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Looking back on the development of China documentary in the 20th century, we can see that there are three decisive factors in its modernization process, but China documentary theorists have not yet made a clear screening and rational judgment. The purpose of this paper is to think and analyze these three factors rationally, so as to have a comprehensive understanding of the documentary and have certain reference value for the selection and positioning of the documentary in China in the future.

[Keywords:] Documentary; Modernization process; Edf effect

Compared with the west, China's documentary started late, but it has shown a thriving trend at this stage. Looking back on the modernization process of documentaries in the last century, the author thinks that three factors have always influenced and stimulated the process of documentaries in China:

The first factor is how to deal with the relationship between ancient and modern, old and new, traditional and modern. This is from the perspective of vertical and diachronic, that is, from the perspective of cultural evolution, which is the so-called "E-line effect".

The second factor is how to deal with Chinese-foreign relations, mainly Chinese-western relations, that is, local culture and foreign heterogeneous culture. This is from the perspective of horizontal and synchronic, that is, from the perspective of cultural diffusion, which is the so-called "D-line effect".

The third factor is how to deal with the relationship between "literature" and "use" from the above-mentioned vertical and horizontal, temporal and spatial perspectives, that is, from the perspective of cultural functions, that is, the relationship between documentaries and the real society in China. In China in the 20th century, the most prominent problem is the relationship between documentary and politics, which is the so-called "E-line effect".

In the process of documentary modernization in China, all theoretical arguments, ideological evolution, success or failure in practice and creation (including changes in theme and formal style) are closely related to these three factors. Moreover, these three issues are often intertwined before the theory and practice of documentary work, which is the so-called "edf comprehensive effect".

one

Like western documentaries, China's documentaries are born out of film documentaries. The history of news documentary can actually be called "prehistory" of TV documentary. The evolution of China TV documentary can be roughly divided into two stages. One is the Gleason documentary from liberation to the end of 1980s, and the other is the real film documentary in 1990s. However, due to well-known reasons, its development process is tortuous and arduous. We know that it was influenced by the former Soviet Union at the early stage of its development. Soviet montage creative techniques can be found in many of our works that have had a wide influence, such as Rent Collection House, which has a high level of photography and interpretation. Under the influence of his "visual political theory", China Documentary has maintained a picture-plus-explanation mode for more than 30 years. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, this model became popular, which hindered the discussion and pursuit of various artistic expressions, resulting in the disadvantages of monotonous content, rigid theme, narrow selection of materials, single form, formulaic expression and "painting two skins with one voice". Restricted by the political environment at that time, China, a land lacking traditional film and television culture, only emphasized the documentary's "tool" attribute and neglected its documentary nature.

When the door of China is opened to the world again, documentaries look at the present situation of the world with different eyes, and begin to eagerly absorb the theoretical essence and practical experience of world documentaries. In just a few years after the revival of documentary in China, people's understanding of documentary has been enriched. In the middle and late 1980s, when the whole society was bathed in the spring breeze of reform, documentaries were also trying to explore how to reform the status quo of documentaries and move towards modernization, but they did not improve the Grierson-style nature of taking the theme as the first. The only difference is that the theme reflected cuts into the content of the new era, and the expression technique is more skillful, which is a bit like "new wine in old bottles". However, it has had a great social impact, which has been praised by everyone so far, such as The Story of the Yangtze River, Talking about the Canal, The Silk Road, The True Face of Lushan Mountain, Let History Tell the Future, Volga Diary and so on.

It was not until the 1990s that China documentaries began to share more and more common language with western excellent documentaries in terms of creative ideas, creative techniques and creative level, and established a discourse system consistent with international thinking mode, and won prizes frequently in international competitions such as AFC. Out of rebellion against the theme-first mode of falsehood, grandeur and emptiness, documentaries have moved towards "neo-realism", advocating the true description of the original ecology of people's lives and showing the living state with the description of small angles and small plots. In this regard, the large-scale documentary "Looking at the Great Wall" made a landmark exploration. Subsequently, a large number of outstanding works emerged, such as Sand and the Sea, Half a Century of Love, People in Northern Tibet, Mao Zedong, Sword of China, The Story Behind the Mural, Dragon Ridge, Home Far from Beijing, Deer, Our Deer and so on. However, it is the "living space" column in CCTV's Oriental Time and Space that has applied the "new documentary" to the extreme and achieved great success. The narrator's own story pays attention to a single and simple theme and shooting method, and pays attention to grasping one or several meaningful life processes to make them "process" so as to enlarge the details, "condense" the process and make "results" go in.

In the "e-line effect" of China documentaries in the 20th century, the most controversial issue is how to make China documentaries go global and modernize. There are three views in this debate. One is to deny the criticism that China's documentary is not a documentary at all, and the only way for China's documentary to go global is to westernize it. This negates the artistic value of China documentaries and the rationality of local culture with the prejudice of "cultural absolutism", and completely opposes the modernity (time) and nationality (space) of documentaries. It is here that "E-line" and "D-line" are blindly entangled, resulting in a general "deadlock" in which "West" is "new" and "China" is "old". This view is like a flash in the pan in the future development practice, which was quickly denied and replaced by the view of using and transforming the original documentary. The core idea of this view is to seek innovation and change. Documentary producers consciously or unconsciously transform documentaries with new ideas in social changes, resulting in the coexistence of new content and old forms. The concept of recognition and revaluation, which began in the late 1980s, continues to this day. Its characteristic is to re-evaluate and understand the aesthetic value of traditional documentaries from a more metaphysical level. The integrity of narrative structure, static picture language and the mode of publicity and education are all summarized, re-evaluated and recognized from the height of aesthetic spirit. Documentaries that persistently pursue the essence of human life, show national cultural characteristics and are full of rich humanistic colors have won many awards in the world.

two

In the process of documentary modernization in China in the 20th century, the "D-line effect" played a more critical role. The "E-line effect" mentioned above actually comes from the excitation and driving of the "D-line". On this issue, there has always been a deadlock in understanding and value judgment: Westernization equals modernization, nationalization equals retro, or conversely, modernization means Westernization and retro means nationalization. This "dead knot" makes the call for "modernization" seem to have the color of colonial culture, and almost every discussion and advocacy of "nationalization" is mixed with emotions and language against "modernization". Especially during the Cultural Revolution, the creators deliberately avoided "modernization" and replaced it with the slogan of "revolutionization" in order to guide "nationalization". In fact, history does not develop along the "straight line" and "single line" at all. The so-called "modernization" is of course the modernization of the nation, especially in China, a country with a long cultural tradition.

As far as documentary is concerned, "modernization" has two basic connotations: first, its core spirit must be full modernization (that is, it conforms to the consciousness of "modern people", including * * consciousness, scientific consciousness, enlightenment consciousness and so on. ); Secondly, the material shell and symbol system of its artistic expression and its sublimated "verve" must conform to the aesthetic pursuit and thinking mode of modern people. A group of excellent documentary directors in modern China did not oppose "nationality" and "modernity". On the contrary, they are pursuing "national modernization" and "modern nationalization". Modern documentary producers, such as Time, Chen Fu and Zhang Haichao, who are deeply influenced by western ideas, have never cut off their national roots. When he created his own documentary, he successfully applied the traditional aesthetic taste of our country to the documentary production. This can be seen in the planning creativity of oriental time and space and focus interviews. For example, the "Life Space" column of Oriental Time and Space directly focuses on the daily life of the most ordinary people, a person and a family in China, revealing the real life experience. It has a strong local flavor, which makes international documentary producers shine at the moment and contributes to the creation of world documentaries from the East of the Earth.

A very noteworthy problem in the "D-line effect" is that it is "out of sync" or "reverse" and "dislocation" with the evolution of western documentaries caused by our opening to the outside world in the late 1970s. When various documentary creation techniques accumulated in the West for decades flooded into China before and after the reform and opening up, the historical chain originally formed by these techniques in the West was completely broken.

In the eyes of China people, these technologies are all new, and it is necessary to weigh the weight by hand to decide whether to "bring them". So when Gleason style was out of date in the west, China launched a vigorous political propaganda film. For example, let history tell the future, the soul of the border guards, and the temptation of Tibet in this period. At present, the domestic documentary industry has adopted a cold and exclusive attitude towards the Grierson model. The Grierson model has been ignored for too long because of the aversion to decades of promotional films and the pursuit of new technologies. When the documentary craze "chase, chase, chase again" and "head-up life" are regarded as the standard by China documentary people, on the contrary, Gleason style is widely adopted by western TV stations because of its informative advantages, and most of the documentaries they broadcast are in this way. In various film festivals, documentaries of this style generally account for 1/4 of the finalists. This phenomenon of "reversal" and "dislocation" is the result of China's national conditions and has its historical rationality. What history praises here is not the most "avant-garde" and "westernized" schools, but the artistic choice of methods in line with national conditions. In other words, it successfully draws lessons from the experience of western documentaries and brings China's profound and rich national spirit and local culture.

Facing the tide of western learning, the artistic choice of "opposition" and "dislocation" has been favored by history, which is actually the result of deconstructing, reorganizing and integrating the structure of "F-line effect" by rebounding "E-line effect" and "D-line effect". Therefore, we still need to find the answer in the "F-line effect".

three

In the modernization process of China documentaries in the 20th century, when the vertically evolving "E-line" and the horizontally spreading "D-line" meet in actual artistic practice and exert their respective effects, they can only influence the form of "F-line". "F line" (the relationship between artistic function and real society) determines the basic characteristics of "E line" and "D line". The gains and losses, successes and failures of China documentaries in the last century all originated from this.

First of all, the modernization process of China documentary is closely linked with the revolutionary history of China. Many excellent documentaries in the last century, the criteria for judging their ideological and moral values, and the fundamental reasons for their good social effects are closely linked with China's modern spirit.

However, in the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, there was no opportunity and condition for systematic theoretical and practical research in the urgent political revolutionary movement. At that time, people carried out political revolution enthusiastically, so documentaries loaded with communication functions had to be increasingly politicized. Documentary itself has undergone some structural adjustments under the impact of urgent political struggle-the function of political action orientation has overwhelmed the function of shaping cultural mentality. This change directly restricts the choice of documentary theme, theme and the use of creative methods, making the Grierson style "brought from the west" simpler and poorer, thus losing its innate advantage of spreading a lot of information and reflecting the richness of life, so the creation of documentary gradually deviates from people's aesthetic requirements and becomes a tool for "serving politics".

In 1980s and 1990s, China's documentary creation appeared some completely different or almost opposite paths from previous decades: from instrumentalism to ontology, that is, the documentary turned from its obsession with social and political colors to its pursuit of culture and aesthetics. This makes the "F-line" of China's documentary modernization process undergo great fission in its half-century history. The gains and losses of this fission now seem relatively clear. The return to noumenon, the full attention to artistic laws, and the conscious pursuit of its culture and aesthetics are undoubtedly the backwash of political pragmatism and left-leaning dogmatism for many years, and the perspective of modern civilization and rationality has greatly promoted the modernization process of China documentaries. Let's take "The Deer, Our Deer" as an example to make a case study. On the surface, this film reflects the life far from the mainstream society and depicts the life of ethnic minorities in remote mountainous areas. However, the director described the fate of three generations of Ewenki women in the conflict between national culture and the great changes of the times, and touched on a major proposition of modern civilization: should the development of human civilization maintain the diversity of national culture? At the same time, the director regards deer as the spirit of the national soul, as the image of this national traditional culture, and as the image of creating artistic conception by himself. Of course, there are excellent works such as Looking at the Great Wall, Dragon Ridge, Going Home, and The Story Behind the Mural. Obviously, compared with the previous works of the same theme, it has a layer of cultural reflection connotation, and its artistry and aesthetic enjoyment have also been greatly strengthened. As for the political issues involved, they retreated to a distant and vague background. This can really be said to be a great achievement of the documentary "F-line Fission" at the end of last century.