Spring Silkworm is adapted from Mao Dun's novel Spring Silkworm.
Spring Silkworm, adapted from Mao Dun's novel of the same name, is one of Mao Dun's "Rural Trilogy". It was first published in the first issue of Modern Volume 2 in November 1932, and was later published in Kaiming Bookstore in May 1933. The creative inspiration of "Spring Silkworm" comes from a news in the newspaper that "there was a bumper harvest of spring silkworms in eastern Zhejiang this year, and silkworm farmers went bankrupt one after another". The work is based on the water town in the south of the Yangtze River, with sericulture as the main line. It describes the tense and hard work of the silkworm farmer Lao Tongbao's family, which won an unprecedented harvest of spring silkworms, but instead became indebted and sold land, resulting in a "white loss of mulberry fields with fifteen loads of leaves and a debt of thirty dollars". It reflects the cruel social reality of rural economic depression and farmers' bumper harvest in the early 193s. The works not only have a true description of reality, but also show the decline history of modern rural areas in China from the perspective of an old farmer through Lao Tongbao's memories of his past.
Brief introduction of Mao Dun:
Mao Dun was originally named Shen Dehong, and his pen names are Mao Dun, Lang Dama, Xuanzhu, Fang Bi, Zhi Jing, Pu Lao, Wei Ming, Shen Zhongfang, Shen Mingfu, etc., whose name is Yan Bing, and he is from Tongxiang City, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. China is a modern writer, literary critic, cultural activist and social activist. Mao Dun was born in a family with novel ideas and received a new education since childhood. He was admitted to Peking University Preparatory School and worked in the Commercial Press after graduation. Since then, he has embarked on the road of reforming China's literature and art. He is a pioneer of the New Culture Movement and one of the founders of China's revolutionary literature and art. Mao Dun is also an excellent calligrapher. Its word layout is meticulous and rigorous, its brushwork is refined and subtle, elegant and elegant, and it seems to be based on the thin gold body. However, in fact, it is learned from the Epitaph of Dong Meiren, from which Mao Dun takes its beauty and firmness, thus giving people a clear and refreshing feeling, while the middle palace is tight, the lines are elegant, slender and not weak, and the show is quite elastic.
significance and influence of "Spring Silkworm":
The biggest gain of "Spring Silkworm" is to shape the image of Lao Tongbao. From Lao Tongbao's industrious and simple character, we can see the soul of workers; From his stubborn opposition to change, to foreign devils, foreign goods, foreign waterwheels and even to changing foreign silkworm eggs, we can also see the backward and narrow concept of small producers caused by ultra-stable economy.
Through the description of the abnormal phenomenon that the harvest of silkworm in the rural areas in the south of the Yangtze River turned into a disaster in the early 193s, the novel reveals the social roots of this tragedy: imperialist economic aggression, exploitation by landlords and usurers, and exorbitant taxes and levies by the national government, which truly reflects the economic bankruptcy of the rural areas in the south of the Yangtze River and the tragic fate of silkworm farmers at that time. The novel has successfully created the images of an industrious, simple and old-fashioned peasant named Lao Tongbao, and a new generation of peasant named Lao Tongbao who is optimistic and enterprising and dares to think and resist. By comparing the old and new generations in rural areas of China, it declared the disillusionment of the traditional life of the old generation of peasants and pointed out the inevitable trend of rural development in old China. In art, the novel shows the characters' personalities well with delicate psychological descriptions and vivid details. The description of various customs and habits of sericulture activities in rural areas in the south of the Yangtze River is also very vivid and detailed, with a strong local flavor.
The artistic conception of "Spring Silkworm" focuses on the silkworm activities in order to win the bumper harvest of spring silkworm, and the ending of the bumper harvest is concise and neat. When describing silkworm activities, the author also inserted noisy and subtle personnel disputes. This kind of contradiction and entanglement in the works does not affect the outcome of the silkworm harvest and disaster. But it enlarges the life and thought of the work. The characters and personalities are planned in many aspects, which enhances the life spirit of the works. In the description of silkworm activities, nervous fighting and uneasy mind are the keynote throughout the whole article. But there are also some relaxed scenes with rich rural flavor. The author's careful layout, lack of sudden thoughts, rigorous and varied structure, and strong contrast between the hardships of winning a bumper harvest and the disastrous ending of a bumper harvest have produced unexpected and thought-provoking artistic effects.
Spring Silkworm is the first time that a new literary work after the May 4th Movement has been put on the screen in China films, which can be said to be a symbol of the transition of China films. The May 4th New Culture Movement undertakes the dual historic tasks of salvation and enlightenment, and the theme of Spring Silkworm clearly embodies this feature. The prologue of the film generally expounds that China, a traditional silk exporting country, once created the famous Silk Road in the history of East-West traffic due to the dumping of Japanese rayon in Britain and the United States and its import to China. Now the silk factory has closed down and sericulture has withered. At the end of the film, the old Tongbao family is facing the crisis of bankruptcy in the year of cocoon harvest, which vividly illustrates this theme. The film deeply sympathizes with the plight of farmers in China, such as Lao Tongbao and others, and reveals and criticizes their conservatism, backwardness, ignorance and superstition, which contains cultural enlightenment. Salvation and enlightenment, or anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, are the motifs of the May 4th new culture.
The innovation of "Spring Silkworm" in the film history of China depends largely on the plays. In the 192s, with a few exceptions, such as Hong Shen, people in China made movies without literary scripts and story board, and the popular blueprint for shooting was a simple screen.
The scene list includes four contents:
The number of scenes (i.e. the number of scenes), the scenes (interior and exterior scenes), the characters on the scene and the main plot.
The screen has no lines, no description of character and environment, and it is entirely up to the actors and directors to play. According to this rough screen, it is difficult to ask for detailed characterization and environmental atmosphere, mainly to tell a story clearly through the lens. "Spring Silkworm" and a batch of film literary scripts that appeared at the same time greatly strengthened the literary foundation of the film and played an important role in promoting the quality of China film art. China's traditional narrative art attaches importance to plot and legend. Most of China's films are dramatic in structure, and tend to extend time rather than expand space. "Spring Silkworm" faced the social reality at that time, and its play tended to be prosaic in structure, with a detailed description of the background of the times and life scenes, and a multi-faceted exploration of the relationship between characters. It is not won by the twists and turns of the plot, but by the profundity of connotation and the precision of narration, which has quite high literary value. The appearance of a number of works, such as "Spring Silkworm", has made China's films look brand-new.
The realistic aesthetic pursuit of film plays also brings new artistic qualities to film directors and film performances. A silkworm room was set up in the studio, and the whole process of silkworm growth was displayed on the screen by means of interval shooting and melting. The rural scenery with small bridges and flowing water strives to be realistic. For the first time, the film uses a tracking lens to enhance the sense of movement and reveal the inner world of the characters. The actors rehearse seriously, grasp the character deeply and have sincere feelings. It was very rare to have such innovative spirit and rigorous style in those days. Perhaps because this series of innovations in the film is too "advanced", the film's business performance is not good.