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Although art is different in its forms of expression, its methods of expression have similarities. Film is a form of artistic expression that uses the lens as a language, gradually evolving from vision to audio-visual, while literature is a form of expression that uses words as a medium and is supplemented by the visual processing of the brain. The film uses the lens picture to form its own language symbol, which has its absolute originality and novelty.
Mardan believes that cinema "is a language and a being", and this "being" refers to the attraction and soul of the film.
The lens language of the film is not simply pieced together using skills, but a deliberate operation to convey the "soul" of the film.
"For a thousand readers, there are a thousand Hamlets", and different people understand the minutiae of the language of the film lens like literary language.
Then, the same film will also have different interpretations depending on the understanding of different audiences. Lens language includes the use and adjustment of composition, scenery, angle and movement mode. The lens language, like montage, not only conveys the content of the film, but also forms the unique rhythm and style of the film, and reflects the artistic pursuit and aesthetic ideals of the filmmaker.
Using lens language to create and interpret literary works is a different perspective. Because Zhang Ailing is well versed in film techniques, she can often taste the charm of film language from her fiction works.
Section 1 Farewell
Scenes in a film "are determined by the distance between the camera and the subject, and it also depends on the focal length of the optical lens used", which can be divided into long, panorama, medium, close-up and close-up. The use of scenery can achieve the advantage of "taking its god from near and taking its momentum from afar". The picture represented by the long-range lens is the largest field of view, and is often used to express natural landscapes such as rolling mountains, vast plains, vast oceans, and large scenes such as wars and gatherings.
The panoramic lens highlights the full picture of the subject and scene, so that the viewer has a complete view of the picture. Compared to the long-range lens, the emphasis on the external environment and the contour of the space.
The medium shot focuses on internal performances such as specific actions and plots, mainly intercepting the parts above the knees of the human body and parts of larger objects as the main display content, and taking the body movements and gesture language of the characters as the key prominent objects, which is conducive to expressing the rich definition of various gestures of the characters and explaining the characteristics of various relationships in the film story.
Close-up shows a precise local detail of the head or object above the shoulder of the character, "Close-up is a unique means of expression for portraying characters and describing details in film, and it is one of the factors that distinguishes film art from theater art." "The close-up fills the entire frame with parts of the subject, creating a strong impact that stands out and emphasises.
1. Long-range lens
The use of long-range shots in the opening and ending makes the text narrative have a good sense of entry and exit. The opening shot of "The Legend of the Golden Lock" is transformed from a blurry copper coin-sized wet halo into a large, round, and white moon shot, in this long-range shot, the moon changes in the eyes of the young and the old, bringing the tone of time and story into the story of thirty years ago in the eyes of the elderly.
The story ends with a vista shot of the moon gradually sinking. The reader also slowly ends the story of thirty years ago from this long-term shot, gradually retreats from the novel to reality, and re-examines the life of Qiqiao from the perspective outside the story. The opening and ending of "Love in the City" also use a long-range shot, with the sound of babbling huqin when the lights of ten thousand homes are first lit, the camera traces the source of the sound and unfolds the story of the White Mansion, and ends the story of the tassel in the same way.
The novel begins and ends with the same long-range lens, giving the reader plenty of time to enter the story, and the ending fades in this delicate form, leaving the reader with unlimited imagination. The long-range lens can also depict a vast and magnificent narrative background, and process the characters into small images relative to the large range in the lens, and the subjective initiative of the characters is gradually reduced while the sense of powerlessness is gradually enhanced.
In "Jasmine Film", Chuanqing walks around the campus to kill the carnival night of Christmas, the wind blows away the clouds in the sky, the mountains and forests are like the angry cry of a dog, the sea emits a bleak "dog cry", Chuanqing walks alone in this empty and sad space, the magnificence of the sky and the mountains and the sea dwarfs Chuanqing, highlighting the sadness that he cannot control his own destiny.
At the end of "How Much Hate", Zong Yu pushed open the window and looked into the distance, "There are many houses and ridges outside the window. Through the gray, buzzing, stupid sea of people, as if there was a ship crying at the end of the world, a bleak sound or two. The novel ends the story of Zong Yu and Jiayin with a long-range shot describing the reality of many houses and a sea of people and an imaginary shot of a ship floating on the sea, surrounded by people outside the window, but has nothing to do with Zong Yu, and the Jiayin that Zong Yu misses is going farther and farther in a ship on the farther sea.
Unable to change the status quo, Jiayin chose to leave, Jiayin's quiet departure, Zong Yu's search for Jiayin did not meet, the combination of the two long-range shots not only leaves the reader with unlimited space for thinking, but also alludes to the powerlessness of the protagonist who cannot dominate: the loss and helplessness of Zong Yu and Jiayin ripple with a bleak voice.
2. Panoramic lens
In terms of showing rich ideographic effect characteristics, panoramic shots and close-ups are the best. In "Scattered Drama", Nangong Wu is on the way home, when the rickshaw pulls all the way, the boundless sky is like a bottomless deep ditch, forming a boundary between yin and yang with the long street, and the rickshaw constantly walks in the direction of the boundary.
In this panoramic shot, the rickshaw in which Nangong Wu is riding keeps walking away from the fixed lens, occupying smaller and smaller areas in the picture, "making people feel that the characters are engulfed by the world, become the prey of things, and people are 'objectified'." Nangong Wu's loneliness also came into being. After Yanagihara left, Tassel walked alone in the empty new house, turning on one lamp after another to fill the empty space, this set of panoramic shots, using the blank room as a comparison to express the loneliness and emptiness of the tassel.
In "Lust and Caution", after Mr. Yi escaped, Wang Jiazhi walked on the road alone in a trance, the panoramic lens depicted the bustle on the road, pedestrians and vehicles on the road were as lively as usual, calmly doing their own things, without the slightest panic and tension of a shooting case, Wang Jiazhi walked without waves in this section like the reaction of pedestrians on the road, but his heart was flustered.
The panoramic shot places Wang Jiazhi in pedestrians, which is more reminiscent of Wang Jiazhi's tension and anxiety in the previous article, thus highlighting her inner panic and anxiety. The composition settings of these three shots are different, Nangong Wu and the tassel's lonely mood is contrasted with the white space of the lens picture, and Wang Jiazhi's mood is contrasted from the calm on the surface and the inner panic, but they all form the overall layout of the characters and scenes through the panoramic lens, so as to express the rich narrative effect through the distinction of different elements between the pictures.
3. Close-ups
Close-ups are particularly suitable for showing changes in the emotional mood and psychological state of the characters, which can be expressed not only through close-ups of the entire face or a certain part of the face, but also through close-ups of other body movements.
Zhang Ailing is good at using close-ups to show the psychological change process of novel characters. Qiqiao just came out of the old lady's room and saw only Ji Ze and Lan Xian peeling walnuts, Qiqiao "said and smiled in his mouth", but his hands were "holding and pinching, pounding" Lan Xian, four specific verbs show Qiqiao's hatred and vinegar for Lan Xian, and his unwillingness to love Ji Ze. After angry with Lan Xian, Qiqiao raised his cheeks, raised his eyebrows, and continued to tease Ji Ze smugly.
When talking about her husband, Qiqiao stands upright, holding the table with his hands down, his eyelids drooping, the lower part of his face trembling, and his hands on Ji Ze's legs, this series of close-ups highlights the psychological change process of Qiqiao: the pride of Lan Xian, the joy of talking with Ji Ze and the two, turned into anger at her husband's incompetence, and then revealed the desire for healthy flesh.
"The depiction of 'things' in close-ups is a means for film and television works to impersonate people with objects and write about people through objects." The little blue teeth in "Agarwood Crumbs - Second Incense" not only use repeated montages, but also make four close-ups.
Close-up 1: Li Sheng shows her little blue teeth that are white and blue in the light, and Roger feels terrified; Close-up 2: Showing small blue teeth with a smile, Roger thinks it is very beautiful; Close-up three: The scary little blue teeth that flashed in Roger's mind; Close-up 4: The little blue teeth of the gas fire are like man-eating fangs. The close-up of Little Blue Teeth is horrifying, and the deaths of Roger and Li Li Sheng's husband were caused by Little Blue Teeth.
The close-up of the sour plum soup dripping down the table drop by drop in "The Legend of the Golden Lock" not only prolongs the time after Ji Ze leaves, but also writes about the loneliness and pain that Qiqiao has suffered over the years. Zhang Ailing also uses close-ups of the changes in objects to complete the novel's transitions. "The green bamboo curtain reflected in the mirror and a golden and green landscape screen are still rippling back and forth in the wind, and after looking at it for a long time, there is a feeling of seasickness.
When she looked at it again, the bamboo curtain had faded, and the golden and green landscape had been replaced by a portrait of her husband. This description as the dividing line between life ten years ago and ten years later has always been praised, and Zhang Ailing did not clearly state "ten years later,......" as in the usual small explanation.
It is not divided into the first and second half of the novel from the two parts before and after, but through the close-up of the scene reflected in the same place and mirror ten years ago and ten years later as a relying point, the two are cleverly connected to complete the transition of the storyline.
The types of various scenes are not only a single presentation, but more through the combination of multiple scenes to narrate, comprehensive and flexible use of different scenes can make the narrative rhythm and expression of the picture richer.
In "The Legend of the Golden Lock", the camera pulls back from the middle scene of Yun Ze walking out of the balcony to tease the hibiscus bird, and uses a panoramic shot to photograph the Jiang family's bungalow, and then highlights the arch with a medium shot, and the close-up shot depicts the wooden floor of the balcony and the items on the floor.
The camera turns again, and the panoramic lens shows the lively scene of vendors selling rattles and chartered buses passing by on the streets around the bungalows. In the depiction of the aunt's white house in "Agarwood Crumbs: The First Furnace of Incense", the white house with a streamlined and geometric structure on the mountainside (panorama), the roof is covered with antique blue glazed tiles (close-up), the green glass window is inlaid with a narrow red border, the window is installed with a carved iron fence of chicken fat yellow (close-up), the corridor surrounds the house (panorama), the red brick on the ground (close-up), and the white stone columns two or three feet high stand on the ground (middle view).
Section 2 Angles
Angle refers to the angle formed between the lens and the subject, which is the expression of the director's attitude, which determines how we look at the scene or character in the lens, and can create a rich picture with dramatic tension through the use of different lens angles to attract the audience's attention. Generally, the shooting angle can generally be divided into overhead lens, overhead lens, oblique lens, and head-up lens.
The overhead lens is to lower the camera below the subject's eye level to form a low-angle shooting, so that the subject is exaggerated and enlarged, and the sense of superiority and victory of the character is enhanced. The overhead camera is above the subject and often zooms out and exposes the entire frame to the lens. The overhead angle can create an atmosphere of embarrassment, despair, isolation and so on, the larger the angle, the stronger the atmosphere, the more oppressive and controlled the character.
Head-up lenses are common in movies and belong to the conventional shooting angle, the lens tends to be relative to the subject, while oblique shots are relatively rare, and the subject tends to be off-center of the picture.
1. Top shot
"Overhead shots reduce the importance of the subject. When the picture is shot from a height, the characters no longer stand out and lose their meaning. This angle is effective for expressing the character's inferiority complex. ”
In "The Tale of the Golden Lock", Tong Shifang, after learning that the Chinese lady he missed had an opium addiction, left Jiang's house in a hurry in shock, and Chang'an followed the farewell scene using a top-down shot: "Looking down from a tall building, clear and kind, but unable to interfere, the patio, the tree, the two people swaying the shadow of depression, no words."
The picture in the panoramic shot is silent and clear with the sunlight, but the overhead shot suppresses the image of Chang'an, Chang'an who looks down from the tall building is pitiful and inferior, did not speak, and she also understood that this beautiful love has ended.
In front of his father, Chuanqing "lowered his head and almost hung to the ground." The body is leaning forward", this is observed from the subjective perspective of the father, the entire form of Chuanqing forms a top-down lens in the father's eyes, and Chuanqing's unfreedom and depression are expressed in this small space.
Chang'an's insignificance is caused by the lack of his own conditions when falling in love with Tong Shifang, while Chuanqing's inferiority is opposed to his father's arrogance, and the overhead shots make them "an object in a fixed number theory that is difficult to get rid of, a plaything of fate." ”
The depressed inferiority created by the overhead shot can be expressed not only in the character, but also through the top-down view of the scene. Eileen Zhang uses overhead shots to show the entire picture in front of the reader