Chapter 81 There are cottages under the sun

When participating in a program on Hunan Satellite TV's "Lengdianfengyun" related to the topic of "shanzhai", Hong Huang talked about her initial understanding of "shanzhai": "'Shanzhai' means imitation and plagiarism!" Compared with other people's understanding of Shanzhai - "Shanzhai is DIY", "Shanzhai is a rebellion against the temple", Hong Huang's understanding is more straightforward.However, measured by this standard, the history of human literature and art is actually a history of copycats.After becoming a diehard fan of David Lynch, unfortunately seeing Bergman again, I suddenly realized that there were precedents for that color, that spirit, and that smell; after watching "Midnight Ring", Unfortunately, I saw Stephen King's "Carrie" again, and I realized that the stunning white-clothed Sadako Yamamura was just the second half of the life of Carrie, the originator of supernatural powers, not to mention Akira Kurosawa and many Chinese blockbusters. Ambiguous relationships, life-and-death love stories all over the world, and countless revenge movies.Sometimes, "shanzhai" has a more pleasant name: a tribute. Brigitte Lin's blond hair in "Chongqing Forest" was originally a tribute to "Gloria", and Sabu's "Stealing Letters" pays tribute to the blond Brigitte Lin.So endlessly, from generation to generation.In the life related to the screen, there are also "copycats" from time to time. Li Kangsheng is just Cai Mingliang's copycat Antoine.

Not only in movies, but in other fields, the cottage spirit is also shining brightly.Painters establish genres, establish painting styles, and issue collective declarations, all for the purpose of making imitation more justified.Recently, I was reading Mr. Huang Lushan's "History of American Popular Fiction", and found that this is almost a history of "cottage".American popular novels for hundreds of years, from seduction novels, romance novels, western novels, gothic novels to social exposure novels and horror novels, all have their own ways, plot frameworks are ready-made, and character images are conventional.Each story is the same as the previous one. All the author needs to do is to change the geographical environment, customs details, and the psychological activities of the characters. A writer who has written 90 romance novels in sixty years, comes and goes, writes All of them are stories of Cinderella and the Rich Young Master, and they are always best-sellers.Some people wrote a few best-selling books, and then they began to be arrogant, trying to go beyond, blurring the characteristics of genre novels, reforming routines, and immediately encountered a blow from the market, and had to come back obediently and continue to write stories that could never be wrong again.

Is the story already told?Do all creators just struggle in an invisible paper shackle, but think that they can still seek innovation and change?Such worries have been raised since Shakespeare's time.But humans are still centipedes who are dead but not stiff, and have managed to tell the story for hundreds of years. Not only the works, but the behavior of the creators are also "copying" each other.John Maxwell Hamilton satirizes how writers dress at certain times in Casabano Is a Bookworm: "For many years, the British style dominated fashion. The normative institutions of higher education should all climb like Oxford. High walls covered with ivy, the standard image of a writer should look like walking on muddy ground, they should wear tweed coats, and if they are men, they should have a pipe." See this text , helps us understand why directors are always furious on the set, and always have ambiguous relationships with queen actresses, and why rock and roll youths must have long hair.

The "Bible" says: "What has been done will be done again, and what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun." If you package this word in a more spirit of the times, you can say: "There is nothing new under the sun." They are all copycats."