I just read a book on editing recently, and Bridge of Spies presents the editing method mentioned in the book like a textbook.
In How to Create Suspense, the book speaks of Hitchcock, "…and the most important thing is the balance of photographic technique between subjective and objective viewpoints. For example, giving the audience enough information to identify with the character, ..., and then in the crunch At the juncture, allow the audience to feel more than the character itself."
There is a scene in Bridge of Spies in which a lawyer played by Tom Hanks goes to East Germany. After entering East Germany, the scene of encountering the robbers who robbed the road is shown like this:
the explanation of the surrounding environment seems to indicate the danger ahead.
The next bird's-eye view lets the audience know the existence of danger in advance. Through this method, the audience is stimulated to know beforehand, and the audience becomes the director's co-conspirator at a critical moment, creating suspense.
Sure enough, in this shot, Hanks was entangled by the punk.
An important role of the editor is to make the audience understand the mutual positional relationship between the actors. When shooting a scene where two people are talking, the camera must be kept on the same side of the line that the two people form, that is, within 180 degrees of one side of the axis. The following dialogue between Hanks and the Soviet ambassador is a good illustration.
First, a medium shot was used to explain the positions of the two, with the Soviet ambassador on the left and Hanks on the right.
Then there's the right-to-left shot of the Ambassador, and the left-to-right shot of Hanks.
And the following dialogue also used the method of "shooting over the shoulder":
In this scene, Hanks occupies more area in the picture, and also has a straight sitting posture. On the other hand, the Soviet ambassador seems to be curled up in the corner of the picture, so that the positive image of the lawyer played by Hanks is immediately revealed.
Similar comparisons are made between the US's treatment of Soviet spies and the Soviets' treatment of American spies. At the end of the film, the comparison between the scene of several naughty American children jumping over the fence of the neighbor's house and the scene of the East German youth who were shot and killed when Hanks saw the East German jumping over the Berlin Wall when he was in East Germany expresses American freedom, democracy and happiness. great national image.
The film was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Golden Globe Award at the same time: it is the Soviet spy played by Mark Rylance. His mouth movements make this character mysterious and chilling.
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