Today, the rise of Pingyao, FIRST and other domestic film festivals (exhibitions), the “old-fashioned powerhouse” Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers may be the time to review the history, sum up their own changes over the years, recognize the right and wrong, and look forward to the future.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Film Information Service” (ID: Dianyingqingbaochu), the author circle pill.
At the end of the year, the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Festival was opened. This year is an odd number of years, so it is necessary to issue various Golden Rooster awards. However, the merger of Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers has been 15 years old. The public has long been confused about the specific evaluation mode of the two. It is only possible to remember that the Golden Rooster Award is a professional judges selection, and the Hundred Flowers Award is a vote for the audience.
But the development of the film content, the “taste” of the professional judges and the general audience has gradually unified for various reasons, which also caused the Golden Rooster Baihua to be awarded the next year, but the winners have a strong repeatability. There are also many people in the industry who have begun to question the Golden Rooster Hundred Flowers Award, especially the professionalism of the Golden Rooster Award, and believe that it has not enough credibility.
In the rise of Pingyao, FIRST and other domestic film festivals (exhibitions), the “old-fashioned powerhouse” Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers may be the time to review the history, summarize their own changes over the years, and recognize the right and wrong. future.
Origin: “Song of the Chicken” for Socialism
In the fall of 1980, the Film Association’s party organization expansion meeting was held in Xishan, Beijing. Although it is a “party organization meeting”, the atmosphere is particularly relaxed and comfortable. After all, in that year, the box office income was quite high, and local finances could be divided into millions of cultural budgets from film distribution, and the national audience exceeded 20 billion. Such a good result, which leader is not happy.
In order to continue to encourage the creative passion of film practitioners and the enthusiasm of the audience, the meeting decided to restart the Hundred Flowers Awards, which have been neglected for 20 years, from next year (1981), so that the people can choose their favorite. film. On the other hand, many people in the film association believe that in order to complement the Hundred Flowers Award, an excellent film award should be set up by professionals. It is impossible to let those “good movies” with excellent quality but low popularity be buried. It is.
This suggestion coincides with the views of the famous screenwriter, then the president of the Film Association, Xia Yan, and the famous writer and then the deputy minister of the Ministry of Culture. Combined with China’s national conditions, two types of awards can more fully reflect the comprehensiveness of cultural development.
Xia Yan (left) and Chen Waste Coal (right)
On the other hand, the Film Association considered that in 1981, it was the Lunar New Year of the Rooster, and the relatives of General Ye Ting collected the treasures of Premier Wen Enlai in the 1940s, and named the professional jury. The Golden Rooster Award, everyone feels “as if Premier Zhou is paying attention to the creation of this award.”
In the first release of the “China Film Golden Rooster Awards Regulations”, we can see that “Golden Rooster is a symbol of a hundred schools of thought” and “film workers are screaming and dancing, and striving for the prosperity and development of socialist film creation in China” Sexual text. All in all, the Golden Rooster Award, which is known as a professional, has a strong “Chinese socialism” color from the beginning.
So it is not difficult for us to understand why the first few sessions of the Golden Rooster Awarded the best feature films to the “Bashan Night Rain”, “Tianyun Mountain Legend”, “Man to Middle Age”, “Wild Mountain” and other content on reflection and satire. The ten-year film, because the society needed to carry forward a “new force” to encourage the situation of the future.
Xie Jin’s masterpiece, “Tianyun Mountain Legend” stills
However, at the artistic level, “socialism” and “professionalism” are by no means two contradictory concepts. The award-winning films of the Golden Rooster Award, as well as directors and actors, were not questioned at the time of film professionalism.
“The six parents do not recognize, only recognize the work”
The Golden Rooster Award has carefully studied the practice of many important foreign film awards, including Oscar, Golden Palm, Golden Bear Award, Golden Lion Award, etc., summing up the useful experience abroad and promoting the development and improvement of Chinese film.
In particular, the “China Film Golden Rooster Awards Regulations”, after many discussions and expert opinions, was able to determine the “academic, contention, democracy” policy. At the time, the jury’s strict charter selection process and the spirit of “the six parents did not recognize, only recognize the works; promote democracy and take care of the overall situation” became the fame of the Golden Rooster Award when they were created, and they immediately surpassed the Baihua Awards. The key factor in the Golden Horse Awards Chamber of Resistance.
The fifth-generation director that fans are now most recognized is also the beneficiary of the Golden Rooster Award. The yellow land of Chen Kaige’s “Yellow Land” was not in the Baihua Awards, but the Golden Rooster Award was dedicated to it.