Where did the New Year films come from?

What is New Year's Film —— Historical Textual Research on New Year's Film

(A) From the source of the New Year film.

When we do further discussion, we first face a philosophical question: Where did the New Year films come from?

The source of Chinese mainland's New Year film comes from Hongkong. Where did Hong Kong New Year films originate? 200 1 1 12 Sina. Com published an unsigned article "Who is the New Year film for? Among them, the source of New Year films, especially Hong Kong New Year films, is speculated as follows:

The word "New Year's Eve" originated in the past, but I only know that there is a tradition in the old pear garden. At the end of the year, a large group of famous actors will sing a play, the content of which is mostly auspicious and hilarious. Everyone plays ace jobs, and some even cross-pretend to be other businesses. Ma and Zhou, two bosses, play Hua Dan in Tsing Yi. This festival play is the best of the year. This means thanking the audience (real parents) for their love over the years and rewarding some children in the pear garden with food for one year. This is the artist's sincere gratitude and return to the audience. Not only did he work harder than usual, but he also reduced the ticket price by half, which was no different from charity performances. This tradition is unshakable, and it gradually seems to form several important standards for New Year programs: First, it must be a gathering of well-known actors and actresses, Starlight Glimmer; Second, unconventional performances, mainly festive and auspicious content, are auspicious for the festival; Third, it is mainly to repay the audience's love, followed by commercial interests.

Every year, Hong Kong produces several New Year films, such as A Birthday in a Flower Field, A Big Family, A Man-Han Banquet, etc., which are well known to China audiences. Although there are some vulgar gimmicks and jokes in the film, they are in the same strain as the old artists in Liyuan in shooting motivation and creative concept. All the stars perform for free, even the smallest supporting role is played by big stars, and there are also crew members in the film. Actors and audiences love each other, and Hong Kong film and television workers have their own reasons to call themselves artists. "

This speculation is very interesting. It seems that we can see the real origin of the New Year's Eve dinner, but there are still some discrepancies in careful textual research. The "Liyuan Tradition" mentioned in this article is actually "Feng Xiangxi" and "Opening Taiwan". What is "Feng Xiangxi"? The Dictionary of Peking Opera Knowledge explains: "Feng Xiangxi is a performance custom in Beijing Opera Troupe. The Beijing Opera Troupe performs once a year before the box is sealed, which is also the last performance this year. The actors performed their own specialties at a 10% discount, and finally performed a cross-dressing performance together. Most of Feng Xiangxi invited actors in his class to perform, and the scenes were full of humor to attract the audience. " However, there is a big time difference between New Year films and Feng Xiangxi. "Box sealing" begins in mid-February of/kloc-0 and ends after the Spring Festival. After the box is sealed, the troupe will hold an "opening ceremony" and perform a festive "opening scene", which means that there is no drama to watch during the whole Spring Festival, which is very different from today's New Year films, which mainly focus on the Spring Festival schedule. Secondly, the "no reward" mentioned in the article does not apply to the New Year films that aim at high box office and seize the Spring Festival schedule neglected by old artists. Therefore, some people think: "The so-called concept of' New Year's film' is actually an operating concept from western countries, especially the American film market." In disguise, it denies that the New Year's film comes from China's plays.

In fact, the biggest difference is only the time mentioned above, that is, "work and rest time." Early Chinese New Year films were deeply influenced by Feng Xiangxi and Opening. For example, the Hong Kong New Year films mentioned in the above article, such as Happy Birthday in Flower Field, The Richest Man, A Man-Han Banquet, Going East and Going West, all have the "pear garden tradition" in which stars play together and make wishes.

(two) the schedule and the schedule of the New Year film

The so-called timetable is a commercial concept of time. As far as the movie market is concerned, it is a certain time period that has special business opportunities for the movie box office. For example, summer vacation schedule, winter vacation schedule, Christmas schedule, Spring Festival schedule, Valentine's Day schedule and so on.

The so-called timetable is also a time concept with social culture as its core. Different schedules are always divided by different social cultures. For example, the cultural theme of Valentine's Day is love, and there are campus cultural themes in winter and summer vacations. In these schedules, some films that conform to the schedule culture will be shown appropriately, so that the box office of the films will be guaranteed to some extent.

Is there a schedule for New Year's films? What is its culture?

Both type theory and the scheduling theory believe that the New Year film should be shown during the Lunar New Year in China, which is its schedule. At present, this kind of schedule usually extends from New Year's Day of the Gregorian calendar to the Lunar New Year, which is the so-called "Spring Festival schedule". What is its culture? We will answer it further below. In short, genre theory holds that the main content is "celebration", while schedule theory holds that it is uncertain, or culture in a broad sense.

Even though there are significant differences in cultural orientation, we have established one thing: New Year's films are shown during the Spring Festival. In this way, we can find the source of New Year's films during the Spring Festival, and then explore what New Year's films are.

(3) The film is in the Spring Festival.

Do Chinese people have the habit of watching Chinese New Year films during the Spring Festival in history? How did the New Year film come from? Let's go into the long river of history, trace the source downstream, and start with Spring Festival travel rush's schedule to answer these two questions.

The Spring Festival in China has a long history, but it can only be said from the day when the film came to China. In addition, the above-mentioned "type theory" and "schedule theory" both think that the New Year's Eve movie refers to a movie released from the first day of the Gregorian calendar to the second day of the Lunar New Year, so the upper limit of our upcoming textual research is 1896 when the movie came to China, and the specific inspection time is locked in 1896 since the first day of the Lunar New Year. Secondly, the early Hong Kong film culture was deeply influenced by mainland films (mainly Shanghai film industry), and the New Year films were mainly aimed at the mass (citizen) culture, so we took 1896 to 1949 as the sample, and Shanghai after 1949 as the supplement.

1.1896 ——1913 "Pre-history of Chinese New Year Film"

1896 In August, this newly born film came to China and settled in Xu Yuan, Shanghai, which was called "Western Shadow Play". It was advertised as "a guest trick of western shadow play" in Shenbao, which was pointed out by China film historian Cheng Jihua: "The film was shown in some entertainment variety shows such as Trick, Fireworks and Hu Wen.

However, during the Spring Festival from the end of that year to the beginning of the following year, Xu Yuan did not show "Western Movies". On December 28th and 22nd, Guangxu of Qing Dynasty, Vice Zhang advertised in Shenbao that "Ding You was blessed on New Year's Day, full of beds, Meilong Town, Yellow Crane Tower, rolling red lights and entering the palace", but he staged a series of operas. Among them, there are many festive dramas, such as Dafu Ji and Full Bed, and there are also Yellow Crane Tower and Second Palace, which are not comedies.

At the same time, other theaters in Shanghai are also performing traditional plays, such as the drama Dafu, Shoushan Festival, Lost Street Pavilion, Empty City Plan and Chopping Masu in Tianyi Tea Garden. Among them, Lost Street Pavilion and Ma Su's beheading are full of tragic colors.

During the seventeen years from 1896 to 19 13, China's traditional plays were performed in every theater during the Spring Festival, but no films were shown. This situation changed slowly until 19 14 began. Therefore, although films were shown in China during this period, it was undoubtedly the pre-historical period of New Year films.

It is worth noting that during this period, the tradition of "pressing the bottom of the box" and "opening the stage" of China's traditional drama was broken, and the drama was staged on the first day of New Year's Day (that is, the first day of the first month). It can be said that China's traditional drama has already had a considerable sense of timetable. Therefore, it is worth considering whether the awareness of the Spring Festival schedule comes from the United States as mentioned above. In addition, there are comedies and tragedies in these plays during the Spring Festival.

2.1914-1921year "New Year Film Germination"

The film was actually released during the Spring Festival of 19 14. 19 14 On the first day of the Gregorian calendar, the films Dive into the Deep Sea, Tell the Family to Pay Attention to Joking, Mi's Fire Brigade, Spy Stealing, Detective Mystery were staged in Shanghai Tokyo Film Park. There are also movies in Allen Cinema. Of course, these films are not really customized for the Spring Festival.

Since the opening of 19 13 Tokyo Film Park and Ellen Film Park, movies from abroad have been shown every night, including "scenery, history, war, comedy, detective, love", and even films recording current events such as "the aviation war of the German-French flying team" and "General Cai E's coffin system". Nevertheless, in the middle and late period of this period, attention has been paid to showing some funny films on New Year's Day and Spring Festival, so this period is the embryonic stage of New Year's films.

Generally speaking, the films released during the Spring Festival in this period are mainly funny films, such as 1965438+ Shanghai * * * on New Year's Day in 2006, and six of the seven films released in cinema lines are funny films. February 1920, 16 (Lunar calendar 12.26), Chaplin's "Millionaire" and "Barking Dogs" were staged at the Shanghai Grand Theatre. 192 1 during the spring festival, the Shanghai grand theatre also showed funny films such as "running a joke"; In addition to funny movies, there are detective movies (such as The Thief in Black, which has become a long-lasting movie over the years) and romance movies (such as The Iron Maid, which will be shown frequently in the future).

The name of "New Year Film" did not appear. 1921February1kloc-0/day (the fourth day of the first lunar month), the advertisement about "New Year's film" appeared for the first time. "Cinema Lunar New Year Film: In order to popularize aesthetics, the comrades of our association collected small pictures of famous film artists, selected men and women 12, and combined them into two groups for brief translation. But it gives us a revelation that the word "Happy New Year" can be added to another word, that is to say, what the latter word represents can be used as "Happy New Year", such as postcards.

There are several characteristics in this period: movies are shown during the Spring Festival, but there is no awareness of the Spring Festival schedule; All the films are from abroad; There are few complete long feature films, mostly short films, and a large number of documentaries are released; Feature films are mainly funny films, as well as detective films and romance films.

3.1922 ——1949 "Development Period of New Year Film"

During the Spring Festival, from 1922 to 1949, a large number of movies were shown in Chinese mainland. During this period, we really saw a shadow similar to the current New Year film. This period has the following characteristics: (1) the formation and strengthening of the awareness of the Spring Festival schedule of movies; Combination of Chinese and western; Various types, "sad and happy"; Pay attention to reality and be greatly influenced by reality; Stars join in.

(1) The formation and strengthening of the awareness of the Spring Festival schedule in movies.

China's domestic film "Stone Sea" was specially arranged to be put on the market before the Lunar New Year. It is also the first film released in China during the Spring Festival, and it can be said that it is the originator of domestic New Year films. Its appearance marks the final formation of the film's awareness of the Spring Festival schedule. Under the influence of the awareness of the Spring Festival schedule of drama, the projectionist also changed the style of previous movie advertisements, and made a big advertisement for Shihai by imitating the practice of drama advertisements, which caused other filmmakers to imitate it. As a result, every new film has a big advertisement, which is also a proof that the awareness of the Spring Festival schedule of movies is influenced by traditional drama.

In the advertisement of Shenbao192265438+1October 22nd, Shihai specifically indicated that the lunar calendar will be shown on the 26th and 27th nights. In fact, the oath of the sea was also shown on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eleventh, twelfth and third days of the first month.

Other filmmakers also responded to the final formation and strengthening of this schedule awareness. For example, the Shanghai Grand Theatre published huge advertisements for two western films, The Shadow of the Hotel and The Secret Lightning, in Shenbao192265438+1October 23rd (the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month): "With the firecrackers, the earth has taken on a new look. Congratulations to all walks of life for their great development and progress in the new year. Therefore, two famous plays are specially shown tonight, wishing all circles a happy New Year. From the beginning of the New Year's Day, daily performances will be added every day, and new films will be replaced every day. " This New Year's Day refers to the first day of the first month of the Lunar New Year. Among them, Secret Lightning is a detective film, and Hotel Shadows is a romantic film. Since then, this expression of "Happy New Year" has been seen in advertisements of other cinemas from time to time. However, during this period, the title of the "New Year's Film" still did not appear, because the "New Year's Film" only showed comedies.

The strengthening of the awareness of the Spring Festival is more obvious in that many domestic films premiered during the Spring Festival. The following are incomplete statistics of domestic films premiered during the Spring Festival of 1922- 1949:

New year's day spring festival

1922 Yan

1923 Zhang Xinsheng

1924 "Orphans Save the Ancestors" and "Evil Tide"

1930 "adult country"

193 1 year, wild grass and idle flowers, the dutiful son of robbers, the red peony and screen history of Song Maid.

1934 the fire of youth, salt tide, life, jane doe stars, return, sister flowers, time flies, love and duty.

1935 Hua Fei Village, Goddess, Road, Regenerated Flowers, Legend of Red Sheep, Wedding Eve, New Woman and Cymbidium sinense.

1936 boatman, victory song and candlelight night

1937 Hello everyone, Tomb-Sweeping Day, lucky money, spring coming to the world, awesome words, all love and midnight songs.

1939 The King of Chu, The Good Earth and Pink Float

194 1 year, Yanmenguan, a story of an apricot coming out of the wall, a singer, gone with the wind and a career in distress situation.

1942 "princess of iron fan" and "congratulations on making a fortune"

1943 the song of a beautiful woman, free and unfettered virtue, fair maiden, mother, lovers, love tide, peaches and plums as spring, green grass as blood, heartbroken romantic.

1944 He Rijun comes again, Yi Haien, Qiu Ji, Dont Ask For Help, husband and wife live in harmony.

Feng Huang Yu Fei 1945

1946 coming to Wan Li and returning to my hometown.

1948 Simitu and the dream of joining the army

1949 Twelve Hours of Miracle and Happiness

⑵ Combination of Chinese and Western.

China's domestic films appeared in the Spring Festival movie market, which broke the situation that foreign films dominated the market. It is worth noting that domestic films pay more attention to the real society, and often take what happened in the real society as the creative material. For example, Yan and Zhang Xinsheng were created with two major cases that happened in Shanghai that year as the background. Most foreign films are far from the real world.

(3) Various types, "mixed sadness and joy".

During the Spring Festival, movies released during this period include almost all types of feature films, as well as current affairs documentaries. In foreign films, comedies and detective films are the main ones, and comedies are those of Zhuo Bilin, Laurie, Hatay and Roque. These comedies are required by type theory, a New Year movie, but there are also some tragic films such as Tears of Flowers and Brave Women. And the attendance rate is good. The types of domestic films are more diverse, such as romance films, butterfly lovers, martial arts films, burning red lotus temple, women in wild rivers, horror films, midnight songs, social ethics films, orphans to save their ancestors, people's hearts, evil tides, goddesses, lucky money, street angels, science fiction films, adult countries and so on. The proportion of comedies in domestic films is not large, among which the most prominent ones are Naughty Boy, Naughty Monster Theater, Mr. Wang Going to the Countryside, Happy Everyone, Congratulations on Making a Rich, He is My Brother, and Dream of Joining the Army. The main actors are Langen Han, Guan Hongda, Yin Xiucen and others. But when foreign films are combined with domestic films, the proportion of comedies is still quite large, and there are many comedies every year.

The situation of "bittersweet" exists from beginning to end in Pre-History, Germination and Development. The pre-History and Germination are mainly dramas with bittersweet feelings, because the film industry in China was not very developed during 1896- 192 1 year. After 1922, the film was influenced by drama, and the schedule consciousness was enhanced (note that the schedule consciousness here is more about the concept of commercial time than the concept of culture), and naturally accepted the characteristics of traditional drama in the Spring Festival schedule.

(4) Pay attention to reality and be greatly influenced by society. It is manifested in the following aspects:

A. the authenticity of the subject matter.

As mentioned earlier, the difference between Chinese New Year films and foreign films is that they pay more attention to realistic themes (note that the meaning of Chinese New Year films here is different from that of "type theory", which only refers to comedy), which has become a major creative idea of Chinese New Year films and continues to this day;

B. Formation and popularization of Spring Festival travel rush timetable.

The earliest traditional dramas did not have a Spring Festival schedule, but were replaced by "boxing" and "opening a stage". Later, a breakthrough was made, and the Spring Festival schedule was formed. During the Spring Festival, movies and entertainment were also shown, but at first it was limited to the traditional Spring Festival, that is, from the end of the twelfth lunar month to the fifteenth day of the first month. It was not until the middle and late embryonic period of the New Year's film that the time around New Year's Day of the Gregorian calendar was gradually included in the "schedule", which was closely related to the Gregorian calendar era of the Republic of China since 19 12. Because the social reality at that time was that the national consciousness paid more attention to the Gregorian calendar era, the lunar calendar was gradually called "old calendar" and "abandoned calendar", and gradually lost its previous exclusive position. The first day of the Gregorian calendar also began to share some functions of the traditional Spring Festival, which made people's holiday mentality spread from the first day of the Gregorian calendar to the end of the Lunar New Year, thus forming a "Spring Festival schedule" based on this. It is worth noting that due to the influence of western festival culture, the schedule of the Spring Festival is still changing, starting from Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (Gregorian calendar 65438+February 24 and 25), and even breaking the boundary of 65438+February 24-for example, the premiere date of "Big Man" is 65438+February 24, 2002. The formation and popularization of Spring Festival travel rush's agenda is the result of social changes.

Of course, although the Spring Festival travel rush timetable has been formed, there is no such title as "Spring Festival travel rush timetable".

C. the content is deeply influenced by social changes.

The most obvious example is that the New Year's film was deeply influenced by the social situation during the "Anti-Japanese War": 1937, China released "Top Gun", "Refuse to steal against the enemy and make a living by desperate means"; 1938 was burned to Shanghai because of the Japanese war of aggression against China, and there was no New Year film at all. 1938. By the time the Japanese army captured Shanghai and gradually controlled it, there were even movies released by the Japanese army during the Spring Festival in Shanghai, such as Night in zhina (also known as Spring Dream), Night in Suzhou, Princess Garland, Angry Sea, Hot Wind, Bloody Sky and One-eyed Politics.

5] Stars join in.

This is not the inevitable result of the Spring Festival movie screening, but an existing phenomenon. Not only during the Spring Festival, but also in other periods, China movies are influenced by the foreign movie star system, so make full use of the star effect to get a better box office. During this period, such as, Dan, Zheng Qiuzheng, Zheng Xiaoqiu, Wei Bang,,, Ruan, Zhou Huan, Hu Die, Zhao Dan and others appeared in the films scheduled for the Spring Festival, but different from the star reunion, the New Year greeting form was * * *.

4. 1950 —— 1994 "New Year's Film Shrinking Period"

1950, 195 1 year, we can still see the shadow of the development period of New Year's films. For example, in the 12th issue of Popular Movies 1950, there was an advertisement that "China won the lottery, funny elites came out together, and funny faces were all mobilized, and a funny blockbuster' Seventy-two Tenants' was released".

From 1952 to 1983, the New Year films almost disappeared. If measured in a broad sense, that is, the films released during the Spring Festival are almost all films aimed at political propaganda, with the only exception of Two Years. 1956 Spring Festival and 1957 Spring Festival have two special "Spring Festival gifts". The Spring Festival Evening first recorded 1955' s achievements in industrial construction and agricultural cooperative movement. War heroes, model workers in industry and agriculture, and celebrities on the cultural front who liberated Yijiangshan Island will also meet the audience in this film. The "Factory" also specially invited many famous actors to perform wonderful programs, including Mei Lanfang's Cosmic Front, Zhou's Four Sons, Wang He and Xu Yulan's The Story of Yue Opera in Spring, and Xin He Hou's crosstalk. There is also a new opera "Song of the Grassland" performed by the Central Experimental Opera House in 1955. At the end of the film is the chorus "March to Socialism", which eulogizes the infinitely beautiful socialist prospect of our motherland. "

The Spring Festival Gala is more like CCTV Spring Festival Gala that we are used to today. There have been some changes in "Happy New Year" in 1957. 1957 pointed out in the first issue of Popular Movies that "Happy New Year" is a documentary film to celebrate the Spring Festival, which mainly records some wonderful fragments of various excellent plays and song programs. When this new year comes, it will bring us joy and happiness! "It can be inferred from this introduction that the literary elements in the New Year are heavier.

With the changes of the times, from 65438 to 0983, non-political propaganda films returned to the Spring Festival schedule, such as The Adventure of the Magician, Xi De's in-laws, Thirty-nine Steps in Britain and The Story of Yinjiro in Japan. The Story of Yinjiro was shown as a New Year's film in Japan, so we can even think that the Story of Yinjiro was the earliest New Year's film introduced to China. Three kinds of films were shown in the Spring Festival that year: color documentaries, science and education films and feature films.

Generally speaking, the "atrophy period" has the following characteristics:

(1) The agenda consciousness drops, the business consciousness disappears, and it is replaced by the political consciousness.

(2) New Year films are almost extinct, and the only films released during the Spring Festival are limited to political propaganda films. But the New Year's consciousness has not completely disappeared, so it is "shrinking". In the later period of atrophy, the consciousness of Chinese New Year returned again.

5.1995-Up to now, "the exploration period of New Year's film"

China's films have experienced a hundred years, and Chinese mainland's New Year's films have also experienced the changes of "pre-history", "germination", "development" and "atrophy". Since 1995 first introduced the "Red Pink Zone" in the name of "New Year's Film", Chinese mainland's New Year's Film has entered the "exploration period", and its situation has been described earlier. This period has the following characteristics:

(1) The agenda (business) consciousness has returned, while the political consciousness has faded.

⑵ It was called Spring Film for the first time in the name of New Year Film.

⑶ There is disagreement on "What is the New Year film", which directly affects the commercial box office. Therefore, this period is the exploration period of New Year's film, which aims to solve the problem of "what kind of film should a New Year's film be" and finally produce a "New Year's film" that is accepted by the public and has a good box office.

(d) Review the timetable theory from the conclusion.

Looking at the film history during the Spring Festival, we can draw a conclusion.

Conclusion 1: The name of "New Year's Film" did not appear in Chinese mainland. Even if it did, it refers to postcards used to celebrate the New Year, not today's "New Year's Film". This also gives us an inspiration: the word "Happy New Year" can be combined with other words, meaning something that can be used to celebrate the New Year, such as "Happy New Year drama" and "Happy New Year novel", referring to TV dramas and novels used to celebrate the New Year, just like movies are used to celebrate the New Year.

Conclusion 2: In the long years, although the word "New Year's film" does not refer to today's New Year's film, it has a very obvious awareness of the Spring Festival schedule. This kind of schedule awareness originated from China's traditional drama, not the product of European and American film market concepts, but we believe that European and American cultures have a great influence on it during its development. For example, the expansion of the Spring Festival schedule we discussed earlier can be regarded as the influence of European and American cultures on the Spring Festival schedule of China movies.

Conclusion 3: There are various types of movies released during the Spring Festival, including tragedy, comedy and drama.

Conclusion 4: Real New Year films should be based on social collective psychology, not political consciousness. New Year's film is a product of social collective psychology in commercial form, not an accessory of politics, unless politics at that time only represents social collective psychology. If we only regard it as a non-public political propaganda tool rather than a cultural projection of public opinion, it will shrink. The public opinion here is extensive, that is, all public psychology, or social collective psychology.

Looking back on the scheduling theory with these four conclusions, it seems that the proposition that "all New Year films are released during the Spring Festival" is more in line with the original intention of history. However, we still have a few questions: how did the name of the New Year film come into being? What does this name have to do with all the movies shown in the Spring Festival? If New Year's films refer to all the films released during the Spring Festival, why do they tend to be comedies?

Let's put these questions aside and review typology.