"Knife Out" is a modern murder mystery that pays tribute to the universally recognized queen of mystery novels, Agatha Christie. Its script is very "grandmother" spirit, placing the background in a big family that is superficially warm but actually disintegrated. middle. As expected by the audience, the patriarch died bizarrely, a detective intervened in the case, through a series of questions and flashbacks, and finally made a summary statement to find out who was the real culprit. The main frame of the story is more like an adaptation of Granny’s famous work "Roger’s Mystery." The flashback of the registered nurse Marta (Anna de Armas), it is obvious that she has become the emotional center of the film. This is exactly the same as the "me" in "Roger’s Mystery". I call this "Bait the protagonist". What's interesting is that Marta, like "I", is showing people as a detective assistant, and both are covering up some of her actions, but the endings of the two are of course very different, otherwise it will be a remake.
The "I" in "Roger's Mystery" tells the story from the reader's point of view, and the first-person narrative method can increase the reader's sense of identity. "Knife Out" also unfolds the story through Marta's perspective. With the development of the plot, the audience also has an emotional identification with her, and then achieves the purpose of setting suspense to attract the audience (even if the film has revealed part of the answer too early, That is, the "hole in the middle of the doughnut" on the first layer). The audience will stand in her position and hope that her affairs will not be exposed. Just like in the movie "The Cry", Norman pushes Marian's car into the swamp. The car sinks slowly and then stops halfway. The audience will stand in the position of the murderer and anxiously hope that the car will sink soon. This is the empathy conferred by the movie. Adopting Marta's perspective has another advantage, which helps to exaggerate the horror of all family members. This is also consistent with "Roger's Mystery". The deceased was a wealthy patriarch, and his relatives were all people who needed money. After the death of the patriarch, he tore through the mask of hypocrisy.
In my opinion, Blanco combines the characteristics of several detectives. His gentleman's appearance can be said to be Sherlock Holmes's charming; his southern accent, and the way of questioning and summarizing are incompatible with this big family. , Like the classic protagonist in Granny's writings-Belgian detective Poirot; his obvious slowness, most of the time he may not be sure what he is doing, or just waiting for the opportunity to wait for the murderer to fall into his hands, which is typical The style of the American drama "Detective Colombo". Blanco's cross-examination is absurd and funny, not only to understand these people, but also to understand how they feel about each other. Every member of the Drysdale family has his own "knot" to the deceased Haran, and has vague alibi. They told Harlan what happened on the night of birthday, but the film immediately edited the answer of another family member, which would refute everything the previous person said.
Director Ryan Johnson actually arranged for Kailoren and Luke to tell three versions of the memory story in his previous work "Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi", which can be called "Star Wars Rashomon". "Knife Out of the Sheath" has improved this narrative style. Have you noticed it? All the suspects (except Marta) are constantly lying to Blanco and the police, but flashbacks are always telling the truth. This unreliable narrator thoroughly plays with the audience. And Blanco's response to every new message will make the audience suspect that this detective is not as smart as we thought. In addition, the film also focuses on the reactions that the characters face when they approach the truth. Several characters are playing in the dark. In the writing of the script, it wandered between "suicide" and "murder" again and again, fought circuitous battles. Harlan’s death seemed to be suicide at first, but Blanco suspected murder. Later, Harlan committed suicide in order to protect Marta, and finally found it turned into a complicated murder. This is also a habit of grandma, she often uses the character's suicide in exchange for another means of murder. The key item "Morphine" is also a commonly used poison in Apo's novels, including "A Lunch in H Manor", "Suspicious Clouds in Xuyang Ridge", "Murder in Foreign Student Dormitory", "Inheritance Disturbance", "Murder on the Cliff" and "Golf Course". I have used Suspicious Clouds and so on.
The difference from the film adaptation of the grandma novel is that it has made an attempt to break through the structure in genre conventions, and revealed some of the answers too early, directly covering how the patriarch Harlan died (of course, there will be some small omissions) . With the opening of the doughnut hole outside, the audience can't help but wonder, why the story continues? Those who have watched a lot of Hitchcock movies (Hitchcock talks about suspense rather than reasoning) will know why the story continues-the mystery of the original novel of the movie "Vortex" is revealed in one third of the movie , The rest of the plot is driven by suspense. Hitchcock's approach is to reverse the plot as early as possible, let the audience participate in it, and then let suspense rather than surprise promote the development of the plot. Here I quote Hitchcock’s explanation of the words "suspense" and "reasoning" in "The Dark Side of Genius-Hitchcock's Life", and you will be more intuitive:
The terms "reasoning" and "suspense" are often confusing, and the gap between the two is absolutely tens of thousands of miles. Reasoning is an intellectual process, such as a puzzle novel that investigates "who did it". However, suspense is basically an emotional process, and certain information must be provided to the audience in order to unfold the suspense element. I dare say that you have watched a lot of movies with mysterious plot development. You don't know what is going on, why that person did this or that. By the time you understand what you are doing, the movie has already played a third. For me, it was a waste of film, because there is no emotion in it...the audience can't empathize with it...the reasoning doesn't appeal to me, because it just makes the audience confused. I don't think this is enough.
So, whether you guessed the murderer of "Blade Out of the Sheath" very early, it doesn’t matter—this movie has enough conspiracy and suspense to make you guess and interested. The most important thing is that it can Resonate your emotions. As said before, you will also empathize with Marta.
The script of "Knife Out of the Sheath" is very literary, and it also uses the writing technique of "Chekhov's Spear". This is a common narrative strategy. Playwrights and screenwriters will use this method in order to link the parts together, so that the characters, props and environment are closely related across different scenes. To put it simply, what started to appear must be used later, otherwise it should not appear. It is derived from Chekhov’s original words: “If you said in Chapter 1 that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, then in Chapter 2 or 3, the gun must go off. If the gun does not go off, then it should not be hung. There." The knives in the film are used in this way, and the knives have actually appeared many times. Especially in the flashback section of the film, Haran and Marta mentioned when they played Go, that some people could not distinguish the difference between a real knife and a prop knife. In the end, Lanson grabbed a knife from the knife decoration and tried to stab Marta, but it turned out to be a prop knife. This is the "Chekhov's Spear", or "Chekhov's Knife".
The story of the film is set in the United States, but the overall style is particularly the taste of old-school British detective films. Director Ryan Johnson intends to learn from some classic British detective films. I found some, such as "Happy Jack" in "Footprints" (1972) in Harlan's study:
The wealthy detective novelist Harlan is also the same as the wealthy detective novelist Andrew in Footprints. The two families are also full of everything related to detective reasoning:
The decoration of Drysdale's knives resembles the iron throne in "Game of Thrones", and there is no shortage of straightforward tribute to "Game of Thrones" in current popular culture. However, in my opinion, it is also a modification of the spear and sword decoration in "Death Plan" (1982):
Detective Blanco also made a metaphor when referring to the Drysdale family, saying that their family "really likes to twist the knife into a ball", which also corresponds to the decoration of the knife in the house.
And the borrowing of the name of the poster film "Strange Banquet" (1976):
For another example, "Ecstasy" (1973) sent a threatening letter to A, but actually gave it to B, giving things a different turn.
In addition, the TV that Marta's mother watched at home was the American drama "Women Writers and Murders" (1984-1996), which is a very famous and long-lasting classic American detective drama. This series has a total of 12 seasons and 264 episodes. It was broadcast on CBS TV in the United States from 1984 to 1996, and then four TV movies were released from 1997 to 2003.
Although this film reminds me of grandma's novels and past detective films, it is completely modern in terms of audiovisual methods and narrative language, and has developed many innovative methods. Undoubtedly, it has an ancient writing style and tries to connect with a new generation of young audiences. It uses a coffee cup that says "My rules, my home, and my coffee" to form it with the surrounding gorgeous interior decoration. Compared. This film sometimes deliberately pretends, but it is never ridiculous. It uses the narrative method of detective movies instead of the traditional method of detective novels to show its wisdom, revealing different secrets at different stages, rather than overnight. It requires the audience to know something along with the character, and those seemingly incompetent detectives do not seem to know as much as the audience knows. This is the charm of the movie.
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