The movie is 81 minutes long. In the first 66 minutes of the film, the director described from the perspective of eight groups of people in a high school that usually made the audience yawn for a long time, but with the first gunshot after that, the previous calm disappeared. A bloody massacre began, and the perpetrators of this massacre were two students in this school, Eric and Alex.
The most special part of this film is naturally its breaking the convention narrative structure and unique film language. This article will interpret the deep text of "Elephant" from these two aspects.
Breakthroughs in the linear narrative structure have long existed. Since Griffith used the segmented narrative in "Party Together Facing Differences", and later developed four types of radial structure, hypothetical structure, circular structure, and double structure on this basis. Variant. But the narrative structure of "Elephant" is beyond these. It narrates events in the same time period with different people as the narrative center, but these events themselves disrupt the sequence. If we borrow the concept of "parallel combined paragraphs" by Christian Metz, we might as well call it "parallel structure". The biggest difference from "parallel montage" is that the temporal and spatial relationships between different narrative paragraphs are not determined. Correlation. In this regard, you might as well sort it out from the perspective of the combined segment.
1. The lens. The sky dimmed until only the street lights were left, and the voice-over was a cheerful play.
2. Paragraphs. John's father drove while drunk, and John sent him off.
3. Long lens. Elias takes photos for the couple.
4. Long lens. John went to school, called his brother to pick up his father, met the teacher, and was asked to go to the office.
5. Paragraphs. In a student game on the playground (music is "To Alice" piano music), Nathan leaves, meets three girls who are discussing, and meets his girlfriend.
6. Paragraphs. John had a brief exchange with the teacher in the office, Nathan and Carrie went out, John confessed the key, went to a separate room and wept, and Acadia kissed John.
7. Long lens. Acadia discussed homosexuality with classmates.
8. Long lens. Nathan and Carrie discuss the issue of hanging out together.
9. Long lens. John walked out of the classroom, met the dog, and met Eric and Alex who were coming to school.
10. Paragraphs. Eric was bullied in class, went to the bathroom to wash his clothes, and went to the cafeteria to investigate.
11. Long shots. Elias went to wash the photos, greeted people on the road (soft music and surreal psychedelic sound coexist), and started to wash the photos.
12. Long shots. Michelle bid farewell to the teacher and walked across the basketball court.
13. Long shots, Elias washes photos.
14. Long shots. Michelle changed clothes.
15. Long shots. Eric went home to drink milk.
16. Paragraphs. Elias finished washing the photos and went to the library.
17. Paragraphs. After Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole met Nathan, they went to the restaurant to eat. They saw John teasing the dog. After that, they had a little argument and went to the toilet to gulp their throats.
18. The scene. Eric plays the piano, narrates the indoor environment, Alex plays games, and the two buy guns online.
19. Long shots. The sky is getting darker.
20. Paragraphs. Eric and Alex slept, got up to eat, watched TV, the gun arrived, and the two tried the gun.
21. Long shots. After changing clothes, Michelle went to the library and met John and Elias who were taking pictures.
22. Paragraphs. Eric and Alex take a shower and kiss, plan to kill (included before sex), drove to school, and met John. John stopped his classmates and teachers and looked for his father.
23. Paragraphs. Eric and Alex went to the library, killed Michelle and Elias, and went to the toilet to kill Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole.
24. Paragraphs. Benny helped Acadia escape, and Alex chased the principal.
25. Long shots. John found his father.
26. Long shots. Benny pursues (sounds with tension effects) Alex and is killed, and the principal is killed.
27. Paragraphs. Eric chased to the restaurant, drank a drink, killed Alex who came, found and killed Nathan and Carrie who were hiding.
28. Long shots. Sky, the music is "To Alice" piano music.
From the above analysis of large paragraphs, it is not difficult to find that the basic narrative structure lacks the alternate narrative combination of film language unit. This is because the film does not explain the time relationship between the clear paragraphs in the narrative, so it is difficult to judge Whether the relationship between paragraphs is an alternate narrative combination paragraph.
If such a narrative seems too complicated and difficult to understand, it can also break the director's narrative structure and restore it to a continuous linear structure, which requires different people as the narrative center.
John. I sent my drunk father to school and called my brother to pick him up. I met the teacher and was called to the office. After a brief exchange, he left the key in the office and went to a room alone to cry and was comforted by Acadia. Walking out, I met Elias taking pictures on the road, Michelle ran by, went out to play with the dog, met Eric and Alex who came to the school, prevented classmates and teachers from entering, found that his father was missing, and found his father.
Elias. I met a couple taking pictures for them, then walked into the school, walked through the long aisle, came to the room where the pictures were taken, communicated with the black-haired girl, went out after washing the pictures, met John and took pictures of him, Michelle ran by and came to At the library, Eric and Alex happened to be killed after taking a picture.
Michelle. I was asked to wear a T-shirt in the gym class. I went back to the clothing room to change clothes and went to the library. On the way, I met Elias taking pictures of John. After I went to the library, I sorted the books. I met Eric and Alex and were killed.
Acadia. I met John crying in a separate room, kissed and comforted him, went to discuss homosexuality with his classmates, and escaped with the help of Benny after the massacre started.
Brittany, Jordan and Nicole. I met Nathan in the hallway and discussed, then went to the restaurant to eat, had a dispute, then went to the toilet to buckle his throat, and was killed by Eric after he came out.
Nathan and Carrie. Nathan went to the classroom after playing ball in the playground, met three girls who discussed him, met his girlfriend, went to the office to ask for leave, the two came out to discuss things about going out during the holidays, the massacre began, fled into the freezer, and was finally found and killed.
Benny. Played ball on the playground, and later helped Acadia escape when the massacre started, and tracked Alex to be found and then killed.
Eric and Alex. Eric was bullied by his classmates in class, went to the bathroom to clean, went to the restaurant for inspection, went home to drink milk, played the piano, Alex came, played murder games, the two bought guns, went to bed, ate after getting up, watched TV, tested the gun after the gun arrived, took a shower, Planning to kill, drove to the school, and just ran into John who was funny, and after going through the school, he started to kill. Eric first killed Michelle and Elias as well as Brittany, Jordan and Nicole. He drank a drink in the restaurant and killed Alex who was coming. Finally he found Nathan and Carrie hiding in the freezer. After Alex killed the principal and Benny, he went to Eric and was killed by Eric.
After sorting in this way, it is not difficult to find that the story is actually concentrated in just a few hours, from the beginning of Eric being bullied in class to the end of Eric killing Nathan and Carrie who were hiding in the freezer. The ingenuity of the director is that by narrating with different people as the subject of attention, it creates an impression of fracture, repetition and chaos to the audience. Such a "parallel structure" narrative is a deconstruction of the traditional linear narrative form. The significance is that the director hopes to minimize the director's subjective intention through such a deconstruction and restore the original appearance of life as much as possible.
In real life, what everyone sees is limited, it is impossible to observe life in all directions, just like "blind people touch the elephant", everyone's understanding of life is incomplete. This embodies Santer's deconstruction of a unified and complete narrative of tradition, and embodies a postmodern and irrational narrative style. It is this kind of narrative that gives the film a sense of reality similar to that of a documentary.
Of course, such a narrative is not purely out of a need for a breakthrough in form, but also out of the need of the film's ideology. It is because of everyone's one-sided observation of life that tragedy finally occurs. The fracture and incompleteness of the narrative is to restore the fracture and incompleteness of life.
When the film started with John, it did not revolve around him like most films later, but afterwards different subjects of attention appeared. In order to remind the audience, the director also displayed everyone’s on the screen when each character appeared. The name seems to be a symbolic reminder of the appearance of a subject of concern. With the continuous appearance of the protagonist, the life of each individual begins to intersect, which may be spatial or event. The first time the characters intersect is on the playground. Michelle and Nathan appear in the same space. After that, Nathan meets three girls and is discussed. The most representative plot is the three narratives of the same event with John, Elias and Michelle as the main subjects of concern, and the plot in which Acadia comforts and kisses John. With the occurrence of this encounter, single, one-sided, linear narratives are gradually combined into a net-like narrative, and the lives of a single person are combined into a social life, which more comprehensively shows the occurrence of the story. Background. Here, the audience is given a privilege to go beyond the reality of life and follow the camera to fully observe the background before the event.
Such a narrative method that seems inconsistent with the traditional integrity narrative, instead produces an effect that is closest to the reality. This is the characteristic of postmodern narrative, which reshapes its life in the deconstruction of the integrity and linear narrative. The original appearance.
However, although the director’s goal is to hide his own views on the causes of this tragedy through a minimally subjective narrative, and only to guide the audience’s thinking, any narrative is subjective, and any narrative that is fragmented and multi-angled It is impossible to truly reflect life in a complete and comprehensive manner. The narrative angles and subjects chosen by the director are subjective, and they are saturated with the director's thoughts. Even if the director deliberately uses meaningless shooting objects to express his objectivity, this is also the director's intention, so there is no form of insignificance. The same is true for this film. The seemingly objective and meaningless narrative actually contains the director's narrative intention. Although the director's extremely restrained narrative does make the audience admire it, it does not mean that the director is truly objective.
The director's choice of the subject of concern reflects a preference for marginalized characters. From the protagonist's point of view, John was a poor student who skipped class. His father was drinking heavily and he hid himself and cried without telling him; Elias pursued art alone (photography) and lied to John that his friend was sick and he didn't go to dinner at noon just to take pictures; Michelle's appearance Plain, afraid to wear a T-shirt, lacking self-confidence; Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole formed a separate small group, and even refused one of them’s boyfriends to take up his time and cut off from the outside world; Nathan and Carrie also only lived in a two-person world, Refusing to join a friend’s gathering together, being talked about by others and staying away; Benny is a self-centered hero, naturally marginalized; not to mention, Eric and Alex are considered gay and bullied in class; the only exception may be Acadia, this Maybe it was also the reason why she finally fled. In terms of other characters, the girl who asked Eric what he was doing in the restaurant, the girl who discussed photos with Elias, and the teacher in the library were all Asian. The blonde girl who later fled to the toilet was busy hiding in the toilet but did not inform Brittany and Jordan. And Nicole etc. These seemingly insignificant narratives actually outline the current social situation very completely, in fact, this is to a certain extent the director's explanation of this tragedy.
If we only look at Eric's life experience, we can also see some subjective details from the director's limited narrative. The first is the scene of being bullied in class. This is naturally one of the explanations for the tragedy. This is a person who is isolated, bullied, and marginalized. But at the same time, what the teacher said at this time was about the relationship between the electrons in the atom and the nucleus. At this moment, the electrons far away from the nucleus naturally alluded to Eric. Later, when Eric went to the restaurant to check the route, there was a small detail. He was hit by a person without apologizing. After a while, he hugged his head in pain with his hands, which also hinted at the scene in Eric's life. Then Eric went home and there was no one at home. Playing the piano and looking around the room, there are many abstract paintings that convey a sense of pain. Especially noteworthy are the two paintings. One is an elephant, which is the only place mentioned in the film; the other is beside the music score, it is vaguely seen to be a father and a son. After the union, the father and him are the only one. A sentence of is also about grades. It can be speculated that Eric's family is definitely not complete. There is also the scene of kissing Alex afterwards. It can be seen that the two are suffering from adolescence. The fascist propaganda seen when watching TV, the murderous scenes in the game, and the convenient channels for buying guns online reflect the external factors provided by the unstable modern society. All these are the living environment of Eric learned from the things around him.
After the massacre, the only two surviving protagonists, John and Acadia, appeared on the poster of the movie by coincidence. The two embraced each other, showing a touch of warmth. Can this be understood as a hint by the director? The killer did not kill everyone, but left hope, that is love. Acadia's soft but tender kiss to John reflects a rare beautiful emotion in this movie. And John's care for his drunk father, reminders of teachers and classmates, and rare upgrade shots when teasing dogs, all imply that he will survive as a "star of hope".
If you read the text carefully and carefully consider the film language of the film, there are many details worth mentioning.
The most special feature of film language in this film is the extensive use of long lenses and depth-of-field lenses.
In terms of long shots, the film can even be said to have reached an unacceptable level. The director followed every major character, walked through the long aisles and stairs, and finally reached the place where he wanted to go, to the point where it was a bit annoying. The use of such a large number of long shots also gives people a sense of reality. And these shots do not give any character perspective, which is absolutely unacceptable from a traditional perspective, because the most common method for feature films to hide the camera is to identify with the character’s perspective and occupy the character’s field of view, which makes the audience ignore The existence of the camera makes people immersed in a kind of false reality. However, the film did not borrow the perspective of any characters, but used a perspective similar to that of a documentary, but it did not affect the perspective of the actors. This is different from a documentary, because the presence of a camera in a documentary will affect the actions of the person being photographed (even if the director tries to reduce this influence). Therefore, the perspective of this film can be said to be a "documentary perspective that does not intervene in life". This perspective seems to remind the audience to stay calm and carefully examine the facts. From the perspective of the narrator, the film is also extremely special. First, it is omniscient, although it does not present absolute omniscience to the audience. At the same time, it is also known, because each narrative has a different center and is independent of each other to a certain extent. Therefore, the perspective of this film I call the "broken omniscient perspective." There is also a little detail worth noting. Every long shot that tracks a character will show the protagonist opening or entering the door. "Opening the door" thinks of a kind of space conversion. As far as the film is concerned, the converted space is a "relatively private" and "relatively public" space. This also reflects the director's understanding of real life to a certain extent. Individuals are changing in different environments. For example, John didn't mean to admit his mistake to the teacher, but he showed his fragile side in a separate room. Another example is that Eric didn't dare to say anything when he was bullied at school, but the camera shot when he planned to kill someone gave people a sense of deterrence in overall planning. The different performances in these two spaces are also the deconstruction of the human state. In a very limited narrative range, each character is full, at least in one aspect. This is also the director's deconstruction. The expression of reconstruction, through this form, the characters are reconstructed in a way that goes beyond the traditional.
As far as depth-of-field lenses are concerned, this film also has many meaningful applications, and there are two special lenses worth analyzing. One is a scene of the playground at the beginning of the film. The close shot is Michelle looking up at the sky alone, the middle shot is a group of boys playing rugby, and the far shot is a group of girls in gym class. This depth-of-field lens comprehensively describes the scene on the playground, and the inter-connected and isolated relationship between students is fully revealed in this depth-of-field lens. In particular, the contrast between Michelle's posture of lonely looking up at the sky and the scene of middle-range and long-range middle-range and long-range middle and high school students playing with each other is very meaningful. Another depth-of-field shot shows that the delivery vehicle passed by Eric and Alex when he watched Hitler’s war speeches passed by the window, and the vehicle was loaded with the guns ordered by the two in "GUNSUSA", the weapons of the slaughter, and the mental stimulation source of the slaughter. One of them appears in the same scene, which is naturally the director's analysis of the cause of this incident. So in the director's seemingly random narrative, subjective intentions are hidden very vaguely.
From the perspective of camera position, the most commonly used in this film is head-up, which is widely used in following shots of characters. Although there are small upward shots when characters go up and down the stairs, they are generally head-up. The distance between the characters and the characters is relatively certain, so that the characters and the audience always maintain an objective distance. But there are also obvious shots of looking down and looking up. For example, the shot of John's father driving a car at the beginning of the film is looking down, showing the dangerous driving scene and the family environment John lives in. And Eric's look up when he planned to kill also showed his deterrence. So the director is not always shooting casually, many angles and shooting are of ulterior motives. It is particularly worth mentioning that the two big pans in this film are also very meaningful. The first is Acadia and her classmates discussing the issue of homosexuality very casually and cheerfully, and the second is the performance of Eric's room. These two shots make it easy to think that a group of people are discussing around Eric, talking in a relaxed tone about topics that make Eric angry. In addition, another common shooting technique used in this film is fixed-camera shooting. The camera does not move with the movement of the characters, but allows the subject to break into or escape the viewfinder frame, which also creates a purely objective recording effect.
There is also the sound and music in this movie. There are two speakers worth mentioning. First, Elias took photos and went back to the washing process. There has always been very soft and beautiful music and a kind of surreal, machine-like, dreamy sound, which makes people seem to see him calmly and there are unknown under the surface. one side. At the same time, it is very interesting that on his way, the director rarely used downgrade shooting, and whenever someone said hello, the downgrade was lifted, but he would not stop. It can also be considered that he has marginalized himself on the road of pursuing his dreams. The other sound is the nervous sound when Benny approaches Alex. It resembles the “last minute rescue” in Hollywood, as if Benny is about to lift the danger and restore a peaceful and stable campus, but the fact is that Alex is one. He turned around and killed Benny, without even giving him any chance to resist. This is an extremely brilliant stroke, an excellent expression of the director's deconstructive narrative of postmodernism. It breaks through the audience's expectation of traditional heroes, allowing the audience to recognize the reality in a dumbfounded: there is no hero who can solve the problem quickly, and the accumulated problems must be solved fundamentally. As for the music, the only tune in the film is Beethoven's "To Alice" (except for the aforementioned section that appeared simultaneously with the sound), which appeared three times in succession. The first time was on the playground at the beginning of the film. The bright sunshine, the frolicking crowd, and such a soothing music made people feel that all this was simply wonderful. The second time Eric played on the piano. Although he was not good at playing, he was very serious, but the same shocking thing was that at the end he extended his middle finger angrily. The third time was at the end of the film, and the picture was a blue sky, a little dark. The author of "To Alice" is Beethoven, and it is well known that Beethoven was alone in his life, but he did not stop pursuing his partner. It is said that this song was written by him to his favorite female student Trezer. Of course this The relationship did not end in the end. Therefore, the audience can also feel Eric's deep loneliness from this song, and the constant music at the end of the film seems to remind the audience to think.
In addition, there are many symbolic things in this film that deserve attention. Although the signifier and the signified of the film as a language can be very close, it is not the only way for some profound symbols. For example, the sky that appears three times in the film can be used as a metronome in the film, playing an important role in deconstruction, but it is more than that. The sky and telephone poles appeared in the picture at the same time when the film first appeared. From the perspective of the composition of the picture, this is naturally more stable, but from the perspective of ideology, the sky symbolizes a kind of humanity. , The film uses downgrade shooting in the sky every time, and the clouds in the sky change rapidly, like a human heart, Eric's heart. If this conjecture is true, then the telephone pole naturally symbolizes a certain way to his heart. But soon the sky dimmed and the telephone poles dimmed. Only the street lights were left on. It can be understood that Eric's situation was extremely dangerous from this day on, but there was still a hint of light. The second appearance was at noon, the sky when Eric was taking a nap. In Freud's psychoanalysis, sleep is a sign of death. This can also be understood as the death of the last light in Eric's heart. After that, the sky continued to darken and lose its light, heralding the coming of massacre. At the end of the film, the story has ended, but it has not really ended. The clouds in the sky are still rolling. Can the audience think about whether Eric will stop after killing Nathan and Carrie? Even if Eric is arrested, can similar things stop? This is the most terrifying place. In addition, the three-time "To Alice" mentioned above also has this symbolic effect.
Based on the previous analysis, it is not difficult to see that the director's seemingly messy and objective post-modernist deconstructive narrative embodies an extremely deep subjective attitude, that is, the call for love. Specifically, this call is embodied in the unreasonable revealing of reality, the neglect of marginalized groups, the wrong attitude towards homosexuality, the indifference to the relationship between people, the prevalence of individual centrism, the prominent family problems, and the relationship between teachers and students. Deteriorating school education, lack of guidance for adolescence, the guidance of a violent culture, the proliferation of guns, and many other problems. The director’s seemingly non-commentary presentation of the problems actually shows people’s blindness to these problems from another angle. This is exactly the meaning of the name of the film. Elephant in the room is an English proverb used to describe a situation where there is a problem that is deliberately avoided and ignored. Through such a film, the director is calling attention, paying attention to these obvious and dangerous issues that have been avoided. From this perspective, this film is extremely realistic and reveals contemporary American social issues. And all of this is achieved by the director through a deconstructive narrative of postmodernism.
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