01
More than 60 years ago, an Oscar-winning film about a circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth", and "The Greatest Showman" had almost the same name. It is also said to be based on the Lingling Circus (one of the three largest circuses in the world, Barnum's Circus is its predecessor) as the prototype. The title of the film is also derived from Barnum's promotion of his circus performance as "the greatest show in the world". I feel that understanding the title of the film will help me understand the film better.
What kind of performance can be called the "greatest"? In today's era of diversified entertainment and entertainment to the death, I don't think any performance or any form of entertainment dares to claim to be the greatest. I have not studied the development history of human entertainment, but according to my limited historical knowledge, in the Victorian era when this film took place, when the entertainment industry was just budding, and there were only some superficial performance forms, I felt that the essence of "greatest" It does not express a certain performance or a performance under the banner of a certain individual, but "circus", a form of performance that developed and prevailed at that time.
You have to understand how crazy people used to be about circus in the core function of the entertainment industry, "dream building". Maybe you can understand by analogy, just like how a few years ago, "Spider-Man", "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars" and other visual blockbusters opened up the human's perspective of God, making the film as a contemporary art form to climb On the peak of its glory, it won the praise of "greatest" in this era. There were circuses then, movies in the past, and variety shows now. The methods are different, but fundamentally, the function of entertainment is to help people escape from reality for a short time and be healed in a moment of forgetfulness. So the harsh critics in the film satirized Barnum "So you're still a philanthropist?"
In an instant, the cognitions and memories of "circus" came up in my mind, and fragments of movies and books I had watched. What is the charm of the circus? The psychological expectations brought by its fluidity, the carnival attributes brought by its gorgeousness and colors, the visual impact brought by its various wonders, the exciting fantasy brought by its strangeness, its performances do not need depth and thinking only for Bo you indulge in laughter. Making people happy is its greatest mission and justice. It is the dream machine of that era, and it is also a dream river and lake that many people want to follow. The hardships and ethics behind it are just the hardships that this "great" cause must pay.
02
So, when you see the title of this film, you know that you are actually here for the performance, not for the biography. The plot and characters of this film perfectly match the outstanding singing and dancing, completing the task of "creating dreams". Adventure spirit, public relations genius, self-awareness, human carnival, the typical American dream. Literary and artistic works are not afraid of your main theme, but they are afraid that your main theme is not exciting enough. As a musical, its amazing business ability is its greatest justice.
The song and dance part of this film is undoubtedly super successful and is known as a "phenomenal musical". Here are a few things that left the deepest impression on me:
1) The song is modern and sensational.
From the opening chorus, "Here's everything you dream of, here's everything you need," you understand that downright modern pop is the musical language of the film, and it's not meant to be A little retro element to echo that era.
The fast songs in the film are all in the style of jazz, accompanied by strong drums and percussion rhythms, high-fives and stomps, the surging chorus in the chorus, and the lyrics that hit the soul, making each song like Battle songs generally agitate the heart.
I can't find the melody of the song sung by the real Swedish Nightingale, maybe it's similar to the style of German-Austrian art songs, but the majestic "Never Enough" in the movie completely sings the person with the same expression as the protagonist.
2) The choreography is brilliant and deadly.
Netizens commented that this is an "original music movie with every song so good". And I think this is an original music movie that is so refined that every dance is wonderful. Needless to say, the group dance, "The Other Side" negotiated in the bar, and "Rewrite The Stars", which tells each other of love, like action movies, precisely express the connotation of the song with well-designed dance movements, making it a wonderful dance. Music item.
3) The fast-paced editing leaves the movie without a single nonsense.
There are countless transition methods in montage, as if the film is connected into a complete big MV. The music is one after another, and the light and shadow are transformed. If the film can be explained, the redundant dialogue and plot are discarded, which speeds up the narrative rhythm of the film, and also Greatly enhanced its uninterrupted musical properties. In a song "A Million Dreams", the protagonist talks from the first meeting in childhood to getting married and having children.
Such intensive use of music instead of narration also makes me feel the unique charm of musicals even more: if you feel that there are certain moments in your life with BGM, then in musicals, you can understand that you can not Live in different BGMs intermittently.
03
Therefore, under the careful design and arrangement, the overall charm of the film has been doubled:
Expectation value double: As a "backstage musical", the most attractive thing about this type of film is that it satisfies your double expectations of watching behind-the-scenes and watching the performance, just like "Deadly Magic", there must be wonderful magic, "Deadly Magic" The Phantom of the Opera is bound to have a beautiful opera.
Type double: This movie always reminds me of "Song and Dance King Siegfried". It's all about entertainment industry bosses. It will give you the inspiration of biopics and the entertainment of musicals at the same time.
Inspirational double: the protagonist's career and family, the self-awakening of the freak, and the partner's love that breaks through the secular. Family, friendship, love, multiple depictions, none of them were pulled down.
However, as a music film with "circus" as its selling point, I think how to show the charm of "circus" and let the audience recognize that this is "the greatest show" is still a difficulty for this film. I have read the limited information and cannot accurately understand the complete content and scale of Barnum's performance, but I feel that the film very cleverly uses the most characteristic "freak show" in the Barnum team as the main body and highlight, supplemented by A small number of animals and juggling embellishments avoided the realistic difficulty of borrowing hundreds of animals, a large number of actors and props from the Lingling Circus in the filming of the 1952 film "The Circus".
The most contagious scene of the show was the laughing and laughing circus performers of all shapes and sizes. In order to repeatedly highlight the "circus" attribute of the film, this scene appears four times in the play.
Opening: The host gradually walked to the center of the stage from the perspective of the audience, and the stage was instantly lit up, releasing infinite magic. This is "The greatest show".
Premiere: From timidity to self-confidence, from failure to success, everyone is "Come alive", showing their own brilliance.
Declaration: In order to complete the class jump, the protagonist rejected his circus members at the banquet of high-level performances. Tai Zhuzi took a group of actors to sing his own voice, "This is me", I have upgraded myself and my heart is extremely strong. .
Finale: Great reunion, family fun, the baton of "The greatest show" is handed over to the young partners.
It is this alternation of on-stage and off-stage, fast and slow songs, that makes the film advance with a full sense of rhythm and complete it in one go.
As Barnum says in the movie "The noblest art is to bring joy to people." "Propaganda is false, but joy is true." In this film, the story is false and packaged, but The emotion and enjoyment when watching the movie is real. At this moment, we are sitting in front of the screen, just like those people who sat in the ring tent more than 100 years ago with their eyes fixed and breathless. Maybe we should take the core spirit of the movie and enjoy this film with a sincere spirit of entertainment and dedicated entertainment. The "greatest show" created by attitude, professional entertainment standards.
View more about The Greatest Showman reviews
