This article first appeared on the public account Bogeman Movie Party (ID: bogemandyp)
What kind of voice do you have to make in order to be yourself?
What kind of melody does it take to become a legend?
In Cuba, there is such a group of almost forgotten national treasure musicians who have witnessed the golden age of Cuban music. By chance, with their love of music and their beloved music, they returned to the stage again.
In Cuba, music flows like a river
As an influential music documentary, these happy old musicians in "Floating Lives of Music" showed the world the beautiful roots of Cuban music, setting off a global upsurge of Cuban music.
The "Buena Vista Social Club" (Buena Vista Social Club) described in the film has witnessed the golden age of modern Cuban music development. The film was created by the famous German director Wim Wenders , who directed classic works such as "Paris in Texas" and "Under the Sky of Berlin" . The shooting opportunity originated from a trip to Cuba by his music partner Ledercu.
During a trip, Ledercu discovered the touching story behind a local band in Cuba. Under his persuasion, Wenwinds brought a photography team to Cuba in 1988 and started this famous shooting. The director combined documentary and film techniques to record this group of Cuban artists who have long been forgotten. With the hot selling of movies and the publication of album CDs, this group of artists has been mentioned again. The world once again saw Cuba, heard about Cuba, understood the moving charm of Cuban music, and was moved by the moving interpretation and musical spirit of this group of national treasure artists.
Ledercu once said: "In Cuba, music flows like a river." He also said, "Music is like digging for treasures. You have to dig and dig to find treasures. Because after a long time, they excavated. There is something very earthy in Cuban music, similar to folk songs that are closer to the original sound. Sometimes it is very sad, but not the lonely sadness of jazz, but a little melodramatic, the melody is simple and tossing. Music in Cuba, like The fossils are preserved."
Cuba, a country with a population of only 10 million, has produced world-famous Latin dance music: ode, chacha, mambo, rumba and salsa. Cuban music is a mixed product of Spanish national music and black singing and dancing culture. Its various forms of expression are attributed to European colonists and the already active multi-ethnic cultural exchange and integration in Latin America.
In the 1930s, American culture swept the world. Cuban traditional music, which is mainly in the form of dance music, is naturally also influenced by the strongest cultural output from its North American neighbors, that is, jazz. The Cuban musicians of that era were enthusiastic and simple, swaying the cradle of Latin American jazz. Many of them had ignited the spark of a hundred years before Cuban jazz at the Haojing Club.
Music is an intangible element of film transition. The same melody connects the states of the characters in different spaces naturally and appropriately, realizing a seamless natural transition.
In the film, the performance of Carnegie Hall, different characters walking through the streets of Cuba, and rehearsal scenes and other multi-line narratives are cross-edited together. The same character in different time and space, his story, his emotions, his dreams, and different roles in the band are shown in front of the audience one by one.
The freely rotating and flowing scenes with Wenders's photography style follow the characters, walk through the streets, and explain the characters while also narrating the background of the times, showing the audience the small city of Cuba during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis. A picture of the living conditions of the people of Havana, middle-aged men playing cards on the street, merchants selling bananas in trucks, middle-aged women sweeping the floor with cigars, people working. These scenes make the film not only a record of musicians, but also Added its social expression.
In the end, this group of old Cuban musicians used music to cross the political barrier and was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York by making an exception. After the performance, the full audience stood up and applauded. These old musicians were moved to tears and couldn't help feeling the meaning of sticking to their beliefs along the way.
The film has won 13 best documentary awards at international film festivals, including the European Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award, the National Film Critics Association of the United States, and the best documentary nominated for the Oscars. It is a music documentary with high international popularity in recent years. The music album "Buena Vista Social Club" (Buena Vista Social Club) created by everyone also won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Music in that year, bringing Cuban music back to the world and rewriting the entire history of Latin music.
The king of road movies in Germany, recording music without borders with images
"Floating Lives of Music" is Wim Wenders's most representative and acclaimed music documentary. As one of the "Four New German Film Masters", Wenders' creative career crosses between film and documentary. .
Wenders, born in 1945, has made many new films with directors such as Fassbender, Schellendorf, and Hosso, and has become a representative figure of the new German film movement. Wenders loves traveling, photography, and works across feature films and documentaries, and has won numerous awards in major international film festivals. American music, culture, and film have a profound influence on Wenders. In his films, images and music are often interlinked and complementary. He is good at using light and shadow to record stories. His films are beautifully mirrored and full of images of wandering and alienation.
Since the end of the silent film era, film has established a mutually successful relationship with sound and the art of sound. Wenders has been obsessed with music for a long time. During his studies at the Munich Film and Television Academy, Wenders began to write film and music reviews, and his personal love may have paved the direction of future creation in a subtle way.
As a film road poet obsessed with documentary film creation, Wenders has created 7 documentaries since filming.
In 1980, Wenders was invited by the famous American director Nicholas Ray to participate in the directing of the documentary "Return to Light on Water", which recorded the last period of Nicholas’ life. In the trivial and pale afterimages, the lens was in a real and even dull way. , Describing the artistic ideal of death and interrupted by death; this is Wenders’ first attempt to shoot a feature-length documentary. Although the subject and friend died before the film was released, this experience seems to be buried in Wenders’ heart. A seedling was planted.
In 1984, Wenders went to Japan to look for his idol and spiritual master, the famous Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and completed the filming of the documentary "A Trip to Tokyo-Looking for Ozu". In 1989, Wenders went to Japan again. The subject of this record was the famous fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto. Wenders was the main performer in the film. Through dialogue, the two talked about art cities, identity anxiety, and the digital age. Many modernity propositions such as the movie.
After the 21st century, Wenders continued to explore the relationship between music and film as two heterogeneous media, such as the role of music elements in film expression, and film gave full play to its audiovisual language advantages in the presentation of music, singing and dancing.
The 2002 "Ode to Cologne" continued the line of the music documentary in the late 1990s, and can be regarded as a love poem dedicated to rock music by Wenders. In the same year, Wenders was invited to take part in the short film "Ten Minutes of Old Age", which perfectly blended the film and rock music within 10 minutes.
In 2003, American directors Martin Sicoses, Clint Eastwood and others launched the "Bruce Roots" mini-series project to collect video works that tell music stories. Wenders invited himself with great enthusiasm. Three favorite blues artists and 27 world-class musicians participated in the filming of "The Soul of Blues".
In 2009, Wenders hit it off again with German dancer Pina Bausch and decided to use 3D technology to record the highly rendering modern dance art; although Pina’s sudden death put aside the yet-to-be-launched filming plan, but in Wender With Si’s insistence, the dance art that Pina has burned for her life is finally presented on the screen in the most shocking and true manner.
To this day, Wenders is still tirelessly active in the forefront of documentary creation. In 2014, the documentary "Salt of the Earth" was shortlisted for a focus unit at the Cannes Film Festival and won an Oscar nomination for best documentary.
Music is one of the arts closest to the soul, and its role in images also exists like the soul.
Wenders has carried out countless possible fusions of his love for music and video. "Le Shi Fu Sheng Road" records that these old artists use music to cross the barriers of political countries and even their physical age to embrace the spirit of music. Free country.
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