"Murder on the Orient Express" is adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous detective novelist Agatha Christie. Although Christie does not seem to be famous for writing "Sherlock Holmes" Conan Doyle in the eyes of the Chinese public, but according to Guinness World Records The total sales of her works are recorded second only to the Bible and Shakespeare, and more than all other writers (note that it is writers, not just inference writers).
In evaluation, Christie, together with Japan's Matsumoto Kiyotaka and Britain's Conan Doyle, is called the three masters of reasoning literature. In terms of later influence, she created the Blizzard Villa mode with "No Life", and also created the cooperative murder mode with "Murder on the Orient Express", as well as the very classic narrative used in "Roger Mystery" Sexual shenanigans.
It can even be said that she is a close to Shakespeare in the world of speculative literature, because she created the categories and writing conventions that many later generations followed.
"Murder on the Orient Express" has been adapted many times, the more famous ones being the 1974 and 2001 versions. In the 1974 version, 58-year-old Ingrid Bergman also won the 47th award for this film. Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This film was released in 2017. Regarding this adaptation of the film, it is generally quite satisfactory. Film director Kenneth Branagh also played the protagonist of the film, the great detective Hercule Poirot.
The film revolves around a bizarre murder on the "Oriental Express" that the great detective Poirot took: Depp's rich Ratchett tragically died in his own train box, with several knives and different depths of incisions. Poirot's meticulous analysis finally made the case clear.
It is worth mentioning that, in terms of shooting techniques, because the film involves many characters and complex clues, the director often uses long walking shots to shoot dialogue scenes. This can avoid the monotony of the picture, and can also introduce the structure of the train by the way, and also explain the relative position of the carriage where the main characters are located.
When Poirot announces the murder, the double reflection of the characters on the glass adds to the sense of suspense.
In addition, because the scene in the train is unchanged, the film will introduce tonal changes caused by weather and day and night, which brings a new rhythm to the picture, which is equivalent to creating a new scene, avoiding visual It's monotonous, and this technique is also used a lot in "Twelve Angry Men", which is also an interior scene.
In addition, there are some areas that can be improved. The first is that the time of the murder has reached the 40th minute of the film, which makes the rhythm of the first part of the film relatively dull. In fact, it is possible to slightly compress the plot of the previous paragraph, and then advance the murder. The second is that the carriages and relative positions of each person are not well represented. Relying on dialogue and fighting back and forth is actually a tricky approach. Similar to this, a lot of reasoning process in the film, if you can give the reasoned scene, it will be easier for the audience to understand. Or maybe the director wanted to be nostalgic, so there were fewer visuals to help the audience think, which could make it difficult for the audience to grasp every clue that Christie wanted to express. Of course, for the average audience, a detective story can finally give a clear and convincing answer, and that is the most important thing. It is both convincing and unexpected.
But in the ending of the adapted film, the director changed it to a discussion of the relativity of justice, which is a bit excessive. In the original book, Poirot actually asked Booker what kind of thing it was, and Booker said it was the first simple reasoning, and then Poirot withdrew and left. After all, according to modern law, planning and execution of murder are both murderers, and no matter how evil the deceased may be, it cannot change the fact that the murderer committed suicide privately. Therefore, the director seriously uses the relativity of justice to discuss this not so similar to the "moral tram problem", which is somewhat inappropriate.
So, in fact, the open ending that Christie arranged for a light-hearted ending back then was a clever way to handle it.
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