The premiere of Farewell My Concubine was held in Yanjing.
The old place, Luo Wangfu, the cinema.
Logically speaking, this movie about Peking Opera should have invited a lot of people from the Peking Opera industry to watch and listen to the fun.
However, at the premiere of Farewell My Concubine, there was not a single outsider from the Peking Opera industry.
Those who came were all people who had acted in the movie.
There were quite a few film critics and drama critics at the scene .
But today, these film critics and drama critics can’t even sit in the first row, let alone the first three rows.
The good news is that film critics have never sat in such a good seat in their lives. After all, if you always sit in the first row to watch movies, the view will be very bad.
But today, many people were unhappy that they were sitting in such a good seat as the fourth row.
Since ancient times, people have liked to pay attention to hierarchy.
The reason why emperors and scholars in ancient times preferred sedan chairs to horse-drawn carriages was because they were unhappy with someone sitting in front of them.
Sitting in the fourth row today, the film critics are of course unhappy.
Normally, no matter how many stars come to the premiere, they will sit in the back row and are unlikely to ask for seats in the front row.
The reason is simple. The stars who come to show support are all here to make themselves familiar to the directors and investors, to find work, and to support the host.
To support the occasion is to come to help, and those who help certainly do not require to sit in the most expensive seats.
Of course, film critics are not happy with today's treatment.
However, after someone complained a bit, he found that he could only sit in the fourth row.
Looking closely, the first three rows are all directors.
If you don't look carefully and the light is dim, you can't see it.
If you look closely, you can see that all the famous directors are present.
Those famous directors who are currently in the limelight are also here.
Even some directors from the Beijing circle were present.
The film critics muttered in their hearts, what the hell is this? I've never heard of a bunch of directors showing up at a movie premiere.
This is just like when a restaurant opens, a bunch of owners come to support it, which is normal.
But what the hell is going on with a bunch of executive chefs?
However, Han Zhou on the stage gave the answer: "This time, when filming Farewell My Concubine, Fourth Uncle and I co-directed it, but Fourth Uncle directed more scenes and I directed fewer scenes."
"There are no film festivals, no major schedules, and no popular shooting seasons at this time of year. Everyone is free, so it was my idea to invite everyone to come. I didn't expect everyone to really come. I can only say that it is a great honor for my humble home."
After being polite for a while, Han Zhou continued: "I have no other intention in inviting everyone to watch the movie. I just want to invite everyone to watch the movie. Also, Fourth Uncle wants to get together with everyone. Please say a few words to Fourth Uncle."
When they heard that Han Sisheng was going to speak, all the directors at the scene applauded.
Han Sisheng, even if he has retired, no one dares to neglect him. Do you know how many people in the film industry have received favors from Han Sisheng?
Han Sisheng took the microphone and said, "Don't believe what Han Zhou said. He is the main director of this play, not me."
"I invited everyone here for only one purpose, which is to ask everyone to learn this play."
As soon as these words were spoken, the faces of many people at the scene changed, including the film critics.
You have to know that all those who can appear on this occasion are big directors. What does it mean to ask them to learn well?
Don’t these people have any face?
But no one dared to contradict Han Sisheng in person.
Han Sisheng continued: "I hope Chinese films can get better and better, but there must be a standard for being good. After editing this film, it refreshed my understanding of what is good."
"See for yourself."
Han Sisheng's words gave some room for maneuver to his previous remarks.
However, as soon as he finished speaking, he blocked all the room for maneuver.
Your movie is really invincible in the world. Do you dare to say that?
In fact, Han Sisheng had a purpose when he said this today.
Han Sisheng has lived his whole life. How many great directors has he seen who were invincible as soon as they debuted?
But in the end? Almost no one ever really becomes a monument.
Han Sisheng sees the improvement in each of Han Zhou's films and believes that Han Zhou is better than all the domestic directors. He said this deliberately in order to let the directors and film critics on the scene watch the movie with a magnifying glass or even a microscope and find fault with it.
It depends on whether they can pick it out.
Han Zhou didn't know what to say since Fourth Uncle was so willful.
In fact, Han Zhou also understood the meaning of this.
There is almost no difference between the previous life and this life.
For example, there is a national master named Zhang, who became famous for his unique and even unparalleled use of colors when he debuted.
When film critics write film reviews, they tend to praise the films indiscriminately.
But this kind of public opinion is bound to cause problems.
In his later films, Master Zhang is a man who goes down a path to the end and never turns back until he hits a wall.
Indeed, some later films made strong use of color.
Because of the similarity between the two words, unified color and grand scene, Master Zhang has earned the title of invincible in big scenes.
But, that's all.
From then on, Master Zhang went down a dead end.
Obviously, we can study the story based on the colors and grand scenes and go a step further.
But he doesn't.
Amidst all the noise, he had long lost himself, thinking that the use of colors and grand scenes were his "kingly way".
But he forgot one thing: his way of doing things is not the same as the way of doing things in movies.
So in this environment, he immersed himself in the movie "The Great Wall".
Are the big scenes in this movie weaker than before? No.
Is the use of color in this film less brilliant than before? No.
How was this movie? Trash.
A rubbish story, no matter what you use to dress it up, is still rubbish.
Even if it is put into a trash can made of gold, it is still trash.
And it looks even more conspicuous and disgusting.
After suffering such a great defeat, Master Zhang must have started to doubt his life.
How come my colors are invincible, so why did they turn yellow?
Master Zhang Guoshi learned from his mistakes and filmed "Shadow".
During this period, the use of colors is powerful, the understanding of colors is strong, and the organization of stories is powerful.
Although this movie still has some flaws in its structure and story, fortunately it allows Master Zhang to prove his use of colors, and he is still the same Master Zhang.
But that's all.
Master Zhang has been praised for his colors all his life, but he can no longer get out of this pit.
Finally, he reached the lowest point in his career with the movie "Man Jiang Hong".
If you cover the director's name and ask anyone to watch this movie, it would be difficult to tell that it is the work of Master Zhang.
The use of colors is a mess.
By the time Master Zhang realized that those who had praised him were actually pitting him, it was too late because he had already become a stubborn old man.
An old man who has lost his judgment of external information and even his source of information.
The same problem also happened to Director Chen, the original director of "Farewell My Concubine".
Film critics, directors, and industry insiders, whenever they get the chance to praise a film, they pick out his strongest "camera language" to praise.
Director Chen was praised so much that he had an illusion.
He believes that his movies can perfectly tell a story without using human language or dialogue, and can only use the language of the camera.
Director Chen uses "The Promise" to strengthen his own characteristics.
Then, everything went to pieces.
The story of "The Promise" actually has a certain degree of artistry and room for thought. If the lines were written at the average level of human language, even if it did not become a masterpiece, it would not be a huge bad movie.
but!
In this movie, he just doesn't want to speak human language.
After the film " A Murder Caused by a Bun" became a huge success, the entire Internet mocked Director Chen.
But if you think about it carefully, many movies tell stories that see the big picture from the small. Some people just turn a steamed bun, or even half a steamed bun, into a classic.
Why is The Promise not working? Because The Promise doesn’t speak human language.
If the camera language is strong, can it replace the lines?
Can strong colors replace the plot?
Amid all the bragging, these great directors have forgotten the basic components of a movie.
It should be said that they know it, ten thousand times more clearly than ordinary people.
But I just don’t bother to do it.
Just like, a saint.
Confucius said to achieve benevolence, Mencius said to pursue righteousness.
This is how a saint defines a successful person.
This is what is required of a good king.
Even children who have just started elementary school can understand these two sentences.
But those university researchers and great scholars just had to explain.
I made annotations to explain, but it was not enough to just explain, so I wrote a book to explain.
Writing a book to explain something is not enough, I have to add a few more complicated stories to explain it.
By the end of the explanation, the Confucian students were all confused.
In the end, no one had learned anything about benevolence and righteousness, but they could talk about allusions to benevolence and righteousness fluently.
Everyone is hypocritical and demands that others be kind and righteous.
The same is true for great directors.
It is obvious that movies are about telling a good story with a good rhythm, and letting the camera, music, lines, composition, and color all serve the story.
That's it, but they have to make trouble because ordinary expression seems to be inconsistent with his lofty status as a great director.
Today, Han Sisheng said this deliberately to do two things.
The first thing was to deliberately provoke all the directors and film critics and make them find fault with Han Zhou.
Not just today, but also in the future.
From now on, whenever Han Zhou does something inadequate, someone will inevitably remember today's shame and criticize him.
Today's shame? That's right, Han Sisheng has already determined that everyone who came to watch the movie today was scolded by him, and none of them could explode.
That was the second thing he was going to do.
Let all domestic directors understand how incompetent they are!
Because of Han Sisheng's remarks, the big directors basically lost interest in the subsequent activities of the leading actors. Everyone wanted to see what kind of movie was so awesome that they called me to the cinema to slap me in the face.
The story of "Farewell My Concubine" is actually not that complicated.
What is truly powerful is the powerful expressiveness of every character in "Farewell My Concubine", which responds to the times and the current story.
The story begins with Duan Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi returning to the stage in the late 1980s.
It's been many years since we last met.
Collaborate again.
Sing a play.
The song sung was the Peking Opera "Farewell My Concubine".
After the beginning, we entered the main film.
In the black and white film quality, a beautiful woman walked into the picture with a child covering his face.
Overpass, mixed environment.
Yanjing of old China.
The woman was very beautiful, so beautiful that everyone on the street took a second look at her.
Then, a patron discovered her and recognized her as Yanhong, the top customer in his business.
So I went up to say hello.
The woman smiled back at him.
The passerby reached out to touch the woman's face, but the woman pushed his hand away.
When he tried to pull the woman's arm again, she turned her face and pushed him away.
The man looked at the woman and the child walking away with a complicated expression, and finally snorted: "You stinky bitch."
Then, the woman continued walking with the child and saw a troupe performing on the street.
The performance was a monkey show.
When it comes to this passage, many great directors are thinking about what the meaning of this beginning is and what it expresses.
Many people have thought about some things, of course, maybe everyone thinks differently.
During the monkey show, some people jumped out to cause trouble, dissatisfied with the unexciting performance.
Said that what they performed was vile stuff.
Little Stone, who had come back from chasing the escaped Little Lai Zi, saw this scene, pushed everyone aside, and performed a brick-breaking trick on his head.
The exciting scene attracted countless people to cheer and give tips.
Those who were causing trouble stopped causing trouble.
This scene sets the tone for the entire film.
The child the woman brought up was called Xiaodouzi. As a prostitute who had turned over a new leaf, how could she afford to raise a child? She wanted to give the child to the troupe.
When the troupe owner saw that Xiao Douzi had six fingers, he said that he was not born to be an opera singer.
The woman knelt on the ground with a spring breeze on her face, her face full of charm and seduction, which stunned the audience.
" It's not that I can't support him, it's that the boy is too old to keep. If you promise to keep him, I will do anything for you."
Many people felt contempt for this woman.
What do you mean by "it can't be supported"? It's obvious that it can't be supported.
Some people also thought of the time when she pushed away a former customer.
The lowest class, ruthless.
At this moment, the acting is really good.
The troupe owner said: "We are all from the lowest class, who can compare with whom..."
"He is not born to do this."
Outside the door, there was an incessant sound of people shouting "scissors and knives sharpening".
No one expected that the woman took the child out, covered the child's face, and pulled him to the empty bench where scissors were sharpened.
Then he raised his hand and the knife fell.
The child was so cold that he lost consciousness. When he slowly pulled down the scarf on his face, he noticed that his extra fingers were gone.
The scene cut back to the troupe, and a scream was heard, startling everyone.
The story officially begins.
If you want to know what this story is about, it’s a very simple story, but why such a thing happened and the historical background are the key points of the story.
Whether it is the language of the camera, the performance of the actors, or the form of the lines, they are all refined to the extreme.
Han Zhou did not use all the original lines, but studied the characteristics of the Yanjing dialect in this world and the language characteristics of that era before finalizing the lines.
The story is still moving forward and many people are immersed in it.
When people hear that this story is called "Farewell My Concubine", everyone can probably imagine what kind of story it is.
But I didn't expect that, from the very beginning of this play, the director set the stage, starting from the protagonist's childhood, making it clear that he wanted to show his whole life.
Just the posture here is attractive enough.
Regardless of whether it can be done or not, it is already attractive enough to be judged.
The following content caused the entire cinema with more than 300 people to fall silent.
Only one film critic is still writing.
[It seems that the director wants to use this passage to show how a person’s worldview was poisoned and distorted in the old society… (crossed out)
The director used a passage to show how people's worldviews were poisoned and distorted in the old society. 】
[I am originally a girl, not a boy. This is a part that Xiaodouzi will never be able to learn. I have never heard of it, but this part gave me a deep shock.
After Xiao Laizi and Xiao Douzi escaped, they went to see the leading actor. Xiao Laizi was in tears and doubted his life. How could the guy on the stage become the leading actor? How many beatings did he have to take?
However, what I didn't expect was that, the little Lai Zi couldn't bear the beating he would receive after escaping, so he hanged himself.
Xiao Laizi died. Under the pressure of his senior brother, Xiao Douzi learned that "I am a girl, not a man". The senior brother did not know that what he thought of as a play was what Xiao Douzi thought of as life.
[This eunuch Zhang, a remnant of the previous dynasty, is like a ghost, a homeless wild ghost.
He lost everything, so in his own world, he used all means to maintain everything he had before.
He is a person without roots, but he wants to prove that he still has sexual ability. From today on, Xiaodouzi is no longer a child. 】
The development of the story was beyond everyone's imagination.
No one expected that art and vulgarity could be combined so perfectly.
No one has ever thought that so-called art can be used to show the collapse of an era.
Some people remembered the book "Diary of a Madman" written by Han Zhou. This is a world of cannibalism. Save the children.
The film critic continued:
[If the movie ended when Xiao Douzi walked out of Zhang Gonggong's house, it would be the best Chinese movie of this century, but the movie seems to be still very long. ]
It’s a pity that film critics cannot predict the future, otherwise they would know that the most ironic scene in the whole play is when Xiao Douzi walks out and picks up the baby after being raped by Eunuch Zhang.
The old society distorted everyone’s thinking, everyone’s world outlook, values ​​and everyone’s code of conduct.
In order to survive, to have food to eat, to wear good clothes, to have wealth and glory, everyone has distorted themselves for different things in this distorted era.
Even if you are as persistent as Xiaodouzi, you will be forced to compromise because of countless things.
The most hateful thing is that some people enjoy it.
The plot advances bit by bit, and each part is extremely exciting.
Every paragraph makes people sigh.
Every part is a naked tragedy.
Xiao Douzi went through a lot in his life before he became Cheng Dieyi.
A boy, while he was forming his own values, became a patient with gender identity disorder.
As the story continues with this tone, it unfolds an endless tragedy.
The master of the troupe in the play said a lot of things that seemed to be the philosophy of life.
But it was also him who sold the beans.
It seemed as if he gave Xiaodouzi a bite of food, but this bite of food came at a price.
As Cheng Dieyi gets older, his fame grows.
Overlord Duan Xiaolou and Concubine Yu Cheng Dieyi became more popular than the Boss Wang that Xiaodouzi had met back then.
But a star is only a star in his own little piece of land.
Your life is "Farewell My Concubine", but many people's life is not.
When times changed, everything changed.
Cheng Dieyi suddenly realized that everything he had gained, actively or passively, was in vain in the end.
Not only that, as the plot develops.
Cheng Dieyi discovered that everything he had gained, either actively or passively, was now a disaster for him today.
When the fire in the camera started, Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou were both detained.
The sword that Cheng Dieyi obtained and gave to his senior brother also became the fuse of everything.
"Have you ever... have you ever, have you, he was..."
"I also want to expose..."
The tragedy of one era explodes completely in the tragedy of another era.
What triggered everything was the child that Xiaodouzi brought back.
Everything in the world has been destined. In such an era, every innocent child will become the one who does evil.
Layer upon layer of injustices are intertwined throughout the human world, leaving no one alive.
Of course, those who do evil will not escape in the end.
After watching the film, the critic wrote another sentence during the cast list.
[I was young that year and picked up a gun on the road. I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
Many years later, I was walking on the road and heard a loud noise. I turned around and saw a bullet hitting me right between my eyebrows.
The critic pondered: "Where should I deduct points from this film? Is a 10 out of 10 too weird?"
"Well, the duration of the movie is not an integer, but a single second. I'll deduct 0.1 point."
When the movie ended, there was loud applause in the cinema.
It seemed that everyone wanted to use noise to dispel the mixed emotions that had lasted nearly three hours.
The big directors in the front row looked around.
It seems like no one can find any fault with this movie.
At the scene, there was a Peking Opera actor who came in to sell tickets. He sat at the back and watched the movie in silence.
There is a line in the play, 'Since ancient times, no play has ever been as popular as today's Peking Opera. You are lucky to have caught up with the right time!'
This Peking Opera actor said something very philosophical: "Fuck Peking Opera."