——Some fragmentary thoughts on "Zach Schneider's Justice League"
After watching it, I want to say too much. In fact, I still haven’t figured out how to welcome the release of such a legendary film. It has been four years since the release of the director’s cut version has been chanted. In the past four years, both the market environment and the social craze have undergone tremendous changes. Although they have been suffering, the results have been good, just like some kind of fate. Looking back now, as a fan, as a student of film major, as a worker in the film and television industry, having accompanied by such a large-scale film-related event in the past four years is indeed an amazing journey. "ZSJL" is not one of the best DC movies I have ever watched, and it is also the best movie I have watched in recent years. In my opinion, this film has solved all the problems, and there is no other place to use it. The interpretation will be better. I think there are a few points in the film that are quite worth mentioning. They are also the strongest feelings when I watch the film:
1. The story of "ZSJL" is opened in a very mythical and epic way of Western Europe, that is, the story is opened with the arrival of the devil after the death of the gods. This is actually a very straightforward way of unfolding, and it also perfectly inherits the previous work. The trilogy forms a connection. However, this method may not be acceptable to today’s audiences. Although Western movies still use myths and religions as the core, audiences are accustomed to the need for social connection in the logic of drama (this is why the theater version has been changed to simple The world is turbulent after the death of Superman), and it is difficult to figure out from the spiritual power. In the thinking of heroic stories, the current audience's thinking mode should be social, that is, what social problems a hero will cause, and then connect Personal emotions, but in Western classical drama, the hero’s story is first of all mythical, the hero’s behavior is first of all the behavior of the gods, and the hero’s influence is also the first to cause problems between certain supernatural forces. This is a logical difference in drama. It is also the source of the so-called "grand" senses. Many of the memories, ritualized scenes, and praises in the film are handled in this way. As a commercial blockbuster, it is relatively bold. This is also the information gap that has always existed between the director and the public audience. One is that the DCEU created by Zhadao is fundamentally different from the executives’ hopes for DCEU. Zhadao’s heroes are still heroes in myths. Despite facing contemporary dilemmas, they are ultimately still a kind of heroes. The duel between gods and souls is a serious, sensory cultural product that can achieve spiritual communication with the audience. Perhaps the DCEU that Warner’s top hopes is Marvel’s kind of secular, scientific, popular, and entertaining. Sublimation from the core on this basis, then these two concepts are irreconcilable. So on the contrary, the classical model has become a kind of "pioneer" in today's drama structure. It is like if a Chinese director shoots a commercial film today to spread the story in a petty narrative mode, the reputation of the audience is at risk. (Of course, this analogy is not very accurate, because the story model of today’s commercial movies follows the Hollywood-style Western drama logic, so the traditional Chinese storytelling model is a completely artistic expression in the commercial market, but the guide The story logic used is still Western traditional drama logic, but it is more classical and traditional in the sense that the official direction is more classical, and there is a deviation in the relationship between inclusion and inclusion.)
2. Not long after the beginning of the movie, there was a passage of the Sea King going to the sea. The female crowd on the shore sang carols to him and picked up his clothes as sacred objects. I was surprised when I watched this passage. This must be the entire film to be cut. I deleted the first paragraph when I saw it, but this paragraph is actually very powerful, but it is not good for the general audience. Many people say that ZSJL is very commercial and popular for other films, but when I watched this paragraph, I felt that ZSJL In dealing with the hero role, he has already turned his head, and even has a bit of Bergman's shadow. The so-called hero role, if there is no praise ceremony, or hiding and suspicion of oneself in the corners of the world, it may be difficult for Zha Dao to convey emotions, and may only be reduced to a conventional Hollywood-style salvation capital in the United States. "Heroes" of alienation of socialism, social race, and rich and poor issues.
Zha Dao designed a lot of styling lenses throughout the film. In terms of variable speed lenses, he used more and more flexible than the previous ones. It can be seen that Zha Dao is more focused on a divine display of his DCEU heroes in this film. He is profound, "Man of Steel" emphasizes the personal life journey of Superman and the various problems he faced in American society about his own past, so the whole film is sharp, documentary images and wide-screen shots. "Dawn of Justice" is a noir film from Batman's perspective. The hero has fallen, and instead is used and exploited. Urban social life, law, and politics are included in the scope of the hero's consideration. The entire film's IMAX lens is used to show Superman’s miracles, but more are shallow focus, large aperture, confused detectives under wide-screen, chase battles, and fast and violent fights, all of which are dividing the hero’s oracle. But "Justice League" is different. The 1.33:1 format, such a "full body" picture mode, is like an oil painting on the walls of a museum in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The imax picture taken with a spherical lens weakens the dazzling Light, high-contrast pictures, low-saturated colors, grand, deep, and delicate, the self-struggle of the characters in the movie is magnified.
The opening scene is looking for Neptune on horseback. The majestic natural landscape reproduces the obstacles of the hero’s journey. The corners hidden by Neptune are closed and far away, just as each of them tries to stay away from the society when facing their own confusion. The huge natural landscape shows It corresponds to the pattern involved in the movie, which is completely different from the taillight version only staying in the American society of a bald white man who kicks msl fruit. In the field of special agent films, NATO agents’ actions on a global scale symbolize the invasion and trampling of Western ideology. In the heroic films under the lens of Zhadao, the mountains and rivers are evidence of the scope of the hero’s influence and destiny. Wherever I go, this is a more traditional Western model, but it is different from a purely ideological invasion and harvest of the global box office.
3. The five heroes designed by Zha Dao are all facing their painful past. They all chose to hide themselves, and these five heroes, Superman, chose to go at the beginning of "Man of Steel" Entering society, the ultimate irony is the sacrifice of heroes who entered society. This is the darkest dawn in "Dawn of Justice". "ZSJL" needs to take the five heroes who are far away from society actively or passively out of the shadows because of the incident of Superman's sacrifice, to resurrect the heroes who symbolizes entering the society. It can be seen that this film has the most complicated task-to complete the heroes’ process from sinking to awakening within four hours, while ensuring the display of their heroic and secular side, as well as commercial scenes and foreshadowing for the sequel. . This task can only be accomplished by Zha Dao himself, because in the history of superhero movies, only one director has completed such a work (single)-Zach Schneider's own "Watchmen".
Many critics and follow-up audiences will accuse Zha Dao's "narrative problem". They will use mv's director's debut status and expertise in camera modeling to explain the reason for "not being able to narrate long-term". This is very unreasonable, because in "The Ring After "The King", "The Dark Knight", "Watchmen" and "ZSJL", we can already have a complete summary of the superhero movies of the new era, that is, first of all, superheroes are serious social heroes involving human beings. He is a real hero, that is to say, if heroism cannot be shown, then this character and this type are a failure. After all, what Zha Dao wants to shoot is not the kind of fake heroes and anti-heroes full of pornographic jokes and gags. What he creates is a hero on a serious level; secondly, the sociality and special abilities of superheroes need to be displayed. These two points lay the foundation for the heroic attributes of the heroes and the personal characteristics of the heroes in such movies. This is very difficult at the level of drama. Few movies can fully show these points in a movie, but also take into account the audience's characteristics. Visually pleasing, so Zha Dao will paragraphize the journey of these heroes, and will use some almost MV-like means to write, similar to the hero history of the opening of "Watchmen", the opening master of "Justice Dawn", and the "Justice League" Flashback paragraphs of Flash Save Iris and Steel Frame. These paragraphs use different styles of editing modes, but they are fast and efficient. The most important thing is that they are distinguished and have very strong style logos. These logos are not The pure pursuit of a sense of style, but directly matches the character itself. When you think of the steel frame, you will think of the sharply meaningful picture of the charge on the football field and the boyish modification of the grades of the classmates. The characters have been established very seriously, and they are not held back. Not joking, not just staying at the sentence. Obviously, Director Zha believes that heroic characters need to be brought to the audience very ritually, which is why these characters are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. A hero role cannot simply throw a role at you. The styling shots in the film process and the “excessive” social paragraph depiction are all strengthening the meaning of the role to the audience. The interaction between multiple heroes cannot be a gag. After getting acquainted, I immediately invested in it. Everyone's reaction and thinking are all in the time of using the movie. The total duration of the movie will increase, but this is not meaningless, it is a manifestation of the narrative level.
Nolan's movies are fast-paced, sharp, and the special design of the plot line, which weakens the sense of ritual of the characters themselves, so Nolan's movies are realistic and pure commercial movies that emphasize typological skills. But what Zach needs is classical heroes, because classical heroes are more ambitious, can spread more timelines spanning thousands of years, and have more emotional pictures. This is a difference in strategy, not a good or bad technique. Warner obviously doesn't like this model at the moment, because they want to transform the painful past of these heroes into a single-player movie and then into the box office, but they are eager for quick success, so they are killing all who once trusted themselves. The creators of Warner, in fact, among the major Hollywood studios in the past have given the most creative rights and the most style of the film (although they are still in the production system), but they have obviously lost their "ancestors" I started to be jealous of the various box office results of the Disney house next door, but because of historical reasons, there is an insurmountable gap between the studio and the studio, and imitation will only make them fall into a rift.
4. Regarding Zach Schneider’s personal style and commercial issues, I think that "epic" and "myth" in the traditional sense cannot simply summarize him, because such so-called epics and myths are only based on The foundation of American pop culture and the mythological style of the deconstruction of classic Hollywood models in the past. Although Director Zha has experience and expression of classic works, in the final analysis he is modern, he is rock and roll, is comics, and he shoots. It is not the traditional commercial blockbuster such as "Titanic", "Lord of the Rings" and "Kings of Heaven", but the stylized "300 Warriors", "Sin City" and "Watchmen" that still have novel film techniques. work. So when he enters the creative process of large-scale commercial works, there will definitely be bipolar comments in the industry and audience groups. However, Zha Dao is impeccable in two aspects, namely, big scenes and action scenes. Due to the persistent pursuit of these two, his film costs cannot remain in the investment model of American independent films. This is a relatively contradictory point. It has a nearly independent film director’s line, but only the capital of large studios can shoot the volume of his work, so Zhadao may be very suitable for the creative mode of the streaming media platform, but the small screen is not suitable for the look and feel of his work. Before "Legend of the Living Dead", all of Zha Dao’s works were shot on film and put on the IMAX big screen to watch. The three-party conflicts restricted Zha Dao’s expression. Under the current Hollywood model of building an amusement park, he is struggling. However, it is precisely because of this style that he has a correspondingly large fan base. There are arguments that "ZSJL" and "BVS" are more products of compromise, but compared to "MOS" and "BVS", the film mission of "ZSJL" has long been clear-he must take on a film to drive all the roles Traditional heroes gather the number of movies, but the emotional weight used by Zha Dao in the movie is bold. The emotional viscosity of the whole film is high, and it takes up a lot of details and space to portray. Cristrio said this is the best screenplay he has ever written. No wonder, there must be a reason why Oscar Best Screenplay said so.
Director Zha’s ability to balance characters is unmatched by directors in the current comics world. The film’s shaping of the three roles of Steel Bones, Flash, and Aquaman who never officially appeared at that time is higher than the three who are already audiences in the movie. The character that the world already knows well, the steel frame of the mother box image incarnation as the core props of the movie connects the lines of the movie, and also maps the theme, while the social fear and confusion of the Flash character’s ability learning process goes hand in hand with growth, but everything is In preparation for the last-minute reversal, Neptune uses its special visual image to conquer the audience. Its existence also paves the way for the future of Atlantis and personal films. The ability to arrange and coordinate the roles in the movie is balanced to the limit. Who starts, who promotes, who maintains, who drives the climax, and who reverses. Then the design and guidance of female characters, Chinese characters, and black characters can be completely unified into a system. There is naturally no sense of "correctness" and deliberately catering to the audience for characters with different cultural foundations. The villains in Zach’s movies always have a high degree of highlighting the tone of the movie. The steppenwolves in the movie have brought a frustrated, tenacious, realistic portrayal of human images in order to change their tragic destiny. The heroic character who has fallen into the past has formed a closed loop in the process of competing with the Steppenwolf who has fallen into tragedy due to his family and personal past. The connection between the characters and the characters makes this closed loop show the tone of the movie, and also makes The fate of the movie has been expanded. Steppenwolf is the representative of this fate. He is the evidence of the role atmosphere set by the director of the DCEU. His rise and failure and the rise and failure of heroes in the movie correspond to the atmosphere of the entire movie universe.
At the end of the movie is the dream of the easter egg. The film directed by Zha is full of dreams and hallucinations, not only in this "Superman Trilogy" series, including the prophet on the top of the mountain in "300 Warriors" and "Pretty Girls" The spiritual world is the embodiment of this kind of dreams. Unlike the dreams in Nolan’s movies, which are compound narratives and play with plot lines, or Lynch’s character psychoanalysis, the dreams in Zhadao’s movies are a kind of Western European mythological display of dreams. , Is a manifestation, an oracle, and a revelation of the curse of tragic fate. Batman is inspired by dreams, which are the warnings of the future gods (heroes) to the present, which is also a more mythical narrative method in Zhadao's personal films.
5. The action scene in this film is not one of the best action scenes in the non-Chinese/Southeast Asian Kung Fu movies I have seen, especially for the portrayal of female warriors. A Wonder Woman fighting scene surpasses all Wonder Woman independent movies Fighting paragraphs, this is the accumulation of visual ability, Zha Dao here is not on the same level as all other creators. It is worth noting that "slow motion" is the public's stereotyped understanding of Zha Dao. In fact, Zha Dao is good at variable speed lenses rather than simply upgraded pictures. The movie will slow down to show grand ritual scenes and characters’ inner emotions and action details, but for the superhero’s inhuman speed and pressing sense of strike, Zha Dao will be presented with accelerated shots. Zha Dao’s skills are in In action scenes, especially in more complicated fighting scenes such as Wonder Woman, the camera will accelerate first and then decelerate or vice versa. It is rarely pure acceleration and deceleration. Of course, the slow-motion lighting and speed are controlled. It’s his own unique skill that no one else in Hollywood can crack. This can also explain why the slow motion of Patty Jenkins’s filming of "Wonder Woman" or the taillight filming of the "Justice League" make-up shots is not satisfactory. The variable speed lens is an aesthetic design that tests the creative ability. Unlike the anti-hero characters in "Watchmen" who fight in a more realistic and dark social environment, the heroes of "ZSJL" have a stronger divinity and perform more exaggerated fighting moves, so they are less violent and replace them. It’s the display of super powers. The action design of the movie also tends to let the audience distinguish and remember each hero’s ability differences and key moves. In this, Zha Dao designed three levels of fighting skills for each character to show different In this way, each character is also designed with a key weakness (except Superman).
6. In terms of music, many critics think that it is a great pity that Hans Zimmer could not be invited back to this film, but I think that for Yu Zhadao's personal style, except for not being able to invite Larry back to work for photography. Apart from the biggest regret of the film, the entire film team has no problems. In the final analysis, Zhazhi’s movies are modern, electronic, and rock and roll. Compared with Hans Zimmer in style, they are actually more suitable for Tom Hockenberg (JunkieXL). Junkie and his master are more suitable for some very rock explosions. Music paragraph design, Hans Zimmer is good at using electronic synthesizers to interpret magnificent and diverse beautiful and intense movements, and the action part of Zha directed movies is also known for "cool" and "wild", the action scenes are exaggerated and violent. Ling Lie. "MOS" wants to show the magnificent landscape of Krypton and the earth and superhuman personal growth, "BVS" is a deep and gloomy character route. These Hans Zimmer are perfectly displayed with his skill, but the elegant people in "ZSJL" Heroes are actually more of the turbulence, rock and cleverness of "Watchmen", so I think JunkieXL is the best choice. You can't just look at the title, but also look at the style match. Moreover, Hans Zimmer is also entering now. At this stage, repeated exercise of the previous mode may make the audience's ears tired. As for the regrets about music, I think it lacks enough cost and time to polish, just like the visual effects.
I always think that the biggest contribution of "ZSJL" to contemporary audiences lies in the first, disguised science popularization of the behind-the-scenes knowledge of contemporary large-scale film production. You can discover how the same story will change under different editing, how the production process of the film changes from rough cut to final cut, how the studio intervenes in the artistic creation of the film, the corresponding positions of the creators, and the fans What kind of role is played here? It is very meaningful for the audience to understand this for the industry. The second is that for creators, communication with the audience can promote the final release of their own works, and it can challenge the existing business model (albeit only on the surface). This undoubtedly gives creators a lot of hope. Then, if we need to add one more point, it actually magnifies the importance of the main creator’s personal aesthetics in the film. Aside from the revisions made to the film by the taillights under the pressure of the studio, the theater version actually exposes the poor personal aesthetics of the taillights. . Even with the existing materials in hand, the taillights still have no way to select and polish them in place. In fact, I am very grateful for the taillights. If it was a relatively pure version of Justice League that was directly released back then, we would not see it today: the truly domineering Husky Steppenwolf, the 1.33:1 original film without cropping format, four There are many hours of details and content (generally more than three hours in the guide cut version). After all, this film is also a compromised product. If it is released in accordance with the regular theater specifications, there will only be more compromises. The taillights are actually deleted by Warner. Commercial considerations, for example, from the studio’s perspective, the origin of Steel Bone and The Flash is offset by the two original movies, but in the eyes of the creator, if the film cannot create a convincing role of Steel Bone and the Flash, then the original movie is also To make up for it, this is the difference between the ideas of art creators and businessmen, and the studio struggle also originated from this. And the taillights should actually respect some of the guide's ideas, such as the retention of some editing points, the preservation of the story mode, and the concept of grading, such as the red tone of the Russian war. This may be the meaning of the guide, but the taillight guides The lower colorist tuned the sky red, which is the difference in visual aesthetics.
I think why there are a large number of "Zaslin" groups in the guide group. This is actually a result of whether they can communicate with the film image in the style of the director’s creation, just like some art film lovers. The direct induction of a certain sense of beauty of a certain screen image, in fact, the understanding of the entire film can rise to a level, and it can also be more shocked. These audience groups have found and spiritual comfort in the film, just like finding As a companion of soul communication, movies are no longer a product of entertaining themselves, and of course they will follow the director's footsteps desperately. Many people regard the so-called "Zaslin" as a fan circle group, but there is a problem here, that is, the fan circle group is essentially capital cultivation and packaging, but Zha Dao is the director, and his fan base comes from his The film work comes from his talent. This is completely different. Everyone will ignore his singing and touching acting skills because of his cut personality. But when we talk about Zach Schneider, we talk about him. Works, everything in his works.
Finally, I am grateful to the fans who have paid for rtsc. Everyone used their own actions to make an event that affects the entire film production history. This is undoubtedly exciting. In 2019, when Hollywood gradually fell into a new rigidity due to Disney’s money-absorbing model , The fans stood up and fought, in exchange for a good result. Now everyone is struggling for Snyderverse, the road is long, but the result will be good.
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