learning from mistakes and correcting them is the greatest courage.
Knowing mistakes and correcting them is also a traditional culture that China has always promoted.
"The Analects of Confucius" has a saying: To pass without changing it is to say that it is too much.
A minister Shi Ji recorded in "Turning Left" said: "Are there no faults?" It can be changed after a while.
Zhu Xi said: if you have it, you can change it, if you don’t have it, you can reinforce it. When no one fetches water, no one takes the initiative to work. As a result, everyone has no water to drink, which seriously affects chanting, and affects study and work.
If the three monks can formulate reasonable rules and strictly enforce them, there will be no shortage of water to drink.
Mencius said: If you do not follow the rules, you cannot form a radius.
The ancients said: Sitting like a clock, standing like a pine, walking like the wind, lying like a bow. The
rule is contained in group activities, but also hidden in standing, sitting and lying.
2. How to make children feel Chinese traditional art and culture with the help of movies
① Observe which part of the content the child is interested in
First of all, parents should watch the animation with the child, and pay attention to which part of the content the child is particularly interested in watching the animation. The child laughs at which plots and which plots are tense.
②Discuss together
After watching the animation, parents and children discuss the film-related issues: Why does one monk have water to drink, but three monks have no water to drink? What did the three monks do after the fire? Fighting with fire, do the monks know that they are wrong? How did they do it? What would happen to the monks if the three monks set rules for carrying water as soon as they entered the temple? ......
There are many questions about working together, knowing mistakes and being able to correct them, and being aware of rules. Parents don't have to ask them all at once, otherwise, the child will not be interested in thinking and answering.
Therefore, you can focus on 2-3 questions for a certain aspect. Next time we discuss it, we will discuss other aspects.
③ Combining the reality of life
Parents explain the corresponding historical stories and culture to their children according to the content of the question in the previous step, and expand their cultural knowledge.
At the same time, combine the life examples around the child to make the child understand more deeply.
For example, when children and others are in the same group activities but are not united enough, the story of "Three Monks" can be used to let children realize the importance of unity and cooperation.
, the masterpiece of contemporary Western constructivism, "Children's Disciplinary Education", believes that
disciplines children's wrong behaviors to let children realize the consequences, rather than rough and arbitrary punishment.
04
and finally
Sukhomlinsky, a former Soviet child educator, said in "The Problem of the Training of a Full-scaled Person":
's yearning for beautiful things is produced under the influence of rational and noble thinking, not from It is produced spontaneously in the child's brain, and it needs to be instilled.
In other words, beautiful things need to be given to children with the help of the external environment. Nothing can affect children more subtly than good stories and animations.
The whole film "Three Monks" is concise and undiminished. It contains rich truth in humor. It is a classic work for children to enlighten children in traditional Chinese art and culture. The
film uses simple ink paintings and vivid folk music to let children experience the beautiful art, receive subtle teaching and inspiration, and form a correct understanding of the world.
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