Zhang Yimou and Zhang Mo's new work "Sniper" will be released on the first day of the Lunar New Year, and the expert seminar on the film "Sniper" sponsored by the Beijing Municipal Film Bureau, the Film and Television Drama Research Center of Peking University, and the magazine "Contemporary Film" will be held recently.
Set against the backdrop of the little-known but significant "Cold Gun Cold Gun Campaign" in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, "Sniper" tells the story of the five squads of sniper fighters who fought a deadly duel with the SNIPER elite under the circumstances of the disparity in the armaments of the enemy and us, and showed the tenacious spirit of the volunteer army and the combat wisdom of flexibility and mobility.
Presents a youthful combat aesthetic
Wang Jiequn, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and director of the Beijing Municipal Film Bureau, talked about her three-point view of "Sniper". First, the grandeur and subtlety of the film complement each other, showing a small and beautiful form of artistic expression, and presenting an artistic approach of seeing the big in the small. "'Sniper' is different from "Chosin Lake" and "Shangganling", instead of focusing on major battles, it focuses on the portrayal of a fragment of the grand war. Through the portrayal of vivid characters, they eventually converge into the grand theme of patriotism. The whole movie also digs the inner psychology of the characters very deeply, taking us into the depths of each character's soul, which is very difficult. "Second, the film presents a youthful combat aesthetic." The entire director and screenwriter creative team used the youthful feeling of young people to perfectly match the temperament of the young volunteers on the Korean battlefield, capturing it particularly realistically. "The third is that inheritance and innovation complement each other in film." War takes place in the snow and ice. Director Zhang Yimou and teacher Chen Yu faced great pressure and challenges, but in the end they perfectly showed our Chinese characteristics and made us have a sense of surprise. ”
See the big in the small, go in with the small incision
Professor Li Yang, deputy dean of the School of Arts of Peking University, praised Chen Yu's script for showing the superb skills and accurate grasp of the film after years of teaching, "The play is the most important part of the film to be established, and "Sniper" chose a very difficult creative method, restoring the principle of high unity of time and place and characters in Western drama. In today's creative context, especially for filmmaking, this is very difficult. ”
Tan Zheng, editor-in-chief of Film Art and researcher at the Film Art Center of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, believes that the rhythm of the film is precisely controlled, and from the beginning to the end, the tense atmosphere has been spreading on the screen. From the opening scene to the tank scene, to the seven-person squad on both sides of the canyon gradually decreasing and fighting, the entire sniper design is very accurate. The narrative of the film is very calm, fully in line with the aesthetic needs of the moment, a construction of the enemy and us equally, we are sniper heroes, the other side is also a sniper master, and we have conducted in-depth research on sniper masters, and through his judgment can cause the existence of this story. This is also the progress of the current Chinese film narrative.
Professor Wang Yichuan, director of the Literary and Art Research Center of Beijing Normal University and vice chairman of the China Literary and Art Critics Association, said that through the story of "Sniper", which is equivalent to a hidden front, the heroism of the volunteer army and the reasons for their victory were revealed, and the deeds of a sniper squad were excavated, and then dug deeper, reflecting a special significance. See the big in the small, go in with a small incision, and then dig very deep. It depicts the process of fighting wits and courage between volunteer soldiers and powerful opponents in a delicate, vivid and vivid manner.
Screenwriter talks
"Storytelling" has become Zhang Yimou's first principle
The movie "Sniper" is Zhang Yimou's first entry into the Spring Festival file, and it is also the third film cooperated by Chen Yu and Zhang Yimou, professors and screenwriters at Peking University School of Arts.
The beginning of the creation
Zhang Yimou put forward three ideas
At the expert seminar of the movie "Sniper", Chen Yu introduced the story of the film's script creation. He introduced that on January 10, 2020, Zhang Yimou called him and offered to shoot "Sniper". For the film's vision, Zhang Yimou put forward three points at that time: first, to avoid grand narratives; second, to slice the war, from small to large; third, the whole process is tense, no urine point.
After that, Chen Yu began to write the script, and the film was launched on January 10, 2021. For the creative psychology, Chen Yu said that the principle of narrative first nature is the starting point of his and Zhang Yimou's creation, "The so-called narrative first principle is actually three sentences: First, storytelling is the highest goal of a film. Second, telling a good story is the fundamental reason why a film can be put into filming. Third, the various elements of a film, including the performances of the actors, all of their performances will be incorporated into the narrative. Whether the actors act well or not, whether the design is good or not, must be based on the principle of narrative, and the excellent narrative angle should be used as a criterion. ”
Chen Yu also revealed that in the past two years, Zhang Yimou has made great changes in film creation, "Everyone knows that director Zhang Yimou is a master of scene scheduling and film form design, and some people say that he does not pay enough attention to narrative." But in the past two years, since I worked with him, I think he has changed a very big way, which is to be very clear about the first principle of narrative, and the 'storytelling' thing has become the first principle in him. Under this principle, I think we created the story of Sniper in a very compatible state. This is the first creative psychology. ”
High energy throughout
Make the drama Trinity to the extreme
Chen Yu summed up the second creative psychology as a "hardcore narrative". "Hardcore narratives are more like internal narratives within closed time and space, narratives driven by internal conflicts in the case of relatively closed time and space. You can't be influenced by other external factors, it's your internal problems, driven by character relationships, character personalities, and character positions, so I call this hardcore storytelling. We hope to achieve a high degree of tension throughout the process in this way, and to achieve the ultimate in the way of drama trinity. ”
The third creative psychology is the theme of man. "The theme of Sniper is human sacrifice, not sacrifice, human sacrifice, and ultimately it must be restored to people."
Chen Yu believes that the new mainstream film has now gone through three stages: the first stage is "The Great Cause of the Founding of the People's Republic", which commercializes the traditional main theme; the second stage is "Chinese Captain" and "Chinese Doctor" and other works, making the main theme type large.1 And "Sniper" wants to try the third stage - to make a genre film, not to say that the genre is filmed, but to really do a genre film, "At this time, it must be implemented to people, which is very difficult, under collectivism, personal feelings, personal growth challenges are very high, "Sniper" has made some attempts in this regard. "This group of articles / reporters of this newspaper Xiao Yang
Co-ordinator/Liu Jianghua