On December 27, the TV series of the same name adapted from Jin Yucheng's novel "Flowers" will be broadcast on CCTV's eight prime time slots and Tencent Video.
This first TV series directed by Wong Kar-Wai has attracted much attention. Both readers and viewers have high expectations: When a literary work that has won many awards meets a very literary director, what will happen? spark?
Although it has not yet been broadcast, the popularity of "Flowers" is no less than that of the phenomenal hit drama "In the World". From "Flowers" and "In the World" to "The Three-Body Problem" and "Moses on the Plains" to "Moonlight Samurai" and "The Mistake by the River", in recent years, purely literary film and television adaptations have exploded, with a large number of critically acclaimed and critically acclaimed films. of film and television works.
Literary works have always been a source of nutrition for film and television materials, and adaptation of famous works is no longer a new topic. In "Flowers", a two-way journey between literature and film, what role does the director play? Why does author Jin Yucheng believe that only Wong Kar-wai can make "Flowers" well?
How can film and television adaptations of pure literary works retain the spirit of the original works while stepping outside the realm of literature? How are the dialects that have attracted much attention this time different in their presentation in literary works and film and television works?
These topics have been hotly discussed in the public since before the broadcast.
"Only he can film "Flowers" well"
In 2012, Jin Yucheng's "Flowers" was hailed as "one of the best Shanghai novels" and "one of the best urban novels" as soon as it was published, and won the title of "Flowers of the Year" in one fell swoop He has won many domestic literary awards and won the 9th Mao Dun Literary Award in 2015.
In the past 10 years, the novel "Flowers" has become one of the most distinctive symbols of Shanghai-style literature, and has become a "well" for people to understand and explore Shanghai's urban culture. The charm of Shanghai is revealed in Jin Yucheng's writings. The various tastes and sounds in this city once accumulated and fermented in the mind of young Jin Yucheng, and finally turned into a novel. Finally, through words and images, countless people participated in it. Readers can reconstruct the charm of Shanghai.
The drama version of "Flowers" is a perfect fusion of literature and film. If the blank space in literature can be left to the interpretation of images, then the blank space in the memory of Wong Kar-wai's hometown seems to be destined to be filled by "Flowers"—— As soon as the literary work "Flowers" came out, Wong Kar-wai fell in love with the Shanghai in the book at first sight.
Wong Kar-wai was born in Shanghai and left Shanghai in 1963 to come to Hong Kong. Wong Kar-wai said: "For me, this period of time was blank, and this novel filled in for me what happened to our Shanghai family during that period. My cousins and sisters in Shanghai can all see some clues in the book. ."
Wong Kar-wai bought the adaptation rights before the novel became a real hit. In the competition for the copyright of "Flowers", Wong Kar-wai was not the highest bidder, but Jin Yucheng still gave him the adaptation rights of the novel. Their aesthetics and understanding of Shanghai are the same. Jin Yucheng pointed to the ending scene of Wong Kar-wai's "Days of Being Wild" at the beginning of the novel. For the book "Flowers", Jin Yucheng once considered using "Shanghai Po" as the title. This is also from Wong Kar-Wai's film Days of Being Wild.
's novel depicts the absurdity and unpredictability of life. The living conditions of various characters are desolate, lost and unpredictable. This is the epitome of Shanghai in the 1990s, with sensual dogs and horses, human fireworks, and the alternation of time and space. .....
Various images have a wonderful chemical reaction with Wong Kar-wai's artistic style. This is actually the "feeling" that director Wong Kar-wai has been chasing and describing. This "Eastern poison" originating from Shanghai, which is rooted in my hometown, can only be resolved by "Flowers". Jin Yucheng said: "Only he can shoot "Flowers" well."
Zheng Huanzhao, associate professor at the School of Liberal Arts of Jinan University and deputy director of the China Literary Criticism (Jinan University) Base, said that Wong Kar-wai is a director with a very personal style and created "In the Mood for Love" High-profile and iconic urban films such as "Chungking Express" and "2046" express the emptiness and loneliness of urban space with blurred and broken images and a unique sense of nostalgic time. In the eyes of the public, Wong Kar-wai's films have become the endorsement of artistic films and petty bourgeoisie films.
"And "Flowers" is a film centered on the memory of Shanghai, because Shanghai, as a typical representative of Chinese urban modernity, has a unique aesthetic space created by its modern flavor, dialect and memory, as well as its classical popular literature. The charm of writing, in the public imagination, has a certain aesthetic correlation with Wong Kar-wai's film style." Zheng Huanzhao said that Shanghai's urban aesthetic nostalgia can be said to be the aesthetic correlation between Wong Kar-wai's film style and "Flowers". This has become people's expectations for "Flowers" shot by Wong Kar-wai.
At the same time, he also emphasized that the prosperity of a country and nation's film and television works must be based on rich resources of high-quality literary works. However, the supply of high-quality literary works does not necessarily produce excellent directors.
"Because a good story is only the starting point of creation, the director's use of lenses, scene scheduling and editing control are the key to producing good film and television works. In the history of world cinema, directors with obvious authorial styles like Wong Kar-wai have great influence on literature The use of works is precisely the most free, and they emphasize their own artistic intuition."
Use dialect to retain the linguistic charm of the original work
The dialect in the novel "Flowers" was originally an obstacle for many readers to enter the text, but it has become an attraction The key to Wong Kar Wai.
When the film and television drama adaptation plan of "Flowers" was just launched, Wong Kar-wai made it clear: "Language is a text and expression method for this book. If the lines of this book are all put into Mandarin, it will be like Lao She's "Teahouse" "Beijing Bai" has been changed into Mandarin, so I will try my best to preserve the language charm of the original work."
reflected this in subsequent casting and performance language. The cast of the drama version of "Flowers" is almost all actors who speak Shanghai dialect. The leading actor Hu Ge is a native Shanghainese. Actors such as Ma Yili, Tang Yan, Xin Zhilei, You Benchang, etc. all showed authentic Shanghai dialect in the trailer.
During the first filming of "Flowers", the actors basically performed in Shanghainese. A Douban film reviewer said: "Of course Wu Nong's soft words are indispensable when filming Shanghai. Those tones and meanings have strong regional characteristics, and they also precipitate a lot of the history and culture of old Shanghai. On the one hand, the Shanghai-language version of "Flowers" has a certain The classical feel gives the play a strong regional atmosphere of Shanghai, and on the other hand, it also adds a sense of reality. According to Tang Yan, this time it "doesn't feel like acting," but the implication is that it seems to be showing real life conditions. The same is true for the role of dialect in "Flowers"."
In Zheng Huanzhao's view, dialect is a concrete expression of regional culture, an important artistic means to shape regional customs and characters, and the most direct way to experience the sense of place in art.
"Literary works are more likely to evoke certain cultural heterogeneity through the polishing and characterization of text details, as well as the abstraction of the text itself, but it also brings obstacles to reading because of the abstraction of the text. Although "Flowers" has received Mao Dun Literary Award, but many professional literary critics have not finished reading it because of its dialect writing and fragmented style, let alone ordinary readers."
This drama version of "Flowers" also specially released two versions in Mandarin and Shanghainese. The Shanghai version vividly interprets the charm of Shanghai that cannot be described in words.
In recent years, many writers have deliberately retained dialects when writing, especially in Cantonese-speaking areas, including Lin Bai's "Northern Liu", Lin Chu's "Tide Chart", etc. Film and television adaptations represented by "Flowers" may be beneficial to Better influence the trend of dialect creation.
is a "rebirth" rather than a "reproduction"
Literature and film and television dramas are two completely different narrative methods. When static text is converted into dynamic audio-visual images, literary works are reborn under the lens. Good writing can portray people, and good movies can bring people to life.
Many fans of the original book are obsessed with the overlap between the plot of the drama version of "Flowers" and the plot of the original book. However, in fact, being loyal to the value construction is more important than being loyal to the storyline.The plot is the carrier for conveying the narrative of the core content, and there are bound to be adaptive adaptations and differences in presentation focus between the switching of text and images.
Jin Yucheng also said: "Watching a movie is an experience that is completely separated from the book. The role of words and the effects of sound and light have never been the same. Therefore, judging movies by novels, or positioning novels by movies, It's an overly simple method."
Some fans are still debating whether the drama version of "Flowers" is Wong Kar-wai's "Flowers" or Jin Yucheng's "Flowers." In terms of the presentation and communication of core values, the drama version of "Flowers" 》is not the "Flowers" of the two of them, but the "Flowers" of all the people who share the memory of old Shanghai in the 1990s.
Even if Wong Kar-Wai's drama version of "Flowers" and the novel "Flowers" are drifting apart, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps, "Flowers" will be "reborn" rather than "reproduced" under the lens of Wong Kar-wai. This may be what Jin Yucheng hoped to see most when he chose to hand over the adaptation rights to Wong Kar-wai.
Literature and film and television dramas not only achieve and complement each other, but can also form a complementary and harmonious relationship, deepening the bond between literature, drama, film and television. Promoting more film and television drama adaptations of purely literary creations such as "Flowers" that are two-way and two-way empowering is not only a rising trend, but also an important cultural practice issue at the moment.
writer Feng Jicai also mentioned in a recent interview that film and television dramas themselves are a popular literary form. If film and television dramas can be adapted from pure literature, this will be a great resource for pure literature. After all, pure literature is profound. Helping the public understand it through film and television dramas can also bring the public closer to pure literature.
In Zheng Huanzhao’s view, unlike popular literature’s narrative appeal of popular storytelling and worldly themes, pure literature’s transcendent or critical pursuit in art makes its storytelling more obscure and obscure. The polishing of text pays more attention to the transmission of emotions and thoughts, which to a certain extent makes film and television adaptation difficult, but it also provides a broader creative space for film and television.
Regarding the upsurge in film and television adaptations of pure literature in recent years, Zheng Huanzhao said that film and television adaptations of pure literature have always been the main type of film and television adaptations. "It's just that in recent years, due to the gradual expansion of the influence of online literature based on the fan economy, online literature IP accounts for a larger proportion in film and television adaptations. With the failure of online literature IP, pure literary adaptation has returned to the norm."
In the current Chinese film and television industry, due to the structural weakness of the original screenwriting link, the Chinese film and television industry's dependence on literature has become more prominent. Under the current trend of online reading becoming more interesting for the public, film and television production institutions need to discover more new works in the field of pure literature, so that literature and film and television can interact in a more diverse and rich way.
Therefore, in the face of the upsurge of pure literary film and television drama adaptations, the biggest vision may be to hope that the two-way rush between writers and directors, the two-way rush between literature and film and television, can be promoted to the two-way rush between the public and literature. Literary works will ultimately have to Return to literature itself.
Leave the blank space of literature to images, and leave the blank space of Wong Kar-wai to "Flowers".
Text | Reporter Sun Lei Intern He Wentao
Picture | "Flowers" official stills
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