"Novel is considered to be the secret history of a nation." On the title page of the novel "White Deer Plain", the author Chen Zhongshi once quoted this famous saying of Balzac. A year after his sudden death, the TV series of the same name, which he once wrote about "stirring a century of national history and recasting the spirit of White Deer," also debuted on Jiangsu Satellite TV last night. Judging from the premiere, the leading actors, led by Zhang Jiayi, all showed extraordinary acting skills, and the Shaanxi style was even more striking.

Although there have been many adaptations, Chen Zhongshi himself has said many times that the most suitable adaptation form for "White Deer Plain" is a TV series. Only the size of a TV series can accommodate the huge time, space and characters of the novel. The investment of more than 200 million yuan, a million-word script, more than 7 months of filming, 94 leading actors, a shooting team of more than 400 people, and an ensemble cast of more than 40,000 people also added to this TV series. A sense of heaviness.

The storm of "Bailu Village" in Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province is slowly unfolding on the screen. What are the stories behind this version of "Bailu Plain"?

Zhang Jia translated He Bing

A talented actor performed heartily

A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets, and the same is true for "White Deer Plain" for the audience . The cast of the play is luxurious, including recognized acting schools such as Zhang Jiayi, He Bing, Qin Hailu, Liu Peiqi, and Li Hongtao, as well as outstanding new generation actors such as Lei Jiayin, Zhai Tianlin, Li Qin, Ji Ta, and Wang Xiao.

Judging from the premiere, the leading actors showed impressive acting skills. Among them, Zhang Jiayi, who played the core character Bai Jiaxuan, took full advantage of his unique advantages as a Shaanxi native. He behaved and talked like a local farmer. Under his interpretation, Bai Jiaxuan's legendary story of six funerals and six marriages, and meeting Bai Lu, also became a legend. was shown very vividly. The smoothness and cunning of He Bing's version of Lu Zilin, the calmness of Liu Peiqi's version of Mr. Zhu, the virtuous and simple nature of Qin Hailu's version of Xiancao, and the loyalty and diligence of Li Hongtao's version of Lu San are all clearly displayed in front of the audience.

For these performances, Zhang Jiayi revealed that the scenes between the actors on the scene were often "hearty". "Sometimes He Bing and I would give high-fives after the performance, and we were completely excited; sometimes it was particularly sad. After the performance, I had to sit down for a long time." He Bing said that the rivalry between Bai Jiaxuan and Lu Zilin was full of sparks, and there was confrontation and friendship. "They will come to each other when something really happens. Even if they occasionally quarrel and conflict, they will never forget that they are brothers who grew up together."

In addition to stimulating each other, the veteran actors also take on the responsibility of providing The young actors on the crew have the task of "leading the show" and often help them follow the script and find the feeling over and over again. For example, Tian Xiao'e, played by Li Qin, has a scene where she bites her finger and talks to Hei Wa in a charming way. At that time, it was Qin Hailu who first felt it finger by finger, groping for that sexy style, "When Tian Xiao'e is awakened, there are many details and can be very sexy, so I told Li Qin to sit down When the arc is revealed, people will be very different."

Performance re-lives

The extras must also be "original masters"

From the perspective of uniqueness. From the folk songs of northern Shaanxi to the vast snowy plains, "White Deer Plain" outlines the unique rural ecology of Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province from the very beginning. The reporter learned that in order to truly experience the feeling of rural areas in Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, before the official start of filming, the crew ordered all the leading actors to move to the countryside nearly a month in advance to eat and live with the villagers. "As a farmer, you need to cultivate the land. Today's life is too far away from that. If you shoot it right away, it won't feel like it." Director Liu Jin expressed his original intention of experiencing life in one sentence. During the 20 days of life experience, the male actors went to the fields to plow fields, cut wheat, drive carriages, and sunbathed themselves in the sun every day to become tan; the female actors learned to spin, roll dough, cut vegetables and cook in the house, completely returning to " In the original ecological life of "men farm and women weave".

For the actors, this experience truly allowed them to cross over from "acting" to "life". Wang Xiao, who plays Bai Xiaowu, said that if you don’t really learn how to cut wheat, you will show your timidity when acting. “When you cut a handful of wheat and hold it in your arms to throw it on the stack, a novice will look away from the wheat. Far away, the farmer feels very close, and he wants to hold it in his arms." Zhai Tianlin, who plays Bai Xiaowen, revealed that the crew bought 1,000 acres of wheat fields for the filming of the wheat harvesting scene. "The actors used this 1,000 acres during the filming. Cut the wheat from the acres and sell it.”

It is not only a requirement for the leading actors to integrate into local life, but also a requirement for the more than 40,000 extras from the crew. Director Liu Jin revealed that there are a lot of big scenes with hundreds or even thousands of people in the play, such as harvesting wheat, farmer's strike, criminal trial of Tian Xiao'e, etc. For this reason, he simply found many local farmers to act as extras, "group actors" If you only use yourself as the background, the play will collapse."

A million-word script

Ingenious adaptation without losing the original flavor

Because of the style. It has a huge volume and many characters. In the various adaptations of "White Deer Plain", many directors only chose some clues in the novel to present. However, in the creation of TV series, Shen Jie, a screenwriter born in the 1970s who has written "Tiger Mom and Cat Dad" and "Chicken Feathers Flying to the Sky", changed the 500,000-word novel into a script of nearly one million words, and the TV series also filmed a full 85 episodes. Judging from the first broadcast, the script has made adjustments to some plots while maintaining the main line of the original work, and some content that was originally difficult to present has also been appropriately expressed on television.

For example, in the novel, because the Bai family had a father who was kind to the fairy grass in his early years, his father specially betrothed the fairy grass to Bai Jiaxuan, who had six funerals and six marriages and was considered to be a wife. But in the TV series, Xiancao was a refugee woman rescued by Bai Jiaxuan on the roadside. Her rescue led to legendary plots such as the Bai family's "Feng Shui Treasure Land" and "The Appearance of the White Deer".

For another example, the original work once wrote in a very short space that Mr. Zhu alone proposed to withdraw 200,000 Qing troops. In the TV series, Bai Jiaxuan followed Mr. Zhu outside the camp. Mr. Zhu's eloquence was presented through Bai Jiaxuan's perspective. This also helps the audience understand why Bai Jiaxuan admires Mr. Zhu so much and where his yearning for benevolence and righteousness comes from.

For such an adaptation, screenwriter Shen Jie said that the creation of several main characters has made him extremely entangled, "For example, Bai Jiaxuan, what are the roots of this person? How did he grow up? I tried to use The people in the play look at him from all angles. And Mr. Zhu, I asked him to show up at the Qing army camp with Bai Jiaxuan from the beginning to set an example for the future young patriarch of Bailu Village. ”

Sixteen Years of Dreams

The all-Chinese film “White Deer Plain”

Since its publication in the early 1990s, the novel “White Deer Plain” has been published by many This adaptation covers Qin opera, dance drama, drama, opera, film, etc. However, due to the limited size of these art forms, Chen Zhongshi himself also said that the most suitable adaptation form of "White Deer Plain" is the TV series, "the only way to fully display the work in the future The plot is the TV series.”

But it took 16 years to put this work on the screen. According to Zhao An, the producer of "White Deer Plain", he was shocked when he saw "White Deer Plain" in the 1990s and believed that it was a work rooted in Chinese culture and open to all Chinese people. In July 2001, he signed the first copyright agreement with Chen Zhongshi. However, after the agreed three-year copyright transfer period, the drama failed to be successfully approved due to various reasons. It was not officially approved until 2010.

It took another six or seven years until the TV series was filmed and released. Among them, finding a screenwriter is a hurdle. "Everyone has a "White Deer Plain" in their hearts. Adapting a famous work may be thankless. We have contacted many well-known domestic screenwriters, and most of them declined politely." So, why was Shen Jie, a screenwriter born in the 1970s, selected? Director Zhao Jun said that relatively young screenwriters are more likely to write stories that resonate with the general audience. “We hope that young screenwriters will make the current generation of those born in the 1980s or 1990s have a passion for the characters in “White Deer Plain.” Can have a youthful expression."

In order to break the restrictions of regional appreciation, the lines in "White Deer Plain" are all in Mandarin. Director Liu Jin said that this was made clear by the crew from the beginning, ""White Deer Plain" is written for Chinese people all over the world, and the use of Mandarin will not weaken the local characteristics, because it retains some special pronunciation of Shaanxi."

Dialogue

Translated by Zhang Jia: "Bai Jiaxuan lives in my heart"

"What "White Deer Plain" means to me is that some people are missing, others are accustomed to it, and others are accustomed to it. Pitching, even more people buried it." Last year, when he learned about the death of Chen Zhongshi, Zhang Jiayi left this message on Weibo. In interviews, he also repeatedly expressed his extraordinary affection for "White Deer Plain", which includes his consciousness and responsibility as a Shaanxi native, and his ambition as an actor. He said that the day the filming ended, he felt like he had lost something. "For a long time, he (Bai Jiaxuan) has lived in my heart."

He is very familiar with the details of the novel

Zhang Jiayi (hereinafter referred to as "Zhang"): I read the novel when I was in my 20s. When the movie version was made a few years ago, although I was not approached, I read it again when I knew it would be adapted for the big screen. Read it again. I'm from Xi'an, and Bailuyuan is actually very close to my home. The land, the people here, and many of the details described in Mr. Chen Zhongshi's original novel are all familiar to me. When I read novels, I always read them in Shaanxi dialect!

Reporter: When you were young, what role did you most want to play?

Zhang: I didn’t even dare to think about it at that time. Actors have a problem. When reading novels, they will constantly think about what Bai Xiaowen is like and Hei Wa, and imagine the characters. But in fact, at this age, Bai Jiaxuan and Lu Zilin are the ones that suit me.

Reporter: So you were very excited when you were invited to play Bai Jiaxuan?

Zhang: I was really excited when I was asked to play this role, because the novel is the representative work of the Shaanxi Army in the literary world in the 1990s, "White Deer Plain". It has an extraordinary weight in our hearts, and we feel that if you touch it, If it doesn't work well, it's better not to touch it. If you want to do it, there is only one way, which is to do it well. Let’s first see if we have the confidence and whether we can do it well.

Break the gap between the original work and the characters in the play

Reporter: What was the most difficult part of filming this show at the time?

Zhang: Adapting the script is actually the most difficult first step. The novel is very difficult to adapt. It has many characters and is very dense. You have to adapt it without losing the spirit of the characters. We have seen many adaptations of original works, and there are some unsatisfactory aspects, and most of them have this kind of regret. So I really didn’t dare to read the script for a week after I got it. I was afraid that I would be disappointed after reading it, but it was tempting to put it there and it was too attractive.

The film crew and producers kept urging me. After a week, they said take a look, it’s really good, so I took it out and watched it. Before I finished watching it, I told them that I acted and the adaptation was quite good. Very successful. I read the script in Shaanxi dialect. I didn't expect that Shen Jie was not from Shaanxi, but what was described between the lines was something I could understand in Shaanxi dialect. This is very rare.

Reporter: How did you prepare for playing a role with such a wide age range?

Zhang: Many people sometimes think that I act in a daze on set, but in fact I have done a lot of preparation work before. After I got the script, I kept recalling the script and the original novel in my mind, which paragraph corresponded to which paragraph. In the end, I couldn't tell whether it was written like this in the novel or added to the script - the script added a lot of content, and I was already familiar with it. Mixed up. I will keep thinking about this character and every scene he plays, and it will take me a longer time to figure out this character.

Reporter: How was the situation during the actual shooting?

Zhang: The most difficult thing is the beginning, which makes you anxious. When we first started filming, He Bing once said to me, "What are you doing? You were arguing with the director on set, which made us all scared." In fact, Liu Jin and I grew up together and have been together since we were in our twenties. When we were playing, we often quarreled. I was looking for characters, and Liu Jin was also looking for direction in the picture. He thought this way in every scene, and I thought that way, and sometimes we would quarrel. However, people in Shaanxi communicate more directly. I said to He Bing, "It's okay. You can do it too. If you have any ideas, just tell me. It's the same with me and anyone else." Of course, I was quite anxious at that time. As soon as I received this Book, when we talk, we always scare and intimidate each other. What should I do if the photo doesn’t go well? Go out and shoot!

I hope it will cause people to reflect

Reporter: You once said that this drama is a once-in-a-lifetime drama. Why?

Zhang: "White Deer Plain" holds a really important place in my heart. I worship it like a god. I think it may be the best among modern Chinese novels. I also feel that this is really happening to me once in my life. When the film was being edited, I didn't dare to watch it. I was afraid that I would get anxious after watching it and start to scold myself for not acting well.

Reporter: Will it be impossible to get out of this character for a long time?

Zhang: For a while, I seemed to be still in that state. My lover said, "Sometimes you feel a lot of change when you stay there. Many times it feels like you are still among Bai Jiaxuan's characters?" Especially after I finished filming him, he lived in my heart for a long time. .

Reporter: What kind of aesthetic do you hope this drama can convey to the audience?

Zhang: I think it is a work that will cause people to reflect from time to time. This is its greatest significance.

Reporter: Many viewers will watch the drama in a joking way, such as forming CPs, making emoticons, etc. Do you mind?

Zhang: It doesn’t matter. Now it should be said that there are many styles. If the audience is interested in doing it, it means that everyone really likes and pays attention to this drama.