This morning's Oscars came to a close with my friends and I, and Bong Joon-ho won Best Picture, Best Director and Best International Film for Parasite. Whether "Parasite" deserves the award is destined to be debated for a long time, but I am more concerned about "1917" which missed the best picture. Maybe "Parasite" should not win the award, but in my eyes, "1917" should not win the award.
One point that should not be bypassed when discussing "1917" is how the ultra-long lens performs in one shot. Some people think that long shots create a strong sense of immersion, while others think that it is formalism and has no practical effect. If I were to use one word to evaluate "1917" in one shot, it would be indescribable.
Lack of perspective and suspense
Due to the absence of editing and other camera positions, the perspective of the reverse camera position of the lens under long takes is often missing, which is a distinctive feature of long takes. The film takes advantage of this feature to create a strong sense of tension and horror in the first half of the scene where you dig out of the trenches and enter the underground passage. Because there is no editing, the audience cannot quickly and comprehensively know what the spatial background of the character is. Only by following the movement of the actors through long shots can the space be slowly explored in the huge uncertainty. This kind of viewing experience is synchronized with the characters in the film. The audience seems to be following the two soldiers and groping vigilantly, for fear that there will be danger outside the vision (that is, the space where the long-shot vision is missing). This wonderful immersive experience successfully created a strong sense of suspense in the first half, and even had a sense of presence and immersion in the game. That's the beauty of 1917.
Steadicam and Handheld Photography
The sense of presence and immersion of "1917" benefits from Roger Deakins' peak stabilizer use. The smooth long-shot follow-up successfully achieved an immersive experience that "Gemini Man" never did. But this experience seemed to disappear completely after the two escaped from the basement. When talking about war films in the past, people often associate it with handheld photography. From "Saving Private Ryan" to "Black Hawk Down", the violent shaking of handheld photography creates a sense of panic in the battlefield. In the first half of "1917", the two did not actually encounter a real enemy. The lack of information on the battlefield made the soldiers on the front line not believe the commander's statement that the Germans had retreated. During the whole process of the two going to the trenches to find out the basement, the suspense of whether the Germans would retreat or not ran through. Only in such a setting can the sense of suspense mentioned in the first point exist because of the use of stable long shots. When such suspense is dissipated, long takes begin to look nondescript. In the shootout when Ecoust crossed the bridge, the vision of the long shot was always limited by the male protagonist alone. The long shot followed the male protagonist in a steady and slow lateral movement, and the rhythm was slow and could not be called nervous. Including the scenes where the male protagonist wakes up and walks through the city to avoid it. The magical changes of light and shadow are indeed subtle, but this scene is more expressive and tense with hand-held camera close-up and fast editing.
Long Shots and Space Construction
Speaking of this, it leads to one of the most serious problems of "1917" - the ambiguity of spatial construction. As we all know, the long shot represents the unity of time and space, and the actual time of the film is equal to the actual elapsed time. And Sam Mendes' insistence on one shot to the end makes the film's two transitions seem rather strange in space and time. The first time was the transition from escaping the basement to an abandoned village, a distance where the two walked for about four and a half minutes in the film. The second time was when the male protagonist rode in a military vehicle from the village to the city. During this period, the actual driving took about four and a half minutes except for the cart, and the speed of the vehicle was quite slow. It's here too. This is strange, how far is it from the starting trench to this city? Judging from the presentation of the film, it is normal to walk for 40 minutes. How can you get there, such a close distance, where can you feel so much tension? In addition, it took more than 50 minutes from the time the male protagonist woke up to the end of the film. How did the time change from a completely dark night to a day when the sun was in the sky? If you don't stick to a mirror to the end, this kind of problem is not a problem at all. However, he insisted on taking one shot to the end, which made the space construction very blurred. If the duration of the transition is actually shown, then the film will appear to be procrastinated, so it can only compress the time, which will cause problems in the construction of time and space.
So maybe it would have been better to drop the Steadicam in some other scenes and make some transitions through editing (like Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men) while keeping a few major long takes. Just based on the level of the current film, it is really indescribable and nondescript.
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