<h4>Editor's note: This is the topic of "Poetry and Shadow". The director of this issue is Abbas Kiarostami from Iran (June 22, 1940 – July 4, 2016). Poetry and image are like intersecting circles growing on two tracks, constantly expanding their own language forms and at the same time having wonderful friction with each other. At their junction, the two mediums permeate each other from different dimensions, reproducing works with each other's temperament but are completely different: a condensed poem or a flowing film; a troubadour holding a camera or a light and shadow catcher who uses words as searchlights. The theme of "Poetry and Shadow" hopes to build a two-way bridge between poetic film (photography) and film (photography) poetry from different aspects, and to interpret the causes of the soil under this obscure zone in different ways: work analysis, interactive discussion, experimental work recommendation, etc., and hopes to promote the emergence of more works. </h4>
Stills from the movie "Gone with the Wind"
Mint
build
Two lines of poetry
and quatrain coins.
whore
From penniless customers
Accept the Psalms.
Just the girls who are getting married
Ask them to send them psalms.
Bank
In consideration
Open a poetry branch
<h5>—Abbas Chiarostami (the following poems are excerpted from Abbas's poetry collection A Wolf At the Whistle).</h5>
The poems of the film master Abbas Kiarosdami were translated and twice compiled into collections and published in Chinese mainland ("Go with the Wind" and "A Wolf Is Whistling"). The artistic and literary practice of the filmmakers gazing at the world with false philosophical thoughts and using poetry to freeze the moments of light and shadow is praised by readers. Growing up in Iran, an ancient country that Goethe called the "poet's state," Abbas's poetry was early. "The novels in my house, one by one, are almost intact. And many of the poems stitches on my bookshelf were scattered; I kept rereading them. In his later creations, Abbas conceived of a poetic intermediary, bartering forms of social interaction. People exchange psalms for wedding blessings, credits, etc. Poetry gradually became integrated into everyday life.
Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)
Researcher Mu Hongyan summarized the two historical transmutations in the form of Iranian poetry: classical poetry has a strict and almost harsh grammar; like the voluminous Book of Kings, the entire text adopts an epic style, without halfway throughout. The poet Nyima's "Afsanne" and "Phoenix" created in the 20s and 30s of the last century broke the rule of classical poetry to the end and announced the birth of new poetry. Each line and sentence in the new poem has its own rhythm, like ripples of different sizes on the surface of the water, hence the name "ripple rhythm". The poet Shamru advocated the complete liberalization of poetic forms above Nyima. He abandons the use of grammar and rhythm, and only relies on the poetry itself to express the depression and frustration of emotion, casting the so-called "rhythm of emotion".
On the one hand, Abbas's works are closely related to the Iranian poetic tradition, and on the other hand, they show his self-consciousness as a director and emphasize visual factors. We might as well go back to his poems to discuss this.
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One: Starting from imagery
</h2>
Stills from the movie Gone with the Wind
wind
Skim the desert and narrow alleys.
Skimmed to the end of a dead end
jasmine.
He abandons the rhythm and rhythm, and relies solely on the natural imagery superimposed in the poem to create a sense of barrenness on the Iranian plateau. Even the embellished jasmine flowers have been swept away by the wild wind; this coincides with the modern poetry's use of poetry itself to express the rhythm of emotion. The almost haiku writing form seems to be influenced by the Eastern Ying culture, but is actually closely related to the "Rubai body" of Persian poetry, that is, the four-line poem format. In the poem, the sense of déja vu (déja vu) of the wind moving through different fields can also be glimpsed in Abbas's other works:
Lantern light.
The long shadow of the water carrier
Cast on branches full of cherry blossoms.
Stills from the movie "The Taste of Cherries"
The "lantern light" is followed by a full stop. The shadow of a person can be projected on the cherry blossom branches, which is inseparable from the above"light". It's like a movie's montage: the camera jumps from a distant light source to a cherry blossom branch that mirrors a human figure. The lens and the lens are given an internal connection because of the two laws of light and shadow; the relationship between the lines of poetry is also the same.
The sense of picture brought about by the poem is not unrelated to Abbas's creative training from imagery: "When I was a child, I would listen to the radio in the dark and visualize what I heard. Later, many images came to my mind, making me uneasy until I did something to get rid of them. The desire to create imagery is fulfilled in sonnets and sonnets; for him, every time words and phrases are combined, they become imagery of the heart.
In addition to appealing to poetry to these haunting images, film is also Abbas's usual method of creating images. Many of his films were originally just collections of images lurking in the unconscious, suddenly surging back. "Wedding Dress" originated from the scene in his mind where the boy watered the geranium. Before filming "Where Is My Friend's Home", Xiao'er ran to a tree at the end of the gravel road, and the road went to the barren hill with the word "Zigzag", which also lingered in Abbas's mind.
Stills from the movie "Where Is My Friend's Home", the word "Zigzag" also appears in "Born and Grows"
Abbas believed that these images were universal. They are easier to translate from one language/context to another without losing their original intent. Viewers can always quickly enter Abbas's world of light and shadow; they often gain a new understanding of the era and space in which they live after watching the film.
The composition of the "zigzag" in the movie "Born and Grows"
Driving and children are two important types of imagery that recur in Abbas's work. The author hopes to use these two images as silver needles in his hand, and in the second and third parts of this article, through the close reading of the text of the film and poetry, weave the more hidden poetic fibers of Abbas's films and touch the texture of their images.
Two: This trail / no end
<h3>If I hadn't been a director, I might have been a truck driver</h3>
I drive two hundred kilometers.
And then
Sit in front of the steering wheel
Slept for twenty minutes,
Another twenty kilometers were driven.
When reading this poem, the first thing that catches the eye are the sensitive numbers. They seem careless: thirty minutes, one hour, or any one nonsense mileage doesn't hurt. But those who will take the mileage are by no means two-point commuters; they are more like aimless wanderers, tired and resting on the steering wheel, waking up and continuing on the road. The divergence of the digital can be attributed to the mystery of the wandering journey; of course, it also brings out the "sense of ritual" of the "twenty minutes of sleep" and "twenty miles" of the driving.
"I enjoyed driving. If I hadn't been a director, maybe I would have become a truck driver. Abbas said at a film workshop. When Pingsu was driving, he often rolled down the window to ask for directions, or invited someone to take a ride. The car field brings a wonderful tension to the encounter between the driver and the passenger: "Fastening the seat belt is like lying on the couch of a psychologist, and my passengers will always tell some secrets that they dare not mention to their wives." ”
Jarmusch's film Night on Earth is a short story that takes place between five drivers and passengers
Abbas also discovered the natural framing function of the windows: the first few minutes were the wheat fields stretching through the countryside; the urban landscape was then lifted and uninvited. The change of sound and light outside the window is like a long push-track lens, bringing a steady stream of creative inspiration to the filmmakers.
Driving is an important image in Abbas's films. In "Born and Grow", the director and his son drive to the Corgyle area after the earthquake to find the young actor who starred in "Where Is My Friend's Home" among the broken bricks. The protagonist Buddy, who wants to live lightly, shuttles through the dusty mountain roads in the film "The Taste of Cherries", asking every passenger who gets on the bus to help bury his body after suicide. Confined to a small village with poor reception, the Tehran engineer in "Gone with the Wind" always drives to the higher cemetery to get a call from outside. The sand left by the off-road vehicles on the mountain roads has become an exotic scenery that distinguishes wheat fields and flocks. "The Rhythm of Ten Lives" continues to take the driving imagery to the extreme. The whole film is mainly shot from the two fixed perspectives of the driver and the passenger, and there are few shots outside the car; the dialogue between the heroine and different passengers is the only narrative form in the film that provides effective information.
<h3>Cars – as a temporary refuge for language</h3>
How to record the character's expression in the cramped space is the first problem that Abbas faced when filming the driving scene. Apparently, he handed in a satisfactory answer sheet. The dialogue between the driver and the passenger mainly uses the front and back shots. The camera switches without hesitation, allowing plenty of time for both parties to think before asking/answering questions/answers. The character's look is recorded by the frontal view of the side, diagonal side and outside the windshield. It is worth mentioning the third type of lens: the skylight often maps the scenery outside the car on the glass, and they are superimposed with the expressions of the characters to form a mottled light and shadow effect.
The night scene of driving is more tense in visual presentation. The characters are shrouded in darkness; oncoming headlights, rear-view mirrors that refract lights, spotlights for centralized illumination at intersections, etc. light up the characters' faces or upper limbs from time to time; and then they tend to darken at the end of the street corner. This is a means of filming that reduces the technique to the invisible: in addition to the performance that takes up the majority of the head, the director still needs to arrange the driving route, preset important light sources, etc. The resulting chiaroscuro effect is a new aspect of our interpretation of the characters in the car.
Two of the ten rhythms of life take place at night. The bus was a prostitute who had been hit by mistake and a friend of the protagonist. The prostitute sat in the back row, and Abbas deliberately avoided the shot on her side. The protagonist driving in the front row is also shrouded in darkness; through the scattered light sources on the side of the road, we intermittently glimpse her from curiosity to solemnity in the process of conversation, and the overall dark picture seems to mean that the identity of the passengers in the car at that time, and the passengers' conversation about sex are "invisible" in the Iranian context.
Another of Abbas's films, "Close-Up," also features a conversation between a man on a bus posing as a well-known director and an old woman sitting next to him
As soon as the protagonist's friend gets into the car, she cries that she has suffered an emotional crisis; the silhouette of her sobbing is also surrounded by darkness. From a comparative binary point of view, the dim space in the car here refers more to the negative side of the character's emotions. This assertion was immediately confirmed by the ring finger wedding ring illuminated by the headlights of the opposite car and the conversation between the two about the seven-year itch.
<h3>Cars are like horses, just more patient</h3>
In addition to "collecting" the words and emotions inside the car, Abbas also turns the camera to the vast space outside the window while driving. Through the subjective perspective of the driver, the viewer meets various characters: old women who stop their farm work to help guide the way, children holding heavy loads and asking for free rides, and young people who set up antennas at the top of the mountain and hope to bring the World Cup finals into the earthquake-stricken areas. Even if the driver does not get off the bus halfway, the audience can still read the customs and customs of the local area from these characters.
Outside the car, there is another category of long-range shots. For example, in the film "Passing with the Wind", as soon as the camera opens, it is the picture of the off-road vehicle patrolling the winding road, supplemented by the voiceover of the characters in the car. It explains the driving environment, leads the viewer into a new space-time body, and plays the role of the so-called establishing shot.
The content of the long-range lens is more abundant than the close-up in the car. In doing so, Abbas often juxtaposes cars with pre-modern Rural landscapes of Iran. The Tehran protagonist in "Gone with the Wind" will drive to the hill where the message is better every time to answer the phone. As a technical medium carrying speed, the speed of the car is more and more dazzling compared to the farmers who cultivate calmly around it and the sheep that are slowly moving forward. The impetuous mood of the driver in the car is also self-evident.
<h3>Fastening your seat belt is like lying on a psychiatrist's couch</h3>
Jumping out of the lens language analysis, we also need to pay attention to the special liminal position of the driving image. It is between public and private, and there are many moving states. Compare some specific (fixed) spatial forms, such as schools, prisons and offices: schools, offices, etc. generally have specific constraints and are easier to copy the original order. Cars are like outliers "rampage" on the moral topographic map; in the flowing journey, it is difficult to define what is right and what is wrong.
Imagine what kind of electric flint would be stirred up by placing Buddy, the protagonist of "The Taste of Cherries", in a mosque in Iran? In fact, Abbas does have a theology student in the film; it's just that he gets into Buddy's car and loses his "home combat advantage" in specific spatial forms (seminaries, mosques, etc.). The theologians' so-called "suicide is a felony in Islam" was quickly refuted by Buddy's view that "unhappiness is also a felony, and when unhappy, it is not intended to hurt relatives and friends, can it also be forgiven by the Quran". Here we see the relative position of ethical discussion in the automotive space.
In addition to the relativity of ethics and morality, the threshold of driving is also reflected in the narrative of the film. The car space is cramped; in it, the character dialogue is the narrative form that provides the main information. Putting flashback and flashforward techniques that serve mainstream film narratives in this space obviously doesn't work. The viewer needs to "jump out" of the carriage and imagine the character's situation before/after getting on and off the train (a subtext that the director has no intention of explicitly stating).
In "Gone with the Wind," a car of engineers from Tehran drives into the small countryside. Viewers are never told the purpose of their trip, or whether the final task will be completed or not. In "The Taste of Cherries", Buddy's short-sighted "antecedent causes" and the "consequences" of suicide at the end are equally unresolved, waiting for the audience to note.
A female audience member told Abbas after a screening that Buddy might be trapped by love; her husband insisted that Buddy's problem was that he could not return the loan. "Although this disagreement reveals more about the couple's life than Buddy's," Abbas quipped; in this we can see the ambiguity of the narrative in the car space. It has a variety of different ways of viewing and encourages the viewer to use their imagination and fill in the gaps.
It seems that:
In the cramped interior space of the car,
There are always some missing people and things.
In the rushing traffic,
There must be something left, not being taught.
Want to talk about the end?
It's too early.
<h2>Third, they have just shaved their heads / bright eyes / clean collars</h2>
A child in the movie "A Taste of Cherries"
<h3>"Children's film director"? </h3>
"Don't work with children or animals." As the famous American actor W.C Fields said, Cover refers to the uncontrollable nature of the two when acting. The fixed long shot of a ram climbing a ewe in a flock in "Gone with the Wind" is more or less a "stroke of genius" outside of the script and rehearsal. In the movie "Who Can Take Me Home", the little protagonist suddenly stared at the camera and shouted: "I don't act!" "Director Jafa Panahi will make a plan, turning to the filming of the girl's experience of walking home alone after the boycott, making the film a classic example of the combination of virtual and real by mistake. In this way, the uncontrollable nature of children and animals is true; as for whether to work with them or not, I am afraid that the benevolent will be the same.
Abbas is a filmmaker who chooses to work with his children. In 1969, he was invited to prepare for the film department for the Iranian Association for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents. Since the following year's short film "Bread and Alleys", those big-eyed Iranian children have become important labels in his works.
Stills from the movie "Bread and Alley"
<h3>Children remind adults that they should continue to marvel at the world around them</h3>
From a larger perspective: the relationship between Iranian films represented by Abbas and children is actually a mutual choice. In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran's political turmoil and the film market were uneven; a group of progressive directors were influenced by Italian neorealism to bring social, realistic stylistic language into Iranian cinema. In order to circumvent the harsh domestic film censorship system, Abbas and others focused their earlier attention on social issues on school-age children, creating in a gentle, metaphorical way.
Unlike the earlier missionary short film for the Youth Development Association, the image of the child has gradually become multifaceted in Abbas's subsequent feature films. This change, I am afraid, will start with "Where is my friend's home". In the film, the boy Amud mistakenly takes the homework book of Muhand at the same table. Fearing that his table mates would be scolded the next day for not completing their homework, Amud worked tirelessly through the mountains in search of Muhand's home. This experience coincides with Abbas's short poem:
Two little boys in the movie "Where Is My Friend's Home"
Ten steps.
A staircase.
No one opened the door.
I got it.
You are not there.
I left.
"Ten steps/one staircase" is repeated three times, and it is clearly stated in the literal sense of "tired" that it is not easy to find people. Amud entered the homes of the other students in the class and the home of Muhand's cousin, but there was no sign of the same table. Hope is disappointed without disappointment; as in the poem "You are not there" naturally undertakes "I leave". The quest is non-stop.
Ladder in the movie Where Is My Friend's Home
In addition to being moved by Amud's sincerity and perseverance, the viewer is also curious: Why does a small homework book have such weight in the child's heart? This inevitably brings to the metaphorical features of Abbas's children's films that are gradually rising. We learn at the beginning that Muhammad had forgotten his homework book three times; the paper on which he had copied his homework was immediately torn up by the teacher. The camera is aimed at Muhammad and the teacher, and from a higher camera position, he "looks down" at the same table, capturing the panic slipping from the bottom of his thick eyelashes.
Muhammad, who began crying because he did not bring his homework book
Secretly observe Muhand's Al-Muhd
Adult authoritarianism is deeply entrenched. This is not only reflected in the number of teacher-student sessions, but also in parent-child sessions. The audience can understand the sense of powerlessness of communication from the mother-child dialogue. Mother misread Amud's request to return the homework book at the same table several times as his intention to hang out. After a sharp refusal, the mother's subjective perspective looks at her son through the gap in the drying sheets in the courtyard, like today's voyeuristic shots; the meaning of surveillance is self-evident.
In the movie "Where Is My Friend's Home", the mother repeatedly ignores the child's request to deliver homework books to the table
The head-on conflict between the child and his father after his late return was deliberately erased. The audience can only imagine the "storm" of the recent "storm" from amud, who is curled up in the corner and slightly crying. The mother was set as a reference object: in the earlier mother-son scene, 90% of the mother's side was a prayer sentence that issued an order: "Bring a diaper for your brother", "Go to your brother's milk powder", "Hurry up and write your homework!" After the father-son conflict, her mouth suddenly turned soft and concerned. It can be seen that the mother's previous command sentences are equally dwarfed by the father's authority.
As for the homework book that runs through the film, the teacher's statement that "writing homework in the homework book can enhance discipline" is quite pun-like. Authoritarian imagery suggests that failure to complete work in the prescribed places is a mistake, and it is easy to think of the dilemma of Iranian directors under censorship. Confined to making a so-called "proposition film" in a small circle: this is obviously fatal to the filmmaker's creation.
<h3>They indirectly teach adults how to limit pessimism</h3>
Although "Where Is My Friend's Home" after "Where Is My Friend's Home" is not a children's film in the full sense, the child's image is still intertwined in the narrative of the whole article with two threads. One is the young actor who plays Amud: his village suffers an earthquake in real life, and "Finding Amud" becomes the purpose of the protagonist's fictional journey. The young actors did not appear from beginning to end, except for the two blurry figures at the end of the film, which hinted at their "absent existence". As Abbas said in an interview with the Film Handbook: "We must not forget that more than 20,000 children died in the Great Iranian Earthquake; my little actor may have been in it." ”
In the film "Born and Grow", Abbas did not use a compassionate angle to shoot the ruins, and people calmly tidy up their homes and greet the director in the car
The absence of the young actor is a cause for concern, and the other child who was present throughout the whole process is often neglected by the commentators. Why would Abbas arrange for a child instead of a staff member to follow the protagonist into the disaster zone? Perhaps the reason is the wonderful tension that children bring. As the car pulls into the earthquake zone, the camera captures the ruins of the surrounding walls and creates an oppressive atmosphere of countless deaths and injuries. The child was in the middle, shouting from time to time to untie his hands and drink Coke, which invisibly diluted the heaviness of the environment.
Someone laughed
In the midst of a group of mourners dressed in black.
I looked.
The funeral in the movie "Gone with the Wind"
<h3>I learned a lot from the kids</h3>
In addition to the child's image, Abbas used more of a child's perspective in his later works. As he puts it: "I have become estranged from the Association (I am referred to as the Iranian Association for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents) and from my own children, but the way children see things still attracts me." This can be glimpsed in his short poems:
Stills from the movie "Where Is My Friend's Home", looking for Amoud at the same table
earthquake
Even destroyed ants
Stored grain.
Most of what adults see is devastation after the earthquake, which is a panoramic lens. The child would crouch down and look at the real damage to the land, more like a close-up. Even the things outside the body of ants can not escape the disaster, let alone people?
A child in the movie "Gone with the Wind"
Abbas gives children the eye to adults. In the film Gone with the Wind, the Tehran engineer finds a shell lang after making a phone call. The little life pushes the dung ball forward, and the protagonist's line of sight follows all the way until it slides into the ravine of the sand. This is similar to the perspective of observing ants in the short poem. In another scene, the protagonist bumps into a slowly crawling tortoise. At that time, he was very nervous, and he did not have the patience to see the shell, so he kicked it over. This foot, as Abbas said, was childish. The joys and sorrows of adults are infinitely magnified from the perspective of children, and the above-mentioned volley foot is the most vivid footnote.
<h3>They are also filmed for adults to see</h3>
There are adults with children's eyes, and there are also children with adult eyes. In "The Rhythm of Ten Lives", the protagonist's seven-year-old son, Amin, shows maturity that does not match his actual age: he calmly states the problem of his own belonging after his parents' divorce. After my father locked up adult TV shows, Amin calmly explained to his mother: "Those shows are very pornographic and not suitable for me to watch." This is obviously the father's own prevarication of his son's reply when watching the adult channel. Amin's view of his own belonging may also have been heard from his parents when they quarreled over custody.
Abbas used this to express his concerns about the children of Iran in the present era. As mentioned above, the child is not clearly distinguished from the family environment and social background in which he or she is possessed. From Amoud to Amin, what we need to examine is not the changes in Iranian children, but the great changes in Iranian society as a whole. This is also an important revelation for China today.
<h2>Fourth, the authenticity of imagery</h2>
Poetry can be a simulated form of expression in which you can hide or explore ideas that you might not otherwise be able to talk about openly. Why can't movies be like this?
<h5>- "The Taste of Cherries: Abbas on Movies"</h5>
We can distill a few key words from the above discussion of driving and children to summarize Abbas's overall style vocabulary. One is repetition: the recurring imagery (cars roaming the mountains, children going door to door asking for directions) is like the rhetorical grid of the language of images, bringing rhythm, order, and continuity to the film. The second is blank: the film only presents a small cut of the characters, and its life outside the car and rural space is left for the viewer to make up his own mind. The third is de-dramatization: the ups and downs of the characters' emotions and the peak loops of the plot narrative are always deliberately erased, intended to highlight the original appearance of daily life.
Stills from the movie "Where Is My Friend's Home" are still the composition of the "zigzag"
In his later years, Abbas's work applied these experimental techniques to the point of innocence, thus forcing the authenticity of the image. A tribute to Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu's film "Five" is just five fixed long shots set on the seashore, with the tides coming and going, people coming and going, and ducks lining up; obviously challenging the patience of the audience to watch the film.
Stills from the movie "Wu"
As in shot one: the sound of the tide before opening the camera is incessant, bringing the viewer's thoughts to the vast sea in advance. The camera then focuses on a log on the beach: stubborn as it is, rolled up and lowered by the waves several times. Eventually, the stalemate persisted and turned into driftwood on the top of the tide. The duration is 6 minutes and 45 seconds.
On the cusp of the waves
A piece of wood.
From which ship?
Which river does it come from?
Where to go?
Abbas's short poem is very much like the mental activity that comes with watching the long shots mentioned above. At that time, the imagery in the frame was single, and the viewer had to focus all his attention on the driftwood. The past and present lives of the wooden block: the philosophical ideas outside the frame are thus stimulated.
When reading poetry, we always project subjective thoughts and experiences onto words (such as the author reading verses to the images that have been viewed). The clear context and clear ending of mainstream movies provide a good opportunity for the audience to be lazy and not use their brains. "Why don't you let the audience do something too?"asked Abbas.
Thus, when Amud goes door to door to ask for directions (repeatedly) for the return of his workbook, we cannot just stop at literally understanding the action of "asking for directions"; when Buddy's search for the cause and effect of short-sightedness is placed in the space outside the car (blank), we quickly arrange the causes of the idea and project it on Buddy; and when the climactic picture of Amud's conflict with his father is deliberately taken away (de-dramatized), our imaginary chicken and egg beating may be more impactful than any audiovisual language.
When film can be experienced like poetry, we have touched the true nature of poetry film and touched the authenticity of images.
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Weng Muhan, likes film and literature, time and space.
Title image: "Where is my friend's home" stills; the video is provided by the author, and the video material comes from the Internet
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