"Miss No Bird" is really "No Bird"
Before writing lady bird, I would like to talk about another film by Greta Gerwig, "Francis Ha", a film that also explores the relationship between women. It talks about the friendship between two good friends, the relationship between the blurred boundaries of love, from intimacy to brokenness, from brokenness to rebirth. Maybe the contradictions of girls who are a big deal in the eyes of others are the imprints of every girl's growth. I always feel that this "Francis Ha" starring Greta is very similar to the pure love version of "Adele's Life". The reason why I mention this film is because I personally think that in expressing the important relationship in the process of women's growth, Greta, who starred in "Francis Ha", undoubtedly laid a solid foundation for Lady Bird's directorial creation. Both films were similarly labeled as "youth", "growth", "family", and "friendship".
First of all, from the perspective of the play, Miss No Bird has indeed followed all the traditions of youth films. Strong mother, tolerant father, eccentric brother, bitch Bai Fumei at school, and a scumbag boyfriend. In terms of character settings, there is nothing new. Of course, these character settings are indeed the closest to American life. Miss No Bird has grown up after going through a series of confusion, confusion, absurdity and stupidity. I have reservations about whether Miss Bird has really grown in the end. But it really is a sign of every girl growing up, especially in her relationship with her mother.
"Miss No Bird" is mainly about the relationship between mother and daughter. This is an extremely complex and contradictory relationship. At the beginning of the film, lady bird and her mother have a harmonious relationship that talks about everything. They can talk about literature together. At this time, the mother is more like a friend who can share. Then, as everyone can expect, came a series of squabbles and complaints. Immediately after all the contradictions and conflicts magnified, it was originally a loving and sweet family, but in the end, because of the imbalance of the mother-daughter relationship, the overall imbalance became unbalanced. In fact, lady bird and mother both care about each other, but in the process of caring for each other, they did not express it in a so-called friendly way, but instead appeared to be authoritarian and powerful. Probably this explains why women are said to be "duplicitous". Although the mother did not praise her daughter "its beautiful" at the door of the fitting room before Lady Bird was going to the dance, she wrote so many heartfelt letters for her! Women all like to hear nice things, but they just don't say it, which leads to repeated imbalances in the relationship. Even at the end, the mother did not send her daughter to the airport... The deeper the love, the deeper the bond. The film that also explores the mother-daughter relationship is "Mother-Daughter Love" (Best Picture at the 56th Academy Awards). The latter has a larger time span, and is a deep mother-daughter relationship reflected in the passage of time and in the ordinary life day after day. Less tension and conflict in lady bird. If lady bird is a story about forgiving, then "mother-daughter love" is more like a story about understanding. Of course, the mother-daughter relationship under the lens of Greta, who is only 35 years old, is a mother-daughter relationship that young people are more likely to resonate with.
There is another relationship in the film, a variation on the mother-daughter relationship. That is, the relationship between lady bird and her hometown. lady bird disagrees and doesn't like her hometown because it's a small place. A place where her ambitions could not be fulfilled, so she tried every means to get out of this place. Just like the conversation between lady bird and her mother in the car at the beginning of the film, that conversation is actually the source of their conflicting relationship. ladybird said that she wanted to survive, and said that she has not been excited since 2002. The mother thought that her daughter was not satisfied with the status quo, and secretly said that her daughter was blaming her current life, and the debate began... lady bird said that she was not perfect , which shows her requirements and ambitions for herself. But my mother said, I don't ask you to be perfect, I just want you to be more considerate. Obviously the two focus on different points, the daughter is talking about her ambitions, those future things. But the mother is obsessed with the attitude of her daughter in front of her. Lady Bird said that she hated California and wanted to go to the East Coast (referring to New York), but her mother did not encourage her, so she immediately poured cold water, saying that she could not afford the expensive tuition in New York. The contradiction escalated step by step. The mother said that her daughter did not care about other people, but only about herself. Facing her daughter's "want to go to a cultured place", the mother said her daughter was a "snobby". This is actually the relationship between the lady bird and her hometown. She didn't use her real name: Christine, but ladybird. She doesn't agree with her parents' names and the hometown she was born in. She wants to be more special and different. Obviously, New York can satisfy her. Although the process was heartbreaking, ladybird finally got her wish and left her hometown and went to New York. However, New York did not give her the sights and pleasures. She was so drunk that she went to church in the morning after sober, thinking of the sunshine and school life in that little crappy place in her hometown, and calling her mother outside the church... who do not believe in God But she remembered her name: Christine
Subtle use of color
People usually think that a semi-autobiographical film focusing on the growth of women will have no room for innovation in the use of color. The theme of this film is Christan's "recollection of emotional experience", but it is unique in the use of color tones. It doesn't lose to any classic blockbuster at all.
Writer and director Greta Gerwig, photographer Sam Levy and colorist Alex Bickel worked together to transform an abstract visual concept into a big-screen reality through a color-correction process.
Greta Gerwig wanted the film to be presented to the audience as a "memoir", but in a unique way, not unlike the usual way of creating memories - making the images sepia or raw black and white To create a sense of time or other simple and crude methods.
She uses this analogy to illustrate one of the methods they use to create a "sense of memory." She stretched her palms and fingers to the farthest point from her face, and she wanted the movie to appear at such a distance. As a viewer, the hand is analogous to a screen. The sense of distance between the two is neither too close nor too far, although it is not completely immersed in it, nor is the distance so large that it creates a sense of alienation. Therefore, there are very few subjective shots and close-ups with a strong sense of participation in this film, and very few long shots that reflect real objectivity. The film combines the advantages of the two well - this appropriate sense of distance. A frame effect similar to a stage, theater, and light box is displayed. While they wanted the film to look like a memoir, they didn't want it to be too self-indulgent and too remote, or else it would become a vain record of self-obsessed moaning and sensibility completely gone.
Their "Memories" style was inspired by a work by a French photographer, Lise Sarfati. This work shoots a group of portraits of young women, and its main idea can be summarized as "plain and colorful". The bright color distracts attention from the story and the performance itself, which is what they expect the lady bird to look like, not as some movies can only use the MV shooting technique to show the gorgeous costumes and scenery of youth, intentionally and successfully Let it become a black hole that sucks all the attention of the audience.
Filming is done with digital cameras, but most directors don't expect the look of digital, and prefer to have the grainy texture of traditional cameras. They chose not to add artificially made film grains, but by choosing the characteristics of the equipment itself. They tried old Arri Alexa Minis and widescreen lenses, trying different resolutions, and they ended up shooting 2k because Arri raw 3.6K was too vivid and sharp. Alexa has pristine texture and some video noise. This lens would still record the black signal noise of the device itself with the lens closed while recording, and they amplified this effect and incorporated it into the image. The final image quality is alexa particles, which makes the whole visual effect more interesting, and does not make people feel very digital. It makes the image full of texture while retaining the true capture of color, just like it was drawn. Same, but more saturated, which makes it look more like a time-lapse of memories.
The main idea of this "digital intermediate" process is paper, and they try to print the film on paper. "Digital Intermediate (or DI for short)" refers to a film processing method or process, that is, the entire film is digitized in high resolution, and editing, color processing, visual effects, subtitles, etc. are completed on this basis. A sequence of jobs that culminates in the output of the finished film to motion picture film or other types of media. On the one hand, their hands-on process involves making two sheets of each scene—one for the highlights, one for the shadows, and a process for color correction. Like the scene where the heroine is on a date with the character played by Timothée Chalamet, there are teal in the highlights and lilac in the shadows. This whole process makes lady bird's world more personal, warm, human, and sweeter. On the other hand, they had previously discovered that the way to make the whole picture look dated was to copy it through a cheap color copier, and the damaged effect was like the effect of ten years ago, and it was more like the photos in the album at home, They used DI to simulate the process of color printing, which also gave the picture a sense of time and age.
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