Introduction to the Story of On Water

Introduction to the Story of On Water | Appreciation | Thinking

1975 color film for 90 minutes

Produced by United Film Company of Taiwan Province Province, China.

Director: Screenwriter: Photography: Main actors: Feng Qiaolin (Du) Qin and Han Dynasties (Zhu) Tian Niu (Zhu Shihui) Minglun Gu plays Lu Youwen.

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It runs in the family, Zhu's grandchildren are a warm and happy family. Shi Hui is a pure and lively girl, and her grandmother dotes on her very much. My brother Shi Yao works in a TV company. He is depressed because he is lame and has a strong sense of inferiority.

That night, as usual, their family sat in the living room, watching TV and chatting. Shi Hui was very impatient and fidgety. Grandma exposed her because she didn't hear from her boyfriend Nong Yu, who served in the army. Shi Hui blushed and argued. Silent Shi Yao took a letter from his pocket and said that he had seen it in the mailbox this morning. Shi Hui grabbed it and complained loudly that her brother didn't give her the letter earlier. At this moment, there was a voice outside the gate. It turns out that their father Zhu Zigeng has come back from Kaohsiung.

Zhu Zigeng took a thin and pretty girl dressed in black into the living room, which surprised the whole family. Zhu Zigeng solemnly announced: "Our family has a little sister. Her name is Du Xiao Shuang. In the future, she will always be a member of our family. " It turned out that Du was the only daughter of Zhu Zigeng's old friend. She grew up without a mother, and this time her father died, and she became an orphan. After hearing the story, everyone gathered around to ask questions, but Shi Yao stood back quietly.

Xiao Shuang was arranged to share a room with Shi Hui. In the middle of the night, Shi Hui was awakened by a gentle sob. Xiao Shuang was sobbing. Shi Hui got into Xiao Shuang's quilt and held her in his arms. Xiao Shuang hugged her and cried, "Why are you so kind to me?" Two girls of similar age embraced tightly and became good friends.

Shi Hui woke up and found that Xiao Shuang had got up. She heard the sound of the piano from the living room. When she went to the living room, she saw Xiao Shuang playing the piano, and Shi Yao listened quietly. After Xiao Shuang appeared, I didn't expect Shi Yao to explode. It turned out that Xiao Shuang deliberately played the wrong notes to test his music knowledge as a disabled person. From then on, there was a deep bad feeling between Xiao Shuang and Shi Yao, and they hardly spoke.

However, an accidental event improved their relationship. In the routine TV chat one night, we talked about the shoddy TV series now, and then talked about the popular lyrics that are unreasonable in arts and sciences. Xiao Shuang mentioned that her father wrote a song before his death, and changed a poem in The Book of Songs into vernacular lyrics, named "On the Water Side". Shi Yao asked both sides to play the piano and sing to them. Xiao Shuang sang on the piano, and Shi Yao was intoxicated by her elegant and touching songs.

Shi Hui's boyfriend Nong Yu is back. He and Shi Hui are chatting in the room. Late at night, it suddenly occurred to them that Xiao Shuang had been staying in the living room to take care of them. When Shi Hui and Nong Yu went to the living room to invite Xiao Shuang, they didn't expect Shi Yao and Xiao Shuang to have an in-depth conversation. It turned out that Shi Yao wrote Xiao Shuang's On the Water Side, which moved Xiao Shuang very much. Shi Hui rushed into the living room, which surprised Shi Yao and Xiao Shuang. Shi Hui was very depressed.

One day, Nong Yu brought Lu Youwen, a classmate from Shi Hui whom he often mentioned in his letter. Lu Youwen is handsome and talented, and he is determined to become a writer. His talent won the admiration of the Zhujiajian family, even Xiao Shuang, and they soon fell in love. Zhu is even more depressed.

Xiao Shuang often stays late in the cabin rented by Liu Youwen, and she is not seen at home. Zhu made a music program and put Xiao Shuang's On the Water on TV, but he never watched it. Until a few months later, Xiao Shuang came across it. Shi Yao gave Xiao Shuang a check, which was the money for the company to buy the copyright of Xiao Shuang's songs. Xiao Shuang didn't believe that Shi Yao would be so kind to her, but Shi Yao, who was drunk, was desperate to pour out his feelings, which frightened Xiao Shuang.

One day, Xiao Shuang suddenly brought Liu Youwen home and solemnly announced that she had married Youwen. She thanked Zhu Jiajian emotionally for taking care of her. Everyone sincerely wishes them both. Grandma took off the gold necklace around her neck and took a jade pendant from her pocket as a gift for Xiao Shuang.

However, the life of married couples is very difficult. Lu Youwen was determined to write a novel that won the Nobel Prize, but he almost never wrote it. Zhu bought a piano and gave it to him in the name of a company lottery. Xiao Shuang took several students to make a living. Xiao Shuang is pregnant, but Lu Youwen still can't write a work. He also accused Xiao Shuang of disturbing his thinking and rudely driving away the children who were learning piano.

Xiao Shuang wrote several songs, and Shi Yao helped her sell them to record companies. However, Liu Youwen took the bounty to gamble, and later developed to sell the piano as a gambling book, which made Xiao Shuang very sad. One day, Shi Hui received a phone call from home at the bank where she worked, saying that something had happened to Xiao Shuang and asked her to go to the hospital immediately. Shi Hui rushed to the hospital and found the whole family waiting anxiously outside the operating room. It turned out that Liu Youwen took the jade pendant that Xiao Shuang regarded as an amulet, and Xiao Shuang was knocked down and injured by him in a dispute with him. Xiao Shuang gave birth to a girl prematurely. At this time, she was desperate and determined to divorce Liu Youwen.

Liu Youwen was pulled back from the casino by the rain farmer. He knelt before Xiao Shuang and begged Xiao Shuang not to divorce. Seeing that Xiao Shuang made up his mind, he turned against Xiao Shuang and accused him of divorcing disabled Shi Yao. Shi Yao gave Lu Youwen a good lesson. Xiao Shuang said to Lu Youwen: Lameness is not a disability, but a person with dirty and irresponsible thoughts like him is a real disability!

Xiao Shuang and Liu Youwen finally divorced. But she and Youwen agreed that if one day he came to her with his first novel, whether it would be published or not, she would stay with him for the second time.

Lu Youwen simply signed the divorce certificate, because he believed that one day he would win back the hearts of Xiao Shuang's mother and daughter. However, six years later, Liu Youwen didn't hear from him, and Xiao Shuang was waiting. Shi Yao finally found the jade pendant for Xiao Shuang. Xiao Shuang thanked Shi Yao for all she had done, but still insisted on waiting for Lu Youwen.

One day, Xiao Shuang suddenly heard the news that Lu Youwen was seriously ill in Kaohsiung. She immediately rushed to Kaohsiung. Received a seriously ill friend Wen. On his deathbed, Juve finally finished his first novel "Ordinary Story".

Lu Youwen passed away. Xiao Shuang bought a villa in Linshui County, where his daughter Binbin lives. Zhu and others often visit. For Shi Yao, is Xiao Shuang really always at the water's edge? He waited stubbornly and confidently.

Distinguish and appreciate

The film industry in Taiwan Province Province began to take off in the mid-1960s, and reached amazing prosperity in the 1970s, with the output ranking third in the world. In just three years from 1972 to 1974, the output reached 609 units. Among these hundreds of films, a large part are "romance films".

The so-called "romance film" refers to the film mainly adapted from Qiong Yao's novels popular in the market at that time. These novels became popular in Taiwan Province in the early 1960s. The main author Qiong Yao wrote 42 novels from 1963 to 1985. The theme of this kind of novels is the pure and true romantic love story between men and women. The earliest film adaptation of Qiong Yao's original work was "Cousin of International Nuclear Accident Grade" made by China Film Company, 1963. Because Qiong Yao's novels are extremely popular, and after being adapted into movies, they sell well. Therefore, various film companies have snapped up the copyright of Qiong Yao's novels, and the filming of Qiong Yao's works has formed a craze for a time. Qiong Yao herself set up Firebird Company in 1967 to shoot films adapted from her own novels.

In the past 20 years, Qiong Yao-style romantic movies have been popular in Taiwan Province, Hongkong and Southeast Asian countries. In the past 20 years, "romance films" have set off a craze again and again. It not only created a high box office value, but also created many stars and countless fanatical fans who are still popular today. According to statistics, Qiong Yao's novels have been adapted into more than 40 films, of which 15 is self-funded.

Film is a comprehensive art with strong commercial nature, which is based on the pursuit of box office value. The reason why Qiong Yao's novels can be put on the screen one after another is closely related to the large number of fans. Why does this kind of romantic film with the same plot attract the audience? This is obviously inseparable from the specific political and economic background of Taiwan Province Province at that time.

First, the "love" of modern people-"curtain of dreams".

Taiwan Province Province changed from an agricultural society to an industrial society in the early 1960s. Countless farmers were forced to lose their jobs, and a large number of rural people lost to cities. People in Taiwan Province Province are facing the survival crisis of finding jobs. Of course, what scares Taiwan Province people most is not only the threat of survival, but also the change of living environment: strange tall cars suddenly appearing on the expressway, high-rise buildings rising rapidly, and the modern fast pace of rushing to work every day. With all these lifestyle changes and the arrival of the era of industrial civilization, the traditional cultural value system, the spiritual pillar on which they once lived, fell apart with a sigh that it was too late. The most prominent thing is that the ethical relationship in China's traditional culture, which pays attention to the warmth and coldness of human feelings, was suddenly replaced by naked competition and occupation between people. Therefore, the theme of praising the purest and most beautiful love in the world in Qiong Yao's films caters to the general psychology of Taiwan Province people. Under the challenge of modern society that Taiwan Province people have to deal with, Qiong Yao's films are obviously a kind of spiritual compensation and a kind of psychotherapy for Taiwan Province people's subconscious. You see, in Water Side, Du, an orphan girl, is taken care of in the warm family of Zhujiajian. And her unreasonable love for Lu Youwen and Zhu's infatuation for her are so touching and touching!

In a word, when Taiwan Province Province gradually entered the developed industrial and commercial society, with the adjustment and development of science and technology, the increase of social wealth and the improvement of living conditions, the original social contradictions have not been eliminated, but a series of symptoms of developed society have increased: indifference, numbness, insecurity, anxiety and so on. The romantic movies in Qiong Yao style moisten their thirsty hearts, and the love on the screen provides them with a "curtain of dreams" and gives them temporary comfort.

Second, the ideological function of romantic movies.

In the process of social economic transformation in Taiwan Province Province, the brutal competition has made some people become nouveau riche and giants. However, most ordinary people obviously only dream of getting rich, and still live a precarious life at the bottom. This kind of power (money) is unevenly distributed and seriously polarized, which has caused various crises and contradictions in society.

In this social background, romantic films came into being, tirelessly telling the wonderful myth that Cinderella met the prince and the poor boy was lucky enough to meet the daughter of a rich man. Contradictions and crises in reality are reduced to "the battle between men and women" on the screen. After the "war" subsided, the bells of the wedding auditorium rang, just like the magical Arab myth, and wealth rolled in with love. But the little people at the bottom get illusory satisfaction and catharsis in the social myth created by the screen. Therefore, romance films, like other types of regular films in Taiwan Province Province, bear the cultural function of creating various social myths for the mainstream ideology of the existing system and order.

It is easy for the audience in China to find that these romantic films are just modern versions of the romantic stories of "Miss Scholar fell in love at first sight and privately booked her lifelong back garden" in classical dramas and novels. But one thing illustrates their important difference, that is, the identity of the hero (hero) is different, that is, the hero recognized by readers is replaced by a businessman. In On the Water Side, Lu Youwen, a knowledgeable scholar who is good at poetry and painting, is portrayed as a loser who has no ability to support his family, while his woman Du finally belongs to Zhu, the owner of power (money). Qiong Yao's praise and criticism of these two characters actually reflected the authoritative discourse of the society at that time: no matter how knowledgeable you are, you must first be a successful person in this society, and your work must earn money in order to be regarded as a hero recognized by the society.

Film is essentially the product of ideology. Mainstream ideology produces movies, and movies reproduce mainstream ideology. From the transformation of the protagonist in romantic movies from scholar to semi-scholar, to semi-businessman and finally to businessman, we can read the history of the development and change of politics, culture and thoughts in Taiwan Province Province from 1960s to 1980s. You can also read about the process of establishing a new social authoritative discourse and leading ideology in the process of Taiwan Province's transformation to an industrial and commercial society. Qiong Yao's romance ended in the early 1980s. Although there are many reasons, it can be said that it is very important because the society of Taiwan Province Province has completed the social transformation in the 1980s, that is, it has embarked on the normal operation track of the industrial and commercial society, and the authoritative discourse of society with money as the leading force has been established. The new system and order need new social myths to maintain and consolidate. As the spokesperson of the emerging petty bourgeoisie, Qiong Yao's romantic films have completed its historical mission.

Third, "I love cordate telosma"-a spectacle on the screen.

All the audience who have seen the romance films will find that they are beautifully packaged, and the most fixed narrative mode is beautiful stars, beautiful natural scenery and beautiful "three halls" (ballroom, living room and coffee shop). These constitute the "wonders" of romantic movies, which bring a strong visual sense to the audience, thus deepening the dreamy effect of such movies.

(1) star system. Romance films have created a large number of stars who are still popular today, and the audience is obsessed with the images they represent. Here, what we call "image" is not completely equal to the image in the material sense, but symbolic and a cultural symbol. For example, the most popular Brigitte Lin represents the perfect female image in the oriental culture: pure, delicate, delicate and melancholy; There are charming and gentle male images in Qin and Han dynasties; Ke Junxiong represents a powerful male image; Feng-Chiao Lin symbolizes the virtuous and gentle image of oriental women, and so on. Their images symbolize the language order and values of the patriarchal society. The reason why female audiences become admirers and fans of these stars is because the cultural upbringing they received from childhood has been assimilated by the patriarchal society.

(2) Beautiful scenery, "three halls". The biggest feature of entering industrial civilization is that everything can be consumed as a commodity, even the air is not spared. Marx said that capitalism ruthlessly destroyed everything sacred and turned everything into matter and goods. Romance films omit slums, gray office buildings, monotonous and busy work, etc. In front of the audience are neon-flashing, beautifully dressed living rooms, cafes, dance halls, natural landscapes full of sunshine and flowers, and charming exotic scenery, which not only bring strong feelings to the audience's vision, but also satisfy their subconscious desires, making them as romantic and happy as the stars in the movie in their dreams.

Fourth, the mode of male-dominated world-the interpretation of female images in romantic movies.

On the surface, Qiong Yao-style romantic films are very simple, telling the love story of a group of boys and girls who are out of touch. However, all narratives are culture. Women who are "so submissive, so delicate and so helpless" in romantic movies are the standard female images attached to men in a patriarchal society.

In Hollywood classic movies, women are often the carriers of men's desires and sexy tools. But it is not easy for ordinary people to see this, because this desire is often cleverly disguised and covered with an ethical veil (especially in China), which means to possess women according to traditional morality. This is particularly prominent in Qiong Yao's romantic movies.

The pictures of Qiong Yao-style romantic movies are very "clean" and often deliberately downplay the "sexy" scenes, which is in line with the traditional moral psychology of China audiences. When a beautiful young woman appears on the screen as an object to be watched, the audience, like the hero, wants to possess her. As a result, she was portrayed as a gentle and delicate image of virtue, which made the subconscious desires of the hero and the audience seem reasonable. Du's appearance in On the Water is always accompanied by beautiful music, which is picturesque and makes the audience infatuated with her like the protagonist in the film.

There are all kinds of love stories in romantic movies, but their connotation is the same, that is, as long as a woman is loyal, virtuous and patient, she will eventually get the man she wants to ask for help despite being tortured. Du Xiao Shuang was tortured by her husband, but she endured it again and again. In the end, she divorced and expressed her willingness to wait for her husband for 20 years.

It is worth mentioning that one of the lovers is seriously ill or disabled, which is a common theme in romantic movies and seems to better reflect the greatness and purity of love. But we can also find the fact that the hero can have physical defects, such as missing arms and legs, blindness and so on. (Zhu in Water Margin is a lame man), although the heroine can have other diseases, even incurable diseases (showing her weakness and needing to be loved), she must not have appearance defects. This further shows that in Qiong Yao-style romantic movies, women, as the objects to be watched, must satisfy the subconscious psychology of the subject (men). At the same time, in the imaginary world, no audience wants to possess an object with an imperfect appearance.