After watching "King Hall", I will be surprised that musical films can still be shot like this. Similarly, "Chicago" once again overturned my understanding of musical films. The beginning of All That Jazz is very attractive, and then through the plot design and fast-paced control, you have no chance to stop breathing. It is worthy of the Oscar best. After reading it, I was overwhelmed, so I came to write the first film review in my life. For convenience, I summarized the impressive content into five points.
[1] First of all, let’s talk about the reproduction charm reflected in the singing and dancing part. The biggest feature is, of course, the interlacing and fusion of song and dance clips and real-life clips. This is nothing new in music and dance films. The lights are turned off, and the male and female protagonists begin to change their clothes, and then they become stage scenes and begin to sing and dance. But what determines the success of a musical is often whether the musical segment fits the theme better than the lines. In short, singing and dancing is not as simple as "singing lines", but expressing subtext and themes through condensed essence. And there is no doubt that most of the song and dance sequences in the film perform this function perfectly. And most prominently, the film is vividly "represented" through song and dance segments, the most obvious representative being the "puppet show". When Roxie responded to the media after committing the crime, Roxie dutifully repeated the "official answer" that the lawyer taught her to recite. The puppet show perfectly portrayed and simulated the character's inner and objective situation.
[2] The combination of singing and dancing + prison. As Roxie said in the film Criminal is an Act, the director boldly combined the prison background with the musical. Formally, the director turned the prison into a stage and the prisoner into a star, with strong visual impact and dangerous temptations and threats. In terms of content, the story of the film chooses to cut from the perspective of two women who were imprisoned for murder trying to clear their charges. Their vanity stage dream runs through, which also reflects the fusion of singing and dancing and prison.
[3] As mentioned earlier, the plot has a very sense of design, because you can see the motives and action changes of the protagonists of each character, and step by step promote the development of the plot through the internal and external motives of the characters. For example, Roxie's transformation from silly and sweet to a master of self-preparation with superb means has a step-by-step change in her inner motivation to become famous, and it is also driven by the attention brought to her by lawyers and the outside world. The same can be inferred, the transformation of each character is based on the basis. Although this method is not superb, it is very precise and promotes the change of the plot through the change of character motivation. Likewise, the fact that the execution of the Hungarian woman prompted Roxie to return to a lawyer is very clear evidence of this. In other words, the plot is full of reversals, but the reversal design is just in place.
In addition, the thematic expression of the plot is also very full. The theme of the plot revolves around people's desire for pomp and circumstance, and it has been pointed out many times that the ups and downs of pompousness is just a game of attention, and everyone will be just an outdated clown of the game. Heroine 1 and Heroine 2 are the most positive examples of this theme, while lawyers use their own methods to prove the human logic behind this hypocritical system. Even the masses are clear about this theme, such as small newspaper sellers. Before the final trial, the boy printed the "Guilty" and "Not Guilty" newspapers to satisfy everyone's perverted curiosity. Regardless of the trial process and the final result, everyone only cares about this gossip. (It also satirizes the authenticity of the news at the time)
[4] Let’s talk about rhythm again. The rhythm is very tight from beginning to end, which is also where I feel the ability of the screenwriter and the director's scheduling ability. The strong and eye-catching opening allows the audience to catch a glimpse of the true face of the heroine 2 until after the stage begins (2:48), which can be said to be enough to whet your appetite. Then the theme story unfolds slowly, climaxes appear layer by layer, and when you are about to get tired, you will shake out a big burden to scare the audience. And in the boring clips, the audience will be refreshed through the quick cuts of the episode. For example, in the scene of the final judgment, the female protagonist's design of raising the skirt makes the serious scene instantly lively again, and the attention of the masses is stimulated again. To sum up, the fast editing and camera movement throughout the film make it feel like a carnival all the time, which also happens to be the satire of give them some razzle dazzle in the film, which fits the theme.
【5】Finally, let’s talk about camera editing. The splicing of the shots follows the characteristics of "Karaoke Hall", and the splicing of the front and rear singing and dancing and reality creates a strong irony effect. For example, when the lawyer finally defended, he started to perform eloquently, and the next second reaction shot directly adopted the audience's reaction from the singing and dancing clip, "reproducing" the audience's reaction effect. But the most ironic part is the execution of the Hungarian woman, cutting her actual execution process with the song and dance showing the "big change". The moment she was hanged to death, the "big change" was taken. The audience's cheering reaction after "The Living". It doesn't matter whether people cheer or not in reality, the director just uses this method to achieve his joking effect. If this is not an advanced application of the "montage" technique, I can't think of another description.
Last bit of miscellaneous talk, I have no knowledge of "Chicago" culture before, maybe just like LaLaLand in Los Angeles means whimsical daydreaming, the "adjective" of "Chicago" means the fleeting of fame and vanity, everyone All can "become famous in 15 minutes" in this city.
All of the above are purely personal opinions and have no academic basis. I came to analyze it because I was too excited after watching the movie.
I like "Chicago" and "Karaoke Hall" very much. The full expression and design of these two song and dance films opened my eyes to film art.
Written in Shanghai on February 24, 2019
View more about Chicago reviews
