A brief analysis of the audio-visual language of "Guling Street Juvenile Murder Case".
introduction:
"The most beautiful night scene in Chinese" is praised by movie fans for "Guling Street Teenage Murder Case", and it can also be interpreted as their teasing about the quality of the film. In the past, the handed down version of this masterpiece was blurry, but it still did not prevent it from becoming a movie enlightenment for the majority of fans. This year, the American CC Standard Collection has perfectly restored the film, so I waited for the perfect time to watch it. The first time I saw this masterpiece, I immediately decided that this film could be included in my top ten Chinese movies. Although some fans criticized the restored version for changing the tone of the original, people can finally clearly distinguish every character and every scene under the night. This is not only a prosperous event in the film industry, but also the best commemoration for director Yang Dechang, who has passed away for nearly ten years.
1. Introduction to the film and director
"Guling Street Teenage Murder" is Yang Dechang's fourth feature film, also known as "Yang Dechang's masterpiece in ten years". It took him three years to polish the script, train the actors, and build the scene. Since the film is Yang Dechang's first film after he founded the production company independently, it is fully funded by himself and is less constrained in creation, so the length of the film reaches an unprecedented four hours, which is the longest film in Chinese.
The English name of the film is "A Brighter Summer Day", which is taken from a lyric in the episode "Are you lonesome tonight" by Elvis Presley. Bright in the lyrics has been changed to Brighter, which has a contrasting and contrasting effect. The brighter summer the teenagers looked forward to ended in tragedy. (The best review of this film I have read is 2balck's "Educational Poems on Guling Street", which is similar to the film section published on the famous forum "Xici Hutong" 15 years ago. This film review is written in the style of a novel The writing combines meticulous analysis into the narrative of the story, with a unique perspective and quite innovative.) Director Yang Dechang was born in 1947 and died of illness in the United States in 2007. In his more than 20 years of light and shadow career, he has created a small number of films, but almost all of them have become classics. Because of his insights into human nature and his analysis of society in the film, he was hailed by critics as "the scalpel of Taiwanese society" and "a true literati". A late bloomer, he worked as a computer engineer and long-term software designer in Seattle before working on film.
In 1982, he made his debut in "Story of Time" as the director. Soon after, "A Day at the Beach" was filmed, leading the new wave of Taiwanese films with Hou Hsiao-hsien. His representative work is the "Taipei Trilogy", among which "Yi Yi" released in 2001, together with "Guling Street Teenage Murder Case", is known as the "double jade" in Yang Dechang's works. His posthumous work is the cartoon "Chasing the Wind", Jackie Chan participated in the investment, but unfortunately there are only seven minutes of samples left. In this dailies, the picture has always used the big vision, abandoning the usual tricks of animation. Yang used his usual bystander perspective to calmly show the story that happened. It makes one wonder what the movie would be like if it were made.
The title and title of the film
The title of "Guling Street Teenage Murder" is very meaningful, foreshadowing the misfortune that happened at the end of the film. It was dark at first, then a hand turned on the light bulb, and then red quickly filled the full screen, and the title of the movie came out. This brief title points to two important elements of the film, lighting and blood. In view of the large number of night scenes in "Guling Street", flashlights are often the main light source. Therefore, director Lu Chuan once praised the film as "a beacon that never goes out of our dark youth". The bright red echoes the "killing" in the title, giving the audience a psychological preset.
The title of "Guling Street Teenage Murder Case" has locations, characters, and events. It is a long name, as amazing as the length of the movie. The word "murder" exposed the biggest dramatic conflict in the story before the movie started, which shows that Yang Dechang's drunkard's intention is not to drink. He did not want to treat this subject as a thriller or suspenseful genre, but wanted to use this murder to show the strange appearance of Taiwanese society in the 1960s. In short, it's not the youth who kill, but the society. Movies of the same type include "Memories of Murder" and "Treading the Blood to Seek Plum", both of which are caused by horrific cases that lead to social ills. However, in comparison, "Guling Street" appears calmer, more restrained, and more panoramic.
3. Narrative Mode
Many viewers were not psychologically prepared before watching the movie. First, they were frightened by the four-hour duration, and secondly, they were confused by the direction of the story. The whole film has no narration to explain the background, only two subtitles appear at the beginning and end of the film.
A large number of nouns such as "Jianzhong Night Club", "Military Village", "Small Park (Ice Shop)", "Liangyaojiao (217, Billiard Hall)", "Concert" and so on appeared in the dialogues of characters. The audience needs their own Pay attention to the details in the next time to understand. At the same time, there are nearly 100 characters with lines in the movie, including Xiao Si, Kitten, Xiao Ming, Honey (Xiao Ming's boyfriend), Xiao Ma, Shandong, Wanggou, etc., but none of them are symbolic, they All are flesh and blood. Some characters may have few lines, but still make the audience feel like they are real in life.
These characteristics reflect Yang Dechang's concept of storytelling in this film and even in his creative career - bystander, realism, and rationality. The stories that happen in life will eventually return to life. The audience needs to understand the events themselves in the development of the plot and the dialogue of the characters.
Fourth, the lens form
Shot language is one of the most intuitive elements that reflect a director's style. In this realistic film, Yang Dechang mostly uses fixed camera positions, long shots from medium and long distances, flat shots and side shots. Basically abandon the camera movements such as pushing, pulling, shaking, and throwing that can arouse the audience's emotions and attention, and avoid using lens methods such as close-up and pitch angle shooting. The camera seems to sit on the sidelines in a covert way, capturing the details in the frame. For example, at the beginning of the movie, from 1 minute 17 seconds to 2 minutes 32 seconds, the camera is fixed on a straight boulevard, the close-up view is empty, and the distant view is the passing cars and pedestrians. The two fathers and sons who were riding bicycles slowly moved from far to near for more than a minute. In the middle of the screen is the subtitle of the film's creator.
Another example is from 132 minutes 44 seconds to 133 minutes 55 seconds, the first kiss scene of Xiao Si. The natural light is dim light or distant moonlight, and the ambient sound is the faint chirping of cicadas. There was no exciting soundtrack to show this moment of lightning, the boy and girl just sat side by side and had a quiet and long kiss. The time also exceeded a minute.
Another example is the famously extremely calm or weird scene handling - the fourth student breaks the light bulb in the teacher's office when he is dissatisfied with the school's punishment. The film does not show Xiao Si's action of breaking a light bulb with a baseball bat, but instead allows the audience to hear a shrill sound and see the light rope shaking afterwards. Perhaps the audience did not understand what happened at the time after watching this passage, but only understood the incident in the dialogue between the father and son.
5. Lens content
In the scene, Yang Dechang tried his best to restore the terroir of Taiwan in the 1960s. Such as tanks and soldiers on the street at night, revolutionary slogans on the wall under construction, etc.
In terms of styling, I also try to get close to the characters of the year, whether it is dress or psychology. More impressive are the two group portraits, one is a Jianzhong teacher (from all over the world, so the accents and personalities are different), and the other is a family gathering (a high-spirited dog and a slightly dull father, Yang Dechang's ex-wife Cai Qin made a cameo appearance here).
In the use of lighting, Yang Dechang is clearly a follower of natural realism. In movies, natural light is often used, and artificial light is nothing more than street lights, and there is little deliberate lighting to create effects. But it doesn't mean that the director doesn't know how to use lighting to describe the psychology of characters. For example, the two conversations between father and son are a good example. The first time father and son went home side by side was during the day. Xiao Si was recorded as a demerit. The father encouraged Xiao Si not to succumb to the pressure of the environment. It was daytime, with natural light, and the father in a white shirt looked confident and his words were sonorous.
The second time they came home side by side, it was already dark. The father was investigated before, and his spirit had been smoothed out. This time, Xiao Si was expelled, but turned into a son to comfort his father. At this time, the street light and the side light cast a deep shadow on my father, showing my father's depression and frustration at that time.
(This is the first time that Zhang Zhen played the leading role in a movie, thus officially starting his acting career. This masterpiece made the image of a fifteen-year-old boy forever fixed in the history of movies. An anecdote: Zhang Zhen's father, Zhang Guozhu, is a famous Taiwanese actor. He also plays the father of his son in the film.) Other more extreme examples of light use make the title of "the most beautiful night scene in Chinese" well-deserved. For example, after the power outage in Liangyiguai, only candle light illuminates the actors, and the flashlight of Xiaosi after the bloodbath of Liangyaoguai is the only light source. In the latter scene, the huge darkness and the faint light reflect the evolution of the characters' psychology. The horrors of reality are engulfing teenagers.
At the same time, the whole film is shrouded in a cool tone. Even in the love scene of Xiao Si and Xiao Ming, the scene is bright and clean, but the tone is cold, always accompanied by some death, with a hint of coolness. Yang Dechang takes this to show the audience the tragic color of the film.
6. Sound
Sound is undoubtedly the most important component of a film, and at the same time assumes a great ideographic role. Similarly, Yang Dechang's directing style is also reflected in the processing of the film's sound. There is basically no narration in the whole film, and there is no original soundtrack that renders emotions. Ambient sound and prop sound are mostly used to complete the sound narrative. Such as the cat singing Elvis songs at a concert, or playing Elvis songs on a record player.
Perhaps the most impressive, and saddest, scene is the radio broadcast of the college admissions list at the end of the credits, which echoes the opening credits. The younger sister carried the faulty radio in the house, and the mother held the school uniform of the fourth grader in the yard. The story could have not ended in tragedy, but this society did not give them a chance.
7. Composition
As a film with little change of position, it is obvious that a lot of work must be done on the composition. Many scenes in this film are called "tunnel perspective" by scholars.
"The doors, windows, corridors, and entrances under the camera form 'striking lines and staggered planes', creating an inner distance between the characters in the camera and drawing the viewer's gaze deeper into the conflict."
The depth of this shot reflects Yang Dechang's subtle understanding of space-time distance. For example, when filming a dangerous gang fight, first film a basketball being thrown from a dark place at the end of the road, and then film the person walking out.
Another example is when Xiao Si and Xiao Ming met in the infirmary, and they used extremely abnormal camera language. The two met and talked, but the camera turned to the other side to shoot the figures of the two on the wall for about half a minute. This also reflects the invisible estrangement between the two.
8. Juvenile Murder and Chinese Cruel Youth
After nearly four hours of foreshadowing, the audience waited for the moment they least wanted to wait - juvenile murder. How exactly did this moment happen? After watching the movie, we seem to hear the director say that that night was as peaceful as many summer nights. Xiao Ming said the most famous line - "I am like this world, this world will not change." And the taciturn Xiao Si hurriedly stretched out his hidden knife and pointed it at Xiao Ming's belly. Poke in the middle. This is "a knife from the weak to the weak", which is the end of youth forever. Medium shot. Xiao Ming was defenseless, hit with a knife, looked in pain, and fell down.
You can't see Xiao Si's expression, you can't see it all the time. You only know that he stabbed her six times. You don't know what the face of this troubled young man is, but you can feel his thoughts, and his thoughts are like a mountain pressing on your heart and mine. . We only feel sympathy, not hatred. Then came a big vision, Xiao Sizhi stood on the street, looked at Xiao Ming's body, and called out her name, obviously stunned by his actions. You still can't see his expression, but you can hear his cry. It all happened so quickly that the murderer's hands were stained with blood. But is that his hand, is that a sin that he, who loves Xiao Ming, can allow himself to commit?
The Guling Street Book Market was brightly lit, and the female students who were staying at the book stand discovered the tragedy in front of them and quietly turned around to watch. They hid behind the man beside them. Citizens passing by on bicycles also stopped and looked at the only embellishment in this boring life. The murder case in the book was moved to the streets of Guling. And the officers and soldiers who read books in the distance are still invested. Nearby you and I are also bystanders.
There is a sentence in "April's Memorial", "At the age of 20, I climbed out of the swamp of youth". Want to come to youth, not as beautiful and bright as we imagined, on the contrary, it is cruel and ruthless. It will force a teenager to witness the horrors of the world prematurely, and bring down the most terrible consequences. There are not a few Chinese movies showing cruel youth. Here I would like to make a horizontal comparison between Jiang Wen's "Sunny Day" and "Guling Street". "Sunshine" and "Guling Street" are far more different than similar in terms of expression—the former has warm tones, uses close-up close-ups, and uses subjective soundtracks, full of wildness—it was originally adapted from Wang Shuo's Animal Ferocious".
If "Sunshine" is a golden dream, then "Guling Street" is a green reality. Both are set in the 1960s and 1970s, one is about the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, the other is about the White Terror in Taiwan. They look so different, yet are so consistent in theme. In different locations, the same generation has different experiences and the same hardships. That's the beauty of a good movie—to unearth the commonalities of humanity across time and space. So they become classics, and the youth of future generations can still find resonance in the movies. In contrast, the hot youth movies on the market today, full of abortion, cancer and car accidents, can't help but smile. Bai Yansong said, "The youth of no one generation is easy." Is the youth of the post-80s and post-90s really the way you photographed? I look forward to a director who is calm, restrained and passionate, dissatisfied with the status quo of the film, lost in his youth, and finally, driven by a sense of responsibility, shoots the real youth dilemma of this generation.
PS This is the first and last movie of the heroine (Xiao Ming) Yang Jingyi. Compared to Zhang Zhen, who has become an international superstar, she seems to be a little mediocre, currently working as an accountant in New York.
But after all, everyone's pursuit is different. Despite not continuing her acting career, her two years of filming allowed her to make lifelong friends. No matter where life goes, movies have changed our youth. profoundly, forever, changed.
Reference article:
The restored version of
View more about A Brighter Summer Day reviews
