In China, the Millennium Snake White Snake is here, so the brick of Leifeng Tower has become a "spiritual brick" that can bring good luck and even cure diseases. People nearby often go to Leifeng Tower to dig bricks.
Even foreigners are worried about the Leifeng Tower. 1906, Flederick D. Claude, an American diplomat living in Hangzhou, worried in his book Hangzhou: City of the City that the Leifeng Tower would fall down sooner or later if it was dug like this. Later, his prediction came true.
A few days after the Leifeng Tower, the merchants at that time published an article in Shenbao to promote the performance of The Legend of the White Snake, saying that the performance "will highlight the panoramic reverberation that shook the whole West Lake and the surrounding lakes and mountains when the Leifeng Tower fell, and highlight the dramatic birth of the white snake controlled by the machine and the chaotic scene in Hangzhou after the white snake was freed".
The Legend of the White Snake is a film by China (crying on the Great Wall with Cowherd and Weaver Girl, Liang Zhu and Meng Jiangnv). There are more than 360 kinds of operas and more than 300 kinds of Quyi songs in various regions of the country, most of which have traditional repertoires and tracks adapted from Legend of the White Snake (according to 1959 statistics). Among Kunqu Opera, Peking Opera, Shaanxi Opera and Bangzi, The Legend of the White Snake is almost a reserved play.
In 2022, the legend of the white snake was still very popular. The Cantonese opera "Legend of the White Snake" appeared on the stage of CCTV Spring Festival Evening, and the animated film "Legend of the White Snake II: The Green Snake Robbed" of the same name has been shown in the cinema.
In White Snake, Fahai (left) and Mrs. White Snake (right) are no longer the opposition between villains and decent people, but the conflict of different ideas. After the flood, both of them reflected on their behavior. (Photo courtesy of the film)
According to the statistics of Southern Weekend reporters, since the release of 1926 The Legend of the White Snake, 67 dramas about the Legend of the White Snake have been broadcast in China, including as many as 30 since 2022.
These 30 legendary dramas of the White Snake are related to the dreams of ancient mythological figures in China, such as Fuxi-Nuwa, Yang Jian-Longji Princess-Su Daji, Dragon King-Montenegro, etc., and new characters such as mouse, bat essence and yellow dog essence have been added. The story background is often set in an overhead world, such as the city in The Legend of the White Snake II: The Green Snake Robbery, which is an armored locomotive flying in the post-modern city in the style of doomsday wasteland, incorporating the oriental magic elements such as the Four Thieves.
Friends in North America said on iMDB that The White Snake: The Origin, released in 2022, was "a classic story of an ill-fated lover, surpassing Jack and Ruth in Titanic (1997) and full of popular and classic China elements". The friend sighed in English: "Because not enough North American audiences know the story of the White Snake, it is only shown in a few films. However, when its English version is released (whether dubbed or subtitled), I will definitely pay for this thrilling story. "
The role of The Legend of the White Snake is also generally younger-The White Snake in The Legend of the White Snake: The origin is no longer the widowed and married in the original, but a girl image in the late Tang Dynasty; Xiaoqing in Legend of the White Snake II: The Green Snake Robbery wears a tall ponytail and overalls and Martin boots in the city. Because she lost the game, she used a stick in the fight.
The average age of the creative teams of these two series is less than 30 years old, and they try to make young audiences feel substituted for the characters. "Xiaoqing who fell into the city, like our new youth, groped for progress in a brand-new world and found that this world is not black and white as imagined." Director Huang said in an interview with the media. The timid and selfish propaganda in the traditional Legend of the White Snake (note: Xu, because of his works in different periods, has a slightly different name) is thoroughly remoulded in Legend of the White Snake: The Origin. "He is single-minded and desperate for love, which is the embodiment of idealized love in our hearts and our attitude towards love."
When "White Snake: The Origin" was released, Xiaobai (Mrs. White Snake) in Cos film first faced the post-1995 audience. She loves the legend of White Snake, and has watched the DVD of the new White Snake for more than twenty times. At that time, it was also the embryonic stage of Cosplay-she wrapped the sheets around her body and pretended to be the characters in the play.
Xintai and a friend met cos Xiaobai and Xiaoqing. Before filming the feature film, she put on makeup, tried to take a group of headshots, and sent them to Weibo, which was incredibly hot and directly increased by 20,000 powder.
In 2022, "The Legend of the White Snake II: The Green Snake Robbery" was released, and the film took the initiative to invite the heart platform cos Xiaobai, but she finally cos Xiaoqing. "One of the love stories between Xiao Bai and A Xuan is really touching, but I feel more like Xiaoqing and have my own ideas."
Modern white snake
The story of the white snake has been circulated for more than 1000 years since Bozhiyi in the Tang Dynasty.
In ancient China, snake essence had a strong sense of existence, such as the large-scale strange note Jian Yizhi in Song Dynasty, in which snake essence appeared most frequently, and white snake essence was the mainstream.
For thousands of years, the image of white snake essence has become more and more positive.
In the middle Tang Dynasty, the white snake preyed on men and collected yang to replenish yin (Bozhiyi). In the Song Dynasty, the white snake became a beauty in order to fall in love and get married freely. In the Qing Dynasty, the white snake once had its own name-White Snake. She came to this world to get close to Xu and repay her past life. She not only did no harm, but also helped her husband Xu run a pharmacy, at the expense of self-sacrifice, and even gave birth to a child like a human woman. She can't see the snake's genes at all. As the theme song "Through Love" of the TV series "The Legend of the New White Snake" sings: "If there is a thousand years of fate, grow old together."
From today's perspective, the White Snake was an independent woman in ancient times. She was young and widowed, and approached Xu to get married. Her economic strength far exceeds that of Xu, and if she wants to marry her, she will take the initiative to support her ("give money to marry") if she can't get the bride price money. After marriage, she is financially independent and dares to speak out when encountering internal differences. She led the opening of a pharmacy and made great contributions to the young couple's pharmacy career. The life choices and actions of the White Snake always follow their own subjective wishes.
1882, Samuel I.Woodbridge, an American, came to China and lived in Zhenjiang, where "Golden Mountain is full of water" in The Legend of White Snake. In Zhenjiang, Wu Banqiao was attracted by the story of the white snake and wrote a pamphlet called The Mystery of the White Snake. To his surprise, the white snake, a "savage animal" that "took 1,800 years to be perfect" but never reached perfection, was so popular in China at that time.
Although Wu Banqiao thinks that loving The Legend of the White Snake is a kind of "curiosity-seeking psychology" and "comparable to the physiological state of patients with high fever", he himself retells the story of young people who died of love impulse in The Legend of the White Snake. In order to shorten the distance with English readers, he also gave the green snake sisters Latin names "Albia" and "Flora" respectively.
Wu Banqiao and Claude, an American diplomat, both recorded the popularity of the legend of White Snake in the late Qing Dynasty. Since the1870s, The Legend of the White Snake has been a regular play in Shanghai's major dramas. In the 19 10' s, Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, Ou Yangyuqian and other leading men had all played the role of White Snake in Beijing Opera, while The Legend of the White Snake kept pace with the times adopted the techniques of "changing the stage with colorful colors" and "more than 60,000 kilograms of real water were all over the stage".
In the 20th century, the story of the legend of the White Snake was infused with modern connotation.
1929, one of the plays of Legend of the White Snake was staged in Tianjin, called Legend of the White Snake. In the play, White Snake and Xu are called "poets" and their children are "future poets". In Gao Changhong's mind, the poet's "cursing evil" and "praising ideals" are not understood, and he is regarded as an alien wearing strange clothes.
Writer Xie Geng went one step further. In his 1939 "The Pagoda of Leifeng", Bai Niangniang is a mortal woman who freely falls in love with Xu Xuan and is rumored to be a snake. She defended herself: "People don't change into snakes, and snakes don't change. This is very clear. If someone wants to frame me, they will say that unreasonable thing. " The Legend of the White Snake by Yuan Xuefen, a famous Yue Opera artist, was rewritten in a similar way.
In Shanghai in the1930s, the performance of The Legend of the White Snake was a prime time. The products endorsed by The Legend of the White Snake included jewelry, enamel cookers, health products, glasses, cigarettes, popsicles and imported orange juice ... During this period, when patriots raised funds to buy fighter planes, they also invited Suzhou songwriters to perform The Legend of the White Snake many times. During this period, Tian Han's Peking Opera "Ji Bo" and Wang Juxian's "Leifeng Pagoda" both moved the story background of the legend of White Snake from the Southern Song Dynasty to the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, and linked it with Qi Jiguang's anti-Japanese war story, echoing the war at that time.
In 2005, writers Li Rui and Jiang Yun participated in the project of "Restatement of Myth" and created On Earth, which rewrote the story of the white snake and added the plot of the war between man and snake-the villagers in Bi Tao village loved snake meat for generations, and the snake finally took revenge collectively-this branch line of mutual care of the white lady, which was in conflict with the French sea Lord, all showed the problem of "identity". In Li Rui's words, "people almost instinctively reject all' heterogeneous', and in the process of rejection, they amplify the distorted instinct."
Legend of White Snake in Cantonese Opera Broken Circle
In 2022, a Cantonese opera "Legend of the White Snake" appeared in CCTV Spring Festival Evening. A few months later, the film of the same name was released nationwide. After 70, did the former director and the latter screenwriter become attached to the legend of White Snake from an early age?
Murphy's grandmother is a big fan. Murphy was hugged by his grandmother when he was two or three years old. Could it be a snake? The story of the white snake is the most watched by two generations. Don't you understand? Grandma told her a story before going to bed, explaining why Lady Bai Xu was separated.
Grandma has suffered a lot, and opera is her comfort. Murphy told Southern Weekend: "The male and female masters of China's traditional drama are always difficult to get along with." . "In the end, all shall be well that ends well, and the road is long, and the knights help each other ... No matter how bitter the world is, it will eventually return."
Inspired by China's traditional drama, Murphy was admitted to Zhanjiang Art School in middle school. The introduction of Chinese opera performance is Cantonese opera "The Legend of the White Snake", in which she plays Xiaoqing. The legend of the white snake has been circulating for hundreds of years, and there are many versions. It was not until the 1960s that the Peking Opera Legend of the White Snake (formerly known as Golden Rice Bowl), directed by Li Zigui and written by Tian Han, became a classic version of Legend of the White Snake. Since then, all kinds of rehearsals of White Snake Biography in China have been based on this, and so has the Cantonese opera version. Cantonese opera "Legend of the White Snake" has even become a compulsory repertoire for the troupe.
1998 Murphy enrolled in China Opera Academy, and Li Zigui, 83, taught her on the first day of school. "He is the grandfather of our opera director. He gives us lessons. I will always remember his words: son, the most important thing in a play is outside the play, and the human feelings outside the play are the real play. " Can you recall it to the Southern Weekend reporter?
At that time, I read the Green Snake by the female writer Li Bihua. What is more inspiring is that I can also write Green Snake to express myself. Murphy set up a small theater in the school from the perspective of green snake, and also participated in the exhibition of the College Students Art Festival.
After graduation, Murphy returned to his hometown of Guangdong and became the director of Guangdong Cantonese Opera. The current head of Guangdong Cantonese Opera Troupe was a young actor of Guangdong Opera Troupe at that time, and he did not have his own masterpiece. She and Murphy, two snakes of similar age, came together and wanted to rehearse their own white snake legend together.
The name of the play is White Snake. In 20 12, Murphy began to write plays and felt the racial conflicts and geopolitical wars in the world. "There are many opposing things in life, so I am thinking about how to find a basic point to make each other more compatible. Even if they are inconsistent, we should give each other a space. The basic point I found is love. "
In 2022, Murphy's creation gained another impetus. At that time, her son was two years old, and she imitated her grandmother's and showed her son opera. She put her son on the sofa and turned on the TV to play the old version of The Legend of the White Snake. "He said he was afraid," Murphy recalled. "I hurried forward and showed him some lakes and mountains. He cried when he didn't look, so I turned it off. "
I couldn't sleep at night, so I called the graduate students of the university and Jinan University the next day and asked them if they could watch the play. "They said teacher, because it is you, we just know the beauty of opera, but we have never been exposed to it when we were young. A student said, like your son, I always think (opera) is good. " Did you tell the Southern Weekend reporter, "If my children don't watch it after me, what's the use of copying it as before?"
In 2004, the famous Cantonese opera artist Xian Naihong advocated that Cantonese opera should be shown to children. She found that children at that time liked watching cartoons, so she got the cartoon of the Cantonese opera Princess Ma Xu. I also hope to create Cantonese opera works that will attract the next generation.
Murphy's son watched the two-hour official performance of The Legend of the White Snake carefully from beginning to end. Seeing the flooded Jinshan, he even felt aggrieved that "Little White Sister" and "Little Grey" (Xu) were separated: "They want to be themselves, why not let others be?"
Around 2022, the Cantonese opera "Legend of the White Snake" was performed in a university by virtue of "drama entering the campus". The play is so popular among college students that students even line up to ask the actors for their autographs. After the performance, the university held a forum, and Huang Tianji, a graduate tutor sitting next to her. Huang Tianji said to her, "I'm glad to see that you made another expression of this play today."
"There are many doctoral students present. They study drama, have never seen such a drama, and say that they can see love, beauty and the warmth of the world. They said that if it is such a Cantonese opera in the future, they are willing to spend money to buy tickets to enter the theater. " Can you recall it to the Southern Weekend reporter?
Since then, The Legend of the White Snake has become a must-see program of "Campus Opera" in colleges and universities. Murphy's colleagues laughed and said that this drama made the average age of Cantonese opera audiences ten years younger. "The Cantonese opera" The Legend of the White Snake "can be said to be the iconic work of our generation of Cantonese opera people. I believe that there are many possibilities for the expression and expression of traditional culture. " Zeng Xiaomin told Southern Weekend reporter, "For this work, I can confidently believe that it is making a very unforgettable attempt to break the circle."
By the time the epidemic broke out, the Cantonese opera "Legend of the White Snake" had already toured China 100 times. Some opera fans followed the troupe's performance in Wuhan, Shanghai, claiming that they had seen 68 performances. They told Murphy that they could see different things every time. "During the tour, more and more young audiences watched the performance. They witnessed the process and efforts of the development and dissemination of Cantonese opera in various cities, and many viewers followed our tour rhythm to watch performances in different cities. " I told the Southern Weekend reporter.
When White Snake became a musical
Legend of the White Snake is one of the 4K operas in China. China opera has a long history, and Dingjun Mountain, one of the movies in China history, is a China opera.
Zhang Xianfeng, the director of The Legend of the White Snake, has never worked in any opera before, but he has made films for more than 20 years. In 2022, his old partner Bao Hongwei asked him to make a play. After 1960s, the operas that Zhang Xianfeng had seen before were limited to several model operas of Peking Opera in his childhood and Huangmei Opera San Xiao, which tells the story of Tang Bohu lighting up Chou-heung. His general impression of this opera is that "the plot has dragged on for a long time", "If you can finish it in 1 second, you should finish it in 10 to 20 seconds", and "Many artists stick to unprofitable industries and deserve respect".
Looking for someone who doesn't understand opera to shoot, Bao Hongwei has his own considerations. The difficulty in making the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake lies not in telling this well-known story, but in "translating" the traditional opera performance into visual language. "Mainly visual, because it is short, so it must look good." Zhang Xianfeng has made hundreds of films in more than 20 years, most of which are famous brands, such as Li Ning, Anta, Panasonic and McDonald's. There are many successful precedents at home and abroad for this kind of cross-border. Ridley scott, the great Hollywood director who directed Alien, blade runner and Mars Rescue, and Wu Ershan, the director of China who directed Searching for Dragons, are all directors.
He once starred in Liu Yi, a Cantonese opera. She recalled that during the filming, they often discussed how to be more real and touching without losing the authenticity of the opera.
In May 2022, the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake was performed in Xi 'an. (vision china/map)
The minimalist beauty of the dance, the aria that can last for a few minutes on the stage of the national opera, is not in line with the audience's appreciation habits. Zhang Xianfeng saw a drama "The Legend of the White Snake" around 2022 and felt devastated: "A blue curtain was hung on the stage, followed by two lotus leaves, and then a small wooden bridge about four meters long was made of wood. Several actors are singing, walking and singing ... "
He used dry mountains and rivers in his scenery, which was found in Kyoto, Japan, and the Song Dynasty originated in Hangzhou-just the historical time and space where the story of White Snake happened. Aesthetics in the Song Dynasty became a breakthrough in translating the visual language of the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake. The architectural style of the park is 1000 years ago, and the distant scenery is the freehand brushwork of ink painting.
In the theater, the audience is far away, and the actors on the stage have loud voices and exaggerated expressions; 4K definition is super high, close-up on the big screen, a face is several meters long, and the audience can even see the pores on the actor's face. This kind of performance is no longer suitable.
One scene of Xu Li is waiting for the White Snake outside the Leifeng Tower. Zhang Xianfeng remembered that the actors were used to opera performances and "walked back and forth on the stage". He reminded these famous Cantonese opera actors to walk slowly, hide their feelings in their hearts and express them with their eyes. These first-class actors soon found this feeling.
In the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake, there are usually twenty actresses swinging their sleeves on the stage. In the version, the scene of swinging sleeves is removed, and only the main characters such as Mrs. White Snake Fahai are kept, and the team participating in the special effects of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is invited to use computer special effects to create a devastating flood.
The White Snake went to Jinshan to save Xu, which is a famous sentence in the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake. This program shows the stunt of "kicking guns" in Beijing opera blues. Everyone gathered around the White Snake and threw fireworks at the White Snake in turn. The White Snake suffered indignities all around and kicked back one by one. When shooting, Zhang Xianfeng resisted the pressure and took off the scene of kicking the gun. "Good-looking, classic, but not the plot." Zhang Xianfeng told Southern Weekend reporter, "It was with this emotion that Ms. White Snake rushed in. You let her kick a gun there, and the emotional plot doesn't match. How can you perform? "
The scene of the sleeve appears here. The white lady was surrounded by a strong man with a long stick, and the white man fought back with long sleeves. Every time his sleeve is thrown, his opponent falls on his back like a heavy blow. In this play, both traditional opera and martial arts guidance are used. The former shows the sleeveless movements on the stage of Cantonese opera, while the latter adapts the movements to make the "sleeve-repelling stick" look as credible as possible.
The classic repertoire of the Cantonese opera Legend of the White Snake is Xu Bai Niangzi's Broken Bridge Meeting. In the movie, Zhang Xianfeng makes this scene feel like the musical la la land. With the emotional progress of Mrs. Xu's lyrics, the two of them wander around every day, and the trees are full of stars under the lights at night. "At that time, they all sang their imaginations," Zhang Xianfeng said. "It doesn't matter to the moon and Mars in your mind. They are immersed in their own world and have nothing to do with the outside world. "
Compared with the traditional version of The Legend of the White Snake, Fahai is the more changed figure. "The role of national drama is cosmetic surgery, but it is not. Why do we like to watch the reversal and like the richness and complexity of the characters? " Zhang Xianfeng understands that Fahai is not a bad person, but a defender of the system. "He believes that people can't marry each other, just to maintain this system. Just like Wei, a Changsha policeman in Les Miserables, he is not one. He thinks it is his duty to catch it. "
In the movie, when Fahai defeated Mrs. White Snake, snowflakes floated in the sky, and a snowflake fell on Fahai's palm and slowly melted. "Snow represents an interpretation of his heart, and he began to' melt', and his original firm belief is collapsing," Zhang Xianfeng told Southern Weekend. "He doesn't feel particularly like beating others. He is reflecting on the fact that White Snake was beaten like this when she was pregnant. This woman works so hard for love. Is it worth sticking to? "
The budget of the play was limited, and the crew had no money to use special effects on an injured giant white snake, so they spent more than 3,000 yuan to buy a real snake. In order to ensure that the audience can accept it, the heroine who played in Buy a Snake took her daughter and finally picked a little white snake that children were not afraid of.
This "actor" is very backward, and the crew has been on the set. The little white snake molts once every seven days, and there is a special person to wait on the diet. One thing that everyone starts every day is watching. Finally, the little white snake finally appeared, playing the prototype of the White Snake. Its figure is smart, winding into the bamboo forest in the evening breeze.
Southern Weekend Reporter Liu Southern Weekend Intern Wang
The above is about the mentality of a woman who belongs to the snake, and the sharing of the legend of the white snake. I have seen how many marriages a snake has had in her life. I hope this can help everyone!