However, after reading the film carefully, I found that Bergman's lens language was far from simple. After repeatedly chewing several passages of the film and reading several books about Bergman's film theory, I took a peek at Bergman's lens language art based on the carefulness of the opening paragraphs of the film.
Although there is no doubt, "Screaming and Whispering" is known as Bergman's pinnacle work on the subject of female exploration in his series. Moreover, just as some people have said, critics have different interpretations of the text of the film:
[...] Those who are familiar with the Bible will regard Agnes’s illness as the suffering of Jesus, and the glory of the Virgin is seen in Anna. : Feminists will see the lack of male characters in the film’s narrative. But in any case, all interpretations are based on personal social experience and knowledge reserves, and to a certain extent reflect the viewer's own understanding of the world.
Therefore, according to the requirements, this short essay may pay more attention to the perceptual experience brought by the professional skills of analyzing film performance, and also talk about the film text itself, so as not to discuss the topics that have been repeated.
Paragraph 1: Opening scenes (1 minute 20 to 2 minutes 00). The
film opens for more than a minute and ends with a bright red background with subtitles, accompanied by a "ding-ding" bell, and a light blue hue with a statue facing away. The close-up is the opening, and then four sets of fixed static empty shots depict the manor with different compositions. But here, such a short opening also completes several transitions of the film.
Detail 1: Tone conversion: cool blue-warm red
As mentioned earlier, the use of tones can be said to be the highlight of this movie. Even Bergman himself once said, "All of my films can be thought of in black and white, and "Screaming and Whispering" is an exception." In general film language, blue often brings peace and tranquility to the audience. A perceptual experience of loneliness and solemnity, while red gives the audience a perceptual experience of anxiety, violence and excitement. However, in the opening scene of this movie, it may be said that the cool blue color appropriately expresses the perceptual experience of tranquility, loneliness and solemnity, and it also has the function of blurring the main body of the picture. However, when the tone of the opening shifts to the warm red of the main body tone of the film, it does not simply give us a feeling of violence and excitement.
We can use part of Bergman's memoirs to understand Bergman's use of color in this movie. Bergman once said that when he was a child, he imaged his soul as a shadow-like dragon. The color was cyan, while red was the color inside the body. Therefore, when we combine the film, we can further speculate that Bergman combines red with the two motifs of women and flesh, and the use of red tones brings audiences thinking about women's desires and struggles. In addition, the red main background color also allows the characters in the film to form a sharp contrast whether they are wearing a white coat or a black dress, making the main image more prominent.
Therefore, at the beginning of the film, Bergman’s light blue cool tone can be said to be intended to depict the outer shell of the soul, but also to lay the groundwork for the red motif at the back of the film, playing a role of contrast to explore Under the body of the seemingly quiet soul, women's inner desires are surging and the tragic scene of fighting. In the beginning of the film, Bergman completed this tone conversion in just a few tens of seconds.
Detail two, scene conversion: close-up-panorama-close-up
This paragraph adopts the film's typical first-entry close-up and then panoramic, that is, the "close-up-panoramic" editing method. First, let a statue with its back to us appear in front of us in a close-up shot, and then let us see that it is a part of a manor with a panoramic view, and finally the manor with a house and their positional relationship.
Such a conversion method, whether in the opening scene or in the film (for example, several places in the film from the close-up of a few women's faces to the panoramic view of the interior of the room), can give the audience a sense of surprise and delayed curiosity. . And this sense of "scare" and curiosity is intended to control the audience's heart, making the audience's expectations of the scene-based story in the process of watching the movie invalid. This effect will allow truly serious audiences to use their genre expectations more cautiously and think more seriously about the lens of the movie. This kind of serious movie does not adopt the natural observation method that usually ranges from panorama to close-up, from the whole to the part, and does not allow the audience to enter the story comfortably. Instead, it forces the audience to think constantly. This way of expression is to a certain extent the same as Brecht's "interval" theory.
But the more important transition in the opening scene should occur in the "panoramic-close-up" transition. Because after the opening panoramic display ended, the film basically entered the part dominated by close-ups. The use of close-ups in this film, especially the use of facial close-ups, is also a major feature.
[...] The four women face the state of death and fear in their souls, and Bergman wants to detect their souls through close-ups of their faces. Therefore, Bergman did not use literary language to reveal the human heart like Rohmer did, but made every position, action and positioning close-up first visually show accuracy, so those close-ups provide more than just expressions. , It is a soul entrance.
Bergman passed the main task of the scene to the close-up through the opening of the film, thus completing the transition of the film from panoramic rule to close-up rule.
Detail three. Lighting conversion: dark-dawn
Although the lighting style of this section basically uses natural light, we can also see that the light effects of several lenses are also completely different. Bergman completed the film's time transition from darkness to dawn by capturing these different light effects.
Except for the first statue shot in the opening scene, the light effects of the next four consecutive shots to the main body of the film have a general trend of changing from low-key to high-key. We saw the second and third shots showing that there was still some morning fog in the chaos before dawn, and the scene was still slightly gloomy. The fourth and fifth lenses have been exposed to sunlight, and the intensity of the light has been continuously added, and even the fifth lens has a clear backlight effect, creating a high-contrast lighting tone.
On the one hand, this conversion is to complete the transition of the film's time, and on the other hand, it uses the theoretical explanation of the lighting tone: the low-key tone of the first few shots at the beginning of the scene creates a sympathetic, gloomy, and serious for the audience. Perceptual experience. Although the sun appeared after dawn, the fifth lens did not give people a sense of relaxation and joy with the large amount of high-key lighting, but continued to aggravate the audience's anxiety with the high contrast of the backlight.
Detail four, scene conversion: outdoor-indoor
opening Another important conversion is the scene conversion. Bergman's film can be regarded as a typical "indoor drama", which also benefits from Bergman's admiration for Strindberg. Bergman himself once said that the heroine of the film was named Agnes as a tribute to August Strindberg. (We know that Strindberg, who is a native of Bergman, is known for its "indoor drama", and its late expressionist style also has a profound influence on Bergman's creation of works intended to explore the innermost characters of the characters)
So in order to complete The scene transition of the film from outdoor to indoor, the continuity of the first few shots of the film is also elegant. From the back of the sculpture to the manor, and finally to the scene where the tree, the sculpture and the house are together, after introducing the object of the house, the film fades into the indoor scene through red. Bergman used the opening shots to complete the task of scene transition very smoothly.
Detail 5, the main body conversion: statue-manor
Although the simple opening scene consists of only a few shots, it also contains the transformation of the subject. The previous article has always mentioned that the film opens with a close-up of the statue facing away in a pale blue tone. In fact, this statue is carved by Orpheus. Therefore, in the first shot of the film’s opening scene, Bergman must have taken Orpheus’s back to occupy the main body of the picture. There must be special considerations. Such considerations can achieve a certain level of art from both content and form. Effect.
In terms of content, the story of Orpheus struggling to pursue his wife but finally lost it may also symbolize the same efforts that people must do to face the pain of abandonment and death. This is actually the difficult choice faced by several female protagonists in the film. Maria fantasizes about her husband committing suicide. Karin hurts her husband and herself with glass. Maria and Karin also blame each other for their hypocrisy. Even Anna blamed the sisters for abandoning Annes. All contradictory spearheads can be directed at the pain of abandonment and death, and a quiet Orpheus statue in the opening few seconds of the film seems to foreshadow this kind of pain that people cannot escape.
In terms of form, Bergman’s opening with Orpheus, which represents music in Greek mythology, also has his own intentions. In Bergman's own words: "The title is actually borrowed from the music review of the Mozart Quartet:'It sounds like whispering and crying'". Therefore, in the next structure of the film, the narrative is expanded separately from the perspective of the four female protagonists, as if to interpret the story of a family in the form of a quartet. Similarly, we also found that after the opening of the Orpheus shot, the film was followed by empty shots of four environments, which also created a special artistic effect in structure.
In the few shots that followed Orpheus, the subject of the shot changed. From the second shot, we found that Orpheus was gradually moving away from us. The statue from the second shot kept a little distance but only occupies the right corner of the screen. The third shot statue appeared on the far side of the lawn. The morning fog surrounds to the complete disappearance of the fourth lens. At the same time, from the second shot, a thick tree forcibly entered our field of vision. From the composition point of view, the appearance of the tree is very strong, and it basically occupies an important position of one-third of the intersection of the shot. Finally, in the fifth shot, the tree and Orpheus appeared at the same time. The tree completely defeated Orpheus and became the subject of the lens. This transformation of the subject will undoubtedly give the audience a sense of insignificance and helplessness about people. This is also Bergman's ingenious intentions in the main conversion of the composition of the film's opening scene.
Paragraph 2: Continuous clock shots (2 minutes 00 to 3 minutes 00).
This is a very interesting set of shots. In fact, the movement of the shots attracted me the most from this set of shots at the beginning. In the background sound of "ding-ding", this group of shots close-ups of several sets of clocks and watches with several sets of vertical down shots and horizontal shift shots. When I inspected the movement of several sets of shots, I also discovered some important details about the film's symbolism.
Detail 1. Lens movement: Descending and shifting lenses.
Among the seven lenses in this group, two consecutive vertical descending lenses and two horizontal shifting lenses were used at the beginning to close up these groups of clocks. The movement of this lens itself has an emotional tendency.
Vertical lowering of the camera instead of using the arc-shaped lifting or diagonal lifting expression, coupled with the slow rhythm and speed when the lens is lowered, gives the audience a heavy feeling, and feels that there is a heavy burden on the shoulders of the audience. It seems to make the audience feel unable to look up, and it also matches the serious and quiet emotional tone of the film itself. And the two horizontal shifting of the lens does not conform to the natural observation rule of the audience from left to right, and the lens has to be shifted from right to left. This also makes the audience feel a kind of forced pressure, but also makes the audience feel uneasy.
Detail two. Symbol: clock
But immediately after a static close-up of a pendulum and a clock face, Bergman used a rising lens very exceptionally. It was this shot that started to make me feel a little confusing. What's even more confusing is that Bergman made the "ding-ding" clock sound that had appeared in every shot abruptly stopped in this shot. However, when I examine these shots from another angle of the subject of the picture, the clues become clearer.
In these consecutive shots, no matter how the lens moves and changes, the frame of the shot must be fixed on the clock face. Even static lenses without movement are connected together with a pendulum first and then a clock face. Therefore, in the last shot, Bergman did not hesitate to sacrifice the emotional cues of the camera movement to ensure that his symbolic subject, the clock (here, Bergman uses the image of the clock face to symbolize the clock) can be emphasized.
Bergman also talked about a terrible nightmare experience in his childhood in an interview. In his dream, he was pushed onto the operating table, uneasy, when he suddenly found that all the clocks had stopped. Then he woke up suddenly, feeling that it was the moment of death. Therefore, whether in this film or in "Wild Strawberry" (Professor Isaac’s nightmare often shows clocks and operations without hands), the clock is a very important symbol that foreshadows death and life. Stop the terror. And this is also one of the roots of fear of the heroines in the film, they must face the fear of Anise's death. We can also see the clock repeatedly appearing in the screen in the film, and even Anise has made several adjustments to the clock.
Comparative analysis and critical views of related films: "Wild Strawberry" and "Marriage Life"
I am more willing to combine the method of comparative analysis to talk about some critical views on the film "Scream and Whisper". Because even if you only compare Bergman's own film works, you can find great richness in the comparison of the many works of this highly productive film director. Under the tone of the overall style of Bergman's films, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different works is also helpful to understand the characteristics of the works themselves.
Let me talk about the work "Wild Strawberry" first. The previous article also mentioned that the two works "Wild Strawberry" and "Screaming and Whispering" have some similarities in content and symbolism: both focus on the core of the family as the center of the story; both involve the seriousness of death. Theme; both use memories and dreams.
Regarding the family core, as Bergman said in "Autumn Sonata" and "Marriage Life", "[Family is] a purgatory where the flames of pain and anxiety grill souls. In it, everyone has a tendency to split personality. While I am in extreme pain, I am also creating pain for others." Part of the repeated discussion of the family system is also because Bergman lacked the love of his father in a family full of religious atmosphere when he was young. At the same time, death also occupies an important position in the two works. In "Wild Strawberry" it is Professor Isaac who is dying, and in "Cry and Whisper" it is Annes's dying. However, the difference between the two works here is that they have adopted different endings. To put it simply, "Wild Strawberry" appears to have a more closed structure and a positive attitude, while "Shouting and Whispering" adopts a more open but still A slightly pessimistic expression.
In "Wild Strawberry" Professor Isaac's wife died very early, and now she has a son. Then he learned from his daughter-in-law, Marianne, how annoying she and his son were. Isaac's childhood experiences created a kind of alienated fear of other people, and made him appear indifferent and ruthless towards other people. However, the encounter between Isaac and the three young people in the film and the dreams during his journey made him more and more aware of the power of love and true feelings. In the end, the old man fell into a dream peacefully and peacefully, and the pain no longer entangled him. The whole process of recalling "Shouting and Whispering" seems so painful, and it is no longer the same as the sense of fear in "Wild Strawberry", which seems to be tearing the audience's heart. At the end of the film, when Anna reads Annes’s diary again, although it is a peaceful and beautiful memory, the audience can no longer enjoy such a beautiful time, because their hearts have been torn apart and all they have is A bunch of unsolvable problems and thoughts, we don’t know whether the remaining sisters can return to the good old days.
Regarding the other work "Marriage Life", both in terms of creation time and concerns, it is closer to "Screaming and Whispers". Even for some of the shots, the two films also adopted some similar treatment methods, such as having the protagonist standing behind a half-hidden door or curtain, and focusing on the relationship between mother and daughter, and so on. Although speaking from the perspective of women, the difference is that Bergman described two different options. Marianne didn't get out of the shadow of childhood, she couldn't understand the love that didn't please others, and she didn't get out of her closed self. On the contrary, Anis can give her sisters love that she does not need to rely on, but she can't get equal returns.
Finally, I will talk about critical opinions about this film by comparing several works. Comparing several works, I personally like "Wild Strawberry" the most. On the one hand, in terms of the overall style, the overly stylized film language of "Shouts and Whispers" is its advantage and its disadvantage, because sometimes it scares away its audience. Although both "Wild Strawberry" and "Shouting and Whispering" are biased towards "small plot", that is, the narrative method that pays more attention to the inner expression of the characters rather than the external plot, it is obvious that "Shouting and Whispering" is more extreme. Bergman unconventionally forced this expressionist style of film to also use some slightly long shots and slow passages. A painful and hideous face would force the audience to watch for a minute, and a long line on the dining table. There is no movement of the central character, and there is no other information in the picture. This makes his audience feel that the film is boring or absent-minded. Therefore, viewers who have watched this film leave more memories about the style and form of the film, and they have forgotten about the content and themes of the film a long time ago or are still ambiguous. On the other hand, "Wild Strawberry" is richer in themes, and can even be said to surpass "The Seventh Seal." The style of "Wild Strawberry" is closer to the real personal emotional situation, so the real individual experiences that can be unearthed in this work will appear to be richer. More importantly, the dilemma of Isaac's choice in "Wild Strawberry" is a more general problem, because everyone is bound to face interpersonal estrangement, alienation and indifference eventually lead to death, which is more general and macroscopic. While "Shouting and Whispering" may be limited by the subject matter, it is actually difficult to continue to raise or dig deeper while bringing artistic aesthetics, because it is difficult to find a fit and resonance similar to the painful experience in its audience.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
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