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Wen 丨 Robinson's diary
Edit 丨Robinson's diary
Much of the experimentality in Sally's films is embodied in the theme, which is the exploration and confirmation of transgender identities under macro gender identities; Taking women's starting points as its own point of view, she uses women's film methods to reflect on gender.
Experimental, first-level, experiments on people, mainly embodied in "gender transition", are "opposites coexist"; And the "beauty of the human body" of women in the movie is "harmonious and unified".
It is divided into the following points: first, the concept of "intersex" is also "Orlando", which is a gender integration whole;
Secondly, from male to female cross-dressing, gender change, this gender change and swimming, especially in "Anger" Jude Law's women's clothing is very prominent, in the case of gender misplacement, male cross-dressing looks a little weird and funny, on the contrary, women's cross-dressing is more acceptable,
However, the complexity of women allows for a symbiosis of dual temperament, which is the "coexistence of opposites" constituted by the deepening of representation.
"Intersexual" experiment
The coexistence of gender differences in Orlando makes the artistry of the characters more aesthetically valuable.
"Intersexuality" is in a gender perspective, comprehensive, two-sided to look at the existence of "people", from Sally's film can be seen that this is not only different from the male centered female perspective, nor under feminist ideology who is higher than whom,
Who enslaves whom, but looks at human nature objectively and objectively from the different gender identities of the two, and observes the life gap caused by gender differences.
This concept existed as early as Plato's time, but it was first formally introduced into the text by the feminist writer Woolf, "starting from the idea of equality between men and women, to examine the gender differences and the uniqueness of women's existence in a patriarchal society."
It acknowledges the concept of gender fluidity, a possibility of the human body, or identity identity, and a common attribute under difference, "just as in a text, desire is given the materiality of culture, for women,
Transgender identity is a habit that can easily become secondary" in Maurice Merleau-Pommo also proposes that the relationship between the self and the body is a means, a perception, not a pure object and self-relationship.
"However, the transformation is going on. The girl herself does not understand the meaning of transfiguration, but she realizes that something is mutating in her relationship with the world, with her body. ”
Thus, from the flowing sexes, the audience sees the multifaceted and possible existence of human beings, as well as the harmonious beauty of intersex temperament in women.
Taking "Orlando" as an example, when she sees herself in the "mirror", it is a reflection and a perspective, reflecting the body that is different from men as a woman, and the perspective is the female self consciousness.
Not only the subject itself, but the projection of the mirror makes such an illusion reflect connections and human structures beyond the subject,
And "the discovery of the mirror as a metaphor is epochal, using the mirror as a medium to clarify the division, distinction, connection and structure of the self-subject."
Orlando looks at herself through the mirror, the audience does not actually see the female body of Orlando at this time, only a mirror image, at this time the world of Orlando also enters her female self, she dips her hands in the water, her body line hovers on the edge of the frame,
When the hand with water droplets crossed her face, the sunlight through the curtain formed a thin halo of her skin, which often matched the soft female lines, and her expression was not shocked, on the contrary, very indifferent,
In fact, this is a kind of self-identity in disguise, and in this way she also completes the gender transition from a man to a woman, and also completes the gestalt cognition of the self, becoming the true self, that is, the visibility of the self, the integrity of the person, a multiple and single self-collection.
From another perspective, looking at the self through the mirror and analyzing it with the "mirror theory", "This identification process is not the subject's dynamic reflection of the environment, the process of the empty 'subject' being summoned in the process of being configured in the mirror, is the process of the subject being summoned in the form of 'I' in the mirror phantom,"
At this time, Orlando, as a woman in the mirror, has been given a certain idealism by herself.
Therefore, in the mirror we see images of female nudes like "The Birth of Venus" and Ingres' "Spring", delicate texture and lustrous color, symbolizing love and beauty, which is a kind of "deification", and such female figures are both "independent individual images and an aspect of the class"
It is an ideal for the female body, which can be called an "eternal beauty" in terms of aesthetic value, so that women's existence has many aspects of thinking, which is also in line with the director's strong feminist thought.
Technological innovation: film experimentation
The experimentation of cinema is the innovation of cinematic technology, which is more subtle and hidden, and when we pay attention to the form of cinema itself, the content of cinema becomes fresh and playful.
First of all, when shooting, editing, and recording her camera, she often treats her performances and characters with a game mentality or an experimental mentality, and she is happy to make experimental, hypothetical thinking about form, narrative and aesthetics in film.
That is, the use of "special positions". Secondly, she uses the "gaze lens" to make a certain connection between the film and the audience, showing the interaction between the film and the subject, between the director and the actor, and between the viewer and the watched.
In terms of film technology and film methodology, she is completely not bound by tradition, but boldly uses avant-garde film methods to create.
What Sally Porter is best at is listening to the audience, learning from the audience, and being willing to discuss with the audience the impact of film on people in the experimental process, that is, the experimental nature of film technology.
As early as the first short film "Bastard", she used a large number of face close-ups in just two minutes to form rapid changes, such a film experiment thinks: when a huge human face appears on the movie screen, how does the audience react?
In fact, on the screen, no matter what happens, human beings will always dominate the visual field, the human face is always the focus, the human face is a very special part of the body, in many ways it is the gateway to thoughts and emotions, and it is the area where the audience seeks psychological recognition;
The camera enlarges the face, allowing the audience to return to the most primitive relationship between people and our exploration of the unknown of human beings, which is asking questions to the audience through film experiments. In the subsequent creative process, such film experiments reached the extreme.
Color experiments in movie images
Color is an intuitive feeling in film, an aesthetic experience that occurs directly, and it can guide the audience to connect the meaning of the image with the essence of reality.
In the new film "Party" and the feature film "Gold Digger", the whole film uses black and white picture images, through the strong contrast between black and white, bright and dark, reflection and absorption, and the transition of different levels of gray,
Let the audience abandon the interference of color, attention is focused on light and shadow, the picture presentation is more three-dimensional and compositional, and the monotony and neutrality of black and white film in color make people pay more attention to the story itself.
Not like people recognize that black and white films are the concept of works of art, Porter's black and white films are often more interesting, more watchable, and simple than color films.
The interconversion from snowy to dark urban space in "Gold Digger", the color reflection of black and white films, pointing out the missing places and details that need to be investigated and discovered, although life is color, but black and white is more realistic,
Based on this characteristic, black and white films often show more powerful power than color. Especially in the new film "Party", when the audience is no longer attracted by the color of the characters' clothing,
When no longer focusing on the scenery, almost all the attention is on the interesting dialogue and the plot of the tight narrative.
In a form similar to a drama, this film completes the events behind all the characters in one scene, with the usual absurd irony and black humor, bursting out the secrets and lies, truth and reconciliation of 7 people in the same space.
And another black-and-white film has a unique path - "Tango Lesson", the beginning of the film is black and white, and it begins with a white paper on a white table,
In traditional iconography, white screens and pages represent formless, blank, and complete substances; The imagination space is full of bright colors.
In fact, this technique is also a bit like the only girl in a red dress who appears in the black-and-white film "Schindler's List".
What Sally wants to show in "Tango Lesson" is the connection between color and tango, red is a color that often appears in Sally's movies, more like some kind of special symbol,
Red is the color of tango, the color of passion, the color of the model's baroque dress, the color of eye-catching high heels, the desire for life, the desire for desire, such red is a combination of passionate emotion and gorgeous art.
And in "Orlando" brown-red is Orlando's color that distinguishes it from others, all courtiers wear heavy, blonde wigs, and she is not, her magical longevity, her gender change, and the long brown-red hair is the first signal of her gender difference.
And the above gold is another color she loves, gold not only belongs to Egypt, but also a Byzantine style symbol, gold in Sally's film is both the embodiment of the barons showing off their wealth status,
Also symbolizing eternal life, viewers can find angels with gilded wings singing in the movie Orlando, while the precious gold symbolizes a certain divinity because it is pure, seductive, and shining.
In "The Weeping Man", the film cleverly compares Dante's strong tenor voice as a rare "gold" in opera, and Dante's childhood poverty instilled in him such a strange idea:
Money is pure and poverty is morally corrupt, suggesting that his sense of self is based on his earning capacity.
The visual effect of color on the visual is overwhelming, like morphine, making people feel happy and dangerous, and this visual special experience is Porter's experiment and implementation of the color of the film picture.
Because color has a diverse and deep cultural association, and the choice of color is an important factor in the impact of the film on the audience,
It is particularly noteworthy that each person in "Fury" has small color blocks or character colors, including the pink of the lips, the blue of the pupils, the denim of the denim jacket, the stripe color of the tie, and the bright red earring ornament;
The indifference, impatience, humor, absurdity, pity, etc. in the psychological state of the characters have symbolic consciousness, and these colors correspond to the interview curtain behind, combined with the subjective consciousness of each interviewee,
Each oversaturated color represents a character with relative meaning and rational cognition, and the color switch also indicates that the unstable emotions brought by the death event are fluctuating.
The characters reflect on themselves through fear and anger, whereby color participates in the narrative, constituting a new artistic formation.
Through color, Porter's films challenge and question audiences, what is the reality seen with the naked eye? These strong color elements and color laws evoke cultural, aesthetic and historical associations,
Directly colliding with the audience's aesthetic consciousness, the first feeling will be reminiscent of Andy Warhol's pop art,
Such a bold, ironic, playful, flashy color scheme is a rare female director in the film who takes the use of film color to the extreme.