Jinyang.com reporter Hu Guangxin
“Let us roar up the boat, pushing the waves away…” The classic nursery rhyme “Let us roar up the oars” nourishes the hearts of generations of Chinese people. This song is the theme song of the first campus children’s feature film in New China, “The Flowers of the Motherland”. “The Flowers of the Motherland” was filmed in 1955. It is the first film in New China that reflects campus life. Since then, the student group of New China has officially appeared on the big screen.
From the wandering child who never continued to eat for three meals in the old society to the successor of socialism in the early days of the founding of New China, from college students full of idealism in the 1980s to boys and girls with a flamboyance and comprehensive development in the new century, in the 70 years since the founding of New China, the vast number of literary and artistic workers have used their lens to record the growth of every generation of Chinese students.
“Sanmao Wandering”
“Flowers of the Motherland”
A. From “Sanmao Wandering” to “Flowers of the Motherland”:
We are societyCinemaSuccessor
At the beginning of the founding of New China, director Yan Gong directed two children’s films: “Sanmao Wandering” in 1949 and “Flowers of the Motherland” in 1955. These two films just reflect the huge changes in the situation of children in the old and new China.
“Sanmao” was barefoot, thin, uncovered, and had a poor Sanmaohai on her big head. Although he is a fictional character, he is also a microcosm of millions of wandering children in the old society: he was supposed to study and go to school, but he was left on the streets and could not continue his life. Yan Gong recalled in his autobiography that he and screenwriter Yang Hansheng disguised themselves as they collected information, and saw with their own eyes that the frozen child was thrown into the car by the “corpse collection team”. When casting, Yan Gong insisted on choosing a child actor with similar life experiences to the role. Therefore, except for Wang Longji, who plays the protagonist “Sanmao”, the other three young actors are really wandering children.
The Story of Sanmao Wandering was already planned to start filming before the founding of New China. At the end of May 1949, Shanghai was liberated, Yan Gong and Zhao Ming continued to complete the filming, and added a filming: the People’s Liberation Army entered the city, Sanmao and his wandering children joined the yangko dance team for the celebration parade, and the film ended on their smiling faces. Yan Gong commented on this ending: “This ending is real under the situation of just liberating and the whole country is jubilant, and it is also in line with the wishes of the audience.” “Sanmao Wandering” is the first children’s film officially released in New China, written on the homepage of the Republic:At the end of September 1949, on the eve of the “Founder of the National Founding Ceremony”, “Sanmao Wandering” was first released in several theaters in Shanghai and released nationwide in October, causing a great sensation.
Six years later, “The Flowers of the Motherland” directed by Yan Gong created a completely different image of a child from Sanmao. The protagonist of the movie is a student from Class 3, Class 5, Beijing Primary School. They study on a clean campus, with kind teachers and friendly classmates. The most memorable scene in the film is the scene where children row and sing in Beihai Park: the lake is sparkling and the scenery is beautiful around them; the children are energetic, the red scarf on their chests flutters in the wind, and the children bathed in the sunshine of New China, their vitality and innocence overflowed from the screen.
The Flowers of the Motherland is a groundbreaking movie. Since then, “the flower of the motherland” has become synonymous with young people and teenagers, and laid the tone of campus-themed works in the next twenty years. This metaphor also aptly reflects the relationship between the collective and the individual: the motherland is the “soil” and children are the “flowers”, and no flower can leave the soil. Just like in “The Flowers of the Motherland”, Jiang Lin (played by Li Xixiang) is naughty and Yang Yongli (played by Zhang Yunying) is unruly and Komiks. With the help of squadron leader Liang Huiming (played by Zhao Weiqin), they finally correct their character shortcomings and become qualified socialist successors.
The campus films of this period were full of collectivism, as Yan Gong said: “The film reflects the yearning and praise of ordinary people for beauty, harmony and friendship… This is the mentality, ideal and wish of the society at that time.”
The vibrant female college students in “Female College Student Dormitory”
Long Live Youth”
B. From “Long Live Youth” to “Female College Student Dormitory”: The light of idealism will never die
With the resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977, the door to higher education was once again opened to the whole society. Among the “New Three” (Note: After the resumption of the college entrance examination, there are many college students of the 77, 78 and 79 classes) who have been changed by the college entrance examination: Zhang Yimou, an employee of Xianyang Cotton Textile Factory, was admitted to the Photography Department of Beijing Film Academy; his classmate Gu Changwei, who worked as an unemployed vagrant for two years before the college entrance examination; Yi Zhongtian, who had been on the “Rich Chinese Writers List”, was just an ordinary middle school teacher before being admitted to Wuhan University in 1978…
The 1980s was a reconstruction.the age of Everything revived, intellectuals were full of hope for the future, and idealism became one of the themes repeatedly expressed by campus films at that time.
In 1983, Wang Meng’s novel “Long Live Youth” was brought to the screen, causing a nostalgia craze. The novel was written in the 1950s and tells the story of progressive students in a high school for girls at that time helping students with poor backgrounds to correctly understand themselves and return to the collective embrace. The idealistic temperament revealed by the story resonates with the times, just as the December 1983 issue of “Literary Review” commented: “When young people in the 1980s reflected on history and explored life, they obtained valuable inspiration and useful reference from the life path and spiritual journey of young people in the 1950s under similar historical conditions. This is really due to the times and life, and is a great thing dominated by the internal laws of historical development.”
Also in 1983, the movie “Female College Student Dormitory” describing university life in the 1980s was released. The film was filmed at Wuhan University and Zhejiang University, and tells the story of five girls with different personalities and backgrounds in the university dormitory. Director Shi Shujun lived in Wuhan University for more than a month. Every time the script was revised, he handed over to students and teachers at Wuhan University to discuss and revise it. Because of this, she successfully condensed the spirit of college students in the “Dormitory of Female College Students”: “I rewritten the script based on the passion of Wuhan University students for the new era, the questioning of her own responsibilities, the criticism of outdated educational ideas, and the Cinema has all aspects of their campus life. 80% of the plays have been rewritten.” The campus life described in the movie Cinema still seems to be very friendly: the start of school, the new school, the new library, the New Year’s Day party… In these seemingly sparse and ordinary daily life, the light of idealism shines. Shi Shujun filmed “The Dormitory of Female College Students” as a youth film. She has been trying to capture the true state of young people in the era: their relationship with their teachers and parents, their friendship and contradictions, their own ideals and pursuits…
In her opinion, in the 1980s, the energy that intellectuals have been suppressed for a long time was released. “They talk about national affairs with their ideals and feel that the responsibility is very great… This kind of thing is very precious, and I have to be immersed in the entire work.” In the film, Shi Shujun expressed his expectations for the college student group through a scene from a university club discussion with the help of the male protagonist Lan Wei: “Some people say that contemporary college students are a question mark;And we contemporary college students say that we should look at society with question marks and think with our own minds. Not only do you need to think, but you also need to strive and create. ”
“Dormitory of Female College Students”
“Don’t Cry at the age of Seventeen”
C, From “Missing Female College Students” to “Don’t Cry at the age of Seventeen”:
Love is a must-have road to growth
In the 1980s and 1990s, female directors with fresh and delicate directing style became the main force in the creation of campus film and television works. Female directors such as Shi Shujun, Huang Shuqin, Peng Xiaolian, and Lu Xiaoya told stories from a unique female perspective. “Love” was once a secret topic, and also surfaced in campus film and television works at this time.
Shi Shujun’s “The Missing Female Middle School Student” is the best among them. The film tells the story of Wang Jia, a female middle school student who was in adolescence, who had a crush on Lan Bo, a college student at the School of Music. Shi Shujun met a girl for the first time. The freshness, anxiety and the pleasure generated by slight deviance in love are expressed delicately, and it still seems avant-garde.
From this movie, we can clearly see the contradictory attitudes towards early love in that era: secret love caused Wang Jia’s grades to drop significantly, and the mother was furious when she learned that her daughter was thinking, which led to Wang Jia running away from home. But this relationship is just a small episode in life: the passionate secret love comes and goes quickly. After a summer vacation, Wang Jia has put Rampo behind her and her life is back on track.
Although there are various limitations of the times, the valuable thing about “The Missing Female Middle School Student” is Komiks faces the emotions of teenagers and regards love as a part of growth. As Liu Yu, the actor who plays Wang Jia, said in an interview: “Middle school students should understand love and should also withstand the challenge of early love. Don’t you want to be a strong man? This is also very important to be strong in Babaylan. “With the open and confident social atmosphere, the image of students in campus movies is no longer stereotyped. The girls in “Komiks Missing Female Middle School Student” are vivid and lively: playing by the beach in a swimsuit, using my mother’s cosmetics and high heels, and began to think about the future and life and death…
From then on, a group of campus youth group dramas emerged: the 1989 TV series “The Sixteen Years Flower Season”, the 1997 movie “The Flower Season·Rain Season” and the TV series “Don’t Cry at the Seventeen Years”, the 2002 TV series “The Sky at the Seventeen Years”…
At this time, campus film and television works abandoned the perspective of adults and began to restore the original appearance of youth, “early love” from href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks certainly became an indispensable part of these works. The 1989 TV series “The Flower Season of Sixteen” seemed quite bold at the time: “The Missing Female Cinema Middle School Student” only presents a one-way secret love that ends without success; the class leader Bai Xue and the top student Ouyang Yanyan, the “young boy killer” Chen Feier and Xinjiang boy Yuanye have a mutual affection. The show became very popular after it was broadcast, and the letters from fans received by the crew were calculated in sacks.
In 1997, “Don’t Cry at the Age of Seventeen” became the youth enlightenment of many post-80s generations. At that time, Hao Lei had not made art films, and Li Chen was not a “big black bull”. They were just the innocent Jian Ning and Yang Yuling in “Seventeen-year-old Don’t Cry”. The two “school masters” appreciate each other and gradually developed feelings for each other; but for the sake of the future, they chose to restrain themselves. This fresh and natural TV series is not just love, the diligent and self-encouraging Jian Ning, the smart and capable Yang Yuling, the rebellious Raymond, the quiet and introverted Xiaodan… The audience and this group of high school students with different personalities experience the ups and downs of their studies, feelings, and the future, and grow up in injuries.
“The Missing Female Middle School Student”
“Hello Old Time”
“To Our Youth”
“Youth School”
D. From “To Youth” to “The Best Us”:
The campus complex that touched several generations
The film and television market in the new century is booming, and the forms of campus-themed film and television works are more diverse. In 2001, the whirlwind of the Taiwanese idol drama “Meteor Garden” swept across Asia, subverting the audience’s inherent impression of campus film and television works: the characters in the play are fashionable, prosperous, and have a prominent personality, and the landscape of the adult world was transplanted to students. Commercial youth idol dramas such as “Red Apple Paradise” and “Looking at Meteor Shower Together” have also begun to appear in mainland China, becoming an important part of popular culture in the new century.
These works have strong imitation traces, but it is precisely because of the exploration of the first decade of the new century that the prosperity of the second decade of youth films has been created. The commercial era of mainland youth films began in 2013. This year, films such as “To Our Youth That Will Die”, “Chinese Partners”, “Tiny Times”, “Youth”, and “City College Entrance Examination” were released one after another. The number of youth filmsBabaylan has exploded, and the box office has achieved great success: “To Us Youth That Will Be Away”, “Chinese Partners” and “Tiny Times” have squeezed into the top ten of the annual box office list; “To Us Will Be Away”The Lost Youth” even surpassed high-cost blockbusters such as “Pacific Rim” and “Die Renjie’s God Capital Dragon King” with a box office of 719 million yuan, ranking third, setting an example of “making big with small profits”.
After 2013, mainland youth films gradually formed their own unique style. “To Youth”, “Chinese Partners”, “Soon of the Year” and other films have a “nostalgic style”. These works can be regarded as a response to former campus movies: most of the stories start from the campus in the 1980s and 1990s, telling the changes that young people have experienced from Cinema campus to society. The world outside the “ivory tower” is far more complicated than imagined. The realization of ideals and the perfection of love are not easy to obtain. In these works, the once energetic students experience disillusionment, cheering up, and starting again, waving goodbye to their youthful self. This narrative full of youthful sentimental touched the hearts of the “post-70s” and “post-80s”.
After 2015, campus works targeting the audience of “post-90s” and “post-00s” began to appear. Unlike previous youth films, most of these works follow the fresh and natural route, without the exaggeration of idol dramas at the beginning of the century, nor the cruelty of nostalgic movies. This batch of works is like an evolutionary version of campus group dramas: a large number of newcomers in the film and television industry who are similar to their age are used to restore campus life.
The difference is that the vague love elements back then have now become the main plot. Geng Geng and Yu Huai from “The Best of Us”, Chen Xiaoxi and Jiang Chen from “To Our Simple Little Beauty”, Yu Zhouzhou and Lin Yang from “Hello, Babaylan Old Times”… These works have spent a lot of writing to describe the youthful and sweetness of campus romance, leading the audience back to the beautiful youth.
According to statistics from the China Film Distribution and Screening Association, the average age of movie audiences has dropped from 25.7 years old in 2009 to 21.5 years old in 2012. The younger audience of the film and television audience and the relatively relaxed scale of youth themes have jointly contributed to the popularity of youth films. In an interview in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily in 2013, Yin Hong, a professor at Tsinghua University and director of the China Film Association, predicted: “Youth film Cinema will definitely become an important creative genre in the film.”
This year, the film version of “The Best of Us” achieved a box office record of over 400 million yuan. The series “To Us Warm Hour” scored as high as 8.0 on Douban. Campus youth works are in full swing. What surprises will they bring in the future? Let’s wipeWaiting for it.
“The Best Us”
[The Secret of the Times]
Students in each period have their own “password of the Times”. Which of the following objects will evoke your youthful memory?
●Red Scarf
Red Scarf and Young Pioneers are common symbols of campus movies in the 1950s and 1960s. This is a symbol of progress, representing that the protagonist of the film is already a qualified successor of socialism: Xiaohua, the protagonist in “Flowers” witted the red scarf to avoid major traffic accidents; in “Blessings for Children”, the poor child Zhang Huaguo became infected by the Young Pioneers’ Cinema href=”https://comicmov.com/”>BabaylanCheerful and brave; The ending of “Flowers of the Motherland” is that primary school students complete the enrollment ceremony in Beihai Park…
“Flowers”
●Guitar Singing
A “folk style” emerged on campus in the 1980s and 1990s, holding the guitar to swipe chords, becoming the most representative scenery of this era. Many film and television works describing the lives of students back then have guitar singing scenes: In “The Missing Girl Middle School Student”, Wang Jia’s father met a group of college students singing on the train with a guitar; in “The Year of the Year”, Chen Xun, played by Peng Yuyan, sang with a guitar at a campus party, fascinating a group of girls; in the comedy “Charlotte’s Troubles”, Shen Teng played Charlotte’s high school student in the 1990s, became a celebrity in the campus with guitar singing…
“You, the deskmate”
●Chinese school uniform
Lose and fat, single style, magical color matching, and wiping href=”https://comicmov.com/”>CinemaThe difference between men and women… Chinese school uniforms have been criticized for being “too ugly”, and some even say that “school uniforms ruin the youth of Chinese people.” However, Chinese-style school uniforms have now become the youthful memory of the “post-80s” and “post-90s”. Campus film and television works such as “Soon of the Year”, “The Best of Us”, “Hello, Old Times”, and “You, Deskmates”, all have allowed actors to wear school uniforms. Netizens who once disliked the school uniforms were too ugly finally discovered: the ugly ones may not be the school uniforms, but us.