"Razor's Edge" was adapted by Brian de Palma in 1970 based on Gerard Walker's novel Cruising. The ingenious and superb plot development, confusing and confusing suspense settings, breathtaking dramatic tension and atmosphere create all of them to make people see the shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, even the iconic Hitchcock Brian de Palma inherited the camera that used details to portray the heart and spirit of the characters. Of course, this is not a simple picture of cats and tigers. Brian de Palma not only absorbed the charm of Hitchcock's film art, but also perfectly blended it with his own unique film style. The end of the film is the most exciting baggage in the whole story. Hitchcock's classic "Terror" has the same ending. The skilful and outstanding montage and the clean and intact transition cut push the storyline forward in one go, without even giving the audience any breathing time, and have a place in horror films like "The Cry".
Brian de Palma paid tribute to Hitchcock in the opening shot of the 45-year-old and charming Angie Dickinson taking a bath in a half-open bathroom. It’s no wonder that women’s groups protested at the beginning of this film. No matter how Brian de Palma used art genres and creative freedom to raise the flag for himself, there is indeed nothing in his films. Convergently rendering pornography, violence and blood. Brian de Palma is as obsessed with murder as Hitchcock. In this film alone, there are 5 murder scenes before and after, the tension and horror of each scene can make people feel creepy. And Brian de Palma’s killing was more extreme and bloody than Hitchcock’s. It is precisely because of these naked and bloody and violent scenes that the film is so controversial that it was almost rated X-rated by the American Motion Picture Association.
The beginning of "Razor Edge" is about a middle-aged woman who was troubled by life and family pressure and actively seeks to cheat, but was killed in an elevator after a one-night stand. I thought it was a story about a serial killer, but it was discovered that the killing ended there. The plot after that revolved around solving the case, interspersed with the protection of witnesses. In the end, the answer is revealed. Although it can be described as the cliché "unexpected and reasonable", the plot itself is very exciting and it is amazing. If the razor is the open line of "Razor Edge", then sex is the dark line that connects "Razor Edge". The derailment, violence, and transgender around the theme of sex not only enrich the plot and the rhythm, but also make the plot logically self-consistent, becoming an indispensable part of Razor's Edge. The two heroines of "Razor's Edge" bravely appeared naked. Although the figures of the two are the same, after all, time is not forgiving. The scars of time leave on the face of the older man so impressive that it is a bit more impressive than his patchwork figure. Feeling nauseous, people have to sigh that it's nice to be young. Another feature of menopause is memory decline and loss of work. This is obvious in the heroine, and it also makes her step into the abyss step by step.
From a structural point of view, the plot development, suspense setting, dramatic expression and atmosphere creation in "Razor's Edge" are all reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Scary". Among them, there are several interesting places:
First, it is the heroine (the heroine disappears in ten minutes, so the name of the "protagonist" is not true, which is similar to "The Cry", but more wronged than Janet Leigh, and she doesn't look pretty) in the museum The scene of encountering an affair. At first, the woman was sitting on a chair alone, and a strange man suddenly sat next to her. After the two looked at each other, the woman hurriedly left, but the secret desire conveyed between the two eyes already hinted at the inevitable development of things. When the woman left, she left her gloves on the chair, and the man picked it up and started chasing her. Using this tiny detail as a starting point, the two began a shuttle chase in the museum. As the two of them wandered through one exhibition hall after another, the slow camera movement and warm and ambiguous music combined with the actress’s expressive performances, a strong lust flowed in the search and pursuit of the two who wanted to refuse, not only Demonstrating the subtle relationship between them, and at the same time conveying the woman's inner hesitation and confusion and the fire of irrepressible desire to the fullest. The whole scene starts with the woman taking notes until the two get into the car and start making love. There is no dialogue between the characters in the scene for about 7 or 8 minutes before and after. Brian de Palma completely relied on audiovisual language to thoroughly dig into the characters. The inner world has strengthened the carnal atmosphere of the whole film, and the expressive power of the lens is not inferior to Hitchcock.
Second, there are 5 murder scenes in the whole film (the opening bathroom murder, the elevator murder, the psychologist trying to kill the prostitute, the second bathroom murder, and the final mental illness murder), and each scene has full drama tension and its level of horror. It can be seen that although there were only two real murders, no one realized this in the process. The most impressive of them were elevator murder and mental hospital murder. In the elevator murder scene, the biggest feature is the eyes of the heroine shown in the close-up shots, because when the lens advances toward the eyes of the characters, the scenery becomes smaller, allowing the audience to create a sense of oppression on the audience’s soul through the protagonist’s first subjective feelings And impact. Of course, the most impressive part of the murder scene in the mental hospital is through the slowly rising overhead shot. The audience sees a group of mental patients shouting upstairs. Below is an appalling murder case that is taking place, but the use of the camera. But it puts the audience in the same position as those mental patients, permeating a mysterious and strange atmosphere.
Third, the best part of "Razor Edge" is that when the psychologist and the prostitute intervened in the case at the same time, Brian de Palma used a split-screen lens to show the two people a common night life scene at the same time: the psychologist: the psychologist I was calling the suspect to leave a message; the witness was the prostitute who was talking about business on the phone; the murderer outside the window watched her every movement from time to time. This seemingly ordinary scene to explain the plot is actually full of gimmicks, making the audience feel that its meaning only implies the complicated relationship between the characters. But in fact, it was Brian de Palma who set up drama suspense in order to confuse the audience. Because in this shot, the murderer, the prostitute, and the psychologist appear at the same time, showing a triangular relationship (the murderer kills the prostitute, the doctor finds the murderer, and the prostitute finds the doctor); and because the split-screen shots show at the same time, the audience naturally thinks this is completely Three different people would never think that one of them could be transformed into two people.
In a sense, this scene satirized the audience's traditional concepts, thus breaking through the logical development of traditional suspense films. So when the truth is finally revealed, unexpected results can be achieved. Brian de Palma uses this split-screen shot to imply a person’s two inner tendencies. It is not only an imitation and development of the split personality in "The Cry", but also a wonderful moment that best expresses his personal film style. . The most classic museum flirt in "Razor Edge", there is no dialogue for more than ten minutes, but the twists and turns of the filming are all due to the skill of Brian de Palma. Brian de Palma is more technical. The opening long film in "Snake Eye" is more fun, and the chase scene at the end of "The Dawn of Love" has been impressed so far. Strong, I'm afraid it's one of the best in Hollywood, no wonder the "Cinema Manual" always loves Brian de Palma, just like Francois Truffaut loves Hitchcock.
When "Razor Edge" was released in the UK, it was criticized for Brian de Palma's misogyny and exploitation of women. There are no shortage of highlights in the film’s performance: Angie Dickinson’s role as a middle-aged woman full of desire and guilt is different from any role she has played before. With this film, she won the Satum Best Actress Award; personality played by Michael Caine The split psychiatrist, Nancy Allen showed the harsh living environment of prostitutes in the metropolis and the dilemma of death facing them, all brilliantly.
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