Theoretical aesthetics of long lens

Judging from the history of the formation of film art, the long lens has existed for a long time, but at that time, the long lens only played the role of mechanically recording a scene for a long time, not as a means of artistic expression. As a new aesthetic concept, as an aesthetic factor, as a film theory and creative genre, the long shot openly challenges the classic montage theory, which only appeared in the 1950s, and its representative figures are Bazin and others. The main theoretical viewpoints are:

1. photography ontology

Bazin believes that film is developed from photography, its essence is still photography, and its great power lies in the objectivity and authenticity of photographic images, which is the basic content of the so-called photography ontology.

2. Emphasize the authenticity of the film and advocate "documentary"

Bazin emphasizes the truth of movies from the perspective of photography ontology. The significance of film lies in revealing the true face of reality and its unbiased photographic reproducibility. In his view, the truth of movies is the truth of time and space first, and it is the core of Bazin's theory to put forward that movies should express the unorganized real time and space, especially the concept of "real space".

In order to keep the space real, Bazin pays special attention to the scheduling of shots, especially the use of long shots. He believes that only a long lens can not only retain the temporal and spatial continuity of objective existence, but also have enough ability to coordinate the internal organization of the lens. He also emphasized the scheduling phenomenon of depth-of-field shots, pointing out that the space of depth-of-field shots is more complete and real without losing its inherent fuzziness, and the audience has more freedom to feel and choose in this space.

The school of long lens theory thinks that the artistic feature of film is the extension of photography, so its essential feature is "the reduction of material reality". "When a film records and reveals material reality, it becomes a veritable film". Bazin criticized the montage theory, which made the film lose its authenticity. In Bazin's view, montage divides some events into several segments during shooting. When they are reorganized, no matter how realistic the single shot is, the essence and idea of narration mainly come from the relationship between these fragments, and the source of this result can not be found in any specific factors.

Bazin thinks that montage still has a big shortcoming, that is, movie audiences are passive when watching movies, and their ideas are basically dominated by directors. Therefore, he advocates that movies should be copied and copied, and should not be disturbed; Oppose traditional dramatization and advocate life; Instead of pursuing tortuous storylines, we artificially strengthen contradictions, but pay attention to expressing daily life, people and events and truly reflect life. In order to be true and natural, in the process of film creation, we should try our best to use real scenes (often moving the lens directly to the street to shoot real scenes), use unprofessional actors, use long lenses and use unskilled picture conversion. Therefore, Bazin's theory is also called recording school, realism school and reappearance school.