Today, let's talk about a Japanese movie, Silent Film Narrator.
Cinema began with silent films, from the day of the birth of the Lumiere brothers' "Train In" in 1895 to the release of the first sound film, Jazz Singer, in 1923, and in the decades in between, "the film itself has no sound" was almost a consensus, and the vast majority of audiences were accustomed to it.
Even after the birth of sound movies, there are still many people who think that "sound ruins movies". For example, the comedy master Chaplin once said that he did not like sound movies, and even continued to make several silent films after the birth of sound movies.
Of course, Chaplin also made an audio film later, the first one is "The Great Dictator", the master is worthy of the master, not to sound is already, a blockbuster, a sound will be amazing.
Here is a classic film "Song in the Rain", which tells how the actor director of the silent film era transitioned to the sound era.
Pull it away, back to the silent film.
The silent film itself has no sound, but the movie that the audience saw at that time was not quiet, and the theater would perform live soundtracks according to the plot, and there would be special personnel to explain.
In the era of silent films, the profession of film narrator existed in various countries, but it was basically a flash in the pan. Only in Japan, people carry forward the position of commentator, and excellent commentators can even become national stars.
In Japan, silent film narrators are known as "bian shi", and their main job is to cooperate with picture commentary films, which is somewhat similar to China's "Layang films".
Benshi narrates the background of the story, voices the characters, and depicts the storyline. A good Benshi can even make the audience not look at the picture, but only listen to the commentary.
It's basically about matching the storyteller stand-up comedy with the feeling of picture. CCTV once had a column called "Happy Station", which had several short films for Mr. Liu Baorui's stand-up comedy with animation, which was almost the meaning.
It's just that "Happy Station" is to match the sound picture, and Ben Shi is to match the sound to the picture.
In the silent film era, Benshi was in japan, and there were signs of a hustle and bustle. Many viewers bought tickets for Benshi, saying that they were going to see movies, but it was more like chasing stars to listen to commentary.
The heyday of Benshi can even influence film creation in turn, and some well-known Benshi can make requests to the director to shoot some pictures that are conducive to their own interpretation. Of course, this phenomenon is contrary to the development of film art, and it can also be regarded as a special phenomenon in the era of Japanese silent films.
With the advent of the era of sound films, although the Benshi have made a lot of struggles to keep their jobs, they can't resist the trend of the times in the end, and slowly, the profession of silent film narrator has gradually disappeared into the long river of history.
The 2019 Japanese film "Silent Film Narrator" tells the story of Benshi.
The beginning of the film adopts the form of silent film, and the black-and-white picture is matched with the sound of the projector, which perfectly restores the silent film of the past.
Japan, 1915.
A young boy named Shuntaro and his friends go to watch the silent film shooting scene and inadvertently break into the camera with a little girl they don't know.
Probably because film is too expensive, the two children who broke into the camera did not let the director stop and start again, and the shooting continued.
After some time, the movie was released. At the entrance of the theater, Shuntaro met the little girl again, both of them wanted to see the movie but could not afford to buy a ticket, and the little girl sneaked into the theater with Shuntaro.
Under the narrator Yamaoka Qiusheng's emotional explanation, the two found that the scene where they mistakenly entered the camera turned into a reasonable plot, and rounding up can also be regarded as a movie actor.
Since then, Shuntaro and the little girl have made friends.
The little girl's name is Plum, and her dream is to become a movie actor. But at that time, the film actors were all men, and the female characters were also men's reverse strings (a bit like the early two-person rotation), and Meizi always felt that her wishes were unrealistic.
Shuntaro's dream is to become a movie narrator, and his idol is Akio Yamaoka, who the two of them have just seen together.
Ten years later, Shuntaro really began to explain the movie, but Shuntaro was not a real narrator, but played for the tiger in a criminal gang.
Shuntaro pretended to be a well-known narrator to explain the movie, and his accomplices took the opportunity to steal the theater property.
This kind of life is not what Shuntaro wants, he is still bent on becoming a real narrator, and finally one day, he escapes from the gang and comes to work in a theater.
Coincidentally, Shuntaro's childhood idol, Akio Yamaoka, also works in this small theater, but he is no longer beautiful, drinks all day, and has become an alcoholic narrator.
The theater owner did not believe that Shuntaro could explain, but only arranged for him to do miscellaneous work.
By chance, the audience all entered, but Shangang Qiusheng could not get up, and the other two commentators said that they were not willing to replace the class.
At this time, Shuntaro volunteered to stand up and got his first chance to explain.
Shuntaro, who has idolized Yamaoka Akio since childhood, cleverly imitated Yamaoka's commentary, and the performance was a great success. Since then, Shuntaro has officially obtained the opportunity to explain, and slowly stopped imitating, stepped out of his own style, and gradually began to become famous.
One day, Shuntaro looked at the actress on the screen and suddenly felt that this face seemed to be familiar...
The plot says so much, in fact, these are just the beginning, there are a large section of the main line plot behind, here will not be repeated one by one, recommended friends who have not seen it to see it in person.
"Silent Film Narrator" is about silent film, and the film itself also adopts a lot of silent film expression methods, in addition to directly starting with the silent film style. Many of the plots and laughs in the film are also set up with a silent film flavor.
One of the characteristics of silent films is that the body language is rich, the action is generally exaggerated, because there is no sound, so it is necessary to rely on the picture to attract the audience.
There is a plot in the movie where two people push each other's drawers across the wall, you push me a heel, I hit you on the head, and finally play a tug-of-war, full of laughter.
The film also fully demonstrates the influence of Japanese Benta on the effect of the film, such as Shuntaro's chaotic wearing of gang shots that become a reasonable burden under Benji's explanation. Later, Shuntaro even cut together a number of unrelated fragments, and with a single mouth, he told these scattered fragments into a complete story.
In short, if you are interested in silent films and Japanese benefactors, you may wish to go to this "Silent Film Narrator" to understand this special history of Japan. If you're not interested in history, you can also look at Silent Film Narrator as a pure comedy, which won't disappoint.