【Hot spot observation】
Author: Bao Shiqi (Associate Researcher of Henan Provincial Research Center for Socialist Theoretical System with Chinese Characteristics, Associate Researcher of Henan Academy of Social Sciences)
Red is the brightest background color of the Communist Party of China and the People’s Republic of China. Red culture is an important spiritual link connecting past, present and future. In the new era, how to polish the background of red culture, make red culture come alive, and pass on the red gene is a realistic and urgent problem.
In the past, we have created a large number of red literature and art classics, which have become important carriers for telling red stories, inheriting red genes, and spreading red culture. Nowadays, the correlation between the modern social context and the traditional red stories has weakened, the public aesthetics have become increasingly diversified, and popular culture has emerged one after another, all of which have put forward higher requirements for the creation of red-themed literature and art.
Stills of the national opera “Tongxin Knot” telling the story of the fighting hero Huang Jiguang
Make red stories more emotional
Sculptor Rodin said: “Art is emotion.” Aesthetician Susan Lange believes: “Art is the symbolic creation of human emotion.” It can be seen that emotion has an important and unique position in literary and artistic works. In a sense, all literature and art are emotional art.
Red is the color of blood, the color of fire, the color of revolution. The red stories are made of blood, tears and sweat. The stories are naturally condensed with great joys and sorrows, and there are hidden “leads” that can stimulate people’s emotions. Looking back at the literary and artistic works that tell the story of red, we will find that all excellent works exude emotional warmth. There is an earth-shattering father-daughter relationship in the opera “The White-Haired Girl”, and a life-and-death friendship in the movie “The Garland Under the Mountain”. There are a lot of emotional clues buried secretly, for example, not long after the first contact, Shao Jianbo secretly fell in love with the female hygienist “Little White Pigeon”. These emotional elements can not only enhance the appeal of red stories, but also play a role in promoting the narrative, shaping the characters, and sublimating the theme.
Red stories in literary and artistic works often involve major historical facts in party history, military history, and national history, involving revolutionary pioneers, party and state leaders, and heroic figures. For a period of time, many creators dared not let go of their imaginations, and were unwilling to open up the emotional world of the characters. They portrayed the characters as “Guangweizheng” and “Gao Daquan”, which led to the creation of red themes that once fell into the face of characters and stories. Stylized strange circles, such works are naturally difficult to arouse the interest of readers and audiences.
Therefore, in the creation of red themes, creators should pay attention to the exploration of emotional elements. Although the time and space environment when many red stories happened are very different from today, people’s emotional appeals and emotional experiences are always the same in any era. By injecting more emotional logic and emotional power into the red story, it can make the story more tense, make the characters fuller, make the whole red narrative more logical, self-consistent and convincing, and let the serious history and abstract values enter the hearts of ordinary people.
To tell red stories full of emotional warmth, creators must first cultivate their deep feelings for red history, and take the initiative to nourish their spirits with red culture. In addition, the emotional temperature of the work comes from the boiling life. Some details and small stories in life are often the most inspiring and moving people. Therefore, creators should go into the depths of life, observe the details of life, understand the details of life, and always remain sensitive to life.
Stills of the Opera “The Party’s Daughter” by the National Centre for the Performing Arts
Injecting red genes into modern aesthetics
Red, symbolizes light. Chinese culture has a unique charm because it contains red genes. To spread red culture is to relive red memory and inherit red genes in essence.
Red literature and art works reproduce the scenes of revolutionary pioneers and heroic characters’ lives and battles in the form of art, and carry out cultural imagination with a broad historical perspective, which can arouse the audience’s awareness of national urgency in the unconscious matrix, and then build a revolutionary historical memory. Therefore, appreciating red literary and artistic works is not only an aesthetic activity, but also a review of the history of red.
Any aesthetic activity is carried out in a certain social and historical environment. Aesthetic standards always change with the changes of the times, because the establishment of aesthetic standards in an era is inseparable from the social environment and cultural atmosphere of that era. Therefore, in order to use literary and artistic works to tell red stories and spread red culture, the content, form and details of the works must conform to modern aesthetics.
First of all, history and era can never be separated. Excellent red-themed works should examine red history in a modern context, so as to give modern people spiritual inspiration and spiritual inspiration. For example, the TV series “Age of Awakening” connects three major events, including the New Culture Movement, the May 4th Movement, and the founding of the Communist Party of China, which happened one after another a hundred years ago. Such a historical inevitability: the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement have successively become two inevitable and important historical steps leading to the founding of the party. At the same time, the works display historical figures such as Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, Lu Xun, Qian Xuantong, Liu Bannong, Yi Baisha, and Gu Hongming, and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who later became party and state leaders, in the same time and space environment. Initiate a “dialogue” between today’s people and the above-mentioned historical figures across time and space, so that today’s people can see their own shadows from the characters in the play, so as to build a bridge of empathy, so that today’s people can better understand the historical figures. choose.
Secondly, whether it is to adapt the red classics or create new works, in the process of retelling the history, the creators should give a modern interpretation of the mainstream values reflected in the red classics and red themes, focusing on starting from history and giving revolution Some extraordinary thoughts and behaviors in the war era can be rationally explained, thereby making their representations and speeches of mainstream values more persuasive. For example, “Sister Jiang” in different genres several decades ago focused on expressing the hero’s fearless revolutionary heroism, while the newly created “Sister Jiang” in recent years is more realistic and delicate, paying special attention to expressing the inner world of the characters and striving for Realize the deep excavation of the characters’ characters, which to a certain extent realizes the fit between the deep narrative and the public emotional logic.
Add the wings of fusion media to the red culture
We have entered the era of convergent media where “everything is a medium”. The era of fusion media is an era of information explosion. There is a “screaming effect”. Grandstanding content is easy to attract onlookers, and vulgar content is easy to attract attention. This diverts scarce attention resources to a certain extent and squeezes red culture. spread space. At the same time, in the era of integrated media, the means of communication are more diverse, the modes of communication are more diverse, and the channels of communication are wider, which provides conditions for the innovative expression and diversified communication of red culture.
Excavating the value connotation of red culture and creating works that conform to the laws of media integration is the key to realizing the innovative expression and diversified communication of red culture. For example, it is a good way to use the popular short videos to spread red culture. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, China Central Radio and Television launched a series of original short videos “The Taste of Truth”, which tells the story of the Chinese Communists’ pursuit of truth from a small perspective, demonstrating the original mission of the Chinese Communists; Presence”, through the separation and fusion of two parallel time and space, reproduces the historical scenes of the past and the current life scenes, reproduces the majestic and tragic history of the Communist Party of China, and demonstrates the incomparability of the present rich and peaceful life. These works have achieved good dissemination effects.
Excellent short videos with red theme generally have the following characteristics: novel angle of topic selection, extreme empathy in content, and innovative visual expression. Specifically, it is necessary to find a small incision that tells about major events, find a small incision under the feelings of home and country, and use warmth and inspiration, create emotions, and portray group portraits as breakthroughs, so that users feel that the work is related to them. In addition, it is also a good choice to spread red culture by means of webcasting. Through the live broadcast, the audience can be led to “cloud visit” the red memorial hall and exhibition hall, and interact with netizens to answer the knowledge of revolutionary history online.
The purpose of adding fusion media wings to the red culture is not only to make the red culture “live”, but also to make the red culture “fire”. The author suggests that all localities and departments should innovate and use digital technology to strengthen the protection and utilization of red cultural resources. For example, it is possible to create a digital experience hall of red culture, and comprehensively use artificial intelligence, 3D imaging, virtual reality and other technical means, so that the red cultural relics that could not be displayed openly due to technical conditions can be displayed in multiple dimensions, including visual, auditory and touch, so that the red culture can be displayed in multiple dimensions. Enhance the appeal and dissemination power in the dynamic and live inheritance.
“Guangming Daily” (August 24, 2022, version 13)
[
责编：张悦鑫 ]