Behind-the-scenes production of Olympia

Olympia, located in the northwest of the Peloponnesian Peninsula in Greece, with the temple of olympian zeus, is the center of religious sacrifices and sports activities in ancient Greece. The Olympic Games originated in Olympia, Greece. The first modern Olympic Games was held in Athens, Greece from April 6, 1996 to April 6, 1996. According to records, the first film to record the Olympic Games was Sports Ground Covered with Snow, which was shot by Dr. Arnold Fanck, a famous German "Alpine Movie", in 1928. The film recorded the Winter Olympics held in St Moritz that year. 1936 "Olympia" filmed by Lenny RiFinstad can be said to be the history of the Olympic movement.

The world's earlier epic documentary full of aesthetic feeling. As a film recording the Olympic Games, the theme of expressing the theme is of course sports competition. However, the Olympic Games held under Nazi rule will inevitably express the ideology from the Nazi background. The magnificent scenery, the framing and editing that turned athletes into superman images, and the factors that supported the sense of racial superiority in Nazi mythology all revealed Nazi information. The framing of the film also points out the tight organization of the competition, and Wagner-style music catered to the artistic style recognized by the German government at that time. This film, which records the Olympic sports competitions, undertakes the mission of propagating Nazi thoughts. Through the images of bodybuilding German athletes and "new" Germans, Riefenstahl deliberately showed how great changes and differences the "new Germany" under Hitler had compared with the poor, decadent and unstable Weimar Germany in the Republic of China, all of which needed thanks to the Fuehrer. To this end, Hitler, the "good head of state" in the film, appears repeatedly (or announces the start of the game, or watches the game, or awards prizes to the winners) to strengthen his image as savior.

Shooting process: 1 August, 936/day to June 16, 1 1 The Summer Olympic Games was held in Berlin, Germany. 4,594 athletes from 5/kloc-0 countries around the world participated in this sports event, and10.2 million spectators (including10.5 million from abroad) watched various sports events. At that time, Hitler's Nazi regime came to power for three years and was at the peak of its power. They took advantage of this world-class sports event held in Berlin to do everything possible to start the propaganda machine, so as to achieve the political purpose of showing Nazi Germany's "brilliant" political, economic and cultural achievements and establishing its new world image. As an important part of this powerful propaganda offensive, the Nazi regime entrusted the task of recording this sports event with movies to Rifenstar, which they completely trusted.

In order to ensure the completion of this important task, the Nazi regime did not hesitate to invest a lot of manpower, financial resources and material resources again. This time, Riefenstahl was not only in charge of directing, writing and editing, but also led a huge film crew of 43 people. Among the members of the film crew, there are not only Willy Hameister who filmed the famous German expressionist film "Dr. Caligari's Cabin", Kurt Newbert and Hans Gottschalck who worked as photographers for Dr. Arnold Fanck, the director of Mountaineering Film, but also some inexperienced young photography assistants like Gucci Lanzina. Fortunately, Rifenstar often treats young photographers differently, because she appreciates their experiments and explorations, and their spirit of hard work under difficult shooting conditions. In addition, in terms of logistical support, the Nazi Propaganda Department also provided 40 special-purpose cars, an office dormitory with 120 beds near the sports ground, a movie equipment library and a canteen for 300 people for the exclusive use of the film crew. American film historians David Baldwell and Christine Thompson pointed out that the large stadiums and other Olympic facilities built by the Nazi regime for the Olympic Games in and around Berlin reflected the efforts made by this regime to impress other countries in the world. So in a sense, the design of these places has taken into account the needs of shooting. To this end, she led photographers to watch and study the process and characteristics of various competitions, choose appropriate shooting angles, and need lenses and films to shoot repeatedly. In order to find the feeling of the movement process, photographers will also practice following an athlete's movements with their cameras, but they don't actually shoot. In the evening, it's time for Rifenstar to meet the film crew to discuss the shooting situation of the day and arrange the work for the next day. In this regard, Rifenstar once recalled: "Every day, we send about 65,438+05,000 meters of film to Guy's printing plant for printing. At 65,438+00 in the evening, I'd like to hear my two editorial assistants report the printing results of the films taken that day, look at the materials and make comments. Then, I will arrange or adjust the photographer's work according to the situation. I only meet with each photographer for about five minutes, but the discussion often lasts until two o'clock in the middle of the night ... "... In the first episode, Riefenstahl specially designed a" Overture ". After displaying a series of beautiful competitive statues of ancient Greek and Roman athletes, it switched to the process of collecting the flame and passing it from Greece to Berlin. 1936 The first 1 1 Olympic Games was a pioneering work in the history of the Olympic movement: the Olympic flame was first passed from Olympia, Greece, to Berlin, the venue of the Olympic Games. However, the ignition ceremony in the film is not the original record. Because Rivesta was not satisfied with the original ceremony of collecting the flame, which was contrary to her artistic conception, she designed and directed a ceremony of collecting the flame in the ancient stadium of Delphi City, which met her wish. To this end, she invited artists to imitate the Dorian Temple on a dune dome, and selected a young male athlete who met the requirements of her classical bodybuilding as the first torchbearer. Not only that, as a dancer, Riefenstahl personally joined the ranks of many naked female dancers at the ceremony to show her dance. Only when editing later, because she consciously didn't choose her own front lens, the audience could hardly recognize her figure. In the "overture" part, the film presents a male statue with sports beauty to the audience through a series of close-ups, with exquisite lighting and misty smoke. On the contrary, female statues are mostly soft images of singing and dancing. Even the beautiful statue of Aphrodite (the goddess of love and beauty in ancient Greek mythology) is just a supplement to praise the beauty of the human body besides strength. What impressed people deeply was that the famous ancient statue of "discus thrower" in Mi Long became a beautiful and healthy nude image of a living modern discus thrower. To this end, Riefenstahl asked the famous German decathlon athlete ailwyn Huber to stand behind a big glass, make the same posture as the statue of the discus thrower in ancient Mi Long, and then draw the outline of the discus thrower with black pigment on the glass, and then achieve the desired effect through clever lighting (mixed light of sunlight and artificial light). Photographer Willy Zielke is the person in charge of this part of the lens.

In the process of shooting, faced with a large number of fleeting motion scenes, Riefenstahl and her photographers made many technological innovations. For example, they use cameras erected around the stadium and hidden tracks laid on the ground to dynamically record various events and activities; In order to capture the lens better, they made a camera bracket turntable that can rotate at various angles, and built a camera car with shockproof function. In order not to let the sound of the machine affect the athletes' competition, they put a soundproof box on the camera; When shooting swimming competitions, underwater photography was used, which was rare at that time; In order to shoot underwater shots of divers, Hans Elter specially made a special waterproof case to protect the camera, and trained himself to adjust the distance and aperture with extremely quick and skillful movements, and installed a small gourd on the wall of the swimming pool to keep it moving up and down. Because there was no zoom lens available at that time, in order to shoot swimmers at close range, he installed the camera on the shelf of a special small rubber boat, then manipulated the hull with a stick and shook the paddle to avoid shaking. In addition, he also tried to use some special shooting methods, such as installing a small camera on the saddle when shooting equestrian events; Put a very light camera on the marathon runner, so it is shaking, but it has amazing dynamic effect; When shooting the panoramic view of the stadium, the famous German Led Zeppelin was even used. ......

Because the attention of athletes can't be disturbed when shooting the competition, some cameras are placed in pre-dug pits at a certain distance from the track and field. Then, the film recorded the grand opening ceremony and competition activities of the sports meeting. In the process of filming the competition, Rifenstar had to obey the rules of the International Olympic Committee. Therefore, the film skills she can use are limited. However, by creating a variety of flexible shooting techniques, Rifenstar enables the film crew to take long-distance photography and shoot abnormal angles, thus overcoming this limitation. Since only six main photographers are allowed to work in the sports meeting, each photographer has a fixed task scope. For example, Hans Elter is responsible for underwater photography and sports events; Walter Flantz is responsible for shooting sailboats, marathons (using hand-held cameras) and shots taken from balloons; Gucci Lanzina is responsible for shooting training, horse racing, gymnastics, swimming, boating and other projects; Kurt Newbert is the task of high-speed photography; Hans Shep is in charge of telephoto lens shooting. In addition, Rifenstar also arranged for some people to mix into the audience with cameras to sneak shots of the audience's various reactions when watching the game. Shooting in the room. The camera uses a telescope to shoot at a long distance, and the focal length of the lens has become a major feature of this film style. We often see that the background of athletes' physical activities is flat and the faces in the background are fuzzy. This effect is especially remarkable when photographers shoot details with telephoto lenses. For example, in the close-up shot taken by Glenn Morris, the crowd behind him seems to be only black and white, which is faintly visible. This kind of shot is in contrast to the shot taken by athletes at a low angle with the sky as the background (thus excluding the crowd). This way of shooting the sky at a low angle forms a pattern for the end of gymnastics and diving.

David Baldwell and Christine Thompson pointed out that although the scene arrangement of this film is largely controlled by Olympic officials rather than the director, there are signs of manipulation in some scenes. The events shown in the first part of the film (including morning running, steam bath, swimming and sports) are obviously arranged for shooting. When the morning runners passed the camera, the formation was perfect, and people outside the athletes' club smiled and made a gesture. The fifth part shows a large group of women doing soft exercises with music in the stands, which is impossible without some rehearsals for the benefit of the director. At the last moment of the film, we must move: the stands with a circle of searchlights seem to be a model, and rows of moving flags are for the camera, not for the audience in the stadium. Other framing techniques also played an important role in the shooting process. A row of speedboats in a very low position in the frame formed a striking composition, which once again highlighted the dominant motivation of the sky. Some shots highlight the deep juxtaposition of foreground and background, such as a branch and a distant stadium running through the dominant motivation of nature, or the winner of the French cycling race watching the French flag rise. In more personalized editing, some techniques enhance the overall effect of the film. For example, when a cyclist rushes to the finish line, overprint technology will produce a subjective effect of speed. There are also some scenes of the game that are fabricated. For example, the high jump final at night. Because the lights were not allowed to be used during the competition, and there was no high-sensitivity film at that time, only two Japanese and three American high jumpers who participated in the final could enter the stadium again the night after the final to make up the final shots.

The second episode uses a lot of editing techniques. Some clips take advantage of the similarity of composition, for example, the shaking shots showing the start of a whole series of athletes in pentathlon are connected in series. But in other clips, the discontinuity of composition is very important. In one shot, the diagonal line formed by the parallel bars contrasts with the diagonal line formed by another parallel bar in the next shot. This low-angle composition with the sky as the background connects gymnastics and diving. Many shots showing divers are in the opposite direction, reaching the peak in the fascinating last scene: 1 1 Divers jump into the air one after another, but in fact, every time they switch, they move the diver's jumping point from one side of the picture to the other. This composition technique combined with the fast cutting rhythm created an exciting ending for this passage.

After editing the picture, Rivenstar was busy designing sound effects. She designed as many as 16 different sound effects (narrator's voice, audience's voice, music, etc. , and used sound, text, natural sound effects, etc. ) to enhance some poor expressive picture effects. After three months of mixed recording, Rifenstar made more than 30,000 meters of tapes. Finally, she personally supervised the first batch of six books. The voice of this film is concise and powerful. Herbert Wendell's Wagner-style romantic music is accompanied by many competition scenes, which is especially important when the commentator fails to convey the information about the competition to the audience at the beginning and end. Music hints at the audience's reaction: the opening part of the forest uses slow and solemn music; The second exercise part uses light music; The music used in diving competition is magnificent and exciting. In order to change, some scenes do not use music, but emphasize the voice of the narrator (such as hockey game), which is especially important for personalized narrative clips in the middle of the film. In the pentathlon and decathlon competitions, the commentator created suspense by suggesting that we were watching some athletes. He lowered his voice slightly, which made people feel that he was also looking forward to the final result of the game. Although there are occasional sound effects (such as crowd cheering and wind) coming from the competition site, in terms of sound, the film mainly relies on music and commentary to guide the audience's attention.