Analysis of Yan Nanfei's Audiovisual Language

Einar 2022-01-18 08:01:23

I never think there is "pure art". To talk about movies, we must talk about the politics and history of the time. Therefore, no matter what kinds of movies are analyzed, we should start from the background of the times.

In 1953, the Soviet Union’s supreme leader Stalin passed away, and the Soviet Union’s continued high-pressure policy came to an end. In 1956, Khrushchev became the supreme leader of the Soviet Union. All kinds of brutality, in today's view, this is probably the seeds of the final collapse of the Soviet Union, because the internal part of Soviet socialism has begun to tear, and an earthquake has occurred in the left-wing camp of the world. However, the political crisis led to the innovation and development of art. During this period, new directors and new aesthetics emerged in Soviet films. In later studies of film theory, films at this stage were called "Thawing Films."

The Nazis fought a war against the Soviet Union for ideological destruction and genocide during World War II. The severity of the war was unprecedented in human history. Twenty million Soviets died on the Eastern Front. This tragic memory of the war became the Soviet Union. The national memory passed down by the people from generation to generation has been continuously told by Soviet filmmakers in various ways. During the postwar period of Stalin’s administration, Soviet films were created with strong political propaganda methods such as socialist ideology, epic sense, and heroism. However, in the period of freezing, the second generation of Soviet films showed a kind of conflict. Previously different humanitarian and lyrical aesthetics, "Goose Nanfei" was the first to bear the brunt. Its prose and poetic audio-visual language not only influenced Tarkovsky's "Ivan's Childhood", but also became one of the fourth generation of Chinese directors. example.

The plot of "Goose Nanfei" was very old-fashioned, but the storytelling method was very new at the time. As a writer whose name I can't remember said: all the stories after Shakespeare are old-fashioned, there is no new story, but there are New lips.

Below, I will select ten shots to discuss Karatozov's conscious construction of camera elements and angles.

First of all, in the first scene of the film, a man and a woman are playing in the scene, and then the two walk away joyfully, while the camera rises, staring at the two leaving backs from a slightly downward angle. In this single segment of the shot, the height of the camera is basically level with the shoulders of the actor and rises into the air, and the angle is always slightly bent. This shooting method is often used to express the magnificence of epic films, but in this shot there are only a pair of ordinary lovers. Such an unconventional approach is a manifestation of the director's focus on personal care. In this way, the full heart of the character is presented. Although it is only a pair of ordinary lovers, the feelings are magnificent and full in the heart of the character. The last overhead shot in mid-air also implies that the person is small in front of the times. It is the whole movie. The expression of the unstoppable influence of war on individuals in the film.

Secondly, in the famous sprinkler section, a large-angle overhead shot was used in the higher mid-air. After the sprinkler passed by, Boris hid in the shadow of a tall building, and Veronica Then under the bursting sunlight. In this passage, Karatozov consciously uses camera positions and angles to match the light and shadow, creating our visual "yin and yang separation" and putting the fate of Boris's "meaningless death" cage.

Furthermore, the first family dinner in the film appeared in the farewell Boris. The camera chose a shoulder-length camera and used a flat light to visually have a sense of balance and tranquility, suggesting that the family order is still maintained at this time. A kind of harmony.

Furthermore, the second family gathering occurred when my cousin decided to marry Veronica. The camera turned into a low-camera and large-angle overhead shot. With the light and shadow similar to German expressionism, the dinner looked very good. Discord, there is a shaky gesture, the father’s expression is serious, he was deliberately photographed bigger than the others, and the light source is located above the cousin and Veronica, illuminating the two, thus deliberately highlighting the father. -The three of cousin and Veronica, and then a direct conflict broke out. ,

Furthermore, the scene of Boris's meaningless death later became a classic example of the Soviet montage school. Lyric montage replaced juggling montage, and "Goose Nanfei" was also a pioneer of the new poetic expression of Soviet films. In this paragraph, an extremely exaggerated 360-degree pan is used, and the sky and the birch forest are directly shot up at 90 degrees. The high-speed rotation causes a strong dizziness. This process was taken by Caratozo. The husband extended it poetically, and then transferred it to a staircase with the same rotating structure, and reproduced Boris's flow of consciousness like a glimmer of light with the camera. It is the integration of extremely opposed elements such as happiness and destruction, survival and death, justice and evil in the continuous film space.

Furthermore, in the passage where Veronica is about to commit suicide, a low-camera, large-angle upward shot is used, and the character and the camera move forward at high speed together, creating a visual illusion that the fence as the foreground moves backwards. , Is a kind of "regression of the world", and extreme large elevation angle shooting of characters, with flexible and changeable follow-up camera positions, high-speed editing of the lens, creating an impactful visual effect, showing the world of Veronica Collapse.

Once again, Veronica chose to shoot with the rocker arm in the farewell passage to Boris. The camera was set shoulder-to-shoulder and the angle was flat. Following Veronica through the turbulent crowd, the camera was planned to be part of the farewell team. A pair of eyes follow Veronica closely, but they are blocked by different people, and this is just like the anxious situation that Veronica seeks for her lover, but in this long shot, the camera takes the human perspective. Shuttle back and forth to show the forced separation of soldiers and relatives at the beginning of the war, which provides full emotion for the film.

Once again, there were two scenes in the film where Veronica called to ask if she had her letter. The first time was when Boris had just left, and the second time was after her cousin married. Karatozov was filming this. For the same event in the film, the same mid-range shot was used, but different camera positions and angles were set; the first time you called, the camera was shoulder-to-shoulder shooting, and the second time you called, it was high camera overhead. Obviously, Veronica was already in despair during the second call, and the overhead shot can show that she has fallen into a dilemma of a terrible assumption of the death of her lover and self-moral condemnation.

Once again, at the end of the movie, the tracing passage at Veronica Station, the camera once again traverses the inside and outside of the train in a shoulder-to-shoulder manner. The same as the above shot, it is a perspective that simulates the crowd and forms an intertextuality with the farewell shot. The farewell scenes have diametrically opposite emotions. Using the same photographic technique to express different emotions can play a role in strengthening the theme.

In the end, in the end of the film, when Veronica learns that her lover is dead and a wild goose is flying in the sky, the camera chooses a mid-air overhead shot. The camera follows Veronica standing in the crowd, and then keeps rising. And the overhead angle is getting bigger and bigger, and finally as Veronica disappears in the crowd, it fades to black and ends the whole film. This shot is full of humanitarian spirit, with a redeeming religious perspective, and forms an intertextuality with the upwards overhead shot at the beginning, as if nothing has happened before, it is a kind of reflexive war.

At this point, the analysis of the camera position of the film photography has ended. This film, which seems ordinary today, is one of the earliest pioneers of humanitarian reflection on the war after World War II. This is exactly the film in the thawing period. An important feature: "Debunk war and face humanity."

View more about The Cranes Are Flying reviews

Extended Reading
  • Eulalia 2022-03-23 09:03:04

    In the use of light, specific positions, actions, behaviors, people, what a rare piece of work that uses light to arrange deployment, she saw that after the home was bombed, only the "clock" remained, which means that time cannot be turned back. Literary concepts allude to influence, strong visual impact to reflect inner feelings.

  • Barrett 2022-03-28 09:01:11

    This movie is a poem. The breathtaking movement of mirrors, light and shadow, and editing endow the film with a sense of rhythm, creating the "big strings are noisy like rain, small strings are like whispers. For example, when the heroine returns home, she sees a pair of pendulums swaying on the ruins of a broken bell ("Bingquan is cold and astringent"), so she covers her ears ("Condensation will never pass the sound and pause for a while"), "At this time. Silent is better than sound", not to mention the blown-up passages of sacrifice, loss, suicide, farewell, etc. Such a sense of rhythm is ultimately about lyricism - the level of emotional nuance of the characters in this film pales all language, so the technics (movements, lighting, editing) add (similar) elements of music and dance to the entire narrative. PS I (contrary to the mainstream opinion in Guiban) think the ending is good. The heroine's mental journey is also the epitome of war: she has to face not only death and chaos, but also reconstruction on the ruins. In this sense, it is a very atmospheric treatment for the heroine to stop at licking the wound at the end.

The Cranes Are Flying quotes

  • [first lines]

    Boris: Wait, squirrel! Here. Put it on.

  • Fyodor Ivanovich: Stop it this minute! You're a still a soldier in the Red Army! Are you trying to get discharged? Are you afraid we'll heal your hands and send you back to the front?

    A patient in the infirmary: No, Doctor, he's not like that. He got a letter.

    Fyodor Ivanovich: I know. That's just an excuse. Big deal! So your bride ran off. You should be glad! She isn't worth a penny if she would trade a handsome guy like you, a real hero, for some rat sitting out the war at home! It's she who's forfeit her happiness, not you! And that's what she deserves. She's got a petty soul. People like her can't understand how much suffering we've gone through. You stood up to death itself. You looked death in the face. You approached it with your chest stuck out. And she couldn't even pass the little test of time. Woman like her deserve only your contempt. There can be no forgiveness for them!