Chapter 174: Admiring

The film began. The audience in the theater fell silent. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the big screen in front, and their ears caught the soundtrack.
In the beginning, the sound of the snare drum moved from far to near in the dust and smoke of the war with a firm and sonorous image. The very bright metallic military trumpet replaced the classical trumpet usually used in symphony, and the low-backed people. The humming, the words of remembrance with incomparable gratitude, like the gradually bright morning light in the mist, flowed through the heart without a trace, gradually excited and magnificent, and gradually whispered softly.
The dim Star-Spangled Banner is facing the wind, and the sound of wind music is also floating. Under this fixed lens, the film opens up the beginning of the film little by little.
The old man walked hurriedly from the camera, and when he walked to the cemetery step by step, a timely shot took a close-up of the old man’s eyes, so the past buried in memory slowly unfolded, and the window of the soul slowly became Bright.
"Where is the opening battle?" Kunites frowned and muttered in a low voice, "Didn't it mean that it was a landing battle at the beginning? How is this? It's not like Duke's style!"
"That's it." Allen and Jones agreed.
However, the following facts proved that the film did not disappoint them!
Amid the sound of the huge waves, a large number of Allied forces boarded and land boats rushed towards the beach. Many soldiers vomited on the side of the ship and the shaking shots caused Cunites to suddenly feel dizzy, as if he was also there. On the landing craft that cut the waves.
The camera turned to the inside of the landing craft. The officer's trembling hands showed the psychological pressure at the moment. The soldiers did not regard death as home, or indifference or fear or praying, and no one knew whether he could board the terrible beach alive.
At the moment the front flap of the landing craft opened, the battle broke out without warning, and there was no bedding. There is no shouting, only ruthless bullets and fallen dead bodies.
The war was fierce and bloody, and people seemed so fragile at that time. The rain of bullets penetrated the helmet and tore the body; the soldier was looking for his stump and his arm on the beach; after an explosion, only the wounded left by Captain Miller were left. Half... the restoration of the war scene has reached a rare reality.
"This... this is cruel!"
Kunites heard the sound from the side and turned his head to look over. It was the man named Owen who had just talked to, and he covered his mouth, "Is this the real battlefield? Isn't there a Rambo that can't be killed?"
"There is no hero who can't die in the war!"
Although he said so, Cunites had to sigh that this war scene was really cruel and terrifying!
Tom Hanks sitting in the front row, because he has watched the film several times, he has focused more on Duke’s production methods, especially since he participated in the shooting almost all the time, and it’s also considered in this circle. Experienced person. Combining with the scene when shooting on the set, you can always get some analysis.
"Obviously, Duke used a completely different editing method in post-production."
Tom Hanks confirmed this very well. In the opening battle, Duke obviously adopted a set of continuous shots to reflect the shooting effect, and used different shots—such as medium and close shots—to present the war scene.
Among them, in order to highlight the struggle of the soldiers on the battlefield and the nature of the war. He took great pains to use close-up shots to achieve realistic visual effects.
Such as on the beach and in the sea, the soldiers are desperately moving forward. The soldier advancing courageously in the water was shot by a bullet that was fired frantically. At this time, the close-up shot made people more intuitive to witness this tragic scene. I saw bright red blood flowing from the soldier, immediately dyeing the sea water around him red. , The soldier fell down and was submerged by the sea.
Subsequently, the lens picture was gradually enlarged. In a small panoramic view, people witnessed the bright red and tragic scene of the sea.
War is cruel and ruthless, and life becomes small and fragile in the face of war, even vulnerable.
Even the dullest audience can experience this from the opening game. Of course, Todd McCarthy, a senior film critic, is no exception. His face is not very beautiful, although the film is only the beginning, but it is enough to make him judge that this is a Duke Rosenberg movie completely different from the past.
When thinking of the large-scale publicity of the film, film critics ridiculed in the column that this was an alien version of World War II. If he could not see anything except the explosion, his face became even darker.
The film does have a lot of explosions, and it is a series of explosions, but these explosions did not explode for the purpose of exploding, such a large-scale beach landing battle, if there is no explosion, then it is a joke, the most important thing is that these explosions are completely abandoned. The very exaggerated methods of "Independence Day" and "Brave to Death Island", while retaining a certain visual impact, appear extremely real.
In contrast, Kenneth Turan, who was sitting next to him, had less prejudice in his eyes and was able to examine the picture he had seen from a relatively more fair angle.
In this battle scene, Duke Rosenberg obviously abandoned the usual shooting and production mode, and used documentary lens to show the war unprecedentedly-using a portable camera to grab the landing scene, waist-high follow-up angle, Roundabout and shaking pictures, personalized facial close-ups, fast and slow shots, use of overlapping editing in montage techniques to connect the fragmented snap shots...
All of this constitutes the terrifying scene of the horror battlefield, and also creates the film's unique lens expression.
The extensive use of portable camera lenses makes the angle of the film lens parallel, or presents a forty-five-degree angle relative to the subject. This angle close to people observing objects makes people, objects, and events on the screen More authentic and credible.
As a graduate of New York University majoring in film production, Anna, who worked as an associate director in Hollywood for a while, has the same feeling.
From the perspective of a soldier, audiences like her and Irene were immersed in the Omaha beach by director Duke Rosenberg, feeling the deterrence of bullets and the cruel blood of war!
"It's not like a Duke movie!"
Although Irene Lauder had been mentally prepared after watching the trailer, she couldn't help being surprised now.
There is no beautiful wide-angle lens, no super large scene, no dazzling sports lens, no sharp editing style, no hot special effects explosion...
If it’s not quite certain that the director is Duke Rosenberg, Irene would definitely think it was someone else’s work.
However, she was not disappointed. The film was as wonderful and beautiful as ever, even if it was and a little disgusting.
"Eileen, you should be happy for him!"
Irene was puzzled when she heard her friend's words, "For whom?"
"Duke Rosenberg." Anna lowered her voice, "Aren't you friends? In my opinion, the first step in his style change was very successful. Maybe this film will become his masterpiece."
This is Anna’s true opinion. Just this opening battle is enough to create the epic style of the film. As long as the narrative does not collapse, this film will inevitably become a classic of war films, even the most classic one.
Just as Anna and Irene murmured a few words while the war scene was over, Kenneth Turan was still analyzing the film.
It is hard to say that this is a film in Duke Rosenberg format. The change in style is indeed obvious.
Obviously, Duke Rosenberg believed that the big scene could not convey the horror of the war well, so he did not use many wide-angle lenses to show the full battlefield. Strictly speaking, it was only an interspersed panorama at the end of the war. The camera moves from the soldiers who have seized the beachhead to the beach full of vehicles, boats and corpses, and finally freezes on a corpse with the word'Ryan' printed on the backpack.
In addition, the film uses more medium shots, medium and close shots and close-ups, such as Captain Miller’s shaking hands and the soldiers’ nervous and fearful faces, and so on. Then Duke Rosenberg combined these medium and close shots with close-ups. On the screen and in front of the audience, the death in the war is truly shocking and unacceptable.
Here, death comes so suddenly, so quickly, there is no unrealistic fluke, there is no hero who is still alive after being shot, and there is no dying counterattack before death. The enlargement of these death passages can easily make people Feeling the fragility of life conveys the fear of war, misery and the decline of humanity.
Although the tactics used to express the anti-war thinking by the tragic of war are not new, Duke Rosenberg did an excellent job.
Even Todd McCarthy, who is next to him, has to admit that Duke Rosenberg has made obvious changes, and this opening scene alone may be considered a successful change.
The most typical is the length of the film lens. Todd McCarthy clearly remembers that the average lens length of Duke's first three films is no more than 2.5 seconds, and the long lens can only be described as extremely rare.
In this scene, he used a lot of realistic long shots, and estimated that the average shot length should be more than 7 seconds. Although this does not have the sharpness brought by the rapid switching of short shots, he can uninterruptedly show the process of war. People unknowingly blend into the lens and into the film.
There is also editing that is different for Todd McCarthy. The young director obviously abandoned the previous editing method that did not follow any logic and returned to the ranks of logical editing. This part of the film was not deliberately done to maintain the length of the shot, but In following the logical editing principle of rationality, editing is done when a period of events is over or another set of interesting pictures is explained.
Even if there is a prejudice in his mind, Todd McCarthy did not feel forced to accept the picture from the switching of the lens editing. The lens editing was natural and smooth.
Even though Duke Rosenberg’s senses were extremely bad, Todd McCarthy had to admit in his heart that the young director had made great progress, and even made a qualitative leap in his directing level, especially for the next ones. The lens, Duke Rosenberg's technique on the weakest emotional expression, is simply impressive. (To be continued...)