How to enjoy music stage movies? We must not only look at the content of the story, but also appreciate it from multiple angles such as visual and auditory. @姒莞萱
The film "Ballet of Two People" is a feature film adapted and directed by the famous director Chen Li based on the true story of screenwriter Su Runjuan and based on his mother. The protagonist mother and daughter are played by Ni Ping and Li Lu, which is also another sequel to Ni Ping's portrayal of a simple rural woman after 2002's "Beautiful Bigfoot".
The film shines with its touching story, the wonderful performances of the actors and the simple and moving pictures. He won the Best Art and Best Cinematography Award at the 13th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards, and won the Best Screenplay Award and the Outstanding Feature Film Nomination at the 11th China Radio and Television Awards Huabiao Awards.
The story takes place in a small southern town with Huipai architecture and quaint folk customs, which has had the custom of men going out since ancient times.
A man named Degui married a kind, hard-working, optimistic and open-minded daughter-in-law when he was working in the north, known as "Degui's family". However, she did not have children for sixteen years after marriage, and under the persuasion of her friend Jin Mei, she adopted a girl named "Xian Xian". The Degui family, like the local daughters-in-law, put a large vat in their own hall and filled it with clean water to pray for the safe return of their husbands who were migrant workers, but unfortunately it was the husband's relics that waited for him to return.
After the grief, the Degui family smashed the vat to ensure peace, and one person picked up the beam of the family. She quit her job in a comfortable canteen, and while making money by pasting paper boxes and binding books, when the street leader swept the streets, collected utilities and sanitation bills, she painstakingly raised her daughter Xian Xian and trained her to become a good ballet dancer. In the face of all the difficulties of life, the mother and daughter are dependent on each other, strong and unyielding, exploring the true meaning of life with an optimistic spirit, and dancing out of the love and pursuit of life in the difficult years.
In a way that approximates life, the film takes the audience into a world that is not far away, leaving the audience with joy or sorrow, or ease or heaviness. If you only interpret this from the perspective of the story content, which has a very strong musical and stage background, I think it is difficult to understand the true meaning of this work.
Therefore, this article will give you an in-depth interpretation from the three angles of "narrative mode, visual symbolism, and use of sound and painting", and take everyone to experience and feel this touching music stage film.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, natural narrative: the narrator hides behind the events, hides his emotions and style, and the natural flow of true feelings makes the film more infectious</h1>
The film starts from the granddaughter's holiday to visit her grandmother, a long alley stands an old man wearing a red qipao, a young footstep that is constantly approaching, followed by a narration of the granddaughter: "Every winter and summer vacation, the road to go is grandma's house, and grandma's beauty is not the red qipao worn on her, nor her song, where is the beauty?" Starting from such a question, the suspense is set up, the prelude to the story is opened, and the story and the true feelings flow naturally:
(1) Using the one-line narrative technique of flashbacks, taking the granddaughter as the point of view, the story unfolds in a voice-over manner
The film starts from the granddaughter's holiday to visit her grandmother, a long alley stands an old man wearing a red qipao, a young footstep that is constantly approaching, followed by a narration of the granddaughter: "Every winter and summer vacation, the road to go is grandma's house, and grandma's beauty is not the red qipao worn on her, nor her song, where is the beauty?" "Starting from such a question, the suspense is set and the prelude to the story is opened.
At the end of the film, in the empty and quiet grand theater, Xian Xian quietly put the spotlight on grandma's body, and grandma danced the part where she learned from "The Red Detachment of Women", which is also the daughter Xian Xian's several ballet moves from childhood to adulthood. Compared with professional dancers, Grandma danced very badly, but in the heart of the fairy, grandma is the most beautiful fairy, just like in grandma's heart, the daughter fairy is also the best dancing fairy. Giving up the protagonist and giving up the opportunity to go to Beijing for development, Xian Xian still shines on the stage as a supporting role in the days to come, because "my mother said that the farther away she jumped from her grandmother's heart, the closer she was, because she was accompanying her grandmother's heartbeat."
According to the Dictionary of Film Art, the voiceover is interpreted as:
Sound comes from outside the picture, can be a human voice, can be music, sound, including narration, voice, commentary and other categories.
Ballet for Two uses a total of eight voiceovers, opening with the granddaughter's narration, ending the story with the granddaughter's narration, and adding narration in the middle to promote the story.
In my opinion, these narrations are not to communicate with the characters in the film, but only to communicate with the audience, even if the audience does not see the picture, they can understand the ins and outs of the story, and they can also enter the inner world of the characters.
(2) Use the way of character dialogue to supplement the content of the story through language and promote the development of the storyline step by step
In the character language of the film, it can be divided into two categories, one is voice-over, and the other is the character dialogue. Dialogue, also known as dialogue, refers to the language in which characters communicate with each other in film and television works.
After the leader of the street group of the Degui family gets up early to sweep the street and sees the situation that everyone "sweeps the snow in front of the door", perhaps you will think that it is not easy for everyone to understand their orphans and widows, in fact, everyone hates the death of the man, ominous and obscure, afraid that she comes from the door of the house, stepping on the threshold of her own home, which is a silent resistance and resistance to the grandmother as the leader of the street group. The contradiction between Grandma and the villagers was only learned from the dialogue between Grandma Meng and Grandma.
After Xian Xian was bullied by other classmates and laughed at her grandmother's stomach for having a stone and not being able to give birth to a child, she cried and asked her grandmother the truth. Grandma first asked Xian Xian to touch whether there was a stone in her stomach to break the rumors, and also told Xian Xian that she was indeed a child she had adopted. Then the immortals rushed out and shouted at the villagers over and over again throughout the streets:
"There is no stone in my mother's stomach, I am held by my mother, and my mother and I are not afraid of you saying, I will go, I can run, I will dance, you all come out to see." 」
This dialogue has a strong impact and appeal, indicating that the biggest psychological barrier between Grandma and Xian Xian has been resolved, and the image of mother and daughter has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the audience.
Before a grand performance, Xian Xian invited Grandma to watch it and told her to dance the lead role in order to win the opportunity to study in Beijing. In fact, Xian Xian is in the position of supporting roles throughout the whole process, why is this so? The truth of the matter was revealed through a conversation between Xian Xian and Teacher Zhou. It turned out that Xian Xian already knew that Grandma was not in good health, and she did not want to leave, and wanted to take care of her and accompany her more. Fate finds the weakness of mother and daughter in the most cunning way, but the sincere feelings of mother and daughter give them the courage to resist fate.
Film is both a visual and auditory art, and the dialogue of the characters has the role of suggesting themes, expressing conflicts, and promoting the development of the plot. By integrating into the dialogue of Grandma Meng, Jin Mei, Teacher Zhou, Street Director and other characters in the film, the story is narrated layer by layer, as if opening a mysterious labyrinth for the audience, explaining the storyline clearly from the surface and inside, so that the audience can naturally understand the cause and effect of the story from the dialogue.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, implicit visual symbolism: through the comparison of cold and warm tones, light and dark light, shooting techniques, etc., to reveal the fate of the characters and the theme of the story, implicit but not blunt</h1>
As a kind of comprehensive art, film has consciously absorbed the means of expression of "contrast" as early as its infancy, and portrays two opposing or completely different people or things together in order to produce a distinct and prominent artistic effect. In the film Ballet of Two People, the director uses three strong contrasts to help reveal the main theme of the story.
(1) The contrast of cold and warm tones highlights the distinctive personality of the characters
The gray walls of the deep alleys and the grandmother standing in them in a red flag robe;
The back of the table was overturned, the bright red Mandarin duck playing with paper cuts and worn furniture that remained;
On the day of the dance audition, the white snow under the patio and the fairy dancing in red;
The practice rope made of various rags, the only one red cloth and the other blue-gray cloth strips.
As an important ideographic element of the film, color is reflected in all aspects of the film picture. Color is thought, color is emotion, the film uses red as a warm tone and white, gray, blue, black and other cool tones to form a sharp contrast, highlighting the positive character image of mother and daughter, optimistic and open-minded attitude to life, bittersweet intertwined life years.
(2) The contrast of light and dark light indicates the turn and change of character emotions
The local custom is to place a water tank in the hall house, filled with water to wish the peace of the people outside the family, the brighter the water in the water tank, the more peaceful, so before the news of Degui's death came, Grandma diligently cleaned the water tank and changed the water every day, but the sky did not follow people's wishes, or did not wait for the return.
After the news of Degui's death came, the water tank placed in the hall house was dark and bottomless, but the eaves of the tank were polished by the sun. After Xian Xian went to the provincial city and the big city to learn dance, a new water tank appeared in the hall house. The bright sunshine tank shines through the patio into the water, which is bright and exceptionally clear.
It can be said that the two water tanks in the film are the turning points in the emotional changes of the characters. The chiaroscuro contrast between the first water and the eaves of the tank shows that after Grandpa's death, the home without the top beam and pillar became dull and deserted, and a pool of stagnant water was desperate, so Grandma smashed the water tank with a hammer.
The chiaroscuro contrast between the water of the first water tank and the water of the second water tank shows the change of Grandma's life from disappointment to hope on the one hand, and on the other hand, it pins on Grandma's longing and blessing for the immortals who are studying outside.
(3) The contrast between near and far and small highlights the tallness of the character image
Near and far is the basic law of sketch perspective. When we observe objects in different directions and distances in a fixed position (that is, viewpoint), we see that objects of the same size show the phenomenon of large objects in the near and small objects in the distance.
In "Ballet of Two People", director Chen Li used the shooting method of near and far away many times, especially the picture of Grandma sweeping the street.
Shooting from one end of the alley, in the near distance is the grandmother who is carrying a child and meticulously bending down to clean, and in the distance is the half of the body of each family quietly sticking out of its head, one by one smaller figures, and a piece of paper becomes a smaller face. In the dark alley, everything was so desolate, only the red cloth belt on Grandma's body and the street lamp that had not been extinguished in the early morning, revealing a faint trace of vitality.
Through this kind of near and far small shooting method, with the help of the deep and dark and endless characteristics of the alley, the photographer not only highlights the tall image of the grandmother's industriousness and indomitability, but also vividly shows the indifference and ruthlessness of the neighbors to the grandmother.
In my opinion, in the face of the pressure and difficulties of life, in the face of the indifference and rejection of the neighbors, Grandma has never been defeated, one person supports a home, and uses a strong back to support a blue sky of love for her daughter Xian Xian.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, clever use of sound and painting: the sound and picture are appropriately combined to set off the atmosphere and deepen the connotation of the theme</h1>
Film and television art is the art of both audio-visual and sound-painting combination, sound and picture are the left and right arms of the film, the two have their independence, but more often they complement each other. The film is also just right in terms of sound use and picture combination.
Group 1: Shortly after the beginning of the film, the director uses high-speed cameras to show grandma carrying water, washing her hair, and wearing a red qipao waiting for her husband Degui, who is a migrant worker, to return, at this time, there is only the sound of pouring water. After Grandma learned the news that her husband had fallen to her death outside, she suddenly cut to the water tank in the hall, and the director used a pan to show the scene of Grandma smashing the cylinder, and the sound at this time was very complicated, there was the sound of the water tank being broken, there was a gasp, and there was a sound of water splashing out.
Combination two: When Grandma danced non-stop in order to make Xian Xian walk and learn to dance ballet, there was no character dialogue, only lyrical music. When he jumped and fell due to overwork, the director first had a close-up of her grandmother's face full of blood, and then quickly switched to a close-up of the toy in xian xian's hand, showing xian xian's panic and worry about seeing this scene, and the xian xian who was strongly stimulated could finally walk. When Xian Xian went to close the door according to her grandmother's instructions, and the mother and daughter were lying on the ground together, the director used the top camera technique to present the picture, and the lyrical music sounded again.
Through these two sets of sound paintings with deep meaning, it is not difficult to see:
In Combination 1, the director uses the technique of high-speed switching of shots to match a variety of sounds together, so that the audience can experience the loss and sadness in grandma's heart;
In the second combination, the top shot and the pleasant music meet, and the sound and painting are both lush, rendering a relaxed and joyful atmosphere, showing the excitement and excitement of the mother and daughter of the car.
In my opinion, the sound and picture in this film really do you have me, I have you, and it is indispensable. The two influence each other, promote each other, and together constitute a complete and sophisticated film. Therefore, the clever use of sound and painting has become an important means to deepen the theme.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > summarize:</h1>
The reason why "Ballet of Two People" has become a classic is because it successfully shapes the characters, successfully tells the connotation of the story, and uses its own unique creative characteristics and techniques to deepen the theme with small and big skills. Xun Zi once said: "Not being all but not pure is not enough for beauty."
Art should not only express life in a rich and comprehensive way, but also take its dross, take its essence, and reflect life more typically and universally. It is in this way that the director has completed the artistic expression, presenting a delicate and magnificent work of art, unique ingenuity, both artistic beauty and touching people's hearts.
Thank you for your attention