The stupidest statement I have ever heard is that "literature is the father of cinema"

This view was proposed by Jean Mitri and Tarkovsky decades ago Film masters, as well as communication masters such as McLuhan, have criticized it countless times. If the synthesis theory is just a mechanical viewpoint on film, then "literature is the father of film" is a completely self-aggrandizing boast of literary workers. This stupid view has not only been criticized many times by domestic figures such as Dai Jinhua and Zhou Chuanji, but even many literary scholars do not agree with it. However, there are still some ignorant, fearless and shameless writers who are willing to be other people's fathers and have seen others adapt several works. My work is about being someone else's father. I would like to ask the original poster, if you ever borrowed hundreds of dollars from someone, and that person claimed to be your father, would you say you would whip him? Since my time is limited, let me briefly talk about the mistakes that literature is the father of film. Some of the content is pasted from my own film reviews. Plagiarism is strictly prohibited.

First of all, let me make it clear that I am a lover of literature. I like literature more than I like movies, and I am also a liberal arts student. However, I never agree with the idea that literature is the father of movies. , and emphasized that I am neither attacking literature nor promoting movies, I am just scolding those stupid writers who are willing to be troublemakers. Although they are very good at literature, I advise them to just do their own job well. Standing in your own world and criticizing another art, and considering your status, you often play the role of "opinion leader" and "public opinion leader" in society, so when this fallacy blurts out from your mouth , you can imagine how terrible the consequences of its destruction are. As Josie Billings said: Truth, though pitifully rare, is always in short supply. What is even more pitiable is that there are still some people who work tirelessly to cover up the truth and create fallacies. Their spirit really deserves applause from each of us - on their faces.

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Back to business

“Literature and film should be separated as early as possible” - Tarkovsky.

Film and literature can learn from each other, and Tarkovsky also stated in his "Carving Time" that the two can achieve a positive interaction. We do not deny that the two of them have basic aesthetic principles. Any art that can become an independent art has its own irreplaceable uniqueness and its own unique way of thinking. If you don’t understand the positioning of movies, you think movies are literature, photography, art, etc. Something like that, then you can ask yourself this: What exactly distinguishes movies from other arts, and what makes movies an independent art rather than a branch of other arts? The particularity of contradiction is the essence that distinguishes one thing from other things. High school students understand this, but you literary masters and film experts don't understand it? So how did you become an expert?

Film thinking is essentially scheduling and montage, while literature is artistic creation that expresses artistic philosophy through text rhetoric and language organization. Although both tell stories, they are different in essence and way of thinking. It's a huge difference, and anyone who has watched enough movies will have this feeling: many times the poetic effect of the movie pictures and the montage between the pictures is far more shocking than the words expressed, such as the bloody and fleshy scene in "Saving Private Ryan" You can describe the scene in any way you want, and I don’t believe it can be better than watching the movie directly; another example is the scene in "Once Upon a Time in America" ??when the young noodle walks into the train station, and that simple edit spans thirty-five years and expresses The artistic conception of things changing and people changing, as well as the vicissitudes and helplessness of growing old overnight, are beyond the reach of literary language. Another example is the massacre scene in "Schindler's List". Under the panoramic lens, the small town How can the horror and shocking power of bright and dark windows be achieved by literature?

On the other hand, the sound art of movies will always be beyond the reach of literature. The story of "Beijing Smoke and Clouds" after the Japanese army occupied North China has a lot of sound descriptions to highlight the depressive and tense atmosphere, but it always makes people feel a sense of distance. , but if the director turns it into audio-visual language, the effect will be much better, such as the night gunfight scene in "No Country for Old Men", the effect is enough to put the greatest poet to shame; another example is the massage in "Raise the Red Lantern" The foot business resounds throughout the Chen family compound. The "sexual hints", "status", "power" and the strict oppression of the feudal marriage system are all metaphorized through the sound, but the original work does not have this feeling. Here It’s not that the original work is not good, both are quite excellent works, but when the novel is adapted into a movie, everyone can feel that although the same story is told, the artistic enjoyment given is vastly different. "The plum blossoms are three times whiter than the snow, but the snow is less fragrant than the plum blossoms." This can be explained from McLuhan's "Media Environment View" theory, which will be discussed later. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of film sound art. If we want to talk about the special montage effect of film sound, then literature becomes even less worth mentioning in this regard.

Since the birth of written language, its flaws have been pointed out countless times by every philosopher who has reflected on it. One of the good things about the birth of movies is that it has greatly enriched human expression. It makes up for many shortcomings of written language, and human thinking is essentially about pictures. People’s literature often also describes pictures. I believe many people have had this feeling, the poetic feeling in their minds. Pictures are always limited by rhetoric and vocabulary. I feel that many pictures and many thoughts are difficult to express even to the limits of human grammar. At this time, movies are a good way to make up for it. Of course, movies cannot completely solve these shortcomings, so humans only We must continue to innovate and enrich our language forms. Maybe there will be more advanced language forms than literature and movies in the future.

Of course, there are countless aspects of film that literature cannot do, which is enough to write an academic book with a million words like "Film Ontology". Obviously I don't have that level and energy, but if If you want to know more, you can start with "Understanding Movies" and then watch four to five hundred excellent movies (must be excellent movies. If you don't know what is excellent, just watch the classics, because time is the best evaluation criterion. , those that have been preserved over time are definitely of excellent quality), and then when you have a certain degree of professionalism, you can read the higher-level book "Film Aesthetics and Psychology". This book is obscure and difficult to understand, and it is best for readers You must have certain basic knowledge of communication, semiotics, literature, philosophy, aesthetics and other subjects, and you must have good professional qualities in film, otherwise it will be like chewing bricks. Let’s answer another question, mainly from the perspective of the media environment to further refute the shameless statement that literature is the father of movies and always wants to be the father of others.

Many people will come up with literary adaptations and movies to greet me. It’s okay. Let’s take our time and see who gets slapped in the face in the end.

As mentioned in the example just now, "Raise the Red Lantern" is an adaptation of "Raise the Red Lantern" by Su Tong. The sound and picture scheduling in the film create a viewing effect that surpasses the original work. This is a good example. Movies can adapt certain literary works (I say some, because not all literature is suitable for adaptation), but once adapted, he can and can only use the language of the movie and it is the language of the movie. Do you still need to think about rhetoric and grammar when making a movie? Do you still rely on the original description when creating conflict? That would be weird if it could be adapted. Literature has the language of literature, and movies have the language of movies (the following words are from my film review of "Farewell My Concubine", and the theory is from Jean Mitri, plagiarism is strictly prohibited):

Literature restores abstract or concrete things in reality through abstract concepts, but movies are different. Various elements in movies are concrete, and movies cannot directly express the abstract motivations behind things and behaviors. They can only express the results. It can only express real things, so this is what makes movies most different from literature. Literature can express what it expresses directly and express what the author wants to say. Movies are different. Movies can and can only express superficial phenomena. And the audience must be able to see the deep-seated things for themselves through the appearances given by these directors. To sum up in one sentence, literature uses abstraction to describe concreteness, and movies use concreteness to express abstraction. The deep-seated and abstract things in movies are It is expressed through superficial and concrete things, which is also the most difficult part of the movie (it is also the reason why scripts are recognized in the industry as more difficult to write than novels: there are too many restrictions)

Therefore, even if a story comes from a novel, it must If you want to adapt it into a movie, you have to use the language of the movie, in other words, you have to follow our rules.

On the other hand, can all literature be adapted? Will the effect be the same after adaptation? Even if every line is copied, I am afraid that it may not fully achieve the original feeling. There are many failed literary adaptations (such as movies adapted from Gu Long's novels). Of course, even the most successful adaptations cannot give us the same feeling as when we read the original work. Feelings, such as "Alive", "Gone with the Wind", etc. So what is the reason for this?

The essence of McLuhan’s life theory is one sentence: The medium is the message. This is also McLuhan’s most misunderstood and misunderstood sentence, so much so that even McLuhan’s daughter wants to be with her father. It’s time to defend and explain what “the medium is the message” really means.

McLuhan's views later gave birth to a school called "Media Environmental Studies". I will first explain this sentence and then explain Media Environmental Studies. After explaining it, today's argumentation work will be completed, and I will I believe that as long as I explain it, everyone will understand it without me summarizing it.

McLuhan has a famous saying: The communication medium itself is a kind of communication. This sentence has also been quoted by many film scholars to prove their theory. The most famous one is: the method of storytelling itself is a kind of communication. Story "So what does Lao Mai mean by this sentence?

The original text of this sentence is: the media is the message. And Mai also specially emphasized that what I said was "message (message)" Not "information". To give a specific example, I am talking about an apple. This is a kind of information dissemination. An image of an apple will appear in your mind, and the dissemination process is completed. This is oral dissemination, and the information content is " "Apple" but I believe that the apple in everyone's mind is different, and this "message" (not information) is essentially a spoken concept; now I give you an apple, you see the apple, the information dissemination is completed, this It is visual communication. The essence of the message is the apple. You also have the apple in your mind. This is different from the previous one. Now it is still the apple. I did not show it to you, but showed you the photo. What you get is an image, but it’s different. What’s more important is that when you get this information, although the content of the information is all about Apple, when it is disseminated through different media, the way the information is “encoded” is different. Yes, the way you decode when you get this information is also different. This decoding process is actually the process of your brain processing and understanding the communication content. The encoding method when I spread it to you is different. You decode it. The method will also be different.

So the pleasure you get from hearing a woman's "big breasts" is different from seeing a woman's "big breasts", and the pleasure from seeing and touching it is also different.

So it’s self-evident when it comes to literature and movies. Does it feel the same to see a written story and an audio-visual story? It’s different. Since you feel different when watching it, you should think of the difference in the creative methods used by the director and the author. Using different methods to create sometimes does not mean disrespecting the original work, but rather This must be done in order to express the spirit of the original work, because these two art forms have their own language rules, and common sense tells us that any behavior that violates the rules and goes against them is just a trick. The simplest example is translation. If you say this in English, you should say it in Japanese. The truth is almost the same.

Let’s talk about another question, can all literature be adapted? I believe this question does not need to be explained at all, and the answer is no. Just as there are many things in movies that literature cannot do, there are also many things in literature that movies cannot do. A lot of the artistic pleasure of literature comes from the characteristics of its own grammar. To give the simplest example Examples: The wind is blowing and the rain is misty. How can you express this poem with great rhythmic beauty and endless sorrow of vicissitudes of life through images? Of course there is a way to express it, but it must be turned into a long story about how the author was teased by life and experienced along the way. Countless ups and downs, wandering around, finally gave the audience a feeling of "the wind is blowing, the rain is misty. When will I return home to wash the guest robes? The sound of silver is the tune of the sheng, and the word of the heart is fragrant. The flowing light can easily throw people away, red cherries, green bananas ." This indeed expresses the original meaning, but what I want to ask is is it interesting? Even if your adaptation is successful and touches the audience, it will still have a very different feeling from the original work. "The wind is fluttering and the rain is misty." This kind of jade-like roundness makes people feel like drinking a cup full of melancholy while reading it. How to achieve the feeling of strong liquor and the unique enjoyment that the rhythmic beauty brings to the mouth? Another example is "Don't open the curtains for fear of seeing flying flowers or hearing the cry of cuckoos." This sentence condenses the author's despair after many countries were destroyed and families were destroyed; do you want to adapt it like I just did? Even if you adapt it, there will be no It feels like the original, so many times adaptations damage or even commit crimes against the original works. If someone really does what I said and tries to adapt and "rape" some of our unique literary works, I think countless people will hit the wall. . And this is just an example of poetry. There are so many literary works, and countless works are shining in history because of the unique quality of literature. This unique temperament cannot be replaced by any art, just like the unique advantages of movies are other Art cannot do the same. Finally, here is an example: "One Hundred Years of Solitude". This is the most beautiful novel I have ever read. It brings me a unique artistic enjoyment that no other art can achieve. It is almost a good book for me. As soon as I opened it, I couldn't help but close it. Those text symbols entered my brain through visual communication, and then were read to myself in the form of sound. The "auditory" pleasure simulated by the text vision and the poetic meaning of the text content, And the soul-stirring beauty of the whole book is almost the ultimate in artistic enjoyment that literature can achieve. This is also one of the works that I think is least suitable for adaptation, because the movie (the movie is simply impossible, unless the movie is ready to come) Dozens of movies and dozens of movies) The most he can do is adapt the story and the general atmosphere and spirit. Of course, if he takes another 10,000 steps back, even if he copies the artistic conception, the main spirit of the original work, and even the lines and scenes, , and the quality of each one is enough to win the Oscar and win the Palme d'Or. Each one is of palace level and brings endless touching to the audience. However, what it brings is not the same kind of touching as the original. Of course, I do not deny that the adaptation has produced The work may move us equally, but I believe everyone can feel that this is another kind of beauty that is completely different from the original work.

At the end of the day, when I say that literature is not the father of movies, and that the adapted works cannot achieve the original feeling, I am not against adaptation. Creating works based on successful works can often improve the quality of movies. A perfect quality insurance.

Many directors adapt literary works because they like the original work and want to use it as a basis to express the original content through another art form. This is sometimes a challenge to themselves, or even their own creative experiment. Of course, I don’t have that big ambition, I just want to adapt it because I like it. This is understandable, and sometimes it is worth encouraging, but don’t adapt it randomly, trying to save trouble in everything, others have ready-made stories and ready-made influence. Just want to take advantage of the opportunity to make a profit, take shortcuts, and circle the money. This kind of behavior is the most shameless. What is even more shameless is that when someone else adapts one of his works, he will tell everyone he is his father. Of course, some people treat him as a father, while others treat him as a son. Many people are willing to be treated as grandsons, not to mention sons, in order to make money.

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The above is what I spent an hour on It's something written randomly, there is no draft, the writing environment is quite messy, the logic may be messy, and there may be a lot of bad sentences, but everyone can understand what I mean. And I know that this article will definitely cause a lot of controversy after it is published. Whether you agree with my point of view or not, I ask you to read a few more books and have more basic common sense about movies before you debate. I don’t care who you are. Doctor, even if you are a Nobel Prize winner, you must understand a basic truth: There are specializations in the arts. Just because you understand literature does not mean you understand movies, so don’t pretend to understand. People who don’t pretend to understand have the thickest skin. It's fun to argue with experts, but it's the most tiring to argue with someone who doesn't understand shit and thinks he or she is stupid, because he doesn't understand what you're talking about at all, and he's always immersed in his own world and feels complacent that others don't understand him. Hahaha.

Finally, I will paste a piece of my film review about Kurosawa Akira's "Ran". There is a similar rebuttal in it. I would like to supplement it by emphasizing again that plagiarism and private reprinting are very shameless, even if you reprint it most Okay, please explain the source, thank you very much. My Tieba ID: I won an Oscar. Now I no longer play Tieba, Weibo, or Zhihu. Today was just a whim, so don’t take offense.

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Excerpts from my film review of “Ran”:< /p>

What is a movie? Who is the author of a movie? These two issues are two sides of the same coin. First of all, everyone knows that movies are audio-visual art, but this only answers the spatial attributes of movies. Movies are not just space. Movies still have time. Movies cannot be produced without space, and movies cannot be produced without time. Time is the structure of the story in the movie, and space is the structure of the picture. In other words, time is the montage, and space is the scheduling. Therefore, the film production process is the creation process of time and space. The essence of film is time and space. Film is an art that creates four-dimensional space on a two-dimensional screen. Therefore, the essence of film work is scheduling and montage. As long as you understand these two, you will understand the film.

Montage is an organic combination of movie shots. The essence is editing and the basis is the script. What kind of script there is will be what kind of editing. Although the editing style is determined by the editor and the director, the director No matter how much you struggle with the editor, it is still in the hands of the screenwriter. The script may not determine the specific details, but it stipulates the overall structure of a film. At the same time, the director determines the scheduling, and has a great leading role in montage. The director participates in both space and time, so many times the director is considered the author of a film, but sometimes it is more specific Analyze the problem.

The script is the basis of the picture. Note that I am talking about the script, not the text and lines. The script does not need to rely on lines, and the script can be purely picture-based. When I say that the script is the foundation, I don’t mean that the script is necessarily more important than the picture. The foundation is not necessarily more important than the superstructure. Sometimes the script is created to serve the picture, and the story is just the material in the hands of the director. It depends on the movie. What are your own tendencies? Chinese film workers cannot understand this, which has led to the vast majority of Chinese directors shooting PPT, including short films, MVs, and advertisements. Why is it called PPT? Because their pictures have almost no effect. All the information is in the copywriting. Even if the pictures are removed, it will not affect understanding. Although their pictures look quite bluffing, there is no initiative in the pictures. The pictures are just appendages to the text. So why are you making videos? What a waste of resources.

The only function of their pictures is to keep the audience's eyes from feeling lonely and to have something to do while listening to "movies". In China, pictures always serve the copywriters. It is precisely because of this that Chinese writers put forward that "literature is film" The idiotic remarks of "Father of the Movie", and even more bluntly said: movies are just variations of novels. This is an idiotic remark with Chinese characteristics that foreign scholars would never make.

But I want to break the hearts of these mentally retarded people and tell them how cruel the truth is. "Oh, truth, cruel truth" (Stendhal, "The Red and the Black"). Human thinking is essentially about pictures, and human thinking is thinking about time and space. Literature is nothing more than encoding the pictures in the author's mind with text symbols and translating what is written, so it is essentially second-hand goods. Movies are different. Movies are the virgin first night of these imaginations. Movies are essentially the closest to human imagination. However, in the past, technology was not developed, there were no cameras, and there was no film. People had to use writing methods. But now that there are movies, it is different. Yes, we can express it directly, but your literature just expresses the "movie" in your mind in words, so the conclusion is:

Movies are the father of literature!

Literature essentially describes the "short films", MVs, "micro-movies", "movies" and "TV series" in the writer's mind. Therefore, I advise those unfilial "sons" not to imitate the sons and daughters of King Lear, but to learn well and behave well. When you meet those who make movies, you must learn to respect them. Don't mistake your seniority and think you have mastered some truth. It's such a shame to laugh at someone so generous!

Ahem, the above three paragraphs are pure nonsense. They are idiotic counterattacks against idiotic remarks. They are just scolding each other. Don’t take it as the truth. No one will take insults as the truth. Of course, I don’t. I am not trying to save these idiots, I just feel that I have an obligation to keep everyone awake with humor when some scholars are confusing the public with their nonsense. But having said that, as long as you can understand how idiotic the remarks in the above three paragraphs are, you can understand how idiotic the statement that literature is the father of film is.

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Author: Winning Oscar (Shell, movie fan, fan, used to hang out in Yao Beina Bar, Movie Bar, Fitness Bar and Christopher Nolan Yeah, I basically don’t play anymore)

Time: November 1, 2016. Ended at 21:41