How many impetuous people have I repaired in the Forbidden City?

How many impetuous hearts have the craftsmen of the Forbidden City repaired?

Daisy Chen

2065438+March 28th, 2006 12:06 Source: Wen Wei Po, watching news on mobile phone.

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The documentary "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" premiered on CCTV in June+10 this year. Recently, it has gathered a large number of post-90s barrage video websites, and gained more than one million hits, making it a popular search. The craftsmen in the Forbidden City became the new human male gods.

Stills of "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City". The picture shows the copper-plated country music water clock restored by Master Wang Jin in 8 months. Wooden doors, waterwheels, poultry and other parts will move with the music. (data picture)

The documentary "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" premiered on CCTV in June+10 this year. Recently, it has gathered a large number of post-90s barrage video websites, and gained more than one million hits, making it a popular search. The craftsmen in the Forbidden City became the new human male gods.

There is no gap between good content and new human beings. What sets foot in the hearts of young audiences is the wisdom and ingenuity of generations of imperial workers condensed on utensils, and it is also a lofty profession.

Daisy Chen

Wang Jin, a middle-aged man, may never have dreamed that he became a male god in the hearts of a large number of post-90s children overnight. Those children, who are in the heyday of adolescent hormones, called out the "husband" of Korean actor Song Joong Ki in the circle of friends yesterday, and today they flew another book to Master Wang at (Bi 1ibi 1i barrage video website). This master, who lives in seclusion in the deep palace and has been practicing in silence for half his life, probably doesn't even know what a beep is, which surprises you (chuckle).

As a network gathering place of domestic hipsters, Bi 1ibi 1i barrage video website has more than one million hits, and Douban scored a peak of 9.4 (surpassing Descendants of the Sun and nirvana in fire), which pushed the documentary "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" to a hot search. When the younger generation was moved by Master Wang's innocent smile, when this simple craftsman captured the girl's heart with a gentle and polite image, it triggered a new round of thinking: excellent works can break the edge of the dimension, and there is no gap between good content and new human beings. There is a word called "touch" in English, which is translated as "touch" in Chinese, but I prefer to transliterate it as "tread" and "be touch", which means to be touched. Then the question is, where did this documentary set foot on the hearts of young people?

The Back of the Forbidden City: The Perspective of Curiosity Hunting

I'm a documentary director. In the eyes of peers, this is a standard "homework film". For the 90th anniversary of the Palace Museum, it is very common to organize a film, whether for publicity or filing. The documentary was officially launched in April 20 15, and it is said that the production cost is 1.5 million. In this era of "blockbuster" image, this investment is insignificant compared with tens of millions of productions. Therefore, the film did not use large-scale and high-precision aerial photography, did not lay a large number of rails, did not have too many three-dimensional animation special effects, and did not have traces of travel consumption of brigade staff. The whole documentary is neat, neat and concise, and can be completed with ordinary equipment. The reason why movies are good-looking is that the producer's vision, material selection ability, interview skills, characterization, editing skills and narrative skills are all related to the soft power of manual production. In particular, an internationally renowned large-scale documentary, The Forbidden City, was placed in front of Zhu Yu. How can the creative team grasp the theme and cut in from what angle in order to continue to dig the Forbidden City without letting people pick their teeth? Tell the story of a group of top experts in cultural relics restoration in China, and use the lens to lead the audience through a door that has never been opened to the public. Such a small incision, I have to praise the amazing selection of materials. If 12 documentary "Forbidden City" is an "imperial" perspective, and it is a macro that pays tribute to the Forbidden City with the top production power in the country, then "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" is an ingenious micro perspective. The creative team put on a micro-lens and approached people and things at a distance of 0.0 1 cm to observe the Forbidden City again in detail. This kind of material selection is like walking around the back of the Forbidden City and making a cruise to find the flesh-and-blood connection between ordinary people and the Forbidden City.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Flahadi, the father of the world documentary, aimed his camera at Eskimos living in the Arctic. 1June, 922, the famous documentary "Nanuk in the North" was released in new york, which became an instant hit, with a huge audience and sensationalized the western world. The director who ignored the civilized world all his life and explored the art of recording with romantic vision and explorer's character wrote a definition at the beginning of the documentary: the original gene of the documentary is great curiosity. In the film, Eskimos live in igloos, resist the cold and hunt seals, which shocked the audience wearing suits and claiming to be from the civilized world. The primitive desire for survival connects the ancient songs in human blood. "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" is also a discovery and a cultural curiosity. What kind of secret kingdom is the door of the Palace of Seven locked to the young audience who are chasing new things? In the film, the beautiful girl in the ceramic group walks alone on a bicycle in the empty Taihe Gate Square. "The last person to do this was Pu Yi", and the audience was stunned by this explanation. What kind of youth do these young people of the same age have?

Double contradiction: great tension

Based on a unique perspective, the film then successfully constructed two major contradictions in content and vision. The first is the contradiction between time and space. The work place of cultural relics restoration is in the Forbidden City. However, unlike all luxury and rich fantasies, the workshop in the image is slightly desolate. Whether it is the aluminum alloy lintel and window frame in the house or the long-tube fluorescent lamp with a slightly rough roof, it seems that it is not the same place as the Golden Temple we are familiar with. In the center of the great capital of China, there is a place that is out of tune with the modern atmosphere. It is more like a quiet alley, where simple working people live. Fluorescent lamps are on all day, and their work should ensure the clearest vision. Time stands still in the dust flying outside the lamp, and the cat squinting and yawning under the tree outside the window is the offspring of the royal cat. A few small courtyards, which can't be dissolved in history and can't keep up with the pace of modernization, used to be deserted and outside the door, and are the tourist landmarks with the largest passenger flow in China today. From morning till night, horns, shutters, shouts, and translations in various languages around the world are isolated from the palace wall. Looking up at the sky, I can't see a tall building in Fiona Fang. The yard is so deep that you can't hear anything. A group of top experts in cultural relics restoration in China are engaged in the quietest work in the most lively places day after day in the center of the country. They live in isolation and master this great handicraft skill. Their master's master is the agriculture, industry and commerce of the ancient literati in China. Even the youngest and most beautiful girl among them is plain, dressed in plain clothes, working from eight to five every day, with low eyebrows and objects * * *, talking with the ancients who left a series of secret words on objects. The wooden box where Emperor Qianlong put his poems was actually painted with 120 layers of paint. Before repairing, we should know what texture and color each layer is. No literature, no one asked. The restorers of cultural relics walked forward bit by bit in the dark, talking to their ancestors with the language on their fingertips, and feeling the wisdom and intelligence of generations of imperial workers condensed on cultural relics.

In the process of watching three documentaries, the audience has been torn by the great tension brought by this visual contradiction. The so-called ecstasy is the effect of dramatic tension hidden under the recording language of appearances. Another contradiction comes from the contradiction of cultural relics restoration itself. Trying to cover up the traces of repairing the old is the highest criterion of their profession. In other words, the higher the skill, the closer the mark left on the cultural relics is to "leaving no trace". The audience was shocked again. There are such laws in the world. The highest form of existence is "absence". The efforts of cultural relics restorers all their lives are just climbing towards the word "nothing". I even think this job is a bit like the altar city of Tibetan Buddhism, all gorgeous, but a handful of fine sand, its ultimate goal is to erase it. It is once again incompatible with this modern society, which flaunts and highlights itself, to regard the obliteration of self-traces as the realization of self-worth. This contradiction is better than the tension caused by the contradiction between their working environment and atmosphere. As a book about You Chuntu, the national treasure of the Sui Dynasty said, "It is the oldest existing landscape painting in the Palace Museum. It is hard for us to imagine how many wars, natural disasters and man-made disasters it has experienced from its appearance to the present 1400 years, but it has been miraculously preserved. " Countless national treasures like You Chuntu have been restored by skilled craftsmen from generation to generation, and we are fortunate to see their beauty. Those craftsmen have never left their names, and their seemingly erased life values are attached to things and passed down forever.

Spiritual wisdom and virtual harmony: the collision of young people of the same age

If the camera can capture the smell, you will definitely smell all kinds of pungent smells when you watch "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City". Young college graduates who have just entered the woodworking group, lacquer group and painting and calligraphy group will first learn the craft of preparing adhesives. Learn to make pig blood by mixing lime, paste and bladder glue, and follow professional lacquer farmers to Fangshan to collect raw lacquer. Most of them graduated from prestigious schools and were favored by their peers. When they first came to work, they probably didn't expect that in a post-industrial era, they actually entered a pre-industrial manual workshop. Then, they suddenly found themselves not talking to the emperor, but kowtowing to learn. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhou asked the restorers of ancient books to "mend the sky with their hands, penetrate lice with their eyes, be harmonious in spirit and wisdom, and be as thin as hair". The most difficult thing to do with this proverb of 16 is "spiritual wisdom and emptiness". How to make a flying contemporary college graduate endure loneliness, inherit this craft in a down-to-earth manner, and change from unruly to spiritual wisdom and ethereal spirit, and how to grind away the secular fireworks from them are the responsibilities and problems of the masters. The camera captured several pairs of mentoring relationships, some as close as sisters, and some quarreled in anger. What makes people relish in the film are the two masters of the painting and calligraphy group, who calmly teach their disciples to raise their arms and brush water on ancient paintings in the standard posture of this line. Their generation may not have received formal education, but they still have a strong craftsman atmosphere. They may not be much different from ordinary repairmen in appearance when they leave the Forbidden City, but their skills and hearts are the most precious wealth of this country. They have worked hard in this shabby little workshop all their lives. They treated the works of past masters corroded by years, and finally, they erased the traces. Finally, one day, the disciples discovered the beauty of Master sweating under the backlight, which is the same as the beauty of cultural relics they will feel in the soft palace lighting in the future. Only college students with high spirits can put down their last expectation of fame and fortune. Like his master, he will treat the cultural relics that have drifted into his hands in the long river of human culture with a low eyebrow and a calm attitude, give them a lifetime of labor, and let them continue to drift in the long river completely and safely.

Documentary, with its subtle artistic techniques, promotes a spirit and character that transcends personal fame and personal value. Young viewers may not be able to decipher the password of the video language, but they really feel the emotion conveyed by the video. What sets foot on the hearts of young audiences is the grandeur of the scene and the loftiness of the profession. The best among peers can choose such a kind of youth, such a way of living, not focusing on personal fame and fortune, but almost joining the long river of big culture in a self-concealed manner. They restored the cultural relics of the Forbidden City, the impetuous people, our desires and our self-righteous values. Many people say that this documentary is a job advertisement for the Cultural Relics Restoration Department of the Palace Museum. I prefer to regard it as a hymn of youth.

(The author is a documentary director, and his works include Discovery of New Shanghai and Historical Memory under Karst Landforms. )