"Raise the Red Lantern" - Colors can show the conflicts and conflicts in the film and promote the development of the plot.
"The Raise of the Red Lantern" is about the accidental death of her father, which caused Song Lian, who was studying in college, to be married to Chen by her stepmother, a financial fanatic. The master is the wife of the fourth house. Song Lian, who has been studying at university for half a year, has two long black braids and a young woman dressed in student attire.
There are four wives in the Chen family living in four courtyards respectively. Whenever a red lantern is hung high in a wife's house, Master Chen will live in that courtyard that night. The four wives all wanted to be favored by the master, so there were many stories of jealousy and right and wrong in this Chen house.
The eldest wife is fat and bloated, and in Song Lian's eyes, she is afraid to be a hundred years old; the second wife speaks sweetly with a bodhisattva face, but behind her smile hides a knife and scorpion heart;
When Song Lian arrived, she was complaining about being run on by the previous wives. She wanted to use a fake pregnancy to win the favor of the master. She didn't want to be seen by the maid Yan'er who fantasized about being the wife of the Chen family, and told the second wife. When Master Chen learned that Songlian was not pregnant, he ordered the lamp to be sealed. The third wife had an affair with Mr. Gao, a doctor in the Chen family, and was reported by the second wife, and was killed in the hut on the terrace. Song Lian, who lost her favor, finally understood "what is a person in this courtyard: like a dog, like a cat, like a mouse, but not like a person". Song Lian is crazy, she is crazy under the big and small calculations of the Chen family. She was embarrassed by the feudal etiquette waiting for her to be a dark life, the life of a woman in that era.
In the second year, Chen's compound married a fifth wife...
the impact of black, gray, white, red and warm tones
Diderot once described in "On Painting" that "there is no shortage of good sketchers, but there are few masters who are good at coloring". Zhang Yimou is one of these rare masters. His grasp and use of color can be said to be shocking. Take "The Big Red Lantern Hanging High" as an example, to talk about its charm.
The plot does not move, the color comes first
First of all, we are most impressed by the huge red lantern that runs through the whole play from beginning to end. The red lantern, a traditional Chinese festive symbol, however, sinfully ignited the lust for intrigue, jealousy, and mutual attack between wives and concubines in this deep house compound. The heart distortion and madness shown by several women for this red lantern , their honor, disgrace, favor, disfavor, and disgrace are all concentrated in the lighting, extinguishing and sealing of the lights. Whoever has the right to hang the lantern has the highest power below the owner. As a result, the red lantern became the driving force for them to pursue power and status, and red became the symbol of desire. Perhaps, it was their fiery desires that reflected a little humble hope, and that glimmer of hope was deplorable and pitiful.
There is no doubt that gray is the basic color of the film, it follows most of the shots like a ghost. The gray-black sky, the gray-white ground, the gray-black unbreakable courtyard walls, and the blue-gray dead tiles fill the audience's vision. space. The projection of the gray visual image in the bottom of my heart is often a feeling of heavy depression and lack of vitality. This permeating gray fog barrier is as unbreakable as a solid courtyard wall. It is a symbol, symbolizing the suppression and restraint of human nature by the feudal ethics and marriage system. The audience also feels a sense of repression in the aesthetic resonance for no reason. of boredom.
Black, under the light of the big red lanterns, what we cannot ignore is the "black" shrouded in the sky above the Chen family mansion - a kind of terror, a kind of desolation, a kind of lifeless and unavoidable deadness with despair. There is nothing more terrifying to black than the scene of sealing the lights. The pieces of black cloth mercilessly sealed Songlian's last glimmer of hope and sealed it under the "black terror". This is the ruthlessness of the master, the mutual calculation between the wives, the lamentation of Songlian, and the sorrow of the women of this era.
White can give people a sense of purity, but in this film it gives people a terrifying psychological experience. The third concubine was arrested on a snowy night. She walked towards the tomb of death - the "House of the Dead" against the backdrop of white fields and cold winds. And the fourth concubine was in the snowy field, saying "kill you", and she has been acting crazy since then. Even if everything is white, it can't cover up the murder of feudal ethics and marriage system. Against this bright and pure white background, it can arouse the sadness in the audience's heart, and can better reflect the darkness of this typical feudal family, thus arousing our deep sympathy for the fate of this group of women.
Of course, this red, this black, this grey, and this white do not exist in isolation. Red has been running through it as a red line, making the perfect combination of cool and warm tones, creating a strong emotional conflict, which constitutes the solemnity of the whole film. The tragic atmosphere is cold, restless and suffocating, full of enthusiasm and permeated with sin. And this tragic atmosphere just fits and enhances the appeal of the film, making people feel a sense of historical depth and heaviness, and unconsciously fall in love with the artistic charm produced by the use of colors infected.
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