The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson, tells the story of a wartime janitor of a famous European grand hotel and the story of his friendship with a young employee who would become his most trusted protégé. The cinematography of the film is remarkable, and the style of the technique is full of "Anderson's style". It seems that every frame in the film has been carefully designed, no matter where it is paused, it can get a delicate freeze-frame picture.
Anderson is known for his unique style, and while some of his previous films may have focused more on characters and stories, for this film, Anderson puts more emphasis on style and form. For example, in the shot of Gustav talking to Zero in the film, the director intentionally placed the two of them in the picture at the same time, instead of deliberately using subjective shots such as front and back fights. This film is a perfect combination of style and story. The exquisite photography and exquisite story are very artistic style of the director himself. The shots and scenes in the film have been specially arranged and designed to give the audience an immersive sense of substitution. At the same time, it seems like a reappearance of scenes from life.
Anderson, as a mature film director, is good at playing with cinematography and is happy to generate new inspiration from it. The film started with the 16:9 widescreen screen used in the 1960s, and then in the 1930s and 1980s, it was screened with a screen ratio of 1.37:1 and 1.85:1, respectively. This visual subjective presentation not only reminds the audience of the time span of the film, but also reproduces Billy at the time when the film was shown. Director Anderson is unique in the tonal handling of the film. The 1930s occupies more than half of the film. In hotels, dark and warm tones are usually used, and the natural saturation of the picture is high, giving the audience a strong sense of oil painting.
The combination of movement and stillness makes it difficult to distinguish true from false. Most of the scenes in the film start with a fixed shot, and then start to move, but the combination of motion and stillness is also what Director Anderson excels at. When you look closely at the footage, it's not the camera itself that moves, but the scene itself or the characters moving in the scene. A good example of this is in the prison scene where Gustave is pushing the dining cart in his cell. The food is distributed between the shuttles, and as he stops at the door of each cell, the camera gives the viewer a look inside the cells. It looks more like a photo because the camera is still, but the characters move around the cell and quarrel with Gustav. The other is when Joplin is driving a motorcycle. At this time, the camera is set at the front of the car, shooting Joplin from the front, and the scene behind him changes rapidly. The movement and stillness of the shots are used perfectly in this film and complement the sound.
Compared with Anderson's previous works, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" focuses more on the exploration of photography style, and carries out artistic processing and innovation. As an art of audio-visual language, photography and vision are inseparable. Vision is an intuitive expression. The unique photography style can often capture the audience's attention and stimulate the interest of watching movies.
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