Since the birth of film, there have been film scholars, creators, and artists to develop the expression of film. If we regard the film as an organic whole, then the shot is the basic element of the film, and the splicing of the shot is also the editing, which is the organic combination of the elements. It is the shot that expresses the information and the editing that tells the story.
long shoot
Since the birth of film, there have been film scholars, creators, and artists to develop the expression of film. If we regard the film as an organic whole, then the shot is the basic element of the film, and the splicing of the shot is the editing, which is the organic combination of the elements. In movies, it is the camera that expresses the information, and the editing that tells the story. Under the producer-centered system of Hollywood in the United States, in order to ensure that the film can finally meet the public's aesthetics and ensure profitability, the director is often deprived of the power of final editing. In this case, the lens becomes the director's expression of self-creation. The largest private plot.
In the history of film, since Eisenstein, Pudovkin, David Griffith and other filmmakers summed up and created the theory of montage, the long shot has always appeared as the opposite of montage. The source of French New Wave thought in the last century, film scholar Andre Bazin once pointed out: " Montage makes the film lose its authenticity. " And " the use of long shots, it is believed that only long shots can preserve the temporal and spatial continuity of objective existence. , and has the sufficient ability to coordinate the internal organization of the shot. " In general, the root of Bazin's theory is that "movie is the restoration of material reality." And long shots are the best expression of "material reality restoration". The best weapon of the movie's own will.
Compared with the montage stormy editing, there is no doubt that the difficulty of shooting a long shot is higher. Long-term rehearsal is required to achieve smooth scheduling of the scene, and even the density of information given is something that the director needs to consider. These above elements can be regarded as the basis for evaluating the quality of long lenses. Today, with the wide spread of the cinephile culture, there are former European art film directors, and more Hollywood directors are also showing off their skills on long shots.
According to the classification of long shots in the past, long shots are generally divided into " fixed long shots ", " panoramic deep long shots " and " sports long shots ". On this basis, I personally think that long shots can be divided into " industrial long shots ", " artistic long shots " and " craft long shots ".
The so-called " industrial long-shot ", I think, should be a long-shot method that can only be taken with the help of existing industrial technology according to the specific narrative needs of the film and the director's self-expression, such as in Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men". The terrifying 11-minute long shot of Clive Owen's journey through the battlefield, the long shot of the disaster in the opening scene of "Gravity". Even the long shot at the opening of "The Horse of Turin" by the master of the literary film Beratal, I personally think it can be attributed to the industrial long shot, which is brought about by the development of human industrial civilization. unattainable under technical conditions.
The second is the "artistic long shot". I think the emergence of this category is that filmmakers are breaking through or creating a new way of expressing film long shots, and they are doing 0 to 1. For example, Tarkovsky's long but artistically powerful long shot in "Nostalgia", Beratar's simple but outstanding audio-visual long shot in "The Whale Circus".
The third one is "craft long shot". This definition is rather vague. Maybe I didn't think about it for a while, so I defined it as a craft long shot. This is the film author's outstanding performance on the basis of the existing industrial technology. powerful lens. For example, in PTA's "The Blood Will Come", the long shot of everyone fighting fire after the oil well erupted, which achieved excellent results in scene scheduling and audio-visual shock.
To sum up, Sam Mendes' "1917" should belong to the "industrial long shot", a film that must be completed with the help of existing industrial technology. " One shot to the end " is still a film form in the final analysis, and this form should also serve the narrative. Otherwise, if Andy Warhol made "Empire Building", the whole story is 485 minutes, without any scheduling, without any narrative, so It doesn't make any sense to take a long shot.
Movie
As I said before, the difficulty of shooting a long shot is huge, and it is even more difficult to complete a movie in one shot. There was Sokolov's "Russian Ark" before and Inaritu's "Birdman", but in the "Birdman" filmed under the Hollywood technology system encountered much less difficulty in the filming process than Sokolov. Although "1917", which is also under the Hollywood technology system, enjoys the most advanced film technology system, the overall shooting difficulty is an order of magnitude higher than that of "Birdman", and the overall scene transformation difficulty is also higher than that of "I The five scenes "square position" → "front line" → "enemy position and tunnel" → "comrades killed and encounters with friendly troops" → "ruins defending the enemy" constitute the first shot of the whole film, (except for the "editing point" In one shot, from the open scene to the indoor trap crisis to the killing of comrades in arms, and finally to the encounter of friendly troops entering the ruins and then encountering a crisis event, all in one go. This is not only a problem for director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins, but also for a series of departments such as set, music, art, etc. The arrangement of the craters when crossing the battlefield, the placement of the corpses, the speed of the actors and the background The degree of coordination of the music needs to be a perfect fit. The first shot ends with George McKay being stunned, transitioning to complete darkness, then the second long shot begins with a stylized "Ruins of Burning Flare", then → "The Madonna of the Chamber" → "Escape from the Ruins" → "Floating Corpse in the River" → "Find the Troops" → "Notify the Frontline and Find the Brother-in-arms" → "Under the Tree" The movie ends, and the second long shot also ends. Compared with the first long shot, the audio-visual language of the second long shot is more shocking and the impact is stronger. Generally, the long shot of sports rarely shows a panoramic view during the follow-up process, but in the last scene of "1917", it is accompanied by English. The army charges horizontally, and the panoramic display of McKay's vertical movement through the crowd is not only sporty, but also more powerful.
The appearance of long shots is to serve the narrative. Throughout "1917", the story is still unfolded according to the process of "Jason looking for the Golden Fleece". "Jason" is the soldier played by McKay, and "The Golden Fleece" is the Find frontline troops and tell them to stop attacking. According to Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" "the adventure of a story often begins with a mistake", and the appearance of the Golden Fleece in "1917" was also caused by the misjudgment of the commander. And the Golden Fleece is not static in the movie. After Blake's sacrifice, the Golden Fleece added to look for Blake's brother. At this time, when the mission branched out, in order to meet the needs of long shots, Sam Mendes put Blake's brother in the frontline troops that needed to be notified, which reduced the difficulty of long shots and shortened the length of the film.
All war movies have only one core theme, that is, anti-war. Expressing the cruelty of war is one of the basic ways to express the theme. In completing such a difficult "one mirror to the end", Sam Mendes obviously did not have much energy to sublimate the theme, and only conveyed anti-war sentiment through cruelty. Due to the limitation of the long shot of the film format, there are not too many opportunities for the main actors to perform, but the scheduling of the scene has fully conveyed the feelings to the end of the film, and I myself burst into tears.
In general, "1917" is an extremely good film. In the upcoming awards season, I am very optimistic about this film winning the championship. 2020 is the year of the film. Among many excellent works, "1917" is nothing more than a shining star. .
Finally, everyone at home during the Chinese New Year, be sure to watch more good movies.
references:
Andre Bazin. "What is Movie" [M]. Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press,
Yang Yuanying. "Introduction to Film"[M]. Houlang Publishing House
Joseph Campbell. "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" [M]. Zhejiang People's Publishing House
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