In the age when I first liked watching movies, I remember that "Infernal Affairs" was a movie that had the most impact on me. The aria portrayed by the two undercover agents struggling in pain and despair, but unable to break free from fate, is deeply attracted. This opening sentence also seems to have a certain generality to the fate of the characters in the Scorsese movie. It is most important to him. In those works, the interaction between the protagonist and the environment is often the deeper content of the film. In these characters, they usually have a strong spirit of resistance and are constantly besieged by the environment. Extending from the story narrated in the film, the audience can make some educated inferences about the director's worldview.
The "environment" mentioned here includes all aspects of history and society. For example, the history of the American ups and downs of the Irish immigrant gang can always be talked about from "New York Gangs" to "Infernal Affairs"; the era of flying tycoon Howard Hughes, Hollywood was a drunken fan. "Taxi Driver" Travis Bickle is swallowed by loneliness and hopelessness in the background of a decadent modern metropolis life. Of course, the most common element is the Italian community ("Poor Streets" and "Good Guys"). Scorsese, who is also a descendant of Italian immigrants, has preserved these environmental factors in his early life in detail. Without losing objective memory.
The story in "Angry Bull" took place in such a community. Jack LaMotta is a bull-like boxer, full of paranoia, and unyielding inwardness. In a society with a huge gang roots, such a violent fighter had to bow his head to the gang and play a sad and painful water release match. The lonely hero will one day fall into the tavern and tell a few vulgar jokes where no one is still in favor. This film is based on La Motta’s autobiography, but does not spend a lot of pen and ink to describe the character’s career growth, nor does it have obvious psychologicalism like Coppola’s films of the same period, but puts him into a detailed In the background, let him "roll with the wheel of history." When talking about the theme of the film, Scorsese said: "I think Jack here is a once brilliant, but he has fallen into trouble now, but now he has got peace of mind. And in the end he faced him. The self in the mirror talks to himself, telling oneself to face life and other people in life easily. This is the purpose of our filming." The tragedy of Jack LaMotta lies in trying to get through with his own brute force. He was born with a bloodshed, and when his power became destructive as he became more and more disconnected from the environment, self-destruction was inevitable. At the end of the film, La Motta looks in the mirror with a sense of life. At this time, his inner unyielding is already with a deep sense of powerlessness. Perhaps this calm is a slightly reassuring state of mind-but it still makes me sigh. .
In the presentation of La Motta's personal life, Scorsese is as realistic as ever; most of the shots use deep focus photography, from the usual perspective and lasting for a relatively long time, edited in a documentary way. According to Bazin’s theory, this less human-controlled method can retain more realistic complexity for the audience; while in boxing scenes, it is more biased towards skills with a strong expressive style in order to convey to the audience as effectively as possible. Key Information. Before the 1970s, most of the shots of boxing matches came from the perspective of the audience, and Scorsese decided to make these scenes more realistic-or more expressive-there is no contradiction here-and put the camera closer to the actors , And use the boxer’s subjective perspective. The contrast between the two shooting styles is a major achievement of this film. For example, before the match against Janiro, Jake’s wife commented that Janiro was “looking handsome and popular” and Jake was very angry. In this scene of trivial performance of life, Jake’s anger was accumulating, and in the subsequent Janiro was brutally squeezed during the boxing match. This one-minute clip is full of editing manipulation to the audience's feelings:
(...At this time, La Mota has blown Janiro up and forced it to the side fence)
a, slightly tilted angle During shooting, La Motta continues to slam Janiro;
b, La Motta's glove touches the opponent's nose and stays and knocks it crooked;
c, cuts back to La Motta's ferocious expression for a very short time;
d, upgrades the shot, blood from Janiro The face bursts out;
e, from Janiro's subjective perspective, the opponent is throwing his arms away, accumulating the most powerful energy to pull his left fist toward him;
f, returning to the perspective of a, Janiro staggers to avoid the opponent's bullish attack, The camera then switched to La Motta’s PoV perspective;
g, gave Janiro’s PoV again, and the opponent gave another wave;
h, the picture was out of focus, and Janiro was knocked out by the punch...
I, and La Motta seemed to be surly Still angry, j. But his opponent has lost consciousness, and the camera rotates 90 degrees along with him falling down.
——La Motta, who is extremely destructive and violent out of control, is presented in this way through the combination of two styles of pictures.
"Scoses' unique taste in using the treasures of American pop rock music to annotate the world and characters under the lens of the film is one of the many registered marks in his film works, and every song that appears in his film Will follow the video and plot to make a profound matching performance". Even for an audience who doesn’t know much about Scorsese, the opening and closing of "Angry Bull" "Country Cavalier Interlude" can set the perfect tone for the mood of the film: it reminds the audience that this is not In an inspirational film, De Niro is warming up alone in the boxing ring under the promotion lens. With this piece of music, there is a feeling that the dust has settled and the past has passed away.
——So we can’t help asking: What caused La Mota’s self-destruction? The direct reason is his distrust of his wife and brothers. This insecurity has contributed to his loss of control over violence, the so-called "fear leads to attack." The deeper reason, I think, is the narrow concept of family and life. This must have something to do with his environment, or lack of cultural knowledge, or a personality distortion caused by the long-standing gangster forces in the Italian community, so La Motta's tragedy is undoubtedly a microcosm of society.
I have no intention of emphasizing that in Scorsese's films, environmental factors/fate elements are monotonous themes. The monolithic judgments about the author’s films are often in danger of falling into a stalemate, but obviously, this is a distinctive feature that distinguishes Scorsese from other directors of the same period. This may be why people call him a "film sociologist." "One of the reasons.
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