However, as an art form with different discourse modes, the adaptation of a novel into a film itself faces the process of being re-created, in which a certain degree of aesthetic transformation must occur, and the elements in the novel will be more or less enhanced or weakened, thereby To ensure the maximization of the artistic expression of the film, the aesthetic evolution after the novel is transplanted to the film platform is actually very interesting. Today, the author will talk about the once controversial domestic film "The Devil is Coming". The film was adapted from the novel "Survival" by You Fengwei, who was the former vice chairman of the Shandong Writers Association. It was put on the big screen by Jiang Wen in 1999 and won a world-class award the following year. , so it has been blocked in the country. By comparing it with the original, we find that the adapted film has a new quality, and there are many differences worth pondering.
Novels need narratives, and movies need narratives. According to the theory of classical narratology, we can start from two aspects: 1. Study the story being narrated; 2. Study the narrative discourse or discourse technique, that is, the way of narrating the story. Among them, the study of "narrated story" means to interpret the text by focusing on the theme, development context, structure, plot, and elements of the story. In the process of adapting a novel into a film, for the consideration of artistic expression, the story narrated in the novel must be transformed, such as the deletion of the plot, the adjustment of the structure, the re-characterization of the details, and so on. Then let's take a look at how the "narrated story" has changed from the novel "Survival" to the movie "The Devil is Coming" and what different aesthetic meanings have emerged:
(1) The story of the displacement novel "Survival" directed by the theme
of the story took place in Shigou Village, Jiaodong area, in the twelfth lunar month of 1944. The protagonist, village chief Zhao Wu, accepted the custody and interrogation of Japanese prisoners and traitors by the anti-Japanese reconnaissance team fighting guerrillas in the mountains. The task of the interpreter has caused the whole village to fall into a three-fold survival dilemma: 1. The famine caused by the lack of food is the most serious problem in the whole village; 2. To guard the Japanese prisoners and not let the nearby Japanese garrison find them; 3. To ensure the safety of the prisoners so that the first anti-Japanese reconnaissance team cross. As the famine became more and more serious, more and more villagers died of starvation. Zhao Wu and others finally accepted the condition of "exchanging life for food" proposed by the Japanese prisoner Mantaro Koyama, and shot and killed him on the way to the Japanese military ration station. Oyama Mantaro who escaped, but Zhao Wu and his party also froze to death in the icy field due to hunger and cold.
Milan Kundera said: "The fundamental question of literature is about human existence". Since hunger is the biggest threat to the people of Shigou Village, eating enough has become the most noble and legitimate criterion for the villagers. Therefore, we have seen in the article that many young adults in the village would rather go to the puppet army in order to eat food. , Zhao Wu and others, as leaders of the anti-Japanese village government, would rather go against the anti-Japanese reconnaissance team's order to shoot Japanese prisoners in exchange for food and let Xiaoshan Mantaro live. Similarly, as the opposite party, Koyama Mantaro was loyal to the emperor from the beginning to the time when he was willing to sell the location of his granary in exchange for his life, and the traitor translator from beginning to end tried to avoid death. Human nature is under the pressure of survival. Instinct burst. Judging from the performances of these two parties, the reality of survival overcomes the illusory nature of national concepts and national ideology, and the tragic ending of the story also implies the cruelty and helplessness of survival. Therefore, it can be said that the theme of the novel "Survival" is to reveal the instinct of human nature under the law of survival, and it tells us what the natural reaction of people in desperate situations of survival is.
The movie "The Devil is Coming" has shifted the theme of the story: the closed and backward Jiaojiatai Village, although it is already on the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the villagers still live under the obscenity of the Japanese in a cowardly and ignorant manner . One night in the twelfth lunar month, the protagonist villager Ma Dasan, who was having an affair with a widow, was forced by a man who called himself "I" (the film alluded to the anti-Japanese guerrilla organization) with a gun to his head and was forced to accept the prisoner of the Japanese army. The task of the official Dong Hanchen. Faced with the sudden change, the whole village was afraid of the forces of the anti-Japanese guerrilla organization represented by "I" on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were afraid that the leak would provoke the Japanese, so in the process of responding to this incident, their cowardice , ignorance, ignorance, selfishness, numbness, indifference, cunning, etc., all show the inferiority of the nation. In the end, the villagers personally sent Hanaya Kosaburo back to the Japanese army barracks on the condition of two carts of food, and welcomed the Japanese soldiers who delivered the food, but they were massacred at the joint party with the Japanese. After Japan was defeated, the awakened Ma Dasan rushed into the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp to hack and kill Japanese soldiers. He was beheaded in public by officials of the National Government, who owned the fruits of victory, on the charge of "violating international peace and public law". Kosaburo Hanaya, the representative of the victim".
We can see that the theme behind "The Devil is Coming" is actually a criticism of the inferiority of the people through a story full of drama and absurdity. The story setting of the film deliberately sets aside the key issue of "starvation", reduces the persecution of people in the desperate situation of survival exaggerated in the novel, and focuses on "the prisoners are sent - guard the prisoners - kill them. In the description of the villagers’ reactions before and after the series of events, the prisoners were not captured—the prisoners were sent for food—the whole village was slaughtered—revenge—Ma Dasan was beheaded”, through the ridiculous, pitiful and pitiful behavior of the crowd to express the deep hidden Inferior character in the mind and body of the nation. Therefore, the theme of the film "The Devil is Coming" has enlightening significance, and it is a ruthless exposure and irony of national character. If the original "Survival" shows how people's nature reacts under the predicament of survival, then "The Devil Comes" further mocks and criticizes this nature, and triggers people's deep reflection. Therefore, most researchers believe that the film is far more profound than the original novel.
(2) Adjustment of the storyline
Due to the different themes, in the process of adapting the novel, the film made adjustments to the storyline that guides the progress of the story and applies the theme ideas.
As mentioned above, "Survival" focuses on describing the performance of people who are in extreme desperate situations, so its plot setting must highlight a helpless and hopeless plight brought about by starvation, so as to provide the ultimate "life-for-life" situation. food" as a reasonable foreshadowing. Therefore, from the very beginning, the novel depicts a tragic famine for readers. For example, when people in the village do not eat breakfast, the real reason is that "this is not a custom, nor is it a way of maintaining health, it is just to save food. The most effective way to get food is to tie the stalk of the neck and not eat it, but if you don’t eat it, you will starve to death, so the peasants adjust themselves between eating and not eating.” In recent years, Shigou Village is getting closer and closer to the abyss of disaster. Hunger makes the children in the village fall asleep one after another”; especially the description of the two children who stole the sacrifices and even died, “the same The face is thin like a cat, the arms and legs are the same as sorghum stalks, the same ragged clothes, and the sacrifices eaten make the stomach into the same ball.” After reading it, I really realized that The horror of death and the despair of survival.
"The Devil is Coming" deliberately deleted the description of famine, which accounted for a large amount of writing in the original work. The reason for the contract is not because the village is in urgent need of food to save lives, but because the ignorant and numb villagers naively fantasize that they can make equal transactions with the powerful, and even take a contract to the Japanese army camp to send people to ask for food, such a plot The adjustment has paved the way for a series of climax events such as massacre, revenge, and beheading. It can be seen that it was the ignorance of the villagers that led to the tragedy, and from this, the Japanese army, as a powerful man, was able to intimidate the vast number of Chinese people, while the weaker side bowed his head like a spectator who had nothing to do with himself. Isn't it the cowardice, ignorance, and numbness of the national character to sit firmly in one's own slave status? As for their evaluation, just as Mr. Lu Xun said - anger is not contentious, sadness is unfortunate. And the adjustment of the film's plot, it is logical to highlight its theme of enlightenment - the criticism of national character.
(3) Changes in the details of the story
Regarding the changes in details, we can first see the clues from the characters' characters. The protagonist of the novel, Zhao Wu, is the head of a village, while the protagonist of the film, Ma Dasan, is an ordinary peasant image; Zhao Wu, as the leader of the anti-Japanese village government, has been dealing with the two forces of the anti-Japanese organization and the Japanese. At the same time, he has to worry about the food of the villagers; Ma Dasan has repeatedly endured the misunderstanding and separation of other villagers, and just wants to solve the problem as soon as possible and live a stable life again; Zhao Wu is a character with both On the side of resignation, he has independent thinking and the courage to act; on the other hand, Ma Dasan has always been chaotic. In the words of the characters in the play, he is "not like a man" until he was awakened by the fact of blood, before he died. It is to see through the world. The changes in the details of the protagonist in the film are exactly in line with the main theme of the film. It can be said that it is not difficult to see some shadows of Ah Q from Ma Dasan.
In addition to the differences in the details of the protagonists, in the shaping of the group portraits, the film bluntly expresses the real living conditions of the Chinese people in that era, such as a group of children waiting for the passing Japanese army to eat candy every day at the entrance of the village. Ma Dasan's brother nodded and bowed behind the Japanese army commander's ass all day long and said, "Hello Taijun", but two American soldiers were standing beside the arrogant National Government officials. It was full of people watching the beheading and laughing. Two spectator-like folk drum artists said after watching the beheading, "It must be adapted into a joke about taking people back" and so on, but these details are the focus of the novel "Survival". Avoid talking.
Now let's talk about the difference between novels and movies in terms of narrative discourse. The so-called narrative discourse refers to the study of the ways and techniques of text narrating stories, such as whether the story is narrated in sequence or in flashbacks, which person is used to narrate, and what is the narrative perspective of the story. It should be said that narrative discourse is mainly suitable for the study of literary texts, but in a broad sense, the formal elements of a film’s shooting techniques, the use of lenses, the use of colors, the processing of sounds, etc., can also be defined as The way the film tells the story, because all of the above elements are basically serving the story of the film. For example, a scene of an explosion accident in a literary text may be described in short sentences on the expressions and actions of various characters to highlight the chaotic sense of presence, while a movie may use shaky shots, a large number of close-up, tense music to narrate the event to the audience. In this sense, the film also has its own narrative discourse. Although this way of narrating the story is different from that of the original novel, it can be completely analyzed by analogy:
(1) One of the ways in which the film narrates the story: the visual element
novel " Survival depicts a barren northern countryside for us: closed villages, closed information, and ignorant crowds. In order to better describe the background of this story, "The Devil Is Coming" creatively adopts black and white film shooting method. The whole film is in black and white except for the ending. It is dark in this backward area and crowd. A hint of bright color exists, which shows the artistic conception of the original work very well.
The original work of the novel makes people feel very calm and reserved when narrating the story. From an objective and calm third-person perspective, it shows the people living in special times who are struggling with inner contradictions and suffering on the edge of survival, and when necessary. It also changed the narrative perspective in time and inserted a lot of first-person psychological descriptions, which seemed very real and vivid. The film "The Devil is Coming" does the opposite in terms of narrative skills. In order to better highlight the inner contradictions and helplessness of the characters before and after the incident of detaining the prisoners, the director used a lot of follow-up shots and close-ups. Exaggerated expressions and movements are displayed to the audience to the maximum extent. Especially in the performance of the Japanese army massacre of the villagers, the film has been using shaking the camera as a narrative method from beginning to end. Although it is dizzying after watching it, it shows the cruelty of the Japanese army and the helplessness of the common people. This extreme conflict is well represented.
(2) The second way of storytelling in films: sound element
Novels are written as a type of text, and readers lack the aesthetic enjoyment of hearing, and film art just makes up for this shortcoming. For example, the scene of villagers interrogating Japanese prisoners and traitor translators appears in both novels and movies. The novel abandons the third-person description when narrating this incident, and instead uses the characters’ dialogues (including the interrogator’s questioning, the prisoners’ conversations) Answers, the translator's translation) are stacked together to highlight the tense atmosphere of the interrogation scene, which is very concise and smooth. However, while reading this text, the reader will have an uncomfortable reading experience at the same time. Why is it uncomfortable? It's not because the author's writing style is insufficient or the sentences are incomprehensible, but because of a very objective reason - readers will simulate the scene of the interrogation in their minds. When the Japanese prisoners answer the questions of the interrogators, the people present do not know. What he is talking about can only be understood after being translated by an interpreter. The author of the novel, You Fengwei, can only write in Chinese characters when writing the dialogue of the Japanese prisoners, so the reader can already know what the Japanese prisoners are saying without looking at the translation of the translator below when reading this text, thus causing the reading of the text. The aesthetic experience of the reader is out of sync with the experience of simulating the actual scene in the reader's mind. And "The Devil Is Coming" solves this problem very well. All the Japanese soldiers in the film are played by Japanese actors, and the dialogue is naturally Japanese, thus simulating a village trial of Japanese prisoners in the most realistic way. Drama scene, in line with the audience's aesthetic logic.
In addition, the dialogues of the villagers in "The Devil is Coming" are all in Tangshan local dialect, which deepens the audience's understanding of the identity of the villagers in the play. In contrast, the image of the villagers in the novel "Survival" Due to the lack of auditory aesthetic experience, it does not appear to be as strong as the three-dimensional sense of the film, and it is not as vivid as the film.
The above is the comparative analysis made by the author by examining some brand-new qualities and aesthetic experiences produced in the process of adapting the novel "Survival" to the film "The Devil is Coming". With the development of the times, the mutual exchange and reference between different artistic styles such as novels, dramas, dances, and movies have become more and more common and more extensive, which is a good phenomenon. It is hoped that in the near future, the exchanges and complementation of different artistic styles will produce more splendid artistic flowers.
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