I like to zoom in and find one or two or a small group of people with vivid expressions to record such a full moment. Huge scenes have impact, but large scenes that are not well-filmed are often crowded and cluttered, and those tiny moments, placed in the macro background, will have another moving power.
Small often has a different kind of power, photography is like this, film is also like this. The small selection in the biopic does not only mean that the core of the selected content is fragmentary, it also requires that in the selection of the fragment, there are intense conflicts and touching story lines to portray a full character image. This is an extremely demanding requirement for the script.
Under such a request, 2006's "Queen" performed quite well. The story selects a week after Princess Diana's death as the capacity space for the movie. Through the confrontation between Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Brear, Prince Charles, public media and the British public, the Queen's character image is very delicately portrayed. Of course, there are many remarkable things in the life of Queen Elizabeth II. The diversity and richness of the characters themselves have challenged the construction of the script - if you don't want to miss any wonderful things, retell all the experiences from the queen's enthronement to the present. Once again, the film will be reduced to a boring documentary.
That's exactly what I mean by choosing tiny fragments: we have to choose a fragment from the rich experience of the Queen's life to make portraying the Queen easier and more engaging to the audience.
From the selection point of view, the selection of "The Queen" was quite successful. The week after Princess Diana's death was selected as the background of the story, and there was considerable room for choice in character settings. The screenwriter could use the real character: Breer , Charles and the Queen's confrontation to express the Queen's inner world, you can also choose an illusory character: the video records of Diana's death have an impact on the Queen. And the behind-the-scenes death of Princess Diana itself adds to the movie's highlights - everyone wants to know the inside story of Princess Diana's death, and everyone wants to see the worst PR crisis for the British royal family.
The choice of the story determines half of the script, and the other half after that requires the plot setting and the performance of the actors to complete.
In the setting of the plot, "Queen" also showed delicate and profound features. The crisis of confidence in the royal family caused by Diana's death was not exaggerated in big scenes, but was received by the Queen through television and radio. Similarly, the story scenes are relatively closed and single, with Balmore Villa, Buckingham Palace and the Prime Minister's residence forming the main story development place (there are actually not many scenes in Buckingham Palace). This choice gives the film a rather calm and self-contained tone—the kind of character the Queen needs most. The characteristics of the film itself and the characters complement each other, making "The Queen" full of British sophistication and a sense of ceremonial alienation.
As for the performance of the actors, Helen Mirren also adheres to the same characteristics as the film - subtle and self-sufficient. The good thing about Helen's acting is that you don't think she's acting. There are no hysterical monologues or overly intense emotional displays. Only the slightly twitching corners of the mouth and the wonderful changes in the tone of voice show the Queen's inner changes. I remember Hu Ziwei commenting on Helen's acting skills: it's like a ghost. This kind of ghost is that she does not use exaggeration as the standard of performance, but integrates it into the life of the character, and vividly expresses the queen. That year, mirren won the golden man at the age of 61 with a "Queen", which is enough to prove how powerful this realistic performance is with the cooperation of an excellent script.
Compared with "The Queen", the structure of the 1998 British film "Elizabeth" is slightly more complicated. The whole article is probably supported by Cate Blanchett's acting skills.
"Elizabeth" itself is intended to be an epic British costume film, and this positioning makes "Elizabeth" fall into the trap of pursuing grandeur. From the marriage proposal to the love with Robert, from the hard pursuit to the heartbeat, and the annihilation of the Armada that passed by, only the sad tone and the figure of Blanchett's clothes fluttering are interspersed in the middle. The visuals are fine, but they don't stand up to careful consideration. Probably because of this, the Oscar was nominated six times, and finally won a Best Makeup Award (Kate didn't get the heroine because she met "Shakespeare in Love").....so interesting.
The Queen and Elizabeth are two great study templates for biopics. Biographical films should have more sophisticated conception and artistic value - Chinese biographical films are often caught in a situation where there is no film to shoot and a model character is chosen to build a biography for him. The subtleties show the righteousness. If a movie can make breakthroughs in subtleties, then it has a deeper meaning than a huge production and a big scene.
After all, in this age of visual entertainment, we still need some, spiritual joy.
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