How to evaluate the movie Teahouse?

China's classic old film Teahouse was produced by Beijing Film Studio. This film is really like director Xie Tian said: it is a "new genre film", neither a stage documentary nor an ordinary art film, nor an ordinary feature film. The reason is probably that the film director made good use of the unique means of the film while strictly retaining the stage essence of Teahouse. It uses the lens to guide the audience to carefully observe the vivid performances and important details of the main characters in Teahouse. It has made extraordinary achievements in the efforts to integrate the two artistic features of drama and film, which is a classic.

Anyone who has read the original work knows that Lao She's masterpiece Teahouse is full of witty remarks, but its theme is serious and its structure is extremely rigorous. This is a funeral drama of three eras (Qing Dynasty, early Republic of China and Kuomintang rule), which sang a cool elegy for the old society. Naturally, singing an elegy for the dying and welcoming the birth of a newborn are two aspects of the same thing, which complement each other and show the inevitability of the replacement of the old and the new in the historical era.

The film Teahouse not only reflects the inheritance of three generations of reactionary rule, but also implies that the younger generation of revolutionaries represented by Kangdali will surely win. People have reason to pin their hopes on these people who greet the dawn, which is the painstaking efforts of the original author of Teahouse. While reflecting the spirit of the original work, the film Teahouse shows a life truth with vivid screen images: in dealing with life, struggle has a better way out than compromise (resignation); "Improvement" is a dead end, and revolution is the road to Yangguan. The life track of Wang Lifa (Yu Shizhi), the protagonist of Teahouse and the shopkeeper of Yutai, explains this truth and expounds the realistic social development trend.

From the Yutai Teahouse written by Lao She, we can see that the teahouse is a concentrated old society. Through this small cross-section, people can see all kinds of activities of all sentient beings in those three long-gone times: they are either muddleheaded, seeking fame and gain, and doing evil; They either care about the country and the people, are ambitious and have the ideal of saving the nation from extinction, but they have found the wrong way out and direction; Some people protect themselves wisely, but struggle to survive, but they are black and blue in the face of harsh social reality. What arouses people's sympathy is Wang Lifa, the teahouse owner of stepfather's business. In order to feed and warm his family, he keeps up with the changes of the times. With sadness in my heart, I am always obedient to customers and powerful people, big and small, and greet him with a smile. In the end, the wise man who compromised everywhere and the "honest man in his bones" had no choice but to hang himself in his declining years ... Needless to say, the inspiration given by Wang Zhanggui in his life has gone far beyond his personal destiny, reflecting the psychological pressure of most people in the social background at that time.

The director of the film Teahouse skillfully arranged a "summative" dialogue between Wang Lifa and Chang and Qin, a theorist of "saving the country through industry", on the basis of the "three old people pay for themselves" carefully conceived by the famous drama director Jiao Juyin. In addition to the original epigrams in the stage play, when paper money is flying in the dark space, when the sound of "quarrel" is intertwined with deep and sad sorrows, when people look down at the camera and watch three old people with drooping heads stumble in the teahouse hall, they can't help feeling sad. As far as this scene is concerned, the film Teahouse should bring more reverie to the audience than the stage play, and can show the scene at that time through artistic expression.

In particular, the brilliant stars of Beijing ape-man art performed very well in the film: Wang Lifa (,), Chang (,), Qin (Lan Tianye), Song (Huang Zongluo), two generations of Liu Mazi (Ying Ruocheng) and the actors made great efforts in the performance, all of whom were completely old-fashioned.

Today, with the proliferation of modern commercial films, this kind of cast is hard to see. Through the characters they portray and shape, people can deeply feel the breath of that era, the unique customs and the vibrato in the souls of the characters. Wang Lifa, the shopkeeper who is "smart, selfish and not bad-hearted", was amazed by Yu Shizhi's reappeared personality, temperament and language habits. His vivid, accurate and authentic performance skills enriched the role and tapped the subtext left by the screenwriter behind the paper, making it charming and chewy. Naturally limited by the changes of the actor's age and figure, Wang Lifa's youth is not as good as middle age, and middle age is slightly worse than old age. However, as an old actor who is over 500 years old and has been galloping on the stage of drama for three centuries, Yu Shizhi's achievements in the film Teahouse are undoubtedly higher than those of Cheng Madman (Longxugou) and Yu Yongze (Song of Youth) before being dedicated to the audience, which also makes the film Teahouse an eternal classic.

And the tough guy and patriotic grandpa four created by Comrade Zheng Rong in the film. In these three times, his character was outlined with clear lines and sharp edges. That kind of vitality in the chest, the strength of iron bones, is touching. With a dazzling typhoon, Lan Tianye appeared in the "first act" of the Reform Movement of 1898, looking like a proud and extraordinary "good son in troubled times". But in the "third act" (after War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's victory), his eyes, tone and posture had already changed when he dragged himself into the old Yutai teahouse. This rich national bourgeoisie, determined to "save the country through industry", has long been crushed to death by the Japanese aggressors, the Kuomintang and the "four big families". Is Qin, who was in high spirits, at home now? ! As a "trafficker", two generations of pockmarked Liu is a social scum who despises decent people. But like Tang Tiezui, Er Dezi and "Grey Clothes", he not only plays the role of rendering the times and setting off the atmosphere, but also forms an entanglement with another important figure throughout the whole play-Kang (and Hu Zongwen), a betrayed poor peasant's daughter. Ying Ruocheng made great efforts to accurately show the dirty souls of two generations of pockmarked Liu and the ugly faces of such figures, which is very commendable!

Finally, watch the music (composed and conducted by Peng Xiuwen) and sound of the movie Teahouse, which has a strong artistic effect. It not only assists the theme of the work as a whole, strengthens the appeal of the protagonist Wang Lifa's emotional tide, but also successfully renders the environmental atmosphere and reflects the urban voice of Beijing in the past, further adding more appeal to the film Teahouse.