How to understand the "truth" in artistic creation?

In the early 1990s, a new word, TV documentary, became popular in China TV industry. However, what is the connotation of TV documentary? So far, there is no unified conclusion about documentary, but different experts, scholars and professors have put forward their own opinions, which explain and promote the perfection of this concept from different angles. However, the author believes that before expounding what is documentary, documentary truth, artistic truth and "feeling truth" (realism), we must first clarify three positions and understand three connotations.

Three positions:

First, documentaries are not real life. Because the truth of life is objective and primary; Documentary truth belongs to artistic truth. Documentary is a subjective artistic pursuit, and it is the audience's judgment and recognition of the authenticity of film and television art scenes.

Second, documentary is not equal to recording. Recording is a technical behavior that repels the subject, while documentary is a creative way, method and style that needs the subject's participation and reflects the subject's thoughts.

Thirdly, the definition of documentary art connotation is based on reality TV documentary. Documentary itself is an aesthetic style and a unique artistic expression. However, with the rapid development of media technology, today's TV documentary art is gradually moving towards diversification of styles, so it is increasingly difficult to define its connotation accurately and comprehensively.

Three connotations:

From the creator's point of view, documentary art can not only pay attention to and present the specific state of life itself, but also fully express the artist's artistic concept and creative means, and then form a meaning system by using image language to construct the relationship between subject and object for the audience, thus realizing the practical and aesthetic significance of documentary art.

From the point of view of works, the creative style and method of documentary and art are adopted, which has the inherent unity of documentary art and media attributes, including all kinds of documentary and artistic works (such as documentaries, reality shows, material appreciation and other film and television works using documentary and artistic techniques), requiring the existence and essential significance of real life to be reflected in the works through the creators' creative activities, so that the main body of the works is not empty and the form is not limited.

From the audience's point of view, the media language endows the audience with the visibility and authenticity of approaching or restoring the life form, so that the audience can obtain the real life experience (life realism) and complete the realistic information feedback and aesthetic acceptance.

(A) about authenticity

Authenticity is the primary feature of documentary art, which is realized by "recording the truth", but the record itself is a kind of "the most subjective objective record", so the documentary itself is an aesthetic pursuit, an aesthetic style embodied in the works, and an artistic expression different from fiction in creation. Therefore, everyone's different "subjective creation" and the development and application of technology will make the style of documentary art different and gradually diversified. Therefore, the author believes that the relationship between documentary and reality has been discussed for decades, and we should not dwell on "whether documentary is true", but should focus on the characteristics of authenticity and the content of authenticity (realism) in documentary art in the context of globalization.

The authenticity of documentary art stems from the rapid development of science and technology. Professor Gao Xin of China Communication University said: "Documentary, as an aesthetic style, is not an end in itself, but an objective truth or a sense of reality." It can be seen that the authenticity and realism here are consistent. So how is this authenticity or sense of reality formed? Professor Zhu Yujun said: "In the past and now, people's understanding of authenticity and aesthetic requirements could not surpass the technical means at that time. In the 1960s, when we shot with a 16mm camera, there was no actual sound, that is, the picture was accompanied by music, and no one asked untrue questions, because we didn't use the technical equipment of actual sound and long lens at that time, which could meet the aesthetic requirements at that time, but now we still shoot like this, which is unacceptable ... "So with the development of technology, authenticity has a different understanding.

The authenticity of documentary art can not be separated from creative practice. Authenticity is a historical category. With the continuous development of TV practice, the "multiple hypothetical truth" of authenticity has different meanings. Starting from the reality of the original ecology of life and reaching the thinking of TV directors, the first "hypothesis" is completed through selection and refinement, in which "selection" cannot be separated from the concept of documentary art creators. In addition, besides the first hypothesis, there are "hypotheses" of photographers, editors and musicians, the communication effect in the process of playing, and the mind that finally reaches the audience. Because of the differences in times, regions, experiences, backgrounds and upbringing, they have to experience "assumptions". Therefore, the authenticity of documentary art will have different understandings and understandings among different people.

The authenticity of documentary art is closely related to aesthetic acceptance. Documentary is an aesthetic style and attitude. Documentary and truth are inseparable and naturally become one of the important aesthetic standards. Rudolph, a pre-school professor of art psychology at Harvard University? 6? 1 Rudolf arnheim studied movies from a psychological point of view and published the book "Movies as Art". In this book, he said: "The more complete the tools of direct experience we have, the easier it is for us to fall into a dangerous illusion that seeing means knowing and understanding." The meaning of this sentence is to remind us that if we only stay at the level of the authenticity of the phenomenon, we will lose the richer connotation and significance brought by aesthetics. Therefore, we need to understand and grasp the authenticity of documentary art in different dimensions such as "multiple assumptions" and aesthetic acceptance in the dynamic history and practice. At the same time, we need to observe and understand from the perspective of essential truth and aesthetic truth.

(B) About artistry

Documentary art is a creative style and artistic pursuit. From the practice of its emergence and development, it has the dual attributes of film and television and art. Therefore, artistry is an important feature of documentary art.

Professor Zhu Yujun pointed out in "Modern TV Documentary": "Documentary materials must come from the ongoing real life, as do many other creative thinking and artistic creation laws."

/kloc-Hegel, a famous philosopher, thinker and German classical idealist in the 0/9th century, said in Aesthetics: "Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas." Susan, an American symbolist aesthete in the 20th century? 6? 1 Susan K. Langer said in Emotion and Form: "Art is the form of emotion". Although they have different perspectives, we believe that they have the same important artistic elements-emotion and concept.

Art cannot lack emotion and thought, and documentary art also needs the fusion of emotion and thought.

First of all, from the creator's point of view, documentary art should not only focus on presenting the specific state of life itself, but also show the artistic means and artistic concepts of the creator's subjectivity, and then use image language to construct the meaning system of the relationship between subject and object for the audience, so as to realize the practical and aesthetic significance of documentary art.

When the author was lecturing in a training class for choreographers, a choreographer asked such a question: "Since the main means of documentary is to follow and capture on the spot, does the choreographer have nothing to do at the scene?" My answer is: "No, the director has a lot of things to do on the spot, mainly to be good at discovering, capturing and even designing and creating the artistic (aesthetic) situation of the documentary, so as to realize more and stronger sense of reality (the truth of feeling)."

For example, in the work "Women's Special Police Team", Li, a female special police officer, achieved good results after hard training and couldn't help crying on the bus back to camp. If you record it quietly with a camera and add commentary clips, it is also a good documentary work. However, at this time, the creator's thinking of combining emotion and concept adopted the way of interview in front of the mirror, which greatly enhanced the artistic realization of realism. At this point, the creative staff used an off-camera question to ask her what was going on. Li said she was homesick. The creative staff did not stop, but keenly found the platoon leader around Li with the idea of situational theory, and then asked the platoon leader in turn, which led to a sigh of emotion from the platoon leader. When the platoon leader held out his palm full of understanding and comfort, he gave it a heavy pat. The silent language thanked the platoon leader for his understanding. This kind of tacit communication, the touching effect of silence over sound, can not be separated from the documentary artistic situation of emotions and ideas.

Therefore, in the specific creative process, it is difficult to pay attention to and express people from the creator's point of view. People's true feelings stimulate the creator's emotions and ideas, and then guide the creator to improve the artistry of his works, thus stimulating the audience's inner feelings and realizing artistic aesthetics and sublimation.

Secondly, documentary art adopts the creative style and method of documentary and art from the perspective of works, which has the inherent unity of documentary art and media attributes, embraces all kinds of documentary and artistic works, requires the existence mode and essential significance of real life, and is embodied in works through creative activities, so that the main body of works is not empty and the form is informal. This kind of documentary art works can achieve the purpose of emotional people and realize its artistic true value by shaping a distinctive documentary artistic image.

Finally, from the audience's point of view, documentary art gives the audience the visibility and authenticity to approach or restore the life form through the media language, so that the audience can get the real life experience (realistic life), and the audience can complete the realistic information feedback and aesthetic acceptance through the media language. The artistic understanding here needs the audience's cognitive ability, life experience, aesthetic accomplishment, artistic appreciation and other factors to achieve. Because the completion of documentary works of art does not mean the end of art, from the perspective of accepting aesthetics and communicating with the audience, it is necessary for the audience to interpret it with new aesthetics and significance, so as to complete the real artistic re-creation. As we often say, everyone has his own Hamlet.

Therefore, although documentary art comes from life, it is a kind of "subjective expression", so the excavation of documentary art realism also needs the artistic expression of the works and the aesthetic quality (pursuit) of the audience, and all this is supported by the collision of emotions and ideas between the creator and the audience.

About integration

Documentary art, as a new art form, has the dual attributes of film and art from the practice of its emergence and development, which makes it have the natural conditions for integration. Documentary art belongs to both film and television science and art. In film and television research, documentary art is closely related to film aesthetics and television art research. In the field of art, documentary art is closely related to comprehensive art and audio-visual art. In this diverse soil, its own fusion gene can grow completely.

The fusion characteristics of documentary art in creative technology are obvious, because documentary art develops rapidly with the emergence and application of new technologies, in which nature and media technology blend with each other, mainly in the following two aspects:

First, the application of sound and picture synchronization technology, documentary art has begun to integrate with actual sound, such as 1990' s The First Lesson in College, 199 1' s Escort, 1992' s Looking at the Great Wall and1 The characteristics of these works are: the actual sound of the scene is used completely and consciously, and the subject begins to tell stories in front of the camera and records his life state completely. Let the viewer feel refreshed.

Second, 3D digital animation technology, high-definition equipment and other new technologies are widely used in documentary art. In terms of skills, the combination of animation and real scenes, documentary and digital technology makes the picture structure more vivid and vivid. In particular, exploration and discovery documentaries, such as archaeology, use this form to reconstruct history and obtain good viewing effects. Such as the Forbidden City, Yuanmingyuan and centennial celebrations, have all achieved great success.

Documentary art also has the characteristics of integration in creative concept. With every development and progress of documentary art, in addition to technical improvement, ideology is gradually lifted, and people pay more attention to learning the creative experience of western documentary programs. These factors are more or less reflected in the innovation of documentary art creation concept; This innovation is reflected in the characteristics of integration, especially in the context of globalization, which is becoming more and more obvious:

1, extradition began to be widely used. Although there is no lack of opposition, on the whole, the academic and industrial circles basically recognize this form of creation. Documentary art is an art form that relies on vision to produce a sense of reality. When documentary art lacks original video materials, reproduction is the main means of expression to break through the barriers of time and space and restore historical features. Therefore, documentary and reappearance, two seemingly completely opposite creative forms, naturally merge together.

2. Speaking with facts, taking stories as the core and running through suspense is also a form of multi-integration. Run through suspense, artificially set stimuli, portray the protagonist, etc. These creative methods originally belonged to the field of fiction, but they were used by documentaries and created many good programs. For example, the premiere work of Qatar International Film Festival in 2007, Rape Blossoms, the ingenious setting of four comprehensive suspense, the bold use of onomatopoeia and the fascinating plot of TV series, make this documentary called "experimental documentary" by the academic community and "real film" by the industry, and become the teaching materials of many universities.

In fact, in Britain, the United States and some western countries, there have long been two forms of programs: "documentary TV series" and "drama documentary". It is difficult to classify these vague dramas after fusion, and it is also difficult to distinguish which ones are true and which ones are not. The author believes that no matter what kind of film, as long as it is recognized by the audience, as long as the audience thinks it is true, this artistic attempt is a beneficial integration.

3. Chinese and Western integration of language, telling the story of China in western language style. In recent years, programs that record ritualized events with "reality show" panoramic view often appear and are widely praised. The documentary "Agitation", which won the China Radio and Television Award in 2007, recorded the whole process of jellyfish fishing by fishermen in southern Liaoning from many angles by placing cameras in 10 different venues. The audience not only saw the grand occasion of 10,000 boats contending, but also peeped into the personal portraits of 100,000 fishermen. The outstanding works of Chinese and Western cultures include the 30th Anniversary of Tangshan Earthquake, Dongling, Construction Site, Kindergarten and so on. The success of these documentaries reflects that the integration of Chinese and western cultures has gradually become a trend.

Documentary creation in documentary art has experienced nearly a hundred years of history, from single Gleason style to original documentary doctrine. With the progress of technology, the improvement of communication environment, the change of thinking and the impact of post-modernism, the creative form of China documentary will enter a prosperous era of pluralistic integration, and our understanding of authenticity will also have a brand-new breakthrough!

Author: Leng, Vice Chairman of Literature Committee of China Broadcasting Society.

Senior editor of CCTV