After a few days of enthusiasm for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, I can probably say something to Zhang Yimou calmly. Zhang Yimou's success seems to have become the iconic symbol of contemporary movies. Naturally, I also like his films, at least his films are a milestone in the film history of China. The grand opening ceremony of the Olympic Games once again attracted the attention of the whole world on Zhang Yimou. Indeed, many expressions are very creative, and the magnificent and luxurious scenes are really amazing. But even so, it doesn't mean that I think Zhang Yimou's works have really reached the height that can set an example for future generations, so the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is only the reappearance of the characteristics of Zhang Yimou films.
Since Zhang Yimou claimed to pay attention to the pursuit of film commercialization, he himself fell into a kind of psychedelic, and simply regarded commercialization as a sensual pleasure. Therefore, every time I shoot some movies that are dazzling and have no aftertaste, I'm afraid few people are interested in revisiting them in a few years, such as Hero and Golden Flower in the City, while those real classics are still brilliant with the passage of time, such as Gone with the Wind, Broken Blue Bridge, and even China's A River Flowing East. In the final analysis, commercial films pursue temporary success and commercial value, but cannot create lasting charm. The fundamental reason is that they can't dig deep into the connotation of social life and lack the depth of reality and history. In the final analysis, form is greater than content.
"Form is greater than content" is a basic evaluation of Zhang Yimou's performance tendency. I once said in the article Revelation from Dan: Propagandizing Saints and Marketing Self: "The success of Banquet and Golden Flower in the City is largely due to its books, that is, stories. Everyone knows that it applies to classics. The former imitates Shakespeare's Hamlet and the latter plagiarizes Cao Yu's Thunderstorm. " Applying the classic story model can avoid the risk of the plot, but there is no deeper interpretation, just simple imitation, which obviously cannot constitute the value of the original. Therefore, simply repeating a successful story can only earn eyeballs by means of formal factors, which is the inevitable place that Zhang Yimou's form is greater than its content. Form is greater than content, which was fully displayed again at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Using modern science and technology to illustrate the four great inventions in ancient China, many actors created a magnificent momentum, which was unique in the performance of some scenes, but after reviewing the past, I was a little at a loss. What is the reason? I'm afraid there are fewer people, and there is less dialogue and publicity about life itself.
The most disappointing thing is the Olympic theme song "You and Me". When this song was sung, I believe many people were comparing it with the theme song "Hand in Hand" of Seoul Olympic Games. Immediately after the opening ceremony, someone preached "You and Me", saying that this song is simple but has real feelings, and it will be widely circulated over time. Liu Huan, one of the lead singers, even said when talking about the style of this song: "This is a masterpiece with a different theme from previous Olympic Games. In people's impression, the theme song of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games should be magnificent, and the musical elements of this song have always been pure and simple. It is this simplicity that gives full play to this "simple" dream of a world. " I don't agree with this. I dare not say anything about the melody of the Olympic theme song, but I feel a little heartbroken about the lyrics. Simplicity is true, but if there is no taste in simplicity, it is tantamount to boiled water. Someone even took out Li Chi Ngai's Operator, "I live at the head of the Yangtze River and you live at the end of the Yangtze River. I miss you every day and drink the Yangtze River water together ",compared with" Farewell "by modern Li Shutong," Outside the pavilion, beside the ancient road, the grass is blue and the sky is blue ". I really don't know if this is an overflow of beauty or ignorance. From this song, we can see Zhang Yimou's shortcomings: lack of deeper interest, lack of lofty inner atmosphere, and turning the elephant's invisible voice into accumulation or meaningless. Although the words in Li Chi Ngai and Li Shutong's works are simple and clear, the charm, sense of space and sense of the times contained in that simplicity, the life melody formed by that picture itself and the cultural accumulation of China reflected in the picture are all examples of their extraordinary artistic conception. Can the song "You and Me" praised by Zhang Yimou get along? Although this theme song also talks about the global village and what it means to be like a family, the whole expression is more like a propaganda slogan. The composition of lyrics lies in artistic conception. Wang Guowei said that "if there is a realm, it will be a family of its own, with its own famous sentences". You write lyrics for-Global Brand Network-Olympics without artistic conception, at least with image? This song not only has no artistic conception, but also has no image, which is its failure. Chen Qigang, the author of this song, wrote very thinly because it lacked internal information. However, it can't be said that Zhang Yimou actually chose it among 876,665,438+0 application songs. Our simplest explanation is that Zhang Chen and others are divorced from reality. This is a famous saying of Wang Guowei. When talking about the last sentence of Li Bai's Yi Qin E, Wang Guowei said that "a few big characters have closed the door of the ages", and later generations are "out of reach". In this era full of commercial atmosphere and pursuit of formalism, it seems that those who clamor have won in form, and the rest are moaning without illness.
Form is greater than content. It seems that we can't be too hard on Zhang Yimou, because this is a common phenomenon in our times. Don't you see that leaders pursue GDP in political achievements, heroes of the times measure the amount of money, and the level of universities depends on the number of papers? Formalism has become the universal pursuit of our shallow era, and we can't surpass it. But the form is always temporary, especially in art. Think about the gorgeous arrangement of ancient Han Fu and the gorgeous and extravagant works of the Western Jin and Six Dynasties, which were also highly sought after at that time. However, the big waves washed the sand, and finally it disappeared in the history of art, because "form is greater than content." Zhang Yimou tried to interpret Confucius at the opening ceremony, but forgot what Confucius said: "Quality is better than literature, history, literature is better than quality, wildness, gentleness and gentleness." In other words, only when the form and content of art complement each other can there be truly eternal art. Therefore, although Zhang Yimou has achieved great success, as an audience who likes him very much, I want to say that success does not mean forever. If you want to succeed forever, you must shift from emphasizing form to emphasizing content, at least not simple graphic content, but looking for a far-reaching realm.