Introduction to the Story of One and Eight

Introduction to One and Eight | Appreciation | Comments

1 1984 color films

Produced by China Guangxi Film Studio

Director: Jun-Zhao Zheng Screenwriter: Zhang Ziliang Wang Jicheng Photography: Xiao Feng Zhang Yimou Main Actors: Tao Zeru (as instructor) Chen Daoming (as Xu Zhi) Lu Xiaoyan (as Yang Qiner). Zhai Chunhua (as a thin smoker) Wei Zongwan (as an old deserter) Xin Ming (as a middle-aged deserter) Liu Honggang (as a small deserter)

Synopsis

In War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, there are eight prisoners in a temporary cell of the Eighth Route Army, including three bandits: a big bald man, a thin smoker and thick eyebrows; There are three deserters: old, middle-aged and young; There is also a poisoner and a spy. They tied the leggings together and hung them on the beams, and dug a big hole in the roof to escape. Just then, a man was violently pushed into the house. He was Wang Jin, the instructor of the Eighth Route Army, and was mistaken for an apprentice in the organization. When he came in, he saw what the prisoners had done, so he knocked on the iron gate in a hurry and said that he was looking for an important report from Xu Zhiyou, the chief of the anti-rape department. The sound of unlocking came from outside the door, and the prisoners quickly went back to their original places and pretended to sleep. When Xu Kechang came in, he found that the ground was in a mess and a hole was opened in the roof. Wang Jin said something that surprised the criminals: "Look for the third battalion commander of the third regiment. He can prove that I am not a spy." Xu Kechang ordered the soldiers to tie up all the prisoners. The attempt to escape from prison was dashed, and the prisoners gnashed their teeth and wanted to beat Wang Jin. At this time, the little deserter fainted because of the festering and inflammation of the wound. Wang Jin called the health worker Yang Qiner. Yang Qiner changed the dressing for the little deserter, and the thin smoker molested her. Wang Jin was so angry that he kicked the thin smoker over. After Yang Qiner left, the prisoners swarmed and beat Wang Jin black and blue. As the prisoner expected, Wang Jin did not report to Xu Kechang and the guards.

a few days later, the Japanese devils called, the troops moved, and the criminals were bound and tied to a rope. In the scorching heat, all the people were thirsty. Yang Qiner gave Wang Jinshui a drink, but Wang Jin didn't, indicating that he would give the water to the little deserter. During the March, Wang Jin asked the deserters, "You all fled back to see your parents. Who will fight the devils?" The deserter asked him, "You were arrested as a deserter, too?" Wang replied, "I used to work underground at the Tianjin dock, but I was arrested because of the traitor's betrayal. On the eve of the enemy's shooting at us, everyone bit each other's ropes and dived back ..."

The next day, in the army, the bald man sprained his foot and said, "I won't leave after being killed." The escort soldier was about to shoot him. Wang Jin squatted in the bald man's ear and said, "If you want to die, you have to die like a dog." Then he asked Xu Kechang, "He sprained his foot, so I'll carry him." So Wang Jin carried the bald man on his back and crossed the railway with the troops. After arriving at the campsite, Wang Jin used the skill he learned at the dock to help the bald man put his bones back in place. The bald man said to his two brothers, "Today's family is interesting enough. Don't give him any trouble in the future!"

On the way to March another day, the prisoners smelled burnt paste. The troops went into a village where only the ruins were left, and the corpses of ordinary people were lying in litters. The prisoners were greatly shocked. Suddenly, a crazy man ran out of the pile of dead bodies, shouting and running to the wilderness. A soldier rammed Wang Jin's back with a pike and said, "You helped the Japanese." Wang Jin let out a cry, jumped on him like a leopard, hit his head, stepped on it with his foot, and let off steam crazily. When I arrived at the campsite, Xu Kechang talked with Wang Jin. Wang Jin said, "I know that it is not the party who suspects me, but the enemy who framed me. I hope to organize an investigation. You can find the third battalion commander of the third regiment. " Xu said, "He died long ago, but you are quite good at exploiting loopholes. Now is a special period of war. First, there is no condition for investigation, and second, it is not allowed to drag on. " The old deserter said to Yang Qiner on the other side, "Girl, I am a useless person, but instructor Wang is not a bad person. He is wronged ..." Yang Qiner also said to Xu Zhi, "I don't think instructor Wang is like an enemy." Xu Zhi seems to listen to not listen to go away.

At night, the soldiers suddenly came in and took all the prisoners out. First, they cut down the poisoner with a knife, and the thin, deserters and thin smokers were paralyzed with fear. The bald man didn't look at the direction of chopping people, but pretended as if nothing had happened. Wang Jinping stood still, while the spies knelt before Xu Zhi for mercy. When Wang Jin suddenly left the team and went to the execution site, Xu Zhi ordered Wang Jin to be shot. The bald man suddenly shouted, "I don't think you wronged anyone. Kill me first!" " The old deserter said, "Let me come to the second one and let the instructor live a little longer." Wang Jin said sincerely: "I know that the troops have difficulty in ammunition, so I left that bullet to hit the devils." You cut me, I only ask to shout a slogan in a low voice to express my feelings for the party. " At this time, Black Eyebrows interjected: "You killed me, I have nothing to say, but this instructor is your man, so you gave him a gun and let him die on the battlefield ..." The spies also shouted: "You are all lenient. If you don't fight the devil to the end, you will be thundered by heaven!" Xu Zhi, who has executed so many traitors and traitors, was finally unable to make a decision, so he ordered: "Bring them all back and ask for instructions again." Unexpectedly, at this moment, the enemy has surrounded the village. Xu Zhi commanded the soldiers to take the prisoner into a big temple and attack the enemy at the front. Wang Jin tried to rush out to fight several times, but was forced back by the escorted soldiers with guns. Being outnumbered, the enemy has rushed into the position. Both Xu Zhi and the escort sentry were injured by shrapnel and passed out. The bald man bit off the rope with his mouth, and then picked off the rope tied to Wang Jin and other prisoners with a bayonet. Wang Jin led the crowd to rush out to take part in the battle, and now beat back a group of devils. When the Japanese charged for the second time, the middle-aged deserter died. The old deserter chased the escaped spy and was stabbed to death by the Japanese who took the back road. Wang Jin carried Xu Zhi on his back and continued to retreat with the prisoners. The three devils who rushed up were wiped out by the big bald man with one shot. The big bald man shouted happily, "Good killing, good killing!" " As he spoke, a shell exploded above his head, and after the smoke cleared, the earth was empty and clean. In the chaos, the thin smoker took the little deserter and Yang Qiner to the other direction. Because of running too fast, the thin smoker coughed. Yang Qiner gave him a back rub and called him uncle. The thin smoker was deeply moved. He arranged for the two young men to look for water elsewhere. When he came back, he found that several devils had stabbed the little deserter and were grinning at Yang Qiner's clothes. The thin smoker pulled out the last bullet, hit Yang Qiner and let her die cleanly. There was a gunshot behind him, and the thin smoker fell to the ground forever.

carrying Xu Zhi on his back, Wang Jin finally broke through the encirclement with thick eyebrows. When he arrived at the Eighth Route Army station, the thick eyebrows suddenly knelt down and raised his big gun with both hands. He said, "Eldest brother, I'm a rough guy, and I'm used to being wild. I admire the Eighth Route Army, but I can't bear your rules. But I won't infringe on the people in the future, and I won't be an enemy of the Eighth Route Army. I'll fight the devil to the end!" Wang Jin listened silently. Later, he took the gun. The thick eyebrows are far away, and Wang Jin and Xu Zhi are struggling on the vast desert.

Appreciation

On the photographic exposition of this film, a sentence is written impressively: "In art, sons don't have to be like Laozi, and each generation should have the idea of a generation."

One and Eight, as the pioneering work of young film artists in China, has extremely special significance in the film history of China. In film language, it breaks through the paradigm of traditional film language and shows the historical personality of visual modeling, which has the following characteristics: First, all its visual elements and image modeling are no longer only used as narrative means of stories, but like actors, they directly convey the connotation of the film and serve the spiritual reality of the film. The film mainly describes not the external experiences of Wang Jin and eight criminals, but their inner spiritual experiences, the struggle between souls and the collision between personalities. The film designed the image of a female health worker, Yang Qiner. From the visual modeling, she avoided the brave, provocative and vigorous female characteristics in the war years, but emphasized a delicate quality, and gave her a long military uniform to make her slightly weak. When the telephoto lens shakes the faces of prisoners from another perspective, what we see is ferocious, barbaric, vicious and murderous. In particular, the dim shadows on their faces show a tense confrontation. In the next shot, the foreground is the back of several huge black heads, and there is a big gap between the two huge heads, from which we can see the white and immature face of the female health worker. Yang Qiner exists here not as a narrative factor, but as a modeling factor, which makes the picture have a strong contrast effect: pure and purer, dirty and dirtier; The feminine is more feminine, and the rude is more rude. The depth shot used in the film actually plays the role of a montage inside the lens, which implies the contrast between different souls, the contrast between truth, goodness and beauty and falsehood, the contrast between snow and sludge, and the contrast between masculinity and femininity. Through visual modeling, we not only know the story, but more importantly, we feel the conflict between kindness and cruelty, purity and filth, sublimity and smallness, loyalty and betrayal, and experience the generate of blood and fire, and the collision between life and life.

From the picture, all interior shooting, whether it's a mill, a barn or a brick kiln, is a narrow space, which is in harmony with the distorted mental and physical conditions of prisoners held in it. In location shooting, especially in the second half, desolate, vast and empty land and sky appeared, which echoed with the re-establishment of their noble personality and the re-acquisition of their spiritual life.

Secondly, the middle-aged directors in China advocate documentary aesthetics in modeling, and pursue the recovery of material reality, so that the screen can approach the original appearance of life to the maximum extent. However, the younger directors are more interested in the exhibition and radiation of artistic personality, and their modeling is trying to express their artistic feelings and life experiences, and their subjective feelings about life. In order to make this feeling and experience strong and profound, they sometimes violate the logic of reality and make unexpected artistic treatments. For example, after the bald man killed three devils, he waved a big gun with one hand and shouted, "Come on, sons of bitches! ..... "There was a loud bang, and a shell exploded not far from him. In the middle shot, black smoke enveloped the picture. Not long after, the big bald man with blood on his face actually emerged from the black smoke, still shouting:" Haha, happy! " Another shell exploded on his head, and the black smoke slowly drifted away. After all the smoke cleared, only an empty and clean land was left. Young artists pursue a poetic style in visual arrangement, which makes the bald man's personality get a solemn sublimation.

Thirdly, the film pursues a kind of strangeness in modeling, trying to break through the traditional modeling paradigm and the limitations of previous narrative composition. For example, the film is generally full in composition, with close shots and medium shots, and the subjects often fill the lens, giving people the impression of breaking the picture. The first cell shot in the film, with iron bars across the picture, and gloomy colors, gives people a feeling of depression and breathlessness. When shooting the dialogue between characters, it also breaks the habit of using the middle shot and balancing the layout of the picture in the past. Instead, it uses the back of the head of the person, a millstone and a laundry list as the foreground, occupying most of the picture, leaving only a little space for the speaker. In a word, young artists boldly use incomplete composition on the premise of striving for a complete overall impression, or emphasize breaking the balance in screen design, resulting in a strange visual * * *, and use concise techniques to create a contrast effect on the premise of highlighting a large area. In the scene of Wang Jinbei's bandit bald man passing through the railway, the picture is set in the sky, and the sky is crushed into intermediate gray by reducing the exposure, so that all the characters become silhouettes, and the whole scene is represented by silhouettes, which is rare in previous movies. In order to express clearly, the film uses everyone's different body posture, habits and action modeling, and uses everyone's different pronunciation, intonation and cough when speaking, so that the audience can not only see the evolution of the whole situation clearly, distinguish each character, but also get a glimpse of the inner activities of the characters through actions. In the scene of the brick kiln, the antagonism between Wang Jin and the prisoners eased and the two sides began to talk. In this well-like brick kiln, the sun can only shine in from the top, so the creators take advantage of the situation and shoot with the sunlight from the top of the kiln. The strong top light effect makes the face deformed and even ugly on the lens. The director doesn't avoid this distortion, and unlike traditional movies, he doesn't dilute the top light effect with auxiliary light, or let light and shadow match the reconciliation atmosphere in the content. Instead, he deliberately shows the opposition between visual modeling and content, deliberately uses the top light, and emphasizes the large shadows under the eye sockets, cheeks and cheekbones, thus forming a kind of contrast, suggesting that most of them are in jail and ugly.

fourthly, the film's modeling idea is no longer a single picture or a single shot, but an overall idea of the whole film's modeling thinking. According to the overall development of the film's spirit and emotion, the layout of the film is sought on the video. With a little attention, we can easily see that the color of the whole film shows a montage structure. In the front of the film, the black tone is the main tone, the dark cell, the dark and dirty face, the dark execution ground, and the black keynote express the depressed and depressing atmosphere. In the middle of the film, the red tone is the main tone. In that sudden encounter, the baptism of blood, the burning of fire and the explosion of red light permeated and radiated little by little, and the red became an emotional transformation from black repression to red release. At the end of the film, the white tone is the main tone. At this time, various characters have finished their soul and spiritual journey and found their own homes. Some people's material lives are destroyed, but their spiritual lives are forever. So the endless wilderness, bright sunshine and vast and high sky appeared on the screen. A large number of white tones are the inevitable result of emotional development, symbolizing sublimation and rebirth, and the whole film has also gone through the color process from black to red and from red to white.

Fifthly, compared with previous China films, this film can be said to be the most sculptural and powerful. In order to show the national spirit of uniting flesh and blood in life and death and resisting the enemy to the death, artists take modeling strength as their clear creative pursuit. They realize that black and white contrast is the strongest among all color contrasts, so they intend to create and publish a picture-like black and white contrast effect. They also know that what they are filming is a disaster land where "there are embers in the fire, and there are only a few poor villages", which shows a hard struggle on this land, so any bright and jumping colors run counter to this emotional intention. As a result, we can see on the screen that people's costumes are mainly black, white and gray, and all bright colors are avoided in the exterior and interior. In the design of light and shadow arrangement, the interior uses the bright and dark light areas caused by the building structure, and the exterior uses the bright surfaces and shadows caused by strong sunlight, which strongly shows the beauty of power. In terms of camera scheduling, there are strong and powerful "static pictures" in the film, and there are sculptural figures, such as the ferocious and rude faces of eight criminals, and the ending of Wang Jin and Xu Zhi is on the desolate land.