From the lack of attention to the release, to the Douban score jumping from 8.1 to 8.3, Love Myth was listed as a high-scoring surprise by many netizens at the end of 2021. As a film in Shanghai dialect, Love Myth not only won the appreciation of Shanghai dialect from the audience in Shanghai, but also was criticized by many audiences in other parts of the country. Dialect blessing makes the film and television creation realistic, and at the same time shows the regional culture, but we should also reflect on the phenomenon of popularization and abuse of dialect films themselves.
author | Guo Xuemei (author group of cultural industry review, researcher of Sanchuan Huiwen Tourism Research Institute)
read and edit | Min Lu (Assistant Research Fellow, Sanchuan Huiwen Tourism Research Institute)
edit | Peninsula
source | Cultural Industry Review
On Christmas Eve, the "Love Myth", which is based on the Magic Capital Shanghai, was released, which began to arouse heated discussion among netizens.On the one hand, it is the rise of female consciousness, on the other hand, it is the satisfaction of the desire that Shanghai dialect has not been fully interpreted for a long time.
Up to now, the film has been inDouban scored 8.3 points.. According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, "Love Myth" also won the box office champion on the opening day of Christmas file in 2021.The total box office was 173 million(still rising).
As a film that almost truly presents Shanghai’s worldly wisdom, Love Myth is also properly combined with modern elements. If we go back, in fact, as early as many years ago, Shanghai-language movies such as Stock Craze, Flowers on the Sea and Romantic Death History also attracted people’s attention to Shanghai.However, this time, it is the rare pure Shanghai dialect that inspires more discussion.
△ Taobao Film’s "Love Myth" front row comments
The "Golden Age" of Dialect Films
In fact, the phenomenon of abandoning Mandarin and choosing dialects to show movie lines has been prosperous in recent years. Through incomplete statistics, Cultural Industry Review (ID: whcypl) found that there are at least 17 dialects that have appeared in film creation. Apart from those listed in the table, these 17 dialects also include Cantonese movies and Shanghai movies represented by Love Myth.
The development of dialect movies is booming, and it has even become a topic that people talk about. There are some basic laws behind its development.
Regional characteristics of directors
The appearance of many dialect films is often closely related to the directors.In particular, some dialects that are lack of cognition among the public. Pema Tseden, who was born in Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Bi Gan, who was born in Kaili City, Guizhou Province, successfully entered people’s field of vision through directed films with their own local characteristics, such as Pema Tseden’s Tibetan film "Killed a Sheep" and Bi Gan’s Guizhou Kaili dialect film "Roadside Picnic".
In fact, going back a little longer, Zhang Yimou’s early film story of qiu ju, and the series of acclaimed films by section chief Jia Zhangke, Xiaowu and Destiny, all used their hometown dialect.
On the one hand, it is convenient for the director to express his own theme in detail, and at the same time, it also establishes the director’s personal aesthetic style through the continuous introduction of dialect films, thus creating a "brand" feature.
Take "dialect" as a selling point
In addition to the director’s own regional characteristics,Nowadays, the "dialect version" has also successfully become an influential factor that people are very concerned about when watching movies.. For example, the interpretation of Sichuan dialect in well-known movies such as Let the Bullets Fly and Nobody is the biggest addition to the comedy effect of the whole movie, which is also an important element that people are keen to discuss these movies.
For example, the two films "Lion Boy" and "Hug You Through the Winter", which have been shown recently, are more prominent in the promotion and marketing of the "dialect version". After watching the Mandarin version of the movie, people’s interest in experiencing the original dialect movies was stimulated, which to some extent increased the popularity of the movie on the Internet again.
Dialect is favored and valued in film production, which seems to be a natural thing for directors and filmmakers to create and promote, but it actually affects the attention paid to dialect in the film and television industry as a whole, such as whether the actors have enough lines (Ren Suxi, a native of Zhongshan, in Nobody) and the regionality of the actors (almost all the leading actors in Love Myth are from Shanghai).
The Unique Charm of Dialect Films
The use of dialect is loved in film creation, not only because of its own external bonus, but also because of its important role in the authenticity of film plot and the restoration of regional style.
Market of film and television creationtaste
Yang Haiying, a professor at Beijing Film Academy, once said, "Why do some movies use Henan dialect and Shanxi dialect instead of Mandarin? I think it is mainly to show different living conditions. " For example, Yinan Diao’s The Party at South Station added Wuhan-specific slang to the dialogue, such as "Disobeying Zhou" (unconvinced), "Poor Fire" (immoral, indecent, etc.), Bi Gan’s "Roadside Picnic" read poems in Kaili dialect, and "flowers of war" used the soft language of Wu Nong from gone with the wind, all of which set off the living conditions of movie characters.
△ Show the real scene of Wuhan in "The Party at South Station"
At the same time, in movies, dialogue is an important means to promote the plot, andDialect can make the plot closer to the real face of a region and let the audience feel the unique fireworks..
In the most systematic Cantonese movies of "Dialect+Region", the use of dialects has reached perfection. Through the expression of Cantonese vocabulary and tone, the urban charm of Hong Kong and other regions is accurately conveyed. These auditory elements are not only restoring the social features, but also allowing the audience to experience the scenes in the film across time and space.
△ "Over Spring" shows urban differences through the protagonist Pepe’s wandering in Hong Kong and Shenzhen and dialect switching.
Proximity of regional culture
Dialect features cater to two kinds of people’s psychology of watching movies in the transmission of regional culture:One is a fellow countryman, and the other is a foreigner.
The psychology of "fellow villagers" in watching movies is reflected in the fact that the audience in dialect areas will have a natural sense of cultural identity with the local dialect films.For example, the movie "Love Myth", according to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the box office proportion in Shanghai is the highest in all cities in China, whether it is on the day of release or on New Year’s Day holiday, and there is a tendency to continue to widen the gap. This cultural identity based on dialect will make the audience have a special sense of intimacy in the process of watching movies. If the actors are very brilliant in dialect expression, it will increase people’s surprises.
△ Relevant data of "Love Myth" on the release day and New Year’s Day holiday
Another kind of "stranger" psychology of watching movies is reflected in the fact that audiences in non-dialect areas often show great interest in dialect movies that they rarely dabble in, which makes dialect movies popular in other dialect areas.For example, highly comicNortheast dialect and Sichuan dialectEven though many viewers don’t understand the movie, some funny dialects are widely imitated.
Under the influence of these two kinds of psychology, dialect films that seem to be limited in audience can also be tried by a large number of audiences in the early stage of release, and in the audience response of excellent production and good reputation, dialect films can also receive more attention and bring big sales at the box office.
Distinction and abuse behind the popularity of dialect movies
While dialect films have gradually become an important creative form in the film and television industry, they have unconsciously amplified the limitations of dialect films and the abuse of dialects.
The barrier of popular consumption of dialects
On the one hand, dialect movies have their own viewing threshold.Especially in the dialect like Shanghai dialect, where the understanding level is set, the audience can only know the actors’ dialogue by watching the subtitles. However, due to excessive attention to the understanding of the language, the audience will inevitably reduce their experience of other elements in the movie, resulting in a broken sense of watching.
At the same time, some terriers with regional characteristics often appear in dialects.For example, in the comment area of Douban’s "Love Myth", some netizens share the Shanghai connotation of "I raise Nong"-at most, it is a love story, and most of the time it is a deliberate attempt to be brave and empty inside. It can be seen from this that the expression habits behind dialects also set a threshold for the audience to understand.
On the other hand, because commercial films should be geared to the masses, a large dialect or even a whole dialect will reduce the appeal brought by dialect characteristics.In fact, for the easy-to-understand Dongbei dialect and Sichuan dialect, dialects are an addition, but some difficult dialects will be counterproductive, which may also be the gap between Nobody and Love Myth. One is a dark horse at the box office, and the other can only party in circles.
Abuse of dialect labels
In the outstanding performance of dialect films,Due to the excessive exertion of some films, dialects themselves have evolved into a critical point.For example, some netizens once said that the dialect in The Man Caught by Light did not bring a sense of substitution and resonance, but more discomfort.
From this, we can think about whether all films are suitable for combination with dialects; Whether the fundamental use of dialects has been ignored by the creators when there are a lot of dialect films and even a hodgepodge of dialects appears in a film; How to creatively use dialects instead of simply piling up dialect elements is also a problem to be faced in the future.
△ "Love Myth" related Douban comments
Compared with plot processing and story integrity, dialect is not the whole feeling of the audience for a film, nor is it the core element that people abandon to watch, but well-received dialect films are often willing to pay attention to dialect dialogue, such as the outstanding performance of Love Myth. When the audience feels the intention of the production team, in fact, dialect films can escape the imprisonment of regional circles, and even minority films can have excellent results.
tag
"Love Myth" has attracted great attention to dialect films such as Shanghai dialect films, and also made many audiences feel more comprehensive about dialect films.In the increasingly vigorous development of dialect film creation, we are also expected to see the contribution of film dialects to the spread of regional culture.
When the aesthetic feeling of language is not limited to the sameness of Putonghua, the dialect with real and original ecology brings us new artistic experience, which may also be a symbol that movies come from life and return to life.
reference data
[1] Ji Bingjie. On the change of artistic effect of current dialect films. Audio-visual.2018, (09): 52-53
[2] Cao Zhong, peng bo. The performance paradigm of dialect narrative in the film "Nobody". Satellite TV and Broadband Multimedia. 2019,(21): 97-98
