“The World” The commoner epic of ordinary workers’ families resonates
2022-02-11 10:55:25Source: Client of Beijing Daily
Adapted from Liang Xiaosheng’s novel of the same name, directed by Li Lu, written by Wang Hailing, and starring Lei Jiayin, Xin Baiqing, Song Jia, Yin Tao, etc., the TV series “The World” is currently being broadcast on CCTV. Even if it “collided head-on” with popular ratings such as the Spring Festival and the Winter Olympics, “The World” has already gained a large number of fans in the unhurried broadcast rhythm. The total number of episodes of the drama is as many as 58 episodes. Currently, only one third of it has been broadcast on CCTV. Its performance in China’s audio-visual big data has exceeded 2%, and it has reached 1.5% on the Kuyun real-time TV data list. The rest of the TV series The highest is only 0.6%, and the viewing data has become a trend of crushing across the board.
Liang Xiaosheng did not consider film and television at first
For Liang Xiaosheng, the author of the novel of the same name, “The World” itself is a special work. Apart from the reputation that the work brought to the author, such as the Mao Dun Literature Award, “The World” is not like Liang Xiaosheng’s other works that have been filmed, such as “Annual Rings”, “Snow City”, “Educated Youth”, “Returning Times”, etc. Created at the invitation of the TV station, “The World” decided that it might not be made into a TV series at the same time, and I definitely didn’t think regarding it in this regard.”
Precisely because the filming was not considered in the creation, the story of “The World” did not take into account the difficulty of filming. The author made up his mind to start from the 1970s. It was this obsession that created “The World”. The sense of picture scroll has also become the best elaboration of Liang Xiaosheng’s writing concept, “Describe the desire for the evolution of life”. Liang Xiaosheng said that in the course of life evolution, the times are also changing, such as the working class, the concept now is completely different from that at the time.
Liang Xiaosheng described his first meeting with Li Lu, the director of “The World”, as “meeting late”. The two shared a lot of common language regarding reality-themed works. Liang Xiaosheng also admired Li Lu’s concept of expressing the image and feelings of the working class. Liang Xiaosheng therefore changed his mind and decided to fully support them, even if it was difficult. In order to express this support, Liang Xiaosheng even handwritten a 5-page authorization letter, saying that as long as Li Lu follows “professionalism and purity, he can change whatever he wants.”
The main creators have the northeast complex
“The Northeast is my hometown, and it is my wish to shoot this drama in my hometown.” Li Lu said that the main creators are indispensable to the Northeast complex. In his opinion, the charm of the Northeast is not necessarily a matter of pushing the cup He hopes to show the most beautiful and rough things in the Northeast in “The World”.
Li Lu believes that although the number of episodes of “The World” is long, it will definitely affect the hearts of thousands of households and let the audience see the end. In terms of time span, “The World” does not adopt the narrative method of chronicle, but uses a leap-forward and leisurely approach to show major events closely related to the fate of the characters. The drama is all civilian in character creation, not creating gods, but depicting destiny. In Li Lu’s view, the realistic subject is to draw people, and it is difficult to draw people, but for all the characters in “The World”, audiences can easily find prototypes in their own homes. A group drama with a time span of fifty years is extremely difficult to control. The selection, direction, proportion of characters, the proportion of the age, the deadline, the character and fate of the characters must be carefully considered.
There are hundreds of characters with surnames and names in the play, and their actors are all experienced actors. The main actors Lei Jiayin and Song Jia are from Northeast China. When meeting with the producer, Lei Jiayin emphasized that the fit between himself and the character is not only reflected in appearance. He grew up in Anshan and lived in a workers’ compound when he was a child. Those days are his happiest memories and the root of his Northeast complex, “I am Zhou Bingkun, I must act, I must act!”
In the timeline of “The World”, Zhou Bingkun, played by Lei Jiayin, was born between 1952 and 1953. Lei Jiayin’s father was born in that era. The state-owned enterprise where his parents worked also underwent reforms and his mother was laid off. For him, “The World” is the life of his parents, and the prototypes of the characters in it are engraved in his mind. “I had a strong idea at the time, and following the filming, I will leave a memory for my parents.”
Focus on portraying the sense of age
“The World” spans a time span of 50 years. In order to fully restore the authenticity of the story, the script preparation took more than three years, and six months of intense shooting took place, and the details were even more “harsh” The control, ranging from historical scenes in various periods, changes in the family environment in various stages, to various life props, bowls and spoons, are all in line with the original appearance of the times in the northern environment.
The crew traveled to Changchun, Harbin, Liaoning, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guiyang and other places to shoot. In order to reproduce the residential area of the old industrial city in Northeast China, the crew built a scene of 40,000 square meters, and the light line used 70,000 meters. Jing’s lights are full of dozens of super long box trucks. In the preparatory stage of the shooting, we also collected a lot of old objects, and built a prop library of regarding 1,000 square meters, such as the old posters, old calendars, and old clothes that appeared in the play, many of which were real things collected through the collection. “Strive to make the audience dream back to that era as soon as they see it” is the goal that the crew hopes to achieve.
When the play was broadcast, Zhou Bingkun thought that her sister’s wool pants were too tight, Zheng Juan’s family was too poor to have no pants to wear, and the plot of six or seven young people lining up to buy a pork fan made the audience return to The era of material scarcity. The emotional connection of “Light Character Film” people with endless aspirations, and the wanton youth of “Six Gentlemen” who share difficulties and blessings, let the audience in the barrage relive the human feelings and warmth of the past era. With the progress of the plot, the play is regarding to enter a small climax, and the tragic feeling of the fate of the characters and the good fortune of the times will bring a huge impact to the audience. This civilian epic drama for ordinary workers’ families is being Getting better.
(Reporter Li Xiazhi)
