Why does 19 17, which won three Oscars, use a mirror to the end?

War movies are really a strange genre for movies.

Directors seem to like to make a war film when they are successful but not famous, so that they can finally win an award to prove themselves. Coppola won the Palme d 'Or for Apocalypse Now, Kubrick won his last Oscar nomination for All Metal Jacket, and Spielberg won two Oscar trophies so far for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.

The Oscar blockbuster "19 17" also made Sam Mendes win the Oscar for the first time for a war film. 19 17 won three technical awards, which also represents the future development direction of war films.

First, war films can best highlight the artistic level of directors.

For war movies, there are not only stories with rich connotations and facing human nature, but also enough visual scenes to test the director's lens and special effects, which may be the reason why directors take this opportunity to highlight their own standards.

Compared with several classics of the last century, in recent years, the macro-reflection on war in war films is gradually decreasing, and the reduction of war and personal stories is gradually increasing. First, there is no artistic creation environment where the dripping scars of the war still exist shortly after the war; Second, with the development of technology, directors can show the war scenes more truly. This kind of "immersive" war film is gradually becoming the mainstream of this type of film.

Nolan's Dunkirk uses time-space switching, voice and first-person techniques to enhance the sense of oppression and tension and enhance the audience's sense of substitution for the film.

In this year's Oscar season, the war film 19 17, as a dark horse, has also received great attention, and this film provides a new way to express the truth of war, which is called a mirror leading to the end. Use long shots and reduce editing to reflect this.

The technique of a mirror to the end has extremely high requirements for the director's scenery and the actor's acting skills. In Focus Plane, which has no montage change, this means that the development of the story can only be promoted by lens shooting and director's arrangement. In the just-concluded Oscar season, 19 17 also won three technical awards, namely, best photography, best sound effect and best visual effect, which is enough to prove that this film has a far-reaching influence on war movies.

Second, the anti-type explorer: Sam Mendes

The unique style of "One Mirror for the Whole Film" is closely related to the film's director sam mendes and photographer Roger Dickins.

Speaking of Sam Mendes, we may not remember the director's works for a while, and we don't know much about him. In fact, Mendes is one of the few Hollywood film directors who are proficient in both art and business.

After graduating from Cambridge, he was deeply influenced by traditional English drama. Before filming, Mendes worked as a stage director in London and Broadway in new york, and won the Tony Award, the highest honor in American drama, for the musical Caballe.

In recent years, he devoted himself to movies, and is still producing many excellent historical plays of Shakespeare, such as Henry IV and Henry V starring Shakespeare. At the same time, he also directed the longest commercial action film series in film history-007 series. As a British director, it is his dream to create James Bond himself. In his debut novel American Beauty, there are many tributes to the "007" series.

For the "007" series, Mendes' greatest contribution is to inject more dramatic humanistic atmosphere into this male action film. From "007: Awning Crisis" to "007: Ghost Party", Bond in these two films has weakened the coldness of his spy work. The film sideline is not only a glamorous Bond girl and her emotional path, but also enriches his personal background.

This kind of humanistic concern is rare in previous Bond films, which is also the remarkable style of Mendes' directing films after he left the genre films that broke through drama to explore his personal situation.

So, in 19 17, we saw the one-man show of two soldiers in the whole world war I background. In fact, Mendes' thought was first seen in another war film, Pot Head, which he shot in his early years.

Different from most war movies, The Pot Head does not focus on the performance of the war scene, but describes the meaningless war through the physical and mental feelings of the witnesses in the war background.

Different from the war films set in World War II and Vietnam War in American movies, the film has injected modern people's attitude towards war. The war launched by the United States in the new century is neither out of justice nor out of patriotism, but has become a training ground for venting the residual experience of youth. The war described in the film did not actually have an enemy. All the scenes run through the protagonist's life, a 20-year-old sniper, training with his comrades, waiting for a combat mission in the desert.

This is an anti-genre film, which is quite different from the war movies that had a great impact in the past. Mendes, who is seeking a new breakthrough in 19 17, will never fall into the story expression, because the response of "Jarhead" is not very good. As we said before, the lens language has a great influence on war movies, just like Coppola's artistic oil painting color in Apocalypse Now is used to render the style of Apocalypse.

"19 17" chooses to tell the film story with a long lens, which is a great test for photography. Fortunately, the photographer of this film is the famous roger deakins.

Third, the master photographer: roger deakins

As far as the film "19 17" itself is concerned, it is absolutely necessary to have a director with a good command of drama and advanced photography. The plot of the film is as simple as the sentence "Two soldiers shuttle through the battlefield to transmit information", so strong technical support is very important.

In order to meet the requirements of the immersive battlefield, from the first scene, when two young British soldiers are awakened under a tree, Mendes and Dickins have been following these young people for the remaining two hours of the film, constantly digging trenches in bunkers and farmhouses and crossing enemy territory, and have been tracking and shooting with cameras.

Throughout the film, the lens revolves around the protagonist, rotates with the scene, the lens position changes with the scene, and the protagonist position changes. The director tries to break the viewing plane space and present a three-dimensional freedom war space for the audience regardless of the shooting distance or angle. Moreover, the sound and light effects of the film are excellent, especially the tense sound created by two soldiers crossing the almost deserted battlefield defense line and the lighting arrangement of the two men in the collapsed underground cave, which enhance the experience.

Therefore, filmmakers regard this film "19 17" as the most artistic film in this year's award season. For the ordinary audience, the best way to see this movie is to go to IMAX cinema. After all, you need to feel the impact of pictures and sound effects.

Combining Dunkirk with the style similar to 19 17 to restore the war and make the audience more and more real will be a direction of future war films. Let's wait and see.