Today's high-standard movies often make two different styles of posters when they are announced. One is for the public to see, and they often pile up characters crazily. The main selling point for an intuitive punch.
The main poster of this edition of "Murder on the Orient Express" (hereinafter referred to as "Orient Express") is also the same -
But often this kind of movie will also launch several versions of concept posters, which usually capture the core and make it rather obscure and interesting. And the concept poster of "East Express" is this -
At the first sight of embarrassing urine, it was simple, the killing method of one person and one knife was impressive... The official spoiler, the most deadly.
The subject of reasoning is often the subject that is most afraid of spoilers. After all, the main theme is suspense, and the reason why "East Express" dares to play like this is that it doesn't care about spoilers.
After all, the world's best-selling novel that has been remade four times basically doesn't need any more spoilers...
The powerful original works are the solid backing for the adaptation of the film. Since the publication of "East Express" for more than 80 years, generations of filmmakers have been enjoying it, which just proves that this is a gold mine.
I was looking forward to this adaptation, because one is Depp's former fan brother (emphasis on the word "before", although he gradually turned his way, but there is still a kind of honey that "the ex is doing well and he is happy") Juicy feelings), secondly, the look and feel of the trailer is good, and the photography, color tone, composition, and bgm are all online. But after watching it today, I found that these are still online, but after the baptism of the film, the impression is not as good as before.
Do not spit unhappiness:
1. Is this a group play? You meowingly told me this was a group show?
In 1974, "Murder on the Orient Express" was filmed for the first time, and European and American film circles had high hopes for it. A number of ace cast members joined in, and Sidney Lumet was also in charge.
Who is Sidney Lumet? You may not have heard his name, but it is estimated that you will not be unaware of his famous movie - "Twelve Angry Men".
Coupled with the golden lineup of popular superstars, it not only reflects the high expectations of the producers, but also summarizes the performance of the film.
Just imagine, a director who is extremely good at creating violent conflicts between characters in a confined space, coupled with a group of powerful actors, adapts a mystery novel, besides "group drama", what else can he promote?
Looking back at the novel itself, its author, "Queen of Reasoning" Agatha Christie (hereinafter referred to as "Grandma"), created the classic "island model" in the reasoning industry. The explanation is more complicated, but in short, "Famous Detective" This is how Conan plays.
Within a certain range, outline the personalities of a group of people and lay out clues. When someone is suddenly killed, the murderer must be among this group of people. What the detective needs to do is to investigate one by one, from a bunch of innocent faces, to locate the killer who committed the crime.
The grandmother, as the founder, came up with a shocking counter-routine in the self-created model.
I remember playing Three Kingdoms Killing when I was a child. I was drawn to be the lord. According to the routine, hidden traitors and loyal ministers were supposed to protect me and block the rebels for me. As a result, the other four gave me a knife one by one that day, and four drops of blood were directly deducted. Light.
I was blinded, and everyone was blinded. Then I turned the card and saw that except for me, the other four were rebels. There were no traitors or loyal ministers at all. He did this on purpose, to piss us off.
The story of "Murder on the Orient Express" is actually the grandma's anti-routine for herself, jumping out of the original logical framework, and the result is jaw-dropping: Do you think you are used to seeing a group of people catching one or two murderers? This time everyone is a murderer! how about it? Stupid ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
The core of "Dong Kuai" lies precisely in the group drama. Everyone was originally unrelated, but because of a murder case two years ago, their lives were changed, and they hated the same person, so they made an appointment together and voted for one person, one knife. Do "justice".
What's more dramatic is that they are not bad, but should they bear legal responsibility for killing a scum by murder? This is yet another paradox.
The motives of the twelve murderers, their inner conflicts, and legal paradoxes, plus the thrill and tension of the mystery novel itself. For any adaptation of "East Express", if it wants to be successful, a group show is essential.
But the new version of the group show, at least compared to the 74 version, is not a little bit worse.
1. Character settings, such as "The Widow" Herbard, "The Dead" Scott
Herbard is considered to be the most inked character among the 12 murderers. The new version is played by "First Generation Catwoman" Michelle Pfeiffer. As far as the current style is concerned, she is also the most dazzling character in the new version, although her acting skills There is nothing wrong with it, but the defeat is in the character design.
Compared to the old version, Herbard, played by Lauren Bacall, has a much weaker sense of existence in the new version. The old version of Mrs. Herbard is more like a middle-aged and elderly princess who is ill, and is very attractive. Tired, to put it bluntly is one thing B. But compared to the character's background, Herbard's identity is completely virtual, and it is actually the case behind the murder case - the most direct victim of the Armstrong kidnapping incident two years ago, who is related to the murdered little Daisy. Grandmother, former famous actress Linda Arden.
Although each of these twelve murderers has been hurt more or less by the kidnapping case, Linda Arden, who lost her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter one after another, is undoubtedly the one who was hurt the most. She deliberately explained her seclusion afterwards, but the clues that she sneaked into the Orient Express by pretending to be an American widow as a former Broadway actress was quite unexpected.
And the essence of the original story lies in this. The middle-aged woman who was the most stupid and sweet turned out to be the most injured person. It will be shocking. The characters are more charismatic than the plot, which is the main feature of this story.
The new version of Herbard has opened up a completely different way of performance. Compared to being silly, Michelle Pfeiffer's acting skills reveal a sense of air-conditioning and the sexy of a mature lady. At the end, she takes off her wig. Exposing withered and yellow hair, including the performance of holding a gun at himself at the end, is indeed of a high standard. But compared to the old version, it is always a little bit tasteless. After all, the interpretation of the new version abandons the strong contrast of the old version.
The old version of Linda Arden played someone else, because her image was very different from her own heart; and the new version is nothing more than a different form of coldness, whether it's Leng Yu in the first half, or Leng Grandma in the second half, cold Aura always looms over the character. Just as the contrast between fire and water is always stronger than the contrast between hot water and warm water, the former are two different things, while the latter are just different categories of the same thing. Michelle Pfeiffer's acting is superb, but it can't cover the mediocrity of the characters.
What's more, I don't know if I'm afraid that the audience can't understand the idea, there is also a scene where the deceased Scott teases Herbard, suggesting that they once had a grudge.
When it comes to Scott, the reason for the failure of its portrayal is the same as the character design, but Hubbard positioned the wrong role, and Scott positioned the wrong actor.
It is said that when the role was officially announced, Depp placed it at the top of the list, because although the quality of the movies Depp has participated in in recent years is not good, he is basically the protagonist, so the instinctive reaction, the role of Inspector Poirot must be him. Well, as a result, when the publicity photo of the cast came out half a year ago, not only was he not Poirot, but he was actually the dead person with the least sense of existence, and there was a "bed scene" for nearly an hour and a half [Forced face laughter]
If you think about it now, except for Inspector Poirot who is barely relied on, there is no role for Depp in the whole film, not to mention Scott, who is about sixty years old, calm and restrained, but extremely vicious in the underworld. .
Depp's popularity in recent years has not been as good as before, and his golden career as an actor was the success of "Pirates of the Caribbean" that brought him to the top, but now, he has almost become the next generation of bad movie kings to succeed Nicolas Cage, In addition to bad luck and poor management, it cannot be ruled out that there are its own factors.
Objectively speaking, Depp's play is narrow, and his two most popular styles are Captain Jack's sloppy pseudo-mother style, and the second is the ghostly gothic style tailored for him by Tim Burton. In short, they are weird. , and is good at expressing with facial expressions and exaggerated body language. The introverted and calm characters rarely try and do not leave much impression on people.
This was not the case with Depp in the early days. He tried to be a multi-faceted model and produced excellent works such as "A Different Sky", but he has rarely challenged himself in recent years. The deep popularity of the character is the great fortune and misfortune of being an actor. After a role has been well received, the actor must spend several times the strength to jump out of the role and seek new progress, otherwise he will be imprisoned under the role forever. This is true of Liu Xiaolingtong, and so is Depp - he often wants to make a fortune by relying on his popular image, but the fiasco of "Noble Thieves" and "Pirates of the Caribbean 5" ruthlessly taught him that market competition does not believe in feelings.
After watching "East Express", I really can't figure out the main creator's intention to invite Depp to come here. I can only guess that it is either Depp's fans, or he wants to drain the box office appeal that Depp has not yet lost. In short, Depp in "East Express" is really careless.
2. Plot settings, such as "Detective" Poirot, Princess Detrogomirov
There is a comment that this is a super long trailer for "The Massacre on the Nile", and it is not difficult to see from the previous interview that Kenneth Branagh, who directed and acted, has created "The Great Detective Poirot". series of ambitions. In view of the fact that it can run through the same vein, only Inspector Poirot can appear in future works. It is not difficult to understand that the first part of the series can stand for himself through the portrayal of impressions.
But in this version of "East Express", Poirot added too many dramas to himself, and the most taboo "put the cart before the horse" in group dramas could not be avoided. play. One of the flaws in the new version is that Poirot's character portrayal is too overwhelming. He was originally a serial character. Through him, he was used to connect various passengers and build connections, not to add drama to himself in the group play.
Compared with the 74-year-old version, Poirot not only connected in series, but even secretly attacked side by side, which became a praise for portraying passengers.
For example, the talkative "widow" Herbard, Poirot had already seen her vixen skills in the dining car. When she was sent to interrogate the case, he was afraid that Herbard's rambling would lead to the topic, so he deliberately raised his voice during the interrogation. Volume, increase the speed of speech, every time Herbard wants to talk about something else, Poirot will quickly insert the topic, and even Herbard feels confused after the interrogation.
Referring to this play, only through the context of the dialogue, it not only successfully shaped Herbard's coquettish hatred, but also portrayed Poirot's simple and honest but clever image, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.
Looking at the whole new version, there are many fancy techniques used in editing, compared with the traditional narrative method of making overall reasoning after the sequential interrogation of the old version and the original. Cross-editing is used a lot in interrogation scenes. The interrogation paragraphs of many characters are interspersed together, and only the most important paragraphs are selected for presentation, which does improve the rhythm of the movie. However, the story of "East Express" is not suitable for fast pace. the cross-cutting technique.
Take the old version of Princess Detrogomirov as an example, the shaping of the old master is a long line before he dares to write. Poirot reluctantly accepted the case at the train director's repeated pleas, but asked the director to turn the conductor's office into his own studio, and every passenger had to come to the room for questioning, regardless of status. There were no exceptions to the lower missionaries, secretaries, or the high-ranking earl and his wife, but only the old master granted privileges. Not only did Poirot repeatedly instruct the train staff that he would visit her in the box, but he also changed the way he used to get straight to the point of interrogation, sacrificing precious time to solve the case, chatting with the old master respectfully for a long time, bending over and laughing all the way, and the image project was particularly in place.
Referring to the old version of this scene, when Poirot visited the princess, there was a fixed camera shot from the perspective of the curtain. The old princess was lying on the sofa, Poirot and the director stood aside, and the maid was taking care of him. The body of the old princess blocks the blind spot of the camera - the sofa on the other side where people could have sat.
Poirot chatted with the old master for a long time, and when the time was right, he asked if I could sit down? The princess agreed, and Poirot immediately changed his slow attitude, grabbed the two big stupid Persian cats lying on the sofa that were blocked by the camera, shoved them into the hands of the director, and quickly sat down to start the questioning.
At that moment, the director laughed embarrassingly.
The setting of this scene is quite interesting. Poirot's rude cat-throwing behavior is obviously impatient, and he is not a "smart person" with all sides. His performance at the last moment also made his personality in front of the princess obviously collapsed. .
When the old version was filmed, Grandma was still alive, so in terms of plot, the old version did not dare to make mistakes at all, and basically followed the original setting. Looking back at the passengers of "East Express", the "images of all beings" are mostly created by class differences, missionaries, officers, local tyrants and widows, earl couples, secretaries, butlers, conductors, maids, and poor nobles, "Identity is the most intuitive of a person. business card".
As an original story, the identity of the old host is by no means groundless. The old version clearly stated that she was the princess of the former Tsarist Russia, while the new version has a portrait of the last emperor of Tsarist Russia, Nicholas II, in the box and in the photo of the princess. In 1934, when the story took place, not to mention the death of Tsarist Russia, even Lenin had passed away, and the Soviet Union was thriving under Stalin's rule. After the Second World War, the traditional European aristocratic culture was severely impacted, and even the Western European royal family began to make concessions for democracy, let alone how much power can an exiled aristocrat give? Basically, it is to travel around the world with the treasures handed down by the ancestors.
The old princess, a noble with only money left, was also the epitome of the European class system that was about to collapse at that time. The apparent respect was filled with impatience and disgust, and Poirot's actions were a good proof.
In the new version, the old master is directly cut into the cross-cut, and it is integrated with other characters, which basically removes the deep meaning of the character itself, and expresses her noble way, only at the beginning of ordering. Simple.
Not only the princess, but this kind of editing makes other characters more or less broken. In order to bring forth new ideas, Poirot no longer designated a studio for interrogation, but randomly selected a location, some in the dining car, some in the box, and some people directly invited to the white snow world outside the car.
Such a change, the performance of the first half is still full of surprises. However, although I am not a fan of grandma, I have a few friends who love to read mystery novels. Most of them are angry about Poirot's character design——
"What's the matter! Poirot is a psychic detective, not a Sherlock Holmes scout for evidence!"
Such a fierce response stunned me at the time. Back when the original character makeup photos were exposed, the fans of the original book were also bad-mouthing. Because Poirot's shape completely subverted the previous image of "simple and chunky" and became a middle-aged man with a goatee.
Moreover, Poirot's investigation technique focused on finding flaws in the interrogation. He seemed to be carefree, but he was actually strategizing. He did not respect the flow of clues like Sherlock Holmes.
And the Poirot of this film, at the beginning of the film, identified the murderer of the treasure through his footprints, and he was agile and could pick locks...
Of course, these are the feedback I found from friends and materials. For passers-by like me, the difference is not very deep, but what makes me extremely complain is when facing the Count and his wife, Bo Lowe's recklessness.
In order to cover up the clues of the handkerchief, the Count and his wife made every effort to smear the name on the passport with oil stains. Poirot in the old version easily understood the reason, but in order to take into account the overall situation of the case, he had to wait until the public reasoning before telling the facts. come out.
The new version of Poirot not only couldn't help but tell the truth, but was kicked out of the door by the enraged count.
Is this the basic quality of a famous detective? !
Director, you're not filming a Shakespeare play!
2. "The Last Supper"? ! ——Qianjin was called four or two times
Looking back at the praise for this film, most of the praise focused on the audio-visual progress. The previous editions were either limited to the era or limited to positioning, and did not put enough effort into the picture, but the new version has a retro and exquisite style of painting. Less powder.
If you compare the old and new versions, the old version was in the 1970s. Compared with now, the special effects of movies are still immature. Many people in the film circle bluntly say that the progress of special effects in movies is the result of development in the past 20 years. The difference between the old and new versions of the painting style is also the progress of the special effects of the film when viewed from the side. But compared with the "fancy" of the new version, the "original" brought by the old version is more shocking.
For example, the same 12-passenger murder scene.
The new version adopts the form of off-screen flashbacks. The entire paragraph lasts less than a minute. It is wrapped into Poirot’s overall reasoning, using black and white tones. Everyone is rushing to stab the knife, and the whole scene is panic and blurred.
This kind of expression is indeed unique in modern beauty, but let’s see how the old version of the director and group opera master Lu Meite showed it——
In the old version, Scott's death was presented in the full story, as an interlude in the overall story: After the secretary and the butler teamed up to stun Scott, the widow and the conductor gathered everyone and began the knife's revenge.
The conductor turned on the dim blue light of the lighting, lifted Scott's bedding lightly, and each stabbed in turn, starting with Mrs. Hubbard.
The scheduling of the whole scene is very concise. Passengers walk in and out one by one, focusing on facial close-ups, looking down at Scott, each saying a ritualistic killing declaration, and then stabbing.
And each person's mood, monologue, and stabbing action perfectly show each person's character.
Herbard, who stabbed first, was the one who was the most injured, so the most deadly knife had to be opened by her. Herbard's killing is the only shot from her back, where she draws the knife and holds it high to make sure she uses her utmost strength to make a good start.
The second stabbed was a colonel officer. Since he was a soldier, his expression when facing the murder was very calm and natural. The stab was not large, but the sound of the knife was crisp and sound, and it sounded like an old gun.
The third was Miss Debenham, a former secretary. She stabbed the knife while holding the handle diagonally, stabbed horizontally, and took a little effort to draw the knife.
The fourth is a missionary. She sobbed and moved forward. Compared with the monologues of the previous few people, her thoughts about Daisy were more emotional. Punishment" into remorse and mental confusion.
Afterwards, the countess and the couple came forward together. The countess had long been weakened by the huge mental blow. With the support of her husband, her husband raised his hand with a sharp blade and stabbed them together.
The following people all painted their images by stabbing them. For example, the old princess trembled when stabbing the knife and couldn't use her strength, so the knife marks were the shallowest; The deeper the stab is, the less anger can be relieved; and the policeman's swordsmanship is precise and most natural.
The subtlety of the old version is that under the shell of the reasoning film, "group portraits" are used all the time to support the scene, without complex technology, only relying on character setting and actor performances, and shaping the group portraits, which also assists reasoning.
The exquisite retro style of the new version is undoubtedly the biggest highlight, but in order to make its magnificent picture immerse people's hearts, it has carried out maximum restraint in the character shaping that should have been deepened. This is not like a group portrait reasoning film, but more Like a 20th century snow documentary.
When it comes to the use of lenses, the old version's simple and rude methods are terribly efficient.
In the old version, in the many interrogation scenes involved in the narration, the character shots are all in a normal dialogue angle, but when the case is closed and backtracked, the shots are replaced with suffocating large-area facial close-ups.
For example, missionaries, this is when interrogated:
This is when backtracking:
So is the old princess, who just started in a scene where many characters are drawn:
When backtracking, the direct details to the wrinkle lines are clearly visible:
The maid looks normal:
But the smile behind it is very scary:
Just cut the camera position, the horror effect is fully created, and even today, those big scenes are still the shadow of my childhood.
For another example, when Scott's body was found, the old version used a dislocation quick cut that caught off guard. The shot of pushing the door instantly cut to the hideous face of the corpse, and the horror effect was also great.
The new version uses an overhead shot from the perspective of God in this paragraph, and the handling is not bad. Personally, I like the audio-visual of this paragraph the most in the new version. As for the well-received "Last Supper" style composition, I can't complain. .
Please see, this is the composition in the film -
This is the original version of "The Last Supper" -
Hey, it seems not bad, it looks like that three points.
If this is the first time I've seen such a composition, I'd definitely feel the same way.
But unfortunately, I've seen one before --
As Zabuki, of course, he will not miss the opportunity to blow idols. There is such a composition in Zack Snyder's number one masterpiece "Watchmen".
In the opening Bob Dylan MV, it took six minutes to introduce the early history of "Watchmen". Since it only involves major events, each set of scenes is only about 20 seconds long, and there are only a few characters on the screen, even only a few The length of this shot, but through such a composition, there is a basic description of the relationship between the characters.
The characters and actions in "The Last Supper" all have their meaning behind it, and "Watchmen" also uses this composition to fit the "Last Supper".
The woman with a big belly standing in the middle is the first generation of "silk ghosts". She corresponds to Jesus in the original painting, and Jesus is the protagonist in the original painting, and the silk ghost who invites his comrades to the retirement party is also the protagonist.
The joker on the left side of the silk ghost is portrayed according to Judas' actions. The joker's temperament in the film is both righteous and evil, which fits exactly with Judas who betrayed Jesus, and the joker also tried to rape the silk ghost, which is in line with Judas. The relationship that hurts Jesus.
The first generation of "Ye Owl", the third from the right reaching out his hand, corresponds to the old Jacob in the original painting. In the original painting, Jacob extended his hand to listen to Jesus' words, and Ye Owl was also listening carefully to what the ghost said, showing that Ye Owl was good at listening, and he was very good at listening. Convincing people, he is also more like a muddy character in the organization.
The Mothman on the left corresponds to Bartolomeo. Bartolomeo was emotional after learning about Jesus' prophecy about the betrayal of his disciples, and the Mothman also went alcoholic when he disagreed, suggesting that the future Mothman is because of The end result of excessive drinking in a mental hospital.
There are only 9 people in the entire composition, which is far from the 13 people in the original words, but it has passed several highly recognizable movements, which fit the "Last Supper" closely. A screenshot has such a skill, "Watchmen". "Worthy of the masterpiece in my heart.
Looking back at the composition of the new "East Express", except for the similar number of people, I really can't see any shadows of "The Last Supper". The metaphor has no metaphor, the form has no form, and it's not that 13 people are randomly placed on the In one shot, it can be called "The Last Supper".
The fatal wound of European and American culture is that its cultural thickness is not strong. Thanks to the blessing of the medieval Inquisition, Christian culture has never been integrated with other cultures for thousands of years. Instead, it has worn away the once glorious ancient Greece and ancient Rome. It is not like China. of multiculturalism.
This has led to the fact that in literary and artistic creation, we can only pick up materials from the Bible over and over again. The entry-level is Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the cross of Jesus and Judas; the deeper one is Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, and the sinful city of Sodom; and then dig deeper, Cain Abel vampire, Abraham offered Isaac; in addition, the two paintings "Genesis" and "The Last Supper" have also been used countless times, and aesthetic fatigue is inevitable. Well, at least for someone like me who has been exposed to Christian culture since childhood and grew up in a Chinese environment, it's hard to be attractive.
above.
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