" American Beauty" "Among the best Oscar films in the past decade, "American Beauty" is the only one that can bear the word'perfect'...Secondly, Its in-depth portrayal of the seemingly happy life of the middle class in the United States is actually perilous. It inherits Kubrick's unscrupulous performance in "Close Your Eyes"..." "Universal Screen-Oscar 80th Anniversary Edition" commented like this.
What are the advantages of "American Beauty"? Why did it surface in the commercial film competition that followed "Silent Lambs" in the 1990s in the United States? How does it fit the taste of Hollywood so that "Kevin's stinky old man" is often mentioned as a gimmick in movies after 1999? How does it round out a unique but thought-provoking story in a simple way and explain the profound things in a simple way?
A suburban neighborhood, two families, a group of boring people. Did the movie version of the TV series "Desperate Housewives" begin? "The story is old, but the new ones are always those two storytelling lips." The
author believes that the film follows the artistic creation rule of "sensibility-rationality-sensibility", and the structure of the story is super conventional and the visual language is obscure. In the two-way treatment of sex, we can jointly complete a better and dramatic restoration of life, and still live with a "calm" face.
One, the magical use of DV props.
Before analyzing the story structure and visual language of "American Beauty", I first introduce a method that is related to both and can be called a significant feature of this film-the use of DV props.
DV video, this inferior, flat video played an important role in the narrative of the film’s story. It is a link and a bridge connecting the lives of two neighboring families, and it is also the fuse of a tragedy, which ultimately caused Les The urging lead of special death.
At first, it was only Ricky's unilateral record and candid shooting, which later constituted the emotional interaction between Rick and Jane. However, with the development of the plot, when more and more DV images were involved in the narration, people gradually received Its increasing influence will eventually find that the use of this method has left an indelible mark on the film as a whole. And Rick's DV camera also surpasses the meaning of ordinary props.
The lives of the Lester family of three seem to be peaceful, but in the DV record it appears unusual (in Rick’s own words, "Welcome to America's Weirdest Home Videos") and perilous. To a certain extent, Rick’s perspective is actually a partial decentralization of the director’s perspective. “Resurrection” is more natural than recording these voyeuristic shots on film. From the perspective of Rick's character image, he is the "director" in life, directing this tragedy in the time and space of the story. He is so keen, independent, sophisticated, rebellious, and unrestrained, he seems to have insight into everything and manipulate everything. At the same time, the actor Wes Bentley's always calm, calm, empty eyes and temperament, as well as his family environment, have made Rick “abnormal” in the social sense, or at least he is a strange species in his living environment, such as dead birds, plastic bags, blood, etc. What seems ordinary and ignored by others has become something extraordinary and of special value in his eyes and in the world of DV video.
Rick is more like a shadow and an atmosphere covering the whole film, similar to the "visible" atmosphere that "final destiny" strives to render.
As a prop, the DV camera obviously surpasses the mirrors in "The Detective", the photos in "Summers Town", the telescopes in "Sunny Day" and other carriers that can play a "refracting" role, and can see , Record, far view. Their common feature is that they have time-space transformation, and the actual time-space on the screen and the current narrative time-space can be separated and coexist. DV video is not only satisfied with intervening in the narrative, but directly participating in the narrative.
The formation of multiple perspectives in a certain passage of a film exposes relatively deep problems, which in turn triggers a relatively deep insight, explains the director's intention, increases the three-dimensional sense of characters and the story, and creates suspense. (Suspense, which is one of the important contents of screenwriting theory, sometimes manifests itself as the mismatch between the characters in the play and the audience’s information about the future destiny of the characters.)
Before the ending truth is revealed, the question of "who killed Leicester" is really difficult to answer, because it seems that everyone is possible, and every character is restless: the crying Caroline, who has a gun, once "recommended" to kill. Rick, Colonel Fitts, the father of Rick who was exposed as a homosexual, was even almost taken to Angela in the early night by Lester. All contradictions point to Leicester. Ironically, in the end, it was the DV video that played a key role in misunderstanding Fitz and the catalyst for Leicester's murderous hand. If "A Homicide Caused by a DV" is used as the subtitle of this film, it should not be too much.
The irony is that both Lester and Fitz are aware of the existence of a certain video. Lester uses the guise of "movie" to deal with Rick in drugs, and Fitz suspects his son and Les after taking a peek at the video. Especially “affected”, the two people here have deviated from the true face of the Leicester nude fitness video, letting experience go first, they both secretly invented new connotations in a very funny way, and the images are sometimes lying, just like the official film. The subtitle "LOOK CLOSER" is the same.
Different from the "DV record" format of the entire film "Doomsday", the DV video and film alternate narrative in this film. Throughout the whole film, the DV image from Rick's hand clearly appears up to 10 times:
○1 Indoor, opening credits The previous DV video mentioned that the daughter wanted her boyfriend to kill her father, creating suspense;
○2 at night, Rick held the DV and watched the unpleasant conversation scene in the kitchen of the Leicester father and daughter;
○3 at night, on the steps outside the door, inside Ke unscrupulously took pictures of Jenny "Ming", Jenny opened the curtains and disappeared after returning to the house, and smiled;
○4 During the day, Rick paid attention to the whole process of Lester's escape while dialing the phone;
○5 At night, Lester leaned on the door and listened to Angie. After Ra talked about the problem of "fitness", Angela fluttered to Rick's camera;
○6 In the daytime, on campus, Rick patted the dead bird on the ground, and then he panned with Jenny and Angela who were looking at him. ), walk home with Jenny;
○7 indoors, at Rick’s house, the two watched "the most beautiful thing in the world" (white flying plastic bag);
○8 After the mother beat Jenny, Jenny exposed her breasts to Rick’s camera. The TV “live broadcast” behind Rick appeared like an instant video (picture-in-picture). Then Rick’s father broke into Rick’s bedroom and the violence ended. Romance;
○9 Indoor, Rick’s bedroom, naked Rick and Jenny photograph each other, echoing the beginning, pushing the suspense to gradually unravel;
○10 Rick’s father is looking through the video tape in Rick’s room about his wife Barbara (Barbara), about the naked fitness of neighbor Leicester.
Perhaps more viewers have noticed that Rick understands that their relationship is getting better through Jenny’s smile, but Rick has found too many relationships and subtle contradictions between the characters: ○2 Leicester and Daughter ○8 Carlo Lin mother and daughter 5 Jenny and Angela 4 Leicester father and daughter and Angela.
"Know yourself and the enemy, a hundred battles will never end." Rick then launched his "conquer" offensive against Jenny. Rick not only captured Jenny's heart and alienated her from Angela, but also extended the "devil's claws" of drug trafficking to Jenny's father Lester.
Who dares to say that Rick's father must have not watched ○9 (Jenny asked Rick to kill Lester's "confession")? It is not ruled out that Rick's father had the motivation to make Lester "seal" and blame Rick and Jenny to escape the guilt.
(In the commentary of screenwriter Alan Bowe and director Sam Mendes, Mendes mentioned that he had done three kinds of openings for the film, and finally chose ○1. The original selection was due to murder. The sentencing scene, in addition, is the CG effect scene of Leicester flying in the air.) However
, the two families who keep a certain distance and rarely communicate are safe. Once they cross the border, the consequences will be disastrous. Rick and his DV played a dangerous and ominous role "crossing the line". However, this is only the appearance of the design, and it is a hint of the imminent social crisis of the middle class and the embattled existence of the middle class.
Second, about the story structure.
"American Beauty" does not have a clear red line throughout. It is a bit far-fetched. It can be said that the biggest suspense of the whole film is how well Leicester died in a month. Of course, this is also a major feature of the film's opening. . If his voiceover pops out from time to time to remind him, at first glance, I am afraid that the narrative of this story is really "loose." The suspense clues of the film are non-visual, but the most prominent visually is the "red rose". However, the specific image metaphor of the rose in the film has undergone many shifts and changes along with the development of the plot (detailed later).
It is certain that the structure type of "American Beauty" is not a traditional one-element structure type, but it is not a typical two-element structure.
Taiwan’s Hou Xiaoxian’s "The Best Time" is composed of three era storyboards: love dreams, free dreams, and youth dreams; Quentin Tarantillo’s "Pulp Fiction" by Vincent and Masha’s wife, gold watch, Bonnie’s situation consists of three story panels; China’s Zhang Yibai’s "Curiosity Kills the Cat" is composed of four story panels: Mo Mo, Zheng Zhong and Liang Xiaoxia, Security Struggle, and Qian Yu; German Tom Teckwell’s "Rola Run" is composed of The story of Laura’s three runs; in addition, there are countless sets of story structures in New Year films such as Ma Liwen's "Peach Blossom" and "True Love is Priceless
" in the United States ... Although there is interaction between the two families in "American Beauty", Relatively independent, even side by side. Here is an example to prove the details: (55'55''~55'59”) After the film Carolyn messed with the real estate king hotel, before the solo passage of Leicester Toyota, the car was the same as Leicester A Toyota driven by an extra actor with different models and car numbers (age and clothing similar to Leicester) flicked across the screen from far to near for 4 seconds. This must be intentional by the director, implying that the film describes the entire middle class The state of life, it may be Leicester, it may be Fitz, it may be you, me and him. In the shooting range behind (01:13:41), Caroline’s arm is in the foreground, and the one in the background shooting is also a suit shirt. For middle-class people, shooting is no longer a police officer’s patent, and it’s another function to disarm pressure. This can be regarded as a clear before and after the film concept. Therefore, "American Beauty" selects two families that are connected to each other and isolated in the spiritual realm. , Aims to reflect a big family and a big environment, and finally let people discover that it is the separation of people, the alienation of people, and the inability of the soul to get through.
But apart from this vague theme, it is impossible to extract a clear theme. Perhaps influenced by post-structuralism, the film no longer treats narrative works as buildings or solids, but as narrative inventions. The forms that this invention can construct are almost inexhaustible. It also reflects an important feature of post-structuralism: trying to maintain the contradictory levels in the narrative works, retaining their complexity, and rejecting the impulse to reduce the narrative work to a stable meaning and coherent design. We can see people’s problems in a more general sense: the adolescent fluctuations of boys and girls, the seven-year itch of middle-aged couples, the Lolita complex of men, the unwillingness of strong women, the cynicism of retired officers... But the film The seriousness of these problems has been taken one step forward, thus revealing more and more clear intentions. The virgin Angela blindly admires the flashy mouth and is addicted. An expensive sofa extinguishes the flames of the couple’s warmth, and the unbridgeable spiritual rift between Fitz and his son. Two days, one small noisy, five days, one big noisy Leicester dining table... The director went online and smeared an unmanageable situation, pointing to the final tragedy, which hit the moment when the light of human nature was restored and the light was about to rise. The hope is broken, only the fond memories of the past that have emerged in the mind at the moment of death.
"Quick View", a short film with more post-structuralist features than "American Beauty", is also the subject of family relations. The structure is simple and novel: the three stories of the three photos are flashed back one by one to the moment the photo was taken, connected by two white fields similar to flash. The sequence is the father-son relationship, the mother-daughter relationship, and the father-daughter relationship. In short, it is a two-generation relationship:
1. The father hates iron and teaches his son to play tennis. When the racket breaks, the mother who tries the camera breaks in and takes pictures of the two;
2. The daughter has a boyfriend, and the lonely mother is recruiting neighbors after her daughter is out. The young man played chess;
3 The father was reluctant to let his daughter marry a black dancer boyfriend. When the boyfriend performed the dance, the daughter sadly pressed the shutter.
The three unconnected families and the film's narrative structure with a strong sense of interruption are actually connected by an abstract commonality, which is "embarrassment", and the mood of the photo is not equal to that of the person being photographed. Taking pictures for souvenirs are often warm moments where you have to pose and show a smiling face, but the three pictures in the short film can be regarded as "untimely souvenirs". All three photos record three moments of depression. What is different from "American Beauty" is that these three life episodes are not serious problems of dying illness, but the normal state of life behind the photos. The same is that both photos and DV videos sometimes lie.
The voyeurism in "American Beauty" is different from the voyeurism in "Voyeur Rhapsody".
Rick in "American Beauty" as an "intruder", judging from the large number of videos in his room, peeking into the life of his neighbor is only part of his filming behavior. If his house moves elsewhere, the neighbors elsewhere also flee. No shots of him. He just loves to shoot. Shooting and discovering through the lens is his only source of happiness and spiritual food, or another kind of "opium" (he has never been detoxified, as can be seen from the details of transferring urine samples to his father). He didn't even show the slightest desire for a normal male. He repeatedly reminded his mother that he was not interested in some kind of meat. So the character gradually exudes a smell of ice. The film has no intention of making the audience feel pity for Rick, he just exists in this way.
"Peeping Rhapsody" is the voyeuristic complex of a young male protagonist who is deeply trapped in the death of his mother and cannot help himself. His voyeurism is not so much a hobby, it is better to say that voyeurism is a necessity for him. It is inevitably reminiscent of "Billy Elliot" ("Dancing Out of My World"), which he also starred in. The same mother died and lived with his father (and brother) (the same father and sister in "Peeping Rhapsody") . The boy's peeping is a catharsis and reconciliation of his mother's death, just like Billy Elliot abandoned boxing and turned to ballet. However, this is a kind of protagonist's "reasonable rebellion" proactive voyeurism. It originated from the film's "Happy Enemy" style drama story structure. It is the "golden key" for the protagonist to get out of the small circle and connect to the new world, and it is also the ultimate opening of the knot and letting go of doubts. , Get the hub of growth.
Third, the "obscure" arrangement of visual language.
The first impression of movie viewers is visual. It is to perceive movies through visual senses. To borrow the words of the Soviet stage artist Avi Rekov, who came to China to teach in the 1950s: "In the performance, except for the actors, playwrights and directors, all the modeling parts-whether it is a natural scenery or a drama The interior room of a character’s home in the movie, or a cup of tea, the actor’s disguise, a vase with flowers on the table, or the fireworks emitted by a cannon when it is fired, and a moving car — all are the objects we want to study Because the importance of these factors in the play is sometimes not inferior to the performance of the actors. The outstanding Soviet dramatist and actor of the People’s Republic of the Soviet Federal Socialist Republic of Russia, Nihua Petrov, once pointed out: “If it is in Shakespeare’s " In "Othello", the audience’s attention to the main role actor accounts for 40% of the total actor’s attention, so the audience’s attention to the styling part of the performance is 100%, because all the environment surrounding the actors is The whole performance was felt by the audience."
"American Beauty" director Mendes said: "This is a story about the'barrier' of life. The screenwriter has set several'barriers' in the film, such as bathrooms, offices, and cars. And the glass windows are both a symbol of the'threshold'. And I want to visualize them." However, looking at the whole film, it is more than just the materialization of a few “thresholds”.
I, Scene Scheduling
Johnnie To’s "Wen Sparrow" performed an "exaggerated" scene scheduling in a sparsely populated city. According to the characteristics of the four men, a woman carefully selected different scenes of "sultry". Adopted feasting and drinking for the stupid and reckless, the cramped and closed elevator temptation for the seemingly dull, the highway for help for the long-haired handsome, and the "selfish sparrow" infatuation with the boss who has always controlled everything. From the artificial coincidence near the window of the neighboring building to the narrow elevator room, to the open roof platform surrounded by tall buildings on all sides, the clues were sent to the ground by balloons, and then the boy was taken to a corner of the Mercedes-Benz car, and finally ushered in from Parallel "Sing in the Rain" from Sheung Wan to Central. Compared with this kind of overwhelming variation on the scene, the scene scheduling of "American Beauty" is relatively invisible, not easy to find, and unassuming.
"You didn't see anything, but you saw everything." Borrowing a line from "I once served the King of England", visual blind spots are by no means equivalent to the demise of visual influence.
America’s uncommon suburban villa courtyards, however, interpret vivid stories. The opening (02'27'') of "American Beauty" is a fast-paced introduction to the family members of Leicester. Caroline is pruning roses. Pay attention to Caroline, who is standing between the 5 layers of white barriers, pruning roses. The gay neighbor greeted him and was seen by Lester in the window. A large amount of information is completed in a long lens by panning, moving, and zooming, supplemented by Lester's uninterrupted voice-over. Through this long shot that can uniformly connect the various movement modes inside the shot, the narrative is naturally smooth and full of changes, which brings freedom to the actors' performance and helps the characters' emotions to be coherent. It embodies Bazin's theory that "movie is an asymptote of reality".
The perspective and the panorama help the macro modeling of the relationship between the characters in the audience's mind, and help the audience to enrich and deepen the story or the theme of the situation. In the 2008 Cannes Best Director Award film "Three Monkeys", near the end of the film, the long-distance camera-fixed shot lasted nearly 4 minutes, giving the politician and the driver's wife a tangled relationship as a whole. On the huge screen, large proportions of small figures under the pressure of clouds, seas, and beaches are pulling, pushing, and arguing, accompanied by voices to white people at a normal volume, which seem to be still nearby, which is dramatic and homeopathic.
In "American Beauty" (35'35''), Rick induces Lester to smoke a big cigarette. The two people with their backs against a white wall and the dim light projected from the door are shot in a panoramic view, and the wet ground reflects the light. It implies that Leicester and Kerry have separated from the positive light and are in the "shadow" of boredom and loss together.
In the plot of ○8, the effects of shot scheduling and actor scheduling are more intuitive and intense and appear on the screen. The bridge function of DV reaches its highest point.
II. Imagery and styling details
. The rose imagery mentioned above has changed. Director Mendes mentioned that before Leicester and Angela's bed scene, Leicester approached Angela with a bottle of beer, in front of the camera. Moving, the roses in the painting gradually appear, and the roses here symbolize Caroline.
The title "American Beauty" is actually a kind of Rose family. Director Mendes used this rose to symbolize perfection in life. Lester's sexual fantasies about Angela are always unfolding in the overwhelming rose petals. His long-term drought and nectar-like extravagant imagination fully demonstrates the lack of "beauty" in his life.
In addition, the roses in the yard at the beginning symbolize Caroline’s passion for passion; the roses beside the family portrait frame symbolize the warm happiness of the former family; the roses on the dining table symbolize the restless atmosphere of the Leicester family at dinner; Leicester conjecture The rose petals associated with Angela symbolize his emotional recovery; the rose before Leicester's shot symbolizes the blood and danger that will be sprayed out and replaced... The
rose is just an explicit image, and more images are handled very obscure . Now enumerate the part: (including light effects, setting)
﹝1﹞ After Leicester first met Angela and took the first step in spiritual rebirth, the following design is a relatively obscure expression, Leicester Goodbye Angela Shock, joy and disbelief: Leicester closed the refrigerator door and saw Angela appearing at his house. An orange lamp appeared beside Angela’s golden hair;
﹝2﹞ Leicester was holding a family portrait before his death. Imagine happily, an orange light flashed by when the frame was slowly falling down, which symbolized the fleeting beauty of faith and the rare bright color of the soul. The return of the concept of "home" in his heart also exaggerated the atmosphere like a reflection of light;
﹝3﹞ Another time, an orange lamp appeared in Jenny’s bedroom, and together with the orange sheets, orange pillows, and orange walls, it outlined a warm, seductive girl’s boudoir, which is the same as Leicester outside the cold white door. Eavesdropping on the middle-aged man Leicester is in sharp contrast;
﹝4﹞ When Leicester got up the courage to resign, he changed the appearance of the “prisoner trial” last time and sat oppressively sideways opposite the manager. His background is one Series of black: black lampshade, black picture frame, black trophy, black low cabinet. Black symbolizes that Lester has decided to resign, completely losing confidence in the company and not knowing his dark future;
﹝5﹞ Lester rolls up the "bedding" to leave the company with a vague translucent glass, symbolizing him No longer hesitate, find yourself and a sense of departure.
﹝6﹞ Caroline’s date with the real estate tycoon is another lamp sandwiched between the two of them. It appears in the opposite scenes of the conversation between the two, which symbolizes a certain "tacit understanding" between the two. . And the green menu they raised at the same time
resembled their "sing a song" score; ﹝7﹞ the motel symbolizes the relationship between Caroline and the real estate king, and the two’s car is used with the voice of the two. The method of using cars to replace others;
﹝8﹞ On the way back from Caroline’s shooting, a close-up of a tape (Money And Life) and a gun in the car hinted at the connection between reading (spiritual) and action;
﹝9﹞ Caroline blurted out “We finally have a new neighbor "Later, the styling of the moving behavior is that in the afterglow of the setting sun, two people in uniforms are moving a sofa. It was like a few policemen walking out of a crime scene carrying a coffin. A symbol of the ominousness of the new neighbors, the coming is not good;
﹝10﹞ After Lester violently exercises, he asks Rick to buy marijuana. When Fitz casts a huge shadow on the house, both Lester and Rick walk into the “shadow”;
﹝11﹞ Not only is Fitz’s shadow here, but Lester has crossed a “boundary” formed by car wash pipes;
﹝12﹞ On campus, Rick had the first positive conversation with Angela, who was with Angela. An over-the-shoulder lens with a strong sense of control (similar to the lens of Liu Yi looking at Milan in "Bright Eyes"), one of Rick’s shoulders takes up 2/3 of the screen, squeezing Jenny into 1/3 of the area;
﹝13﹞ After the conversation with Jenny was over, Rick walked into the light of noon, which symbolized that Jenny who was looking at him was deeply attracted by his “charm”;
﹝14﹞ In order to express Fitz’s "brow frown", if Thoughtful. His squat action is divided into two shots, one is a slight follow-up shot, the other is a low camera position, waiting for his head to enter the frame;
when bidding farewell to his son, holding the plate in his hand, the plate is fragile, which symbolizes her neurotic invincibility A frightened character;
﹝15﹞ The ball-shaped pen in Lester’s hand when he called a customer and was being trained by the manager helped shape his weak character;
﹝16﹞ Rick made up an excuse during the meal and Fitz suddenly left. The mouth of the beer bottle at the bottom of the reaction screen is misleading in the direction of "ambiguity", suggesting that Fitz’s mental activity is wrong;
﹝17﹞ Lester has two dialogues and interactions with Angela about beer, and the shape of the beer bottle is also A certain sex symbol;
﹝18﹞ In a scene in Leicester’s fantasy, Angela is in a bathtub full of rose petals, and the faucet on the right side of the screen is also a sex symbol;
﹝19﹞ The last time Angela and Jenny came to Leicester’s kitchen, Angela’s posture and shape contrasted sharply with Jenny, with her chest and waist straight, taking off her hat, and holding the table with her left hand, before Angela hit the door. It was an extremely confident conqueror's posture;
﹝20﹞ The two fried meats were Rick’s mother Barbara and the fast food chef Lester who discovered that his wife had an affair. In addition to the symbol of life’s suffering, the overturned frying Meat symbolizes sensuality;
﹝21﹞ Leicester fast-food restaurant found that when the wife had an affair, the interior and exterior colors of the fast-food restaurant were mainly red and white, using the most visually stimulating red with strong white contrast. The white front and the red hat seemed to sound alarm;
after ﹝ 22 ﹞ twice the character design in the corner, and once Fitz appear in the shadow of Rick's room, a bedroom, Angela appeared in the corner of Leicester, the former gives a dark sense of terror, In the words of Mendes, the author said "like a prey delivered to the door".
﹝23﹞ Scenery shows a sense of distance: After Lester found Angela in the corner, the relationship between the two gradually warmed up, and the psychological distance narrowed. Two people are left with the upper body;
﹝24﹞ When Lester took off Angela’s pants, he used the method of interrupting the editing, the purpose is to appetite the audience and break the audience's intent. The same method is used in the most classic passage of the film—Lester’s imaginary Angela opened her chest, and rose petals sprayed out. This action of opening her chest was also edited many times;
﹝25﹞ Fitz looked through the window To the local scene in the opposite room, I misunderstood that Rick and Lester were "affected" and then gradually retreated into the shadows until they were swallowed by the shadows. Here, the tonal processing is relatively more noticeable;
﹝26﹞ Caroline is in the garage The husband who smokes marijuana to exercise can’t help but not only connects the conversation between the two with the upside-down shot, but it is also worth noting that the two people’s heads are respectively confined in a closed vertical frame, a metaphor for the separation between the two , Unable to communicate, ignoring each other;
﹝27﹞ After being satirized by Rick and Jenny, Angela sat sad and lonely on the steps and wept. The design put Angela shrunk into a ball in the background, and the foreground is the “threshold” The stair railing symbolizes her mental state of losing herself and being bound by freedom;
﹝28﹞ Angara and Jenny in the same room have different postures. Jenny is squatting under the bed, and Angela is lying on her head.
﹝29﹞ Director Mendes introduces "Rick shoots to death." Bird standing on a box", the camera shot him upside down, but he held a small DV in the head, "overlooking the world", for a time, he was very tall;
﹝30﹞ The film mentioned Les several times. It's especially thinner. As an actor, Kevin has indeed lost a lot of weight. The thin Lester is also directly shown before and after the screen. It must be visually thin to have a special meaning. Leicester is another smoking marijuana and exercise, it can not thin, Angara also responded "You can really tell (I can see out.)." Ironically, the victims of physical and psychological Leicester and bored;
﹝ 31 ﹞ Lester and Rick were smoking a big cigarette against the wall. A dim white light was flashed to the southeast in an invisible place at the top left of the screen. The small door was pushed open from the inside out, and a long and narrow triangular shadow pointed to it. Lester and Kerry...
III, set and light effect
impressionist film director Drucker believes that "an actor is nothing more than a part, a piece of the world's material." Expressionist painters, Hermann Valm, Walter Rorich, and Walter Rotman in the German "Kurrican Club" participated in the production of the film "Dr. Caligari". They and the producer People first determined the style of the film, using object distortion and strong contrast between light and dark to express a sleepwalker's mental state of anxiety, anxiety, and fear. The set, costumes, disguise and character movements of the film "Dr. Caligari" are unified into the expressionist painting style.
The environment is the dramatic factor of the movie, the environment is the lyrical factor of the movie, and the environment is the characteristic of the modeling style of certain types of movies.
As for how much the design of scenery, modeling, light and shadow can play a role, whether their subtle influence on audience psychology and participation in character psychology and character relationship structure are accurate enough and in line with the original intention, even if you do a questionnaire survey, I am afraid it is still very Difficult to quantify. It seems that this involves the entanglement between the so-called "illusion" and the "illusion" made by film.
"Only when the reason is deep to a certain extent can reason emerge."
Chen Kaige said that director is the most invisible profession in the world. However, there is a hidden difference between deep and shallow. Although many sets of scenes may have completely different effects if they are moved to other films, the success of the visual expression of "American Beauty" is because it is simple enough, harmonious enough, "just look right", and self-contained, so it has a distinct effect. The purpose is to present an overall effect. The set and the props of the film are clean, simple, and flawless, and go straight to the theme. Of course, this is due to the hundreds of years of urban evolution in the United States. Through the final selection of various symbols, it can be seen that American filmmakers have a strong sense of urban culture. The understanding of cultural elements and the delicate experience of the “camera” of cultural elements. Wang Chaoge, a member of Zhang Yimou’s design team at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, answered reporters’ questions about the British and American broadcasts. He once said: “This (NBC/BBC broadcast is better than CCTV) has something to do with overall national strength and overall quality. Why is there no one with the same clothes? Temperament? People have a history of progress in a civilized society for 100 years and 200 years. When we were doing the Olympics, including the entire Chinese system and the current state of the Chinese economy, we were all in the process of progress. So I don’t think the domestic broadcast is a failure. This is us. A strength of..."
The story structure of "American Beauty" and the two-way processing of the obscure visual language are inseparable from each other, serving the theme together. The narrative structure is super-conventional and fits the macro-temperament of the subject, and the super-conventional structure is inseparable from the flesh-and-blood filling of the obscure visual language. The two work together to draw this American style painting, which brings out the common crux of many developed capitalist countries such as Europe and the United States. , Such as the mental pressure caused by money worship, the monotony of life, personal frustration, sex, drugs, violence, etc., are restored to life around the people. The empathetic American audience everywhere resonates with the details of the film, which fits well with the Oscars. Hollywood taste.
The tension between the hands of "American Beauty" makes people realize that drama conflict is not the same as a group of people running around. The movie can also be silent, calm, confident, and calm. Tell me a story.
"American Beauty" deserves to be a milestone in the history of exquisite production of commercial films about urban family life in the United States. Its shadow can still be seen in subsequent films such as "Being a Mother", "The Devil's Two-faced Man", "Road to Revolution" and even the Chinese "Curiosity Kills the Cat".
2009-3-19
Reference materials: [directing the film (Cinema)] 20-30
[Film Literature: The Art of Narrative Full of Tension-Film Structure Theory Liu Jin] 2008 -1 8-10
[Introduction to Film Art : Gui Xiaohu] 14-24
[Universal Screen Oscar 80 Years Special]
[The Coen Brothers Film (Cinema)]
[Sun Boy——Interpretation of "Sunny Day"]
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