Jinyang.com reporter Hu Guangxin
“Let us roar up the boat, pushing the waves…” 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 Babaylan” 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 the successors of socialism
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, and unclothed, with a poor Sanruba on her 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 Wandering of Sanmao was ready 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, BabaylanSanmao and his wandering children partner 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 and in the situation of just liberating and the whole country is jubilant.”
“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 “Foundering Ceremony”, “Sanmao Wandering” was first released in several theaters in Shanghai and was 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, and 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 Country of Komiks”, Jiang Lin (played by Li Xixiang) is naughty and Yang Yongli (played by Zhang Yunying) is willful and willful. With the help of squadron leader Liang Huiming (played by Zhao Weiqin) and other classmates, 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 of 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 people 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 has been on the “Rich Chinese Writers List” several times, was in 1978.Before he was admitted to Wuhan University, he was just an ordinary middle school teacher…
The 1980s was an era of reconstruction. 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 their lives, they obtained valuable inspiration and useful reference from the life paths and spiritual journeys 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”, which describes university life in the 1980s, was released. CinemaMovieKomiks films were filmed at Wuhan University and Zhejiang University, telling the stories of five girls with different personalities and backgrounds in university dormitories. 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 rewrote the script based on the passion of Wuhan University students for the new era, the questioning of her own responsibilities, the criticism of old educational ideas, and all aspects of their campus life, and 80% of the plays have been rewritten.” The campus life described in the movie still seems to be very friendly: the start of school, the new year’s new year, 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…
When she watched Cinema, the last century was 80 years old.As the years went by, the energy that intellectuals had been suppressed for a long time was suddenly 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 of a university club discussion with the help of the male protagonist Lan Wei: “Some people say that contemporary college students are a question mark; while we contemporary college students say that we should look at society with question marks and think with our own minds. We must not only think, but also strive and create.”
“Female College Student Dormitory”
“Missing Female Middle School Student”
“Don’t Cry at the age of Seventeen”
C, from “Missing Female Middle School Student” to “Don’t Cry at the Age of Seventeen”:
Love is the only way to grow up
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 tell stories from a unique female perspective. The once secretive topic of “love” also surfaced in campus film and television works at this time.
Shi Shujun’s “The Missing Female Middle School Student” is one of the best. The movie 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 Conservatory of Music. Shi Shujun delicately expresses the freshness, anxiety and pleasure of a girl when she first met love, and the slight deviance of her behavior. She still seems avant-garde.
From this movie, we can clearly see the contradictory attitudes of people towards early love in that era: secret love caused Wang Jia’s grades to drop significantly. When the mother learned that her daughter was in love, she was furious, 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 to face the emotions of teenagers and regard 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 person? Strongness in this aspect is also very important.” With the openness and confidence of social atmosphere, the image of students in campus movies is no longer stereotyped. The girls in “The Missing Female Middle School Student” are vivid and lively: playing by the beach in swimsuits, using their mother’s cosmetics and high heels, and starting 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 Flower Season of Sixteen”, the 1997 movie “The Flower Season·Rain Season” and the TV series “Don’t Cry at the Seventeen”, and the 2002 TVThe drama “The Sky at Eighteen Years Old”…
At this time, campus film and television works abandoned the perspective of adults and began to restore the original appearance of youth. “Early love” naturally became an indispensable part of these works. The 1989 TV series “The Sixteen-Year-Old Flower Season” seemed quite bold at the time: “The Missing Female Middle School Student” only showed a one-way secret love that ended 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. KomiksHao Lei had not made art films at that time, 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 Us Youth That Will Departure”
“Youth”
D. From “To Youth” to “The Best Us”: The campus complex that touched generations
The film and television market in the new century is booming, and the forms of campus-themed film and television works are more diversified. In 2001, the whirlwind of 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 the personalities are exaggerated, and the landscape of the adult world has been 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 Babaylan‘s imitation traces are strong, but it is precisely because of the exploration of the first ten years of the new century that the first ten years of the new century have created theThe prosperity of two decades of youth films. The commercial era of mainland youth films began in 2013. This year, films such as “To Our Youth That Will Be Away”, “Chinese Partners”, “Tiny Times”, “Youth”, and “City College Entrance Examination” were released one after another. The number of youth films has exploded, and the box office has achieved a great harvest: “To Us Youth That Will Fare”, “Chinese Partners” and “Tiny Times” squeezed into the top ten of the annual box office list; “To Us Youth That Will Fare Youth” has a box office of 719 million yuan, surpassing high-cost blockbusters such as “Pacific Rim” and “Di Renjie’s God Capital Dragon King” and ranked third, setting an example of “making big with small profits”.
After 2013, mainland youth films gradually formed their own unique style. Movies such as “To Youth”, “Chinese Partners”, and “Soon of the Year” have a “nostalgic style”. These works can be regarded as a response to former campus movies: most of the stories start from campus in the 1980s and 1990s, telling the changes that young people have experienced from 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 take a fresh and natural route, without the exaggeration of idol dramas at the beginning of the century, nor the cruelty of nostalgic films. 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, 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 led 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 films will definitely become an important type of creation in the film.”
This year, the film version of “The Best of Us” achieved a box office record of over 400 million yuan, and the series “To Us Warmth””Warm Hour Light” 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 wait and see.
“The Best Us”
【The Secret of the Times】
Students in each period have their own “passwords 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. It represents that the protagonist of the film is already a qualified successor of socialism: Xiaohua, the protagonist in “Flower Duoduo”, witted the red scarf to avoid major traffic accidents; in “Blessings for Children”, the poor child Zhang Huaguo became cheerful and brave due to the infection of the Young Pioneers; the ending of “Flower Duoduo” is that primary school students complete the enlistment ceremony in Beihai Park…
“Flower Duoduo”
●Guitar Singing
A “folk song” appeared on campus in the 1980s and 1990s, and swiping with the guitar. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema chords have become 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”, Charlotte, a high school student in the 1990s played by Shen Teng, became a campus celebrity with guitar singing…
“You, the deskmate”
●Chinese school uniforms
Lose and fat, single styles, magical color matching, smoothing out the 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 CinemaFor the youthful memories of the post-80s and post-90s, campus film and television works such as “Soon of the Year”, “The Best Us”, “Hello, Old Times”, and “You in the Deskmates” have all made the actors wear school uniforms. Netizens who once thought that school uniforms were too ugly finally discovered: the ugly ones may not be the school uniforms, but us.