Zhang Yimou: commercial form or aesthetic art?

? Director Zhang Yimou, as the "national master" of the Chinese film industry, most of his works have received widespread attention, and "Shadow", which was released on the National Day in 2018, has been controversial because of the aesthetic spectacle created by the traditional forms of artistic expression in China and the fact that director Zhang Yimou has always been "incapable of storytelling". and director Zhang Yimou's characteristic of "not being able to tell a story" has been controversial.

? October 12, coinciding with the director Zhang Yimou's masterpiece "Red Sorghum" re-release, before only watched this aesthetic feast on the network, I also have the honor to see it again. I would like to tell the story of these two directors' works that use color to the extreme, and explore their similarities and differences.

? As a representative work of the fifth generation of directors, Red Sorghum reflects the general maturity of the fifth generation of directors' image consciousness. The film shapes the characters' images and destinies in the macro historical and cultural implications, and the image style is simple and realistic, but also reaches a symbolic generalization. The highly saturated color images fully demonstrate the passionate and unrestrained artistic personality of the film, which changes the subtle beauty of traditional Chinese aesthetics, and overflows with wild and unrestrained beauty, reflecting the author's deliberate flaunting of human life.

? In terms of narrative, it intertwines the quiet life of ordinary people in Shibari Pavilion with the conflict caused by the sudden invasion of the Japanese, and organically combines personal destiny with historical events and the stormy times, with strong characteristics of the Chinese nation.

At the end of the film, "My Grandma" is shot dead by the Japanese, and the bodies of the people on the shochu wok are scattered everywhere, "My Grandpa" seems to have been poked in the soft underbelly, and there is a solar eclipse in the sky, and the whole world turns red, symbolizing that a world of red light will finally come. The world of red light will eventually come, the director of a story full of tragedy reflects the broad and deep red national spirit.

? On the other hand, it seems to me that "Red Sorghum" contributed to the birth of Jiang Wen's "Ghosts are coming" to a certain extent, and the head of Ma Dasan fell to the ground, and "Red Sorghum" at the end of "my grandfather" looked away in despair, and the picture ended up being a bright red color with the same flavor.

On the other hand, "Shadow" is also a representative film of Zhang Yimou's use of color to advance the storyline. It tells the story of an ancient Chinese "double", who, in his view, will not be paid attention to, and is doomed to die, and has been living in the anxiety of self-identity. Based on this, the director has created a series of dramatized storytelling.

? Although the film inherits Zhang Yimou's earlier bold use of color in the narrative, it breaks away from his previous habit of using heavy ink and saturated colors to emphasize the theme, and uses a cool, low-key, almost black-and-white Chinese style image to tell the story of China.

? The film is full of Chinese visual elements, landscape, yin and yang, gossip, the game... behind each set of opposing images are hidden characters and the environment embodied in different meanings, with a woman's body into the umbrella to break the world's magic sword, and into the anointing of the "real" trapped in the cell manipulation, "Shadow" to break the world's magic sword, and into the anointing of the "real" trapped in the cell manipulation, "Shadow" to break the "real" trapped in the cell manipulation, "Shadow" to break the "real" trapped in the cell manipulation. The "shadow" breaks the chess game. On top of these distinctive visual elements and metaphors is the unique texture of Chinese ink painting. The flatness and coolness of Chinese ink painting is well reproduced in the movie.

? Zhang Yimou's creation has gone through an early artistic to gradually merge with the commercialization of the transformation, some people say that Zhang Yimou is a strong sense of formality of the director, the film preparation will be in the early stage of the visual effects of the narrative based on the story, the story is for the service of the special effects, but I personally think that this is also the director of the work of Zhang Yimou can be popularized, one of the reasons for the masses.

? As a leading figure in the Chinese film industry, director Zhang Yimou has been exploring film styles with Chinese symbols, from a series of extremely nationalistic "Big Red Lanterns Hanging Tall", "Qiu Ju Playing the Judge", "Alive" to the commercial exploration of "Hero" and the Hollywood co-production "The Great Wall", director Zhang Yimou has been integrating Chinese elements into different aesthetic forms, which has contributed to the better and faster "Going Global" for Chinese films. "The director has made contributions to the better and faster development of Chinese movies by incorporating Chinese elements into different aesthetic forms.

? But it is also undeniable that director Zhang Yimou's work has always been less storytelling, more to create an image of the atmosphere, most of the film focuses on the performance of the external conflict and contradiction resolution, to a certain extent, the lack of a deeper analysis of society. The director himself has admitted that he is obsessed with compressing his characters' lives into a whole movie, which inevitably leads to fast-paced, high-intensity editing for the narrative, in sharp contrast to Hou Hsiao-hsien, who emphasizes the aesthetic style of documentary.

? Zhang Yimou is a director who combines contradictions, preferring to tell the most basic relationships and laws of survival in society. Under the condition that power cannot be overcome, he constantly explores the humble struggles of the characters in the oppression of such power, which is the proof that the characters are living in the present and exist in the world. When the contemplation no longer continues, the form leaps up to become an aesthetic expression, and when the human nature is excavated to the end, the form is slightly inferior.

? Personally, I am still very fond of films with strong dramatic conflicts, especially when they are placed in historical events, with tension and artistic influence, and I covet the strong psychological pleasure brought to me by the moment when the conflict is resolved. This experience of pleasure and the so-called "boring" contrast in film theory is the Montage School and documentary aesthetics of the opposition, but may be in a certain aspect, the form of expression of the opposition can also show the theme of the same way.

? In the contemporary society of China's growing development and gradual economic and cultural outreach, cultural self-confidence and cultural output have been repeatedly mentioned, even though the potential of the Chinese film market has been gradually tapped in the box office miracle in recent years, but to a large extent, it has not borne the burden of cultural self-confidence, and the Chinese films that are generally recognized in the international arena are still the art films that are not loved by the majority of the mainstream audience in China. Adding Chinese culture to Chinese films, complemented by internationalized narrative strategies and value orientation, is the motivation for Chinese films to be exported well. Director Zhang Yimou has written a unique chapter in Chinese cinema, both in terms of formal aesthetic exploration and thematic expression.

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