Sea Horror is a 1950 thriller film by Hitchcock. And our attention to the film today is because, in this movie, Hitchcock finally left the fascination with the "one shot to the end" technique and returned to the right way of character portrayal.
Prior to the filming of "The Sea of Desire", Hitchcock directed the film "Soul Reaper" in 1948, which was filmed by Shi Tiantian's "one-shot to the end" technique, which opened a new era of "one-shot to the end" technique in the history of cinema.
This innovation is too advanced, and the setting of the chamber drama makes this movie too dull, the response of the whole film at that time is not large, but its delayed impact is still beyond the shackles of time, until many years later, with the rapid development of film special effects technology, the "one shot to the end" technique under the support of film special effects, or shows the unique charm of its showmanship can achieve attention. For example, "Birdman", which won the Oscar for best picture, can win more because it benefits from the narrative novelty brought to the film by the "one shot to the end" technique, and going back, Hitchcock's "Soul Reaper" is the greatest.
The real focus on visual effects that pushed the "one-shot to the end" technique outdoors, reflecting a broader realistic space, and showing the whole process of this technique has not dared to try before, is the film "1917" that appeared in 2019. It can be seen that the "one shot to the end" technique can show a more magnificent and realistic picture, in another sense, compared to the three-dimensional sense of the pure picture of the three-D film, its strength is to create a real space beyond the single frame, extending beyond the picture, and taking the lens of the film as part of a broader three-dimensional space. This old frame of the film's original limitations on the screen undoubtedly provides an amazing innovation, which is several times higher than hitchcock's "dojo" built over and over again through the "one shot to the end" technique in a narrow range.
After Soul Reaper, Hitchcock still used several minutes of long shots in the next filming of "Under capricorn", but it can be seen that the "one shot to the end" technique has been downplayed by Hitchcock in this film.
In the ensuing "Sea of Desire", the "one shot to the end" technique has retreated to the distant position of Pluto, hitchcock finally focused on the portrayal of the characters, but in this movie, there is still a "one-shot to the end" technique like the most faint and hazy light shooting from the outermost layer of the solar system. In this way, "Sea Of Desire" has its unique brilliance that enters our sights.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, the long shot supported by the "one-shot to the end" technique in "Sea of Desire" takes a back seat in the film. </h1>
It can be seen in "The Sea of Desire" that hitchcock directly used the sense of collision of the characters generated by the front and back shots after abandoning the long-shot technique, which is still very shocking.
Because of the abandonment of the "one shot to the end" technique and the use of long shots, the film lens is more oriented to the close-up of the face of the character, reflecting the subtle changes in the facial expression, and when the opposing character expressions contrast with each other, it produces the delicate reproduction and strong appeal of the film's portrayal of the deep soul of the character.
In fact, the use of the "one shot to the end" technique and the long shot pays more attention to the operation and change of the characters in the environment, the lens mostly uses medium and long-range views, and rarely portrays the characters through close-ups, so that the "one shot to the end" technique and the long shot cannot mention the inner conflict of the characters who need to be expressed most in the film, but waste film on irrelevant external actions, creating a large lengthy and cumbersome irrelevant narrative in vain, weakening the narrative rhythm of the film.
In "Sea of Desire", Hitchcock accepted the lesson of the failure of the first two films, greatly reducing the proportion of long shots, but we also noticed that Hitchcock wanted to throw away the long-shot technology in the first two films to the point of nothing, and he was not willing to make the choice of abandoning his previous achievements, after all, when a person is used to using a technique, he will have an inertial force that cannot be stopped, from "Soul Snatcher" to "Under capricorn Constellation" to "Sea of Desire". Hitchcock's successively decreasing regressive law of long shots can be seen.
Despite this, there are still some traces of long shots in "Sea Horror".
For example, in the reminiscence section at the beginning of the film, Hitchcock used images to reproduce the character Jonathan's description of the case, and repeatedly used long-shot techniques.
One of the scenes is Jonathan returning to the scene of the murder, where the camera follows Jonathan and follows him into the door, then the camera enters the interior space and ascends to the second floor as Jonathan climbs the stairs. In this set of shots, Hitchcock once again used the method he was accustomed to using when shooting long shots, that is, once the lens entered the narrow indoor space, the door and wall were immediately removed, allowing the huge camera to pass through, and at the same time, through the lens of the arm swing, the line of sight rose with the movement of the character.
Obviously, Hitchcock's method of breaking walls and demolishing doors and carrying indoor furnishings in the previous "Soul Reaper" and "Under Capricorn Constellation" in order to pursue the super long lens effect of the "one-shot to the end" technique is still preserved in his film.
In this carefully crafted memory clip in "Want to Sea Horror", when explaining how Jonathan and actress Charlotte handled the murder they faced together indoors, the camera showed the fidgeting relationship between the two people indoors, constantly following and shaking between the facial shots of the two people, producing a continuous sense of reality.
It can be seen that Hitchcock used continuous long shots to show that this is actually a lie in the memory scene, as if it really happened, so that the application of long shot technology in the movie has a special function, that is, to increase the credibility and authenticity of the picture, so that the audience falls into the trap set by the movie, and more firmly believes that the picture shown in the movie is real.
Therefore, Hitchcock no longer uses the long shot as a kind of showmanship in the film, but uses the organic part of the film plot deduction to participate in the identification of the truth and falseness of the film image and the narrative content, which cannot but be said that Hitchcock abandons the drawbacks of the lengthy documentary sexual explanation at the same time, but also strengthens the misleading of the audience in the authenticity of the long shot, thereby enhancing the confusing demagogic effect of the film suspense.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, Hitchcock's more innovative innovation in "Sea of Desire" is to illustrate that the images seen by the audience are untrustworthy. </h1>
The opening part of "Sea of Desire" is a scene of Jonathan, who has escaped from the road, and his fan sister Eve driving all the way.
Eve had no idea what had happened to Jonathan, but she obviously had unconditional trust in Jonathan, so, in the car, Jonathan intermittently told her about a bizarre case he had just experienced.
Under Hitchcock's lens, this memory scene is presented in real images, and in the end, this passage from Jonathan's dictation is precisely false, and Jonathan made up to cover up the truth of his killing.
Hitchcock satirizes the reality presented in the film lens here, which is not necessarily real, and in the context of the time, Hitchcock's picture of the lie as a real picture was unanimously condemned by the critics.
In fact, Hitchcock's technique of faithfully restoring lies in "The Sea of Desire" has become a widely used filming method in future films.
For example, in the 1978 edition of The Nile Massacre, we see that when Inspector Polo analyzes the case, the corresponding picture appears that is consistent with the oral description, which is actually a conjecture, thus presenting the virtual situation with real images.
Stills from "A Beautiful Mind"
This method of truly reproducing virtual filmography, we can also feel in the Oscar-winning film "Beautiful Mind", the protagonist in the film has a mental obstacle, often appears out of nothing illusion, this is a kind of non-existent image, but the film transforms this illusion in the individual brain into a physical existence on the film, which brings serious misleading to the audience, but after understanding the film's intention to fake the truth, it feels that this is exactly the magic of the movie. Because the film transforms the inner feelings of a mentally ill person into the existence of images, so that the hidden spiritual feelings of the characters can reach the psychology of the audience.
Retrospectively, "Sea Of Desire" can be seen that this technique was not easily accepted in the early stages of application, however, it explores the image created by the film, which is essentially a virtual existence. If this kind of fiction is not used to intentionally or unintentionally impact the audience's thinking, then it will not be worthy of the film's talent of pretending to be true and false.
In "The Sea of Desires," Jonathan states a fictional fact, but the film provides conclusive images to prove the authenticity of the event, which is a cover-up for a real murderer to commit his crime. The film succeeds in misleading, and it can be seen that Hitchcock has been painstakingly exploring the nature of the film, at least in "Sea of Desire", we can see Hitchcock constantly proving, "What you see is not necessarily real". He uses his long-lens technique, but instead creates a kind of goal of "making you believe that what you see is real", because the long lens brings people a kind of real visual identification, and now, Hitchcock uses two irreconcilable techniques to create a contrast between true and false in "Sea of Desire", reflecting that in this film with mediocre qualifications, Hitchcock once again enriched his extension and expansion of film functions.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, the plot core of "Sea of Desire", around the blood on a skirt reveals the truth of a case. </h1>
In the fictional truth of the case opened by the murderer Jonathan at the beginning of the film, he provides a statement in his favor. It is a fact that the husband of the female star was killed, and in the recollection of jonathan, a real killer participant, his narrative is taken from the perspective of his own favor. The key node of his self-lies is that he has an affair with the female star, and the female star killed her husband, came to his residence, wore a blood-stained skirt, in order to please the female star, he returned to the female star's home again, faked the scene, and especially crucially, he brought back a new dress for the female star, and replaced the old blood-stained dress worn by the female star.
In Jonathan's narrative, it is the female star who kills her husband, and he is helping the female star wash the snow, and he is innocent.
Eve, a fan who trusts him, believes in his so-called truth and helps him on the road to escape, while her father's secluded cottage on the promontory becomes her best place to hide the people involved.
In this way, the whole movie revolves around the blood-stained skirt to solve the mystery of the real murderer of the murder.
Anything that is forged will leave a flaw that wants to be covered. Jonathan wears a blood-stained skirt and is spotted by Eve's father because the blood on this skirt is newly stained, not the original.
In this way, it can be inferred that Jonathan lied, and this is the case, because from the facts that Jonathan dictated at the end, he killed the husband of the female star, and the female star's skirt was only stained with a small amount of blood, and Jonathan deliberately stained the skirt with blood in order to prove that it was the female star.
And what Eve did next was to find out the truth, whether it was the female star alone, or Jonathan had the original sin. To this end, the movie abandons the clues of the detective to solve the case, and directly allows Eve to jump to the forefront of cracking the truth, transforming into a maid, coming to the home of the female star, and investigating the truth step by step.
In these parts, the film deviates from the theme of solving the case of the movie and wastes it in an insignificant plot, which is why the internal plot line of the whole movie is not tightly wound. The plot of the branches highlights the incompetence of the detective, while the film shows Eve quickly getting into a hot fight with the detectives she meets out of the inside story, which makes the theme of the film deviate again, and is spent in the sleepy plot of the garden party that exists in the way of the branches.
And the film's real unraveling of the truth of the case is accomplished through the omnipotent but skillful listening to the roots of the wall.
In the film, there is nothing to find Jonathan to find the female star to try to get an explanation, and at this time the female star has turned her face and does not recognize anyone, just let Jonathan continue to be their scapegoat for the murder, fleeing alone, carrying the pot of murder, and all of this is heard by Eve at the door, thus knowing the truth about Jonathan and the female star murdering people.
The next plot can be said to be another replay of listening to Bigen, and this time Listening to Bigen, using the standard sound system in the theater, amplifies the secret dialogue between Eve and the female star into the sound of the audience in the entire theater, so that the dialogue in the secret room has become an open secret, and here also constitutes the "stupid thief funny" black humor paragraph in the movie.
It can be seen that the situation set by the film does not pursue authenticity, and Hitchcock creates an absurd situation through the method of deforming reality, such as the female star telling the truth of the murder case without knowing the situation of the microphone hidden in the room, with a playful and funny style that cannot exist in life, using a surreal accidental "listening to the wall root" as the most effective entry point to solve the case.
At the same time, the film's lies to the murder participant Jonathan, but turned into a seemingly authentic image, creating another kind of image of falsehood, it can be said that Under Hitchcock's lens, the reality is false, but the lie is true, which reflects Hitchcock's deep understanding of the nature of counterfeiting behind the film's image function.
If the counterfeiting is successful, then the film is also successful.
The story in "The Sea of Desire" is very simple, when Jonathan's truth is exposed, he also reveals the image of killing Eve, and the movie also quickly ends the strange character relationship in the movie, Eve finally strikes back, breaks out of the prison of his own identity as Jonathan's fan sister, and hands Jonathan, a heinous villain, to the police to deal with, and finally dies, and the film completes its far-fetched plot chain.
Judging from the story progress of "Sea Horror", Hitchcock lacks interest in solving cases from the outside world, so the detective clues in the whole movie have little effect. This detective did not participate in the Sherlock Holmesian logical analysis at all, but allowed the case to die on its own, doing nothing, and he also fell into the routine of light beauty in the process of contact with Eve, of course, the film finally showed that Eve was changing course, turning the emotional focus to the detective's side, but it can be seen that in the murder case in the whole movie, the police are a bunch of fools, staying out of the matter, but it is the fan sister of the unrelated criminal who provokes the case solving girder.
This also constitutes the characteristic of Hitchcock's films, that is, the suspense and thriller in his films, focusing on the parties surrounded by this atmosphere, rather than the police and detectives who intervene in the later stages from an external perspective. In his films, what is more prominent is the flow of human nature and human desire in thrilling events, revealing the secret of the human heart.
"Sea Horror" is about a murder case that is not complicated, but Hitchcock gives the film technique more elastic expression methods and uncertain image disposal when presenting them, making the whole film undulating and indistinguishable. Although the logic of the whole film is a little off-track, the ingenious wrist in terms of technique is worth remembering in the history of cinema.