Unscramble the highlights of the meanest person

Different Flowers in Expressionist Soil

Although the film is adapted from critical realism, it is full of expressionism. In the 1920s and 1930s, European avant-garde films were in full swing, and German expressionist films were an important part of the European avant-garde movement. Influenced by Impressionism, German Expressionism developed into a literary movement in the fields of painting, literature, music and drama. In this atmosphere, German films later became the dominant art form of expressionism, which did not last long, but it was excellent and had far-reaching influence.

First, the presentation of subjective truth. Expressionist films often pursue the externalization of the inner world, transforming the real world into a reflection of the inner self through deformation and exaggeration. The hero lost his job, but he really missed the uniform that made him proud and sneaked back to the hotel to steal it. When he rushed out of the hotel with his uniform, he was exhausted. Looking back, the building in front of me slowly fell to itself, almost on itself. This montage shows the unbalanced mentality of the gatekeeper who is afraid and unable to control the situation. Then I went home drunk and dreamed that I was still a janitor, so powerful that I could lift a heavy box with one hand and perform in front of customers like a magician, which attracted bursts of applause. The director used a phantom image rhetoric to exaggerate the protagonist's nostalgia for the job and reluctance to take off his uniform.

Second, exaggerated performance style. The performance of expressionist films often omits the display of individual details, and does not create three-dimensional and credible characters, but emphasizes symbols and abstractions, replacing the typical with extremes. Although his performance in this film is much more restrained than that in Doctor Calgary, he still maintains exaggeration and drama. Sadoul even stubbornly believes that "Jonnings' expressionless face and exaggerated and blunt acting posture ruined" The meanest man ". In addition, in terms of lighting, the enlarged characters and the dark entrance of the bathroom can reflect the light-consuming characteristics of expressionist movies.

As an indoor drama, The Despicable Man shows another distinct artistic style and purport-realism, which is different from expressionist movies. In the image, the first performance is the all-round display of the living environment of the characters. This film shows two completely different lives of two classes. One is the poor, living in a difficult situation at the bottom; One is that the rich are above and pampered. The janitor became a middleman who combined two lives. He can go in and out of high-end hotels in uniform and return to slums after work. Therefore, that uniform shows magical power. Through the activities of gatekeepers, high-end hotels are juxtaposed with the life in urban slums, thus making the luxury of the upper class and the poverty and poverty of the lower class in sharp contrast. Secondly, in the setting of characters, the life and psychology of small people are highlighted. One of the characteristics of "indoor dramas" in this period is that the description object is no longer crazy people, eccentric people and cruel rulers, but the camera turns to ordinary people such as workers, employees and servants. However, "this kind of creation with little people as the protagonist and criticism without hesitation as the main theme was relatively rare in German films at that time".

The film not only successfully created the image of an old gatekeeper, but also lost the frustration after the original "glory" work and had to engage in "humble" work, and finally successfully reproduced the apprentice's arrogant mentality. Third, the use of realistic film expression techniques. Long shots of movies are widely used. For example, the doorman met a child playing a game when he went to work in the morning, and he showed it to his neighbors when he went upstairs and downstairs. The film even uses a fixed long shot to show the process of the janitor coming home from work. The sky is getting darker and brighter after dark. The indoor drama film represented by The Despicable Man is an indispensable link in the development chain of German realistic films. Although it was conceived in the soil of expressionism, The Despicable Man has a realistic "bone", which makes it a wonderful work in the history of German film.

Innovation of film and television language

In The Despicable Man, director Mao Nao used the most advanced film and television shooting technology at that time, which enriched the expressive force of film and television language, and had a great influence in Europe and even the United States at that time, "becoming one of the German films with the greatest contribution to the development of film history". When talking about this film, kracauer said: "Because of the high flexibility of the camera, the meanest people have strongly influenced the skills of Hollywood movies."

The development of film language is mainly reflected in the application of mobile phone photography technology. Mobile phone photography is not the creation of Mao nao and others. About the same age as the movie. 1896, French photographer Jean-Claude Lomio used mobile phone photography when shooting the film Scenes of Venice. Later, photographers took pictures in cars, trains, planes and even aerial ropeways and got moving shots. Cat Brain and photographer karl freund liberated the camera from the fixed tripod by using ladders, bicycles, camera carts and even tying the camera to the actors, "upgrading the mobile photography to a completely mobile visual narrative technology".

First, mobile phone photography causes rich viewpoint changes and makes the audience actively participate in the narrative situation. Action shots are more active in narrative, guiding the audience's attention to move constantly with the subject, making the audience's line of sight, the line of sight of the characters and the viewpoint of the lens "coincide", making the audience feel immersive and making the film more vivid and realistic. In the film, the doorman became a "daydream" after getting drunk: he became very powerful, holding a huge suitcase in one hand and showing it off in front of many customers. When the doorman entered the turnstile, the camera began to follow him. After entering the hall, the shaking camera swept the customer's surprised face, then pulled back to the doorman, abandoned the suitcase high, and then shook the customer again to cheer for him. This moving long shot brings the audience into the hero's dream. The camera pays attention to the customer's expression, and the viewpoint coincides with the janitor's line of sight, because he is eager to get the customer's approval and wants others to admit that he is still qualified for the job, while the shaking camera and the blurred picture remind us that this is just a hero's dream.

Secondly, mobile phone photography creates a long shot, which not only makes the film realistic and rich in meaning, but also effectively controls the rhythm of the film, which is smooth, natural and concise. The janitor came home in a stolen uniform. By this time, the neighbors had learned that he had lost his original job, so they quietly hid behind the door to watch him make a fool of himself. The camera keeps pulling back with the protagonist. The foreground is a doorman who is afraid and ashamed, and the background is a neighbor who smiles at him for the second time from the doors and windows, with distinct layers and rich connotations. At the end of the film, the director introduced the protagonist who reappeared with a smooth and moving long shot, which can be described as layers of bedding and rich colors: the camera pulls back to a number of customers who dine in the hotel lobby in turn, and they laugh for the news in the newspaper. Finally, the camera shakes, and at another dining table, several waiters are serving a VIP. The waiter dodged, the camera was pushed up and the cake was taken away. It is the protagonist of newspaper news and the original gatekeeper.

In addition, the unique editing method produces rich rhetoric, which adds a lot of color to the film. For example, the janitor learned that the manager had changed his job, and it was difficult to suppress his resentment and tried to lift a big suitcase in front of him. As a result, he fell to the ground and directly connected to the camera of a young janitor carrying a suitcase in the wind and rain. This can be seen as a contrast montage designed by the director intentionally, and it can also be seen as the director expressing his psychological truth with illusion. The revolving door has become "a kind of devil" and a symbol of the cycle of fate.

"The ideal movie doesn't need subtitles!" This is what Mao nao said after filming this movie. The film language has evolved to this point, and finally it can be described independently without subtitles.

About the ending

The film has a "bright tail": the janitor unexpectedly gets a huge inheritance, from "the meanest person" to the happiest person, from hell to heaven. Critics are always mixed about the ending. Some people think that it weakens realistic criticism and gilds the lily; Some people think that enhancing its ironic effect is the finishing touch; Some people think that "it expresses doubts about this happy ending based on chance and luck".

The movie is very dreamy. When people enter the cinema, they project their repressed emotions, wishes and unfulfilled ideals onto the screen, which can be realized through the changes in the fate of the characters in the play, so that their psychology can be satisfied, their emotions can be vented and their mentality can be balanced. Hollywood classic movies are well versed in this, bringing the dreaminess of movies to the extreme and producing many classic comedies. Perhaps the creator of this film is full of sympathy and pity for the hero's experience, but the author thinks that the happy ending of Mao nao and Mei Yu is the recognition and acceptance of Hollywood narrative style and the submission to the powerful American business ideology. Through two films, The meanest Man and Faust, Monau and Mei Yu showed the world, especially Hollywood, their skillful skills in using film and television language and their recognition of Hollywood narrative rules, which won them a stepping stone to enter Hollywood.