Views of British lovers in British movies: 19 17-comments

19 17 What's there to say? This is a great movie, an amazing technical achievement and a strong immersion in the war itself.

The movie 19 17 is based on a true story, not a one-to-one relationship, but on the actual experience of Alfred Mendes, sam mendes's grandfather. The specific events recorded in the film are not a real story (the extraordinary impetus in this film is not real), and the characters are also fictional (the roles of Colin Firth and benedict cumberbatch are not particularly based on real soldiers, at least they are not noticeable enough on the * * page, and Alfred Mendes is nothing like george mckay anyway). Mendes is a signalman. He often sends messages between the front lines.

In his autobiography, he said, "Although there were snipers, machine gunners and artillery, I returned to the bullet hole of Company C unscathed, but a series of gruesome experiences fascinated my grandchildren all night." Although I am not an expert in World War I, my great evaluation of them will not grow old. Obviously, filmmakers spent a lot of time recreating the world of this war. From trenches to ruins, to the wasteland in the vast no-man's land, there are rotting bodies everywhere. The army has lost enough sensitivity to this, so that when they have to travel, they actually use a specific body as a landmark. On the military side, we are glad to see that the British army is slightly less uniform than usual, with several black soldiers and even an Indian standing in several rows. Four years before the film was released, the British Empire ruled less than a quarter of the world's population. Not all of them are homogeneous. There is no doubt that at least some people who are not so depressed have chosen to fight for withering. Alfred Mendes is a soldier and writer in Trinidad, and he is one of them. He inspired the whole movie. Admittedly, it's not perfect, but if putting a black soldier in the Victoria Military Doctor can cause controversy in the Queen of Mars, then "Run in Small Steps" may be a good choice. But I want to keep watching the big stunts of this movie. ...

A shot is its whole shooting, and it is a basic part of the film, just like a sentence in a larger novel. Part of it is for convenience, because the longer it takes to shoot, the more likely it is that something will screw up and destroy it. But it also has another function: manipulation. Let me ask Alfred Hitchcock to explain that in the movie clip, 1+ 1 is not equal to 2. Equal to three. The first shot, the second shot, and what these two shots told us. According to the background of the next creation, the same snapshot can give two completely different meanings. But what happens when a director says, "No, I won't do that"? I'm going to film this scene and let it justify itself.

Well, not very common. If most directors want to make a scene longer, it may be one of the movies. Some brave souls have created a style around it (filmmakers such as Andre tarkovsky,,, * * *, paul thomas anderson, Jim Jamask, Yi, etc. Sadly, few of them are British. But when a long-shot film is successful, it may be much better than a more traditional editing film. Take this scene in Andre tarkovsky's last film "Sacrifice" as an example.

In more traditional films, we can alternate between Alexander and his family in varying degrees of intimacy, and maybe we can take some pictures of the house burning and falling apart behind him. Tarkovsky didn't do that. Instead, he only filmed it for seven minutes. Alexander's family found him outside and finally realized that he was on fire in his house, which collapsed in real time. It's true. Tarkovsky was so absorbed in shooting that after the camera got stuck in the initial shooting, he had to spend a lot of money to rebuild his home in the next two weeks. Then, he finally agreed to shoot with two cameras to ensure safety. But this scene makes people feel that it has been filmed for so long. If it is "normal", this influence will be seriously weakened. Why? Because it enhances the sense of reality. There is no Hollywood magic (or Swedish magic) here. This really happened. To quote Andrei Tarkovsky:

Just like a sculptor holding a piece of marble, he realized the characteristics of his finished product in his heart and removed everything that didn't belong to it-so the filmmaker cut off and discarded what he didn't need from a "time block" composed of a lot of real facts, leaving only one element in the finished film, which proved to be an indispensable element of the film image.

1+ 1=3。 Only 1 is true. Moreover, for obvious reasons, few movies take this as a logical conclusion and shoot the whole bloody movie at one time. 19 17 is one of them. There is no denying that, in fact, it was not successful. In addition to the scene where snipers shot Scofield and made him unconscious, there were also several fake wounds. Cinematographer roger deakins and editor lee smith are very good at camouflage, but if you look closely, you may find the end of each shot.

This really helps to enhance the sense of reality. It tells us that this is exactly what a person sees. What is even more surprising is that at first, he saw a huge contrast between a pristine grassland and a desolate and uninhabited area. In a conversation, we can go from beauty to terror, and it is easier for us to understand this view without being interrupted by these editors. With the fragmentation of an ordinary movie, it may be easier to make, but it is also easier to see the strings. Saving Private Ryan, this is just a feast. Well done, but still beautiful.

19 17? This is happening. This is a soldier's experience, happening in real time. We can see his lifeless face in real time when his friend was stabbed. If you remember my comment on Ghost Watch, it was a duel between Josiah and Parasius. Speaking of what actually happened. "

"Isn't there something like an anti-war movie?" Franois Rufart once said that it is impossible to make an anti-war film, mainly because no matter how the filmmakers describe it, the media will inevitably make the war fascinating, which proves that the war is a good thing to some extent. I can list a bunch of examples, but I will leave this clip to Jarhead, not at all because it was directed by the same person who made 19 17:

There is no doubt that Coppola wants to make the scene in Revelation terrible. An example shows that when such scenes are common, he tried to end the absurdity of the court (with extreme prejudice). Soldiers? In this film, in real life, they applaud this behavior. Because this is so exciting.

However, I don't think truffaut is completely right. I can think of several films in my collection as good counterexamples. Boots focus on these submarines that try to survive suicide missions. They managed to get home alive, but when they arrived at their destination, they were bombed by the allied forces. Or look at the story of a 12-year-old Belarusian boy who fell into resistance after his village was destroyed, briefly describe the actual conflict and tell the terrible consequences. This is a film that you will never forget. Where is the glory of these films? "

And I firmly believe that 19 17 did the same. Except that the main purpose of the film is to prevent a particularly big push, there are not many real battle scenes that will lead to this war film. It is said that most of a soldier's life is a long wait, waiting for something to happen, and sometimes there are extreme, fight or flight, horrible moments. Although I didn't wear a stopwatch, I guess before Scofield finally reached another trench, the fighting time of this movie was only about 10 minutes, maybe less. Not to mention how bad the Huns are. Not a bad guy, a bad guy. We'll kill them. They don't need to bleed to death. They can't get pleasure from it; They are too busy being afraid. And the result? Blake is not a hero who died for his country. He is a simple man who made a noble choice and paid a high price for it. In the end, he will be remembered as a face in an old photo. His death is meaningless. Thousands of people died in the first minute or so, which is meaningless. Moreover, Blake or Scofield not only has obvious possibility of giving orders without survival, but also has strong suspicion. When benedict cumberbatch receives orders, he will not care at all, because he will think that the potential reward is far better than the risk of letting hundreds of thousands of soldiers die in vain. Almost. For those who dodge bullets (too exaggerated), they may always just postpone the inevitable. A few days after filming, there was another huge push, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and massacres. Even * * * can't decide who won, but everyone agrees that it achieved nothing, just like many great wars.

Where is the glory of? There is really no glory here. Even if Scofield kills a few German soldiers, it's a good thing, because he just wants to live. This is not a question of trying to defeat the enemy.

It is the greatness of this film. It gives us a certain degree of truth about the war experience, and few movies can (or are willing to) do this. If you can handle this matter well, you will surely see it.