If Ang Lee is the Griffith of the 21st century, I still can't bear to see Gemini Man as a "brilliant failure." When I just finished watching 120 frames, I was still excited about Ang Lee's exploratory creations, but after a week, both the North American and the domestic market, the performance of both the box office reputation was cold, which made me sweat for Uncle An. First of all, I agree with the Hollywood concept of movies, that is, movies need to take care of the emotions of the audience. Only with box office revenue can the continuous development of the movie industry be maintained. But imagine, if you only consider the market response, then the movie will not exist.
"The Arrival of the Train" more than 100 years ago brought the great movie gods, but also scared away the audience who came to watch. Film was born out of technology, and it is only in the innovation of technology that more forms of film art have been developed. Looking back on it from silent and sound, from black and white to color, from film to digital to stereoscopic 3D film, etc., every new technology is inevitably questioned at the beginning of its birth, but the audience is satisfied with the status quo and does not realize that the film needs innovation. Yes, just like the audience in the silent film era has already enjoyed the unprecedented viewing experience of silent films, few people will think about whether it would be better with the addition of sound, and some even think that silent films are great "dumbs". Only filmmakers who are constantly exploring will explore more possibilities for realizing films. And Ang Lee is such a filmmaker who walks in front of the audience.
After watching Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle at 120 FPS three years ago, I didn't have a strong feeling about this new technology, it was like putting reality in front of my eyes, and then I was in When I revisited the 24-frame version on the computer, I realized the contrast of the viewing experience brought by this technology. The high frame rate undoubtedly belongs to the theater. What Ang Lee did was precisely to bring the audience in front of the mobile phone screen back to the cinema.
In fact, the history of film development is actually the history of film technology. Only with new technologies can new forms of film art be explored. We cannot guarantee whether 120 frames will become the mainstream of future films, just as we cannot prove that films are 24 frames per second is the same truth. Therefore, the "movie feeling" brought by 24 frames is even more preconceived nonsense. The clarity, realism, and immersion brought by "120 frames + 3D + 4K" is another reality of the film, not cheap "" "Television Sense", from a psychoanalytic point of view, a movie is just a projection of a daydream, and our movie-watching experience is actually a dreaming process. When the technology improves to a certain level, the impact of the clarity of the film on the audience is even more realistic than the reality itself. As the dividing line between film and reality, the changes in film aesthetics brought about by realism will redefine the concept of film.
The high frame rate brings a highly clear viewing experience, which not only creates an immersive feeling for the audience, but also shows many details that cannot be paid attention to in reality. At the beginning of the film, the passenger Henry is about to shoot is sitting on a train with a speed of 238 kilometers per hour. Ang Lee uses a wide-angle lens to shoot the bottom of the train. At this time, the train running in a straight line presents an arc on the screen. This visual image is Distorted, the sense of speed and visual impact it produces are stronger than the previous horizontal angle shooting. At high frame rates, viewers can see details that cannot be captured by the naked eye in reality. If you go back to 24 frames, this kind of The impact is greatly reduced.
Details are magnified, and the amount of information in the content of the picture is greatly increased. Therefore, the director must reasonably control and arrange the information in the screen, highlight the focus, and guide the attention. In "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle", Ang Lee used a panning camera to show Lynn standing in the center of the stage. Although the language of the camera is delicate, the complicated information around the stage is pouring out, and it is in a high degree of clarity. At 120 frames, many viewers will feel a sense of dizziness, although to a certain extent, this sense of dizziness enables the audience to "personally" experience Lynn's confusion on the stage, which brings him closer to his relationship with Lynn. There is a distance in mind, but it is still where Ang Lee needs to improve.
In "Gemini Man", Ang Lee avoids this discomfort, deliberately creating focus, using a lot of depth of field shots, and rarely using panning and moving shots. Even the action scene where the motorcycles chased each other was not filmed according to the mobile photography method in the regular action film, but was followed by the front and back angles. When the motorcycles drove forward at high speed, it seemed to be ramming towards the audience. , which is more subjective and more intense than previous mobile photography. In the action chase scenes under mobile photography, the audience is in a state of bystanders, and can only satisfy the audience's excitement for the action scenes through spectacles such as car collisions and drifts. In "Gemini Man", the audience seems to be Incarnated as pedestrians in the movie scene, not only was nervous about the intense chase in the movie, but also produced a sense of self-imminence. Many people were scared to shrink back by this scene. At 120 frames, this kind of immersive experience feel more intense.
In order to reduce the visual disturbance to the audience, Henry and Xiao Ke's chase scenes were both selected in a relatively tight environment, and the narrow and long distance made the audience's focus focus on the two of them. Similarly, in another close-quarters combat action scene, in the church cellar full of darkness, only a beam of light in the hands of the actors was used to show the positional relationship between the two, which avoided the interference of redundant information, and made it easier to Helps to create emotional conflict between the two.
There is a line Henry said to Dany in the movie, which seems to be applicable to Ang Lee, "Are you sure you are ready to get on the boat? Then get ready to throw away the past." Many people think that Ang Lee is tech-savvy Ship, abandoning everything in the past, that is, abandoning the textual expression of the film, forgetting how to tell a good story. But think about it, even if you don't judge the value of the movie from a technical point of view, the text of "Gemini Man" is not that bad, and Ang Lee has not betrayed his past.
Audiences who are familiar with Ang Lee know that his favorite director is Bergman, and the most notable feature of Bergman's films is the use of close-up shots. Facial expressions can narrow the distance between the heart of the audience and the audience. Close-up shots are rarely used in Ang Lee’s previous films, but in these two 120-frame films, Ang Lee began to use close-up shots a lot. In the high frame rate pictures, we can clearly see the characters’ pores and Scar, at this time, not only brings a sense of immersion, but also strengthens the "gaze" of the audience and the actors.
When it comes to "gazing", the most obvious expression in the movie is Henry and Xiao Ke, who are mirror images of each other. They are the "mirrors" that each other most do not want to see. This fear is not only derived from the threat posed by cloning to human beings , but also stems from people's fear of themselves, that is, the coexistence of two "Is". In the cellar of the church, when Henry took a gun at Xiao Ke, the outcome was already obvious, but in the end he still chose to throw away his weapon and fight alone. Among them, Dany tried to shoot to help Henry many times but was stopped by him. , Henry's stop is to save the lost lamb Xiaoke, and also to save his own nightmare for many years, and this stop action seems to reveal Ang Lee's attitude towards clones in the movie: the missile that destroys clones is only Henry, Xiao Ke and the young army are nothing more than twin war machines. And only if Henry overcomes the machine with his personal strength, is the complete destruction of the clones.
Under the packaging of elements of commercial genre films, the core of the film is still Ang Lee's unique style. In addition to returning to his personal motif of the father-son relationship, it also includes "Billy Lynn's Midfield War". reflection, the expectation of returning to the human being. Xiao Ke eliminated the negative emotions of normal people, but Henry was not eliminated from the negative state. He should be an independent individual with post-traumatic stress disorder, but before he put down the butcher knife and decided to retire, he was also trained to be with Xiao Ke. The same robot, unable to love people, unable to establish long-term stable relationships, haunted by nightmares every night, and only feel better when he is prone to pull the trigger, in a way, he is "clone" by the military. "It's been.
The "War Machine" that appears at the end of the film is a clone that is more indestructible than Xiaoke, is not afraid of real gold, and cannot perceive pain. It has all the advantages of being cloned, and at the same time eliminates the perception of pain and sadness. It reminds me of the ending of human beings playing chess with AlphaGo. I sometimes wonder, can AlphaGo realize that it was designed to exist? Does it perceive doubt, sadness, or emotional presence? Interestingly, these clones were also "cloned" by Ang Lee's practical computer, and the ending Ang Lee finally made humans defeat the machine is not so much a humanitarian outcome that must be done, but rather a human individual to a collective. victory. The greatest thing about "Gemini Man" is that Ang Lee overthrew technology with technology. With his consistent father-son complex and family feelings, he completed the return to himself that Lynn failed to achieve.
Ang Lee is a pioneer who knows that there are tigers in the mountains and prefers to walk in the mountains. He is also the person who approached and embraced fear in the movie. It's just that he went too fast. There are only a few theaters that support 120-frame playback, and even fewer viewers can see "120-frame + 3D + 4K". In order to cooperate with the successful iteration of this film technology, there are still There is still a long way to go. In addition to the supporting equipment of the theater, it also requires the iteration of the original movie concept such as actors' performance modes, makeup techniques, and shooting methods. But I sincerely hope that more and more filmmakers will appear in front of the audience, so that Ang Lee will no longer be alone.
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