The Winter Olympics is closed! Zhang Yimou, who does subtraction, knows the romance of Chinese best.

Special feature of 1905 film network From February 4, 2022, the opening ceremony of Beijing Winter Olympics to the closing ceremony of February 20, 2022, the general director of the opening and closing ceremonies of Beijing Winter Olympics showed the world the exclusive romance of Chinese with his unique China aesthetics.

　

In all kinds of interviews before and after the opening ceremony, when Zhang Yimou talked about the design concept, the key words mentioned most were "simplicity" and "when you don’t have such a grand scene, you should click" rather critical "at one point."

　

Especially when it comes to the Olympic lighting, Zhang Yimou used Li Bai’s phrase "Snowflakes in Yanshan Mountain are as big as seats" as the concept, and put the concept of "rather critical" into it.

He said that the whole opening and closing ceremony was "a story about snowflakes".

　

Compared with the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics, Zhang Yimou actually did a subtraction this time. As he explained himself, 2008 is to open the door and introduce himself to the world. But now it’s different. Everyone knows what China is like. "The angle of the opening ceremony has shifted from’ I’ to’ we’, and’ we’ represents Chinese’s worldview."

　

Zhang Yimou, who started subtraction, had to let the audience sigh again, "Zhang Yimou knows too well!"

　

For him, this change is not only reflected in his creation of the grand ceremony, but also in his films.

It seems that from the beginning of the film, he gradually lost the big color blocks in the past in his creation, and the tone was more black, white and gray. Even in two consecutive films, Xue really participated in the story telling.

　

Zhang Yimou after subtraction, it seems that the story really begins.

　

The acme of Zhang Yimou.

Searching for the keyword "Zhang Yimou subtraction" on the Internet, the content that appears on the home page, in addition to the new works in recent years, there is also a timely interview.

　

At that time, he commented on the film himself and said, "This Golden Flower is a comprehensive work. I have done the third part, and I already know how to use subtraction, no addition, no showmanship, and blockbusters are easy to show off. This time, eliminating distractions and paying more attention to characters and stories is to repeatedly consider stories, characters, characters and stories. "

　

But looking back at the news and comments at that time, it seems that the subtraction of this film was not successful, but more was the public’s criticism of his excessive use of yellow.

　

In Zhang Yimou movies, the use of color is always a golden signboard. He once said, "I think color is the most evocative factor among the visual elements of movies."

　

Behind this aesthetics is actually two words, "extreme".

　

This extreme and even existing creation has provoked the original author to complain. Even more, he completely ignored the opinions of the film producer and insisted on creating in his own way.

　

Zhang Yimou also said in the interview that every time he creates something new, it may be a form, a color or a very detailed thing.

Only in the past for a long time, the color reflected the "extreme" of Zhang Yimou.

　

Especially after the film, the evaluation has always been polarized, and the subsequent creation, the market has a strong "attack" on its color, and in "Golden Flower in the City", this criticism reached its peak.

　

During the creation of "Golden Flower in the City", he was also working hard for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At that time, there were not only criticisms of his films, but also doubts about his directing the Olympic Games two years later. Because two years ago, his "Eight Minutes in Beijing" at the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympic Games was vomited by countless China audiences, and even bombarded by some people. These eight minutes had no connotation, and they all depended on the scenes and colors.

　

A while ago, when his wife Chen Ting wrote about Zhang Yimou’s "Director Shuang ‘ao", she mentioned that "the pressure and hardship in 2008 were unprecedented, and no one knew it step by step. He even joked. If we screw up, our whole family will flee."

　

Finally, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games was successfully held. Today, this grand ceremony is one of the best opening ceremonies of previous Olympic Games considered by foreign networks.

　

Criticism and doubt, flowers and applause always coexist in Zhang Yimou’s world. On any ordinary person, all this seems to be stress. But in Zhang Yimou’s view, "Tucao is a shock to the director, and the eyes of the masses are discerning. I often watch it, and some Tucao is very clever."

　

In Destiny: Lonely Zhang Yimou, the author Zhou Xiaofeng once mentioned, "If someone steps on his foot, he will be silent; Stepping out of the blood, he didn’t say a word; It was only when he was crippled that he found a chance to walk away without saying a word and find a place to heal himself. "

In the eyes of outsiders, Zhang Yimou’s pursuit of this extreme has long been hidden in his work.

　

Negative content is not the first time for Zhang Yimou, and he will hardly come forward to explain or respond. Only the public will know afterwards that there are always many external factors behind every accident.

　

Zhang Yimou’s subtraction

In the eyes of many people, his creation is the director’s greatest Waterloo.

　

Many people call it a shortened version of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The director continues to present the film with the usual crowd tactics, and even criticizes Zhang Yimou, who is a director with no sense of existence except big scenes and big colors.

　

Even so, Zhang Yimou didn’t say anything at that time. It was not until three years later that he participated in the talk show. When asked about the most important failure by the host, he said, "Some movies are not satisfactory, but this is what I expected, such as The Great Wall. I know it myself, but I am willing to try. I may not care much about my feathers. "

　

Perhaps, as Chen Ting said in his article, Zhang Yimou has a kind of stubbornness from the northwest.

　

Two years later, he directed the film "Shadow", losing the color block style of big red and big green, which he was good at, and turning to black and white as the main tone.

　

"Lost" color, Zhang Yimou is still pursuing the ultimate.

　

In the documentary "Zhang Yimou and His Shadow", he demanded that the black-and-white world in the film must be filmed in real time, so that the audience can have a feeling of China ink painting. Although computer color matching is a piece of cake at present, he demands the pursuit of truth. Even for this reason, the scenery group repeatedly tore off the undesirable screen windows and efficiently found materials that fit the director’s creative expression.

　

When the film was released, some people thought that it was a "simplification" of Zhang Yimou’s film, while others thought that even if the big color blocks were gone, it was still a work with more form than content.

　

This kind of evaluation is more in line with Zhang Yimou’s own earlier argument. The early creation of the fifth generation directors did not care about the story of the film, but paid more attention to its vanguard.

　

Later, Zhang Yimou made a film. Although he said on large and small occasions, this film represents his feelings for the film. However, he occasionally mentioned that the inspiration for shooting this story came from the fragments in the original novel "How to Know the Land Offender" when shooting.

　

Looking back at Return from One Second, it was the first work in the "post-two-era", and it seems to be the beginning of Zhang Yimou’s gradual abandonment of form and slow return to the film story.

　

One Second, which was released later, repeatedly played the words of "returning to the original" and "simplifying the complex" in propaganda.

　

In the movie Above the Cliff, compared with the group drama of Heroes and Flowers in the City, Zhang Yimou has higher requirements for the control of the story.

The cooperative photography from Hero talked about this change. "In fact, Zhang Dao didn’t have this kind of crowd tactics from Shadow, and then to One Second’s Above the Cliff, he didn’t deliberately create a strong visual sense with people, but presented it naturally, and naturally followed the story as a whole."

　

In the new book Sniper, this subtraction really reaches another extreme.

　

When Zhang Yimou found a screenwriter, he put forward three requirements. Two of them are "no grand narrative" and "strong narrative". In the end, Sniper focuses on a battle, a scene and a limited period of time, and cuts into big history from a personal perspective.

　

Later, when Zhang Yimou talked openly about creative thinking, he once again used the concept of "rather critical" to describe it, "Starting from the subtleties, to show a small corner of the great war."

　

When we talked to the director about this change in creation, "I think now he may have a different mentality and be much more peaceful. He may still focus on stories and characters, like formal things, but he may think he can do subtraction." She is both a daughter and a creator. They didn’t discuss much, but talked more about her sensitivity as a creator.

　

In recent years, in various activities, Zhang Yimou has always regarded himself as a "learner", thinking that he is still learning. Yu Chen also said in the interview that Zhang Yimou is very sensitive to the changes of the whole world’s film and television, and he will always recommend those unpopular works that have just been launched.

　

Undoubtedly, Zhang Yimou, who is doing subtraction, is changing. This change may be his understanding of experience, his sensitive knowledge of the industry, or his "learning" experience.

　

Many people who have worked with him will mention the director’s saying, "My life is making movies." The road to simplicity, Zhang Yimou under subtraction doesn’t seem to have changed, but just pushed that extreme to the other side of art.

　

After the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, he sent a message with emotion, in which he wrote, "We can only be romantic if we let go of our baggage and completely relax ourselves."

　

Planning a life for art, who doesn’t sigh, "Zhang Yimou really knows the romance of Chinese too well!"