Editors and directors must learn lens theory and documentary aesthetics.

Editors and directors must learn lens theory and documentary aesthetics.

Is the appearance of a long lens? Revolution of film aesthetics? . Prior to this, montage theory, as the only film theory, basically dominated the thinking activities of film artists. People seldom study the relationship between film and photography, and seldom study the characteristics of film from this angle.

Bazin is unconventional, attributing the characteristics of the film to photography, and from this characteristic, emphasizing the realism and documentary sense of the film. Bazin's realistic aesthetic thought, as well as his aesthetic function of depth-of-field lens and long lens, greatly promoted the development of film language, brought about the revolution of film expression means and created a new screen form. In a sense, without long shots, there would be no modern movies.

1. What is a long lens? The so-called long shot is to continuously shoot the next scene, a scene or a scene of a shot, and complete a relatively complete shot paragraph without destroying the temporal and spatial coherence in the development of the event.

Long shot is a kind of film narrative rule, as opposed to montage. The narrative rule of montage is the editing and assembly of shots, emphasizing the reconstruction of film time and space; A long shot refers to a relatively complete shot formed by shooting a scene continuously with one lens. Formally speaking, long shots take a long time, and the length of a single shot can reach about 10 minutes; From the content point of view, it maintains the relative integrity of action and space in a shot.

Second, the origin of the long lens can be traced back to the use of the long lens, which can be said to originate from the photography stage. At that time, due to the limitation of photography technology, the photography technique of the film could not freely express the subject, and the single shot in this period was actually the original long shot.

As another narrative rule of film language, long shots were put forward as montage theory after the montage theory was fully mature? Defamiliarization? (In fact, it is a supplement and perfection). Bazin, a famous French film theorist, is dissatisfied with the artificial cutting and rearrangement of time and space by montage theory, and thinks that this is a disrespect for the ontology of life, and the director tries to force the audience to accept the director by artificial means. Bazin advocates the use of long lens and depth-of-field lens in movies, because long lens can keep the continuity of movies in time, while depth-of-field lens can show the authenticity and integrity of space.

It is generally believed that the earliest example of using long shots in film history is the documentary master Robert? The documentary "Nanuk in the North" filmed by Flahadi 19 16. In this film, Flahadi shows the process of Eskimos hunting seals from ice holes with a long lens.

The appearance of long shots has brought about a revolution in film expression means and created a new screen form. In a sense, without long shots, there would be no modern movies. The mature application of long lens technology marks the transition of film form from traditional to modern, and has entered an era of diversified film narrative means, film structure and film style. Jane. A representative figure of French poetic realistic films in the late 1930s? Renoir systematically used the long lens technology earlier. 194 1 Orson USA? In his classic film Citizen Kane, Wells successfully used depth-of-field lens, long-shot paragraphs, sports photography and multi-perspective narrative structure to make this film become? A monument to modern movies? . After that, Swedish Ingmar? Bergman, Italian Ferini and antonioni also proved the artistic charm of long shots with their artistic practice. In the 1950s, with the rise of the wave of realistic movies, the French film theorist Andre? Bazin established documentary aesthetics of movies with the theory of long lens as the core.

Third, the aesthetic function of the long lens As a film art language, the artistic functions of the long lens are as follows:

(A) to create a complete space-time

Because long shots are more realistic in nature and there are fewer people.

Less artificial, what appears on the screen is not a very broken lens, but a complete action and the surrounding environment. The mobility of the lens constantly prompts the space outside the painting, which makes the space outside the painting and the space inside the painting become a whole, and the time also presents the characteristics of continuity. This is also the temporal and spatial integrity of film expression. For example, the credits in the opening credits of Rashomon show the Rashomon with a long shot, thus setting the tone of the film.

(B) the formation of rich ideographic characters

The long lens provides the audience with the possibility of observing things in many aspects and understanding the objects from many angles. The long lens gives us a gaze shock in front of a reality that we have always taken for granted and turned a blind eye to. Reality itself has the characteristics of fuzziness, and the long lens reflects the respect for the fuzziness of reality, that is, returning the right to think to the audience, which meets the appreciation requirements of modern people. For example, many scenes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon use long lens language to construct rich ideographic images.

(3) Rendering and contrasting emotions and environmental atmosphere.

Long shots often help to render and contrast the emotional and environmental atmosphere, and help to form a dignified, soothing and well-documented lyric style of movies. For example, the ending of Old Things in the South of the City? Xiaoying watched Ma Song go away? This scene has become a classic pattern of using long shots in China's films.

Documentary aesthetics

Two traditions of film development:

From its birth, movies have two distinct tendencies. One is the realistic tendency of newsreels and documentaries created by Lumiere brothers and their photographers; The second is the dramatic tendency of expressing fictional plots initiated by Mei. Dramatic tendency, due to the contributions of Griffith, Eisenstein and others in practice and theory, has embarked on the road of imaginative montage art, which makes the film show a symbolic, exaggerated and dreamy unrealistic color on the screen. Documentary brought realism style, in the American Robert? Flahadi, Juris, the Netherlands? Evans, English John? Grierson and the Soviet Union Giga? Under the impetus of Wiltoff, a realistic artistic style with Bazin's long lens theory as the core was formed. The Rise of Realistic Films

After World War II, people paid unprecedented attention to the sociality of movies, and people were no longer addicted to being divorced from reality? Dream machine? It is hoped that film art can pay more attention to its own living condition and destiny, so a large number of excellent films with realistic colors and different degrees of realism have emerged in various countries. Therefore, a worldwide development trend of post-war films is that dramatic films that have ruled for half a century since their birth are replaced by new documentaries after the war. Correspondingly, after the theoretical generalization and summary of Bazin and kracauer, the documentary aesthetics of movies finally firmly established its historical position in the world for the first time. It not only deepens people's comprehensive and profound understanding of the nature of the film, but also greatly enriches the language of the film with its unique performance skills and production methods.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the world movies set off a trend of documentary aesthetics. This aesthetic trend of thought came quickly and penetrated into all levels of film aesthetics, prompting many film artists to re-examine the traditional film aesthetics and the new wave film aesthetics, criticize the part that goes against the real life, absorb its reasonable factors, and explore a new way of documentary aesthetics with a new attitude.

The representative figure of the aesthetic theory of film documentary is French film critic Andre? Bazin and German film theorist Siegfried? Kracauer. It is generally believed that the Soviet montage school represented by Eisenstein is the first milestone in the history of world film theory, the realism represented by Bazin is the second milestone, and the film semiotics represented by Metz is the third milestone.

Andre? Bazin's name is closely related to Italian neo-realism, French new wave and realistic aesthetic theory. The masterpiece is a collection of film reviews, What is a film, which puts forward the concept of film? Photographic ontology? It is believed that the essence of the film is the extension and expansion of the lens, and the purpose is to truly show the real scenes and events to the audience. This aesthetic pursuit can best be achieved by shooting with long lens and deep lens. On 1955, Bazin founded the famous film handbook magazine in Paris, France, and United a group of promising young film critics around the film handbook, such as Fran? ois? Truffaut, Jean? Luke. Godard, Claude? Claude chabrol, etc. , formed a famous new wave period? Film handbook school? .

After Bazin, Siegfried of Germany? In the book The Essence of Movies, kracauer proposed? Theory of real reduction of matter? The long lens theory has been further interpreted and developed.

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