Chongqing Lookout｜How to win the hearts of the people with a classic remake
2024-08-26
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The classic remake has failed again.
Recently, director Hu Mei's new film "A Dream of Red Mansions Part Two: The Golden Jade Marriage" has been pushed to the forefront of public opinion due to its divided reputation.
The top-tier literary work Dream of Red Mansions has been remade for the Nth time. Many people expected the classic to be recreated, but it turned out to be an accident. From the actors' looks to the plot design, from the scene layout to the character performance, Dream of Red Mansions: A Marriage of Gold and Jade has been controversial. One "Dai" is not as good as another "Dai", which has become the biggest label firmly attached to this film.
How can a classic remake win the hearts of the audience? This is a difficult task for screenwriters, directors, actors and other people involved in the creation.
"Journey to the West", "Dream of Red Mansions", "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "The World", "Flower City"... For a long time, remaking classic works has become an important means for the film and television industry to pursue traffic and "retention". For example, as one of Jin Yong's most popular works, "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" has been remade as many as 7 times since 1977.
Among the classic remakes, some have created ratings myths, while others have ended in failure, or even "nine out of ten have failed." Even so, there are still people willing to keep trying in this field. This makes people wonder: Why are classic remakes so popular?
It has its own traffic and a broad audience base.When the rivers and lakes, characters and classic plots in the book are put on the screen, there are always "some happy and some sad". Some viewers are worried that the adaptation is ridiculous, while others are looking forward to the new interpretation of handsome men and beautiful women. Controversy and expectations coexist, and classic remakes always bring their own topic traffic.
More importantly, classic literary works have stood the test of time and have a huge fan base, which has also made many classic remakes "popular before they are even made". And every time a classic is remade, there will always be a wave of "archaeology" and "nostalgia", and the audience will also happily use a "magnifying glass" to compare and analyze the similarities and differences of various remakes. From the plot arrangement, character creation, scene layout to detail processing, everything has become a hot topic for them to discuss.
There is rich material and great space for creation.Classic literary works span ancient and modern times, cover a wide range of content, and can also dig deep into the contradictions and conflicts of reality, the survival and development of individuals, as well as profound and complex themes such as human nature and death. All of these provide film and television workers with rich content materials and broad creative space.
Take "Dream of Splendor" as an example. The TV series is adapted from Guan Hanqing's Yuan Dynasty drama "Zhao Pan'er Saves the Wind and Dust". The original work is short, with only 40 parts. On this basis, the screenwriter "opened up his mind" and incorporated the contemporary spirit of women's self-reliance and self-improvement, achieving a win-win situation in terms of reputation and revenue. It can be said that classic literary IP has become a "rich mine" for film and television drama adaptation and creation.
The returns are high and the commercial value is high.On the one hand, the mature story framework, profound ideological connotation, and rich character images of classic literary works have virtually reduced the difficulty and cost of creation. On the other hand, advertising placement, copyright sales, box office revenue, cross-border collaborations, etc. can all bring rich returns to the adaptation. Many film and television dramas adapted from classic literary works are often the "bets" of capital and often attract a lot of investment.
For example, the TV series "The World", adapted from the novel of the same name by writer Liang Xiaosheng, which won the Mao Dun Literature Prize, was pre-purchased by Disney for exclusive overseas distribution rights just one month after filming began.
▲Still from the movie "A Chinese Odyssey". / Screenshot from Chongqing Lookout
In the craze, opportunities and challenges coexist. In the process of remaking classics, some people concentrate on creation and strive to add icing on the cake; at the same time, some people "fish in troubled waters" and just want to take advantage of the popularity and get a piece of the pie.
Blindly pursuing profit, the content is shoddy.There is nothing wrong with gaining economic benefits by adapting and remaking classics, but creators cannot only focus on benefits and not results and “only think about money.”
For example, in order to make money quickly, some teams do not hesitate to shorten the shooting time and production cycle, cut special effects costs, and even compromise in some aspects in order to achieve quick results. Some actors take on multiple works at the same time, and frequently "overlap" and have no time to study their roles.
A classic work is the result of many years of hard work by the author, but some remakes are completed in just one or two months, which is purely "cutting leeks". From the plot design to the costumes and props, and post-production editing, there is a "cheap feeling", which completely loses the texture of the classic.
Traffic is king, and audience preferences are preset.In the process of adapting classics, some screenwriters and directors are "good at" pre-setting audience preferences, or mixing elements of melodrama, sadomasochism, violence, etc. into the remakes of film and television dramas, thinking that "the audience likes to watch this"; or they delete and modify the core plot of the original work into pieces, and frantically "inject" unimportant side plots, lowering the level of the original work and increasing the audience's "complaints".
For example, the 2019 version of "The Investiture of the Gods" made a magical change to the original novel, deliberately adding "industrial saccharin" such as love scenes. Yang Jian and Daji both had a love line, and netizens joked that "this is the Mary Sue version of Yang Jian's Legend."
"Letting go of yourself" goes against the meaning of the original work.Of course, classic remakes cannot simply copy and paste the text, but should be a reinterpretation in the new era. The 1995 film "A Chinese Odyssey" is completely different from the original story, but it creatively expands the content of the original work, showing contempt for authority and feudalism, which fits the psychological demands of young people and is an innovation based on inheritance.
However, some remakes, under the banner of "artistic subjectivity", wantonly spoof the original work and over-interpret it. This "self-indulgent" behavior seriously deviates from the spiritual core of the original work and the original intention of the remake. For example, in the 2013 version of "Swordsman", Dongfang Bubai was directly transformed into an "Oriental Girl", which made the audience laugh and cry.
▲Stills from the 1986 version of Journey to the West. /CCTV4 Chinese Literature and Art
If a classic remake is to withstand the test of the people, experts and the market, it obviously cannot just rely on simple "remakes";Only by constantly innovating, seeking breakthroughs, and surpassing in remakes can we revitalize classics and create masterpieces of the era.
"Understand" the core thoroughly and work hard on story expression.Adaptation is not random editing, and parody is not nonsense. To remake a classic, we must grasp the spiritual connotation and ideological value of the original work, and then express the story and create art. Only when the adapter digs out the emotional warmth and ideological depth hidden between the lines of the original work and "decodes" the text content into a presentation mode suitable for audio-visual art, can it arouse the audience's spiritual resonance.
The reason why the 1986 version of Journey to the West has become a classic in the minds of several generations is largely due to the adaptation principle of "staying faithful to the original and being cautious in innovation" adhered to by director Yang Jie. She carefully selected the essence of the original text of Journey to the West, simplified it, and skillfully presented each story to the audience as an independent chapter, creating a myth of 89.4% ratings.
Hone your acting skills and work hard on character portrayal.A successful remake of a classic is inseparable from full and three-dimensional character creation. Actors are the bridge between the script and the audience, and the scale and depth of their performances affect the success or failure of the adaptation. In order to create a convincing character, the actor needs to have a deep understanding of the script, explore the character's inner world, and inject new vitality into the character through his own understanding and creation on the basis of respecting the original work.
The 1987 version of Dream of the Red Chamber is still regarded as a classic because it is considered to be the most similar to the original. When striving for the opportunity to play Lin Daiyu, actress Chen Xiaoxu added her deep understanding of Daiyu. During the three-year filming, she carefully studied traditional musical instruments and classical poetry, striving to present the gentleness and talent of a lady from a noble family. When the TV series was broadcast, her every smile, appearance and expression made the audience believe that she was Lin Daiyu from the book.
Give full play to advantages and work hard on innovative interpretation.As a unique art form, film and television dramas have the outstanding advantage of being able to visualize flat text descriptions. Therefore, when remaking classics, we should make full use of the advantages of imaging technology, not only pursuing realistic and shocking visual effects, but also innovating in the way of storytelling, character creation, and emotional communication, so as to bring a refreshing viewing experience to the audience.
The TV series "My Altay" is a bold attempt to adapt prose into film and television. The adapter cleverly incorporates more dramatic narrative styles and successfully connects the various parts closely. For example, the opening of the series vividly shows the various difficulties encountered by the protagonist Wenxiu while working in Urumqi. This design immediately attracted the audience's attention and laid a solid foundation for the subsequent plot.
There is a classic line in The Shawshank Redemption: "There is a kind of bird that can never be caged, because every feather of its bird shines with the radiance of freedom." For classic remakes, the same spirit should be upheld: just like those birds that can never be caged, every remake of a classic work should be a pursuit of free creation and an exploration of the true meaning of art.
Only in this way can the remake surpass the original, become a new classic, remain relevant over time, and touch the hearts of every generation of audiences.
