"Source of this article: Wen Wei Po"
The film "Love Myth" became a phenomenal work that many people commented on at the end of the year and the beginning of the year. A "Shanghai Piao" director and a group of Shanghai actors, using Shanghai dialect to interpret a painting of magic capital customs, not only brought a new batch of online celebrity punch cards, but also set off a textual research fever about love, women, urban life and the customs and culture of Shanghai.
Yesterday, the producer of "Love Myth" and the creative team walked into No.52 Yongfu Road to talk with cultural celebrities in Shanghai. It is the former site of the Literature Department of Shanghai Film Studio and now the location of the creative center of Shanghai Film Studio. In the places where directors Xie Jin and Wu Yigong worked in the past, everyone started from the film art and discussed what kind of urban life experience had nurtured this vivid film story. What kind of creative process and social aesthetic emotion finally contributed to the word-of-mouth "out of the circle" of this "Shanghai-style boutique" that shows a corner of Shanghai life.
Shao Yihui, the director and screenwriter of the film, said: "Everyone likes this film because they like Shanghai." After living in Shanghai for six or seven years, the post-90 s woman wrote a story about her daily observation of her neighborhood and friends around her. In her eyes, "this city has given me creative inspiration. The Shanghai culture I understand is inclusive and diverse, and truly respects people themselves and is people-oriented. "
Starting from people, writing about the vividness of specific people and accepting different attitudes towards life is just one of the broken codes of Love Myth.
Based on Shanghai, we can also jump out of Shanghai and hit the universal "social happiness theory"
To tell a story about the life of a contemporary Shanghai city in the whole process of Shanghai dialect, Xú Zhēng described it as "just thinking about it is very exciting".
As this series of restrictions shows, the incision of Love Myth is very small. There is no landmark of Shanghai in the frame of the film. It draws a radius of two kilometers around Wuyuan Road, and frames the action track of people in the film in the road that will never be widened, the houses hidden by phoenix trees, and the alleys that are compatible with galleries and shoe repair stalls. Coupled with the interpretation of Shanghai dialect, if Shanghai is the sea, Lao Bai’s story is just a drop of water.
However, it is by no means "narrow-minded", as can be seen from the constant stream of film reviews. Movies that make people want to say something will eventually resonate with some people.
Liu Haibo, a professor at Shanghai Film Academy of Shanghai University, said: "Shanghai dialect is of course the carrier of Shanghai culture, but only if it is a good film with beautiful characters and culture can everyone love me, love my dog." The specific projection of the "cultural beauty" expressed in the film includes the right sense of distance when people get along with each other, including Lao Bai’s respect for women, who are independent.
Shen Yifei, an associate professor at Fudan University and an expert in social and cultural anthropology, used the theory of "social happiness" to explain the considerable discussion caused by Love Myth. "Everyone is talking about Shanghai culture. In fact, Shanghai culture has a feature, that is,’ no judgment’. " When the director "does not judge and present truthfully", and does not generally classify Lao Bai, Lao Wu, Miss Li, Gloria and Beibei as positive or negative, real life will naturally flow. As a result, "in the movie, I saw the temperament of Shanghai residents who are stable and run their own lives. This kind of life is in line with our imagination of social happiness at present." It can hit the social aesthetic mood, and the film has a starting point for ripples.
WeChat official account’s "abnormal writing style" is famous for promoting Shanghai dialect. Zheng Jian, the author, also believes that "Love Myth" is based in Shanghai, but it can also jump out of Shanghai. "The sadness and joy expressed by the film are interlinked with many people". It is not limited to "Shanghai Special Offering". On the contrary, people who have run wildly in contemporary urban life may be hit by a fragment in the story, which is "broadcast" rather than "narrow broadcast".
In fact, creation itself is a process of getting out of the "narrow crowd". Xú Zhēng admits that when he got the script for the first time, he was amazed that it was actually written by a post-90s Shanxi girl.
Liu Haibo believes that when a city with all rivers running into it embraces new Shanghainese, more and more new Shanghainese look at Shanghai with a head-up view. As one of them, Shao Yihui’s head-up vision allows her to accurately capture the "this drop of water" in Shanghai, which reflects people’s pursuit of a better life state and more comfortable interpersonal relationships under the illumination of life luster.
"Don’t try hard", telling stories in the form of life flow and prose poems
In those days when Ma Yili played Miss Li, she often felt tangled and even tormented, because it was not too laborious to play. "Actors will get used to investing in the creation of a certain role. Usually, the characters will have great joys and sorrows and strong plots, but "Love Myth" does not. Miss Li seems to be the life stream itself. " Ma Yili was caught in some kind of war between heaven and man, while doubting that he was "not serious" because he didn’t exert himself during the performance. Another voice said, "I can’t exert myself any more, so I can only act like this".
Proper limit, permeating Miss Li’s behavior, also exists in the details of Love Myth. Zhou Yemang, who plays Lao Wu, compares the script to prose poetry, "It’s the same as poetry. Nothing is deliberately carved, but the artistic conception will naturally flow, and the group of pictures and pictures is a smooth poem. "
Zhang Zhihua plays Lao Bai’s mother, a respectable Shanghai mother. The first scene when she joined the group was that the mother and son broke up in discord. Laobai asked her mother’s back, "Have you eaten?" Her mother just waved her hand and didn’t even look back. The performance of "not much" was immediately praised by the director, and the image of an elderly person who was not hysterical also warmed the actor for a long time. "It is an opportunity for middle-aged and elderly people to return to the cinema to watch movies."
Not hard, not much, like a poem, the film comes from the accumulation of life. Love Movie just goes through the angle of genre film, digs out the small and beautiful "diamond" shining in urban life with a particularly peaceful mind, and then polishes it well.
The intuitive feeling of the creator has been recognized by scholars. Mao Jian, a professor at East China Normal University, said: "It is a very advanced grammar to film in the form of prose, and this grammar is almost absent in contemporary movies." In the tradition of film creation in Shanghai, there is no shortage of prose poetry-like films. Wu Yigong’s Old Things in the South of the City and evening rain are all the same. It is a way of story structure that breaks away from the framework of western genre films.
Mao Jian regards "Love Myth" as a very good text demonstration. "We can compete not only in China, but also in the world movies, whether in the form of life flow or prose.".
As one of the film producers, Wang Jianer, the chairman of Shanghai Film Group, introduced that since last year, Shanghai Film Group has launched the "Newcomer’s New Work Plan". "Young directors like Shao Yihui who can go deep into life and reproduce their lives are the goals pursued by Shanghai Film Group’s Newcomer Plan. At the same time, excellent filmmakers like Xú Zhēng, Ma Yili and Zhou Yemang are also needed to help young filmmakers grow and mature. "
Author: Wang Yan
Editor: Jiang Fang
Editor in Charge: Fan Xin
