news

recently, the 2024 beijing cultural forum was held. the famous director zheng xiaolong was invited as a special guest and delivered a speech at the parallel forum "cultural communication: film and television production and contemporary expression", sharing his views on how film and television works can tell chinese stories well.

zheng xiaolong said that in the past 30 years, china's film and television industry has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities, but also faced many challenges. in this process, practitioners should not only consider how to expand international influence, but also think about how to show china's cultural connotation and spiritual outlook through film and television works. the core of film and television works lies in the story. to create high-quality works, we must tell good chinese stories, tell good stories about the chinese people, and tell good stories about chinese humanity.

there is a saying in literary theory that "image is more important than thought", and zheng xiaolong agrees with this. he believes that if the image is not well done, cannot make people empathize, trust or is not unique, it will not be able to "live" in people's hearts for a long time. for example, "dream of red mansions" is praised as a mirror of feudal society. cao xueqin did not know what feudal society was, but he objectively and realistically created many vivid characters in "dream of red mansions".

looking back on his decades of working experience, zheng xiaolong said with deep feeling that truly good works are those that can stand the test of time, and these works are often also works that can well reflect and record the times. for example, the works created in those years, such as "desire", "the story of the editorial department", "beijingers in new york", "golden wedding", "red sorghum", and "happiness to ten thousand homes", all bear a distinct mark of the times. the reason why "south to north" was so popular at the beginning of this year was that it took the stories of chinese railway workers as a starting point to show the changes that chinese society has experienced since the reform and opening up, and to highlight the spirit of the times. this requires film and television creation to extract materials from the joys, sorrows, anger, and happiness of the general public and the social reality reflected behind them.

creators need to improve their observation and cognition of society, life, and human nature, constantly improve their storytelling skills and production level, and constantly improve their literary literacy and aesthetic ability. this is to practice internal skills. many directors' works are well-finished, but they just lack the breath and can never produce top-notch works because of their lack of internal skills. another thing is to convey chinese values, show the common emotions and values ​​of mankind through works, so as to enhance the influence of chinese culture in the global context.

when talking about how to convey values, zheng xiaolong took "the legend of zhen huan" as an example. he said that when adapting this tv series, the creative team set the original fictional historical background to the qing dynasty, and positioned the values ​​of the work on criticizing and exposing the corruption and cruelty of the feudal marriage system. the introduction of the overseas version of "the legend of zhen huan" is "an unyielding soul, a weak woman against the entire qing empire". this is not provided by the chinese team, but is understood by overseas audiences themselves. it can be seen that the commonality of values ​​provides a value link for international communication. the popularity of "the legend of zhen huan" is largely due to the penetrating power of thought that has won vitality and thus increased its influence. it also shows the charm of chinese traditional culture in many aspects through various elements such as costumes, etiquette, architecture, food, music, etc. in the play.

zheng xiaolong finally said that to create excellent film and television works with chinese character, chinese style, and chinese demeanor, creators need to start from real chinese stories, adhere to the creative principles of realism, pay attention to the values ​​of the works, and deeply explore human nature and the background of the times in the creative process. only in this way can we create truly excellent works that can stand the test of time and be remembered by the audience.

reporter: wang likui editor: lv bing proofreader: wang fei