Because of the marketing episode that involved me two days ago, I paid special attention to the audience's feedback on the film these two days. Based on the large number of "incomprehensible" sounds contained in it, I had preset this film as a particularly avant-garde art film before watching the movie this morning. After enjoying the film in the newly opened Dolby Sound plus giant screen "private room", the facts show that there is nothing special about this film. It is still a narrative film, not comparable to all kinds of deviant contemporary art video works. Far below my psychological expectation of being lifted up.
But the "unintelligible" that a large number of viewers said is completely understandable, and will be explained in detail below. They are not the target audience in the first place. They are deceived by the marketing method of selling dog meat. Note that when I say "they are not the target audience", I am just making a statement of fact, without any derogation, or the superiority of a supernatural horse. But some people just don't like to listen to this, including Director Bi Gan, who may be the first to disagree. When answering questions from the audience at the Zhihu Salon, he said: "Should I watch'that kind of' movies in second, third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities? I never think so."
I would not divide the audience according to the level of urban development, but different movies are indeed for different audiences. Movies on the market are aimed at family fun, children, teenagers, young people, middle-class movies, regional audiences, and so on. The so-called art movies are mainly aimed at It is a group of movie fans. If you want to give a definition, compared with ordinary audiences, this group of people probably has more experience in watching movies, has more relevant knowledge and more tolerant aesthetic taste, and is more focused when watching movies.
Everyone hopes that his work can be seen and appreciated by more people, but it is by no means that he disregards the basic facts and rules and pushes his work to more people willingly. The dispute between Yangchun Baixue and the Lower Liba people has been circulating for thousands of years. Not admitting that there is a distinction between refined art and popular art is like not admitting that there is a distinction between serious literature and popular literature, or that there is a distinction between tall, short and thin, smart and dull, rich and poor. . Denying the basic fact that there are differences between people is naive idealism if it is not hypocritical egalitarianism. On the contrary, on the basis of acknowledging this fact, the most effective antidote is to study these phenomena and find ways to promote communication and complementarity between people and different levels of art.
This brings me back to the beginning of this article. Why do many viewers "cannot understand" the film? From the perspective of psychology and neuroscience, people always have a tendency to find meaning in various information, because this allows people to achieve cognitive gestalt and feel emotionally safe. Based on this, movies can be divided into two categories. The first category is movies that do not require the audience to actively search for meaning. Their storytelling skills are very skilled and popular. The audience will naturally understand the ins and outs after following the story, just as a person does not need any knowledge of aesthetics and art history, and does not need With any additional analysis or detailed understanding of the image, you can see the beauty on paper in Leonardo’s "Mona Lisa" or Van Gogh's "Starry Night". The other category is movies that require the audience to actively seek meaning. Instead of telling the story straightforwardly or cleverly, it uses many techniques to make the story a little obscure or even fragmented. It requires the audience to pass the clues in the screen and the few words in the lines. Even bring in his own subjective experience to complete this story. The analogy of fine art is like abstract paintings in contemporary art. Abstract paintings express the artist’s ideas by deliberately eliminating concreteness. The audience can no longer get a lot of information from the picture on a WYSIWYG basis, but must actively search for it. Meaning and constructing meaning.
To put it more bluntly, there is a category of movies where you go out to the bathroom, answer a phone call or even take a nap and continue to watch it without any comprehension obstacles. There is also a category of movies where you just missed a few lines even if you just wandered for three seconds. The plot can't be picked up. The former is mainly driven by the bottom-up information processing process, and the audience is passive information receivers and responders; the latter is not only driven by the bottom-up, but also largely driven by the top-down information processing process. Become an active information seeker and participant. It is precisely because of this kind of devotion that it adds to the fun of watching movies. Watching movies is no longer just a pastime, it's an exploration. However, those whose purpose is for entertainment will find this to be a burden.
So, for example, I certainly agree that commercial blockbusters such as "Aquaman" and "Spider-Man: Parallel Universe" are good-looking movies, but I really feel visual fatigue and aesthetic fatigue during the movie watching process, those routine narratives , The indiscriminate bombardment of visual effects, and the emotional piercing of the heart are really lacking in freshness. Nowadays, there are thousands of ways to entertain, and there is really no shortage of this one; on the contrary, "The Last Night of the Earth" makes me tireless. The details are all hints or metaphors for the plot, such as the ace of spades on the rails, the honeycomb floor tiles in the mother white cat’s house, the cobra in the hotel... I will pay attention to many details that may be irrelevant but attracted, such as the surround sound. Where did the various background sounds come from, the stains on the furniture in the background of the screen, the few greeting children from the crowd below the stage... There are also unstoppable personal associations, such as the lighting of the billiard room. Reminiscent of Van Gogh’s famous painting The Night Café (1888), the ubiquitous hazy dark green is the main color often used in Chagall’s newlyweds, and the entire dream shot is full of surrealism... it is made The new experience has awakened my experience, and the two mixed together continue to become part of my life experience.
When answering questions from the audience, the director also said: “Of course I know, maybe people don’t understand, maybe they don’t like it... Since then, they have added a movie to their viewing experience, which may be difficult to understand, just like watching a movie. After their life experience changes, they will definitely not think of other movies, they will definitely think of my movies, because my movies are precious movies.” In the most general sense, I agree with this answer. Take this film as an example, if I didn’t understand it like most viewers, but when I couldn’t help humming the phrase "Dark green night, faintly faintly" on the way back and in the elevator. , My life experience has been changed by it.
No one is a natural movie fan. I saw Tarkovsky’s masterpiece "Andrei Rublev" when I was less than 20 years old. I really didn’t understand it at the time, and then I forgot about it. What the work is about, but one day a few years later, I accidentally went to the countryside. When I saw the buffalo on the ridge in the drizzle, I suddenly remembered a similar scene in this work. I experienced an unprecedented experience. poetry. If I have not seen this work, I am afraid it would be difficult for me to feel poetic in such a plain and even dirty situation. In the previous interpretation of the museum section of "Louis is not easy", I also expressed a similar meaning .
But I still want to point out the fact that there is a high probability that among the millions of viewers who have been fooled by marketing, those who can really make themselves different because of this movie will only be very few. The vast majority of the rest have become deceived in some sense. To make matters worse, not only did they fail to change, but because they turned into anger, they permanently closed the door to art films, and had a huge misunderstanding of art films and their creators, which caused potential intangible harm to the entire art film industry. I am afraid that it is far from the director's credit for "saving" a few people.
Whether it is art films or other art categories, it is necessary and necessary to cultivate and expand the audience. However, adopting such a method of coaxing and deceiving is tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst. For example, in addition to viewing exhibitions in museums, we will also see and hear a lot of information and materials for appreciating works. This is especially true for contemporary art exhibitions. I have learned a lot of nourishment from them; I enter the performance center to listen to symphonies or watch operas. , There are often expert lectures before the start of the program, and a detailed introduction booklet is also provided on site for the audience to understand. So, if an art film can attract millions of viewers into the cinema, it combines social media to launch some supporting multimedia information to help ordinary audiences understand the movie and even the variety of art movies, so that some audiences can face it. This early adopter can feel "surprised rather than frightened" and become a consumer of art films. This is probably a correct "stand and make money" posture.
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