Author of Issue 34
Artist: Ni Jun
painter
Born in 1963 in Tianjin
Hello DanDan! As instructed by you, I tried to talk about a few movies I've watched in the last few days in a very low fever.
Speed King
Let's start with "Speed King". I'll start with Christian Bell's latest work of 2019, directed by James Mangud, an American director born in 1963. He made a famous movie a few years ago called Walk the Line. His recent feature films about racing cars are particularly good, Chinese called "Speed King" and foreign language named Ford v Ferrari, in fact, Chinese literal translation of "Ford Vs Ferrari" is also very attractive.
As the name suggests, "The King of Speed" is the historical story of a car race in France; Ford Motors, which originally did not have a good car performance, has been suppressed by Ferrari's speed. Later, it was Henry Ford II and Ferrari's boss Who fought, and when Ford was on the verge of bankruptcy, some hatred arose due to the acquisition, which prompted Ford to catch up. Then, inspired by the car culture of one or two Americans (there was an Englishman Ken), who came to the top, finally raised the speed of the Ford car, and there was a miraculous good result in the car race. Since I was broadcasting on ESPN Sports in the United States from 1993 to 1996, during which time I did too many live broadcasts and special shows of racing cars, I watched "Speed King" with great interest these days.
One of the highlights of this drama is that male number two Matt Damon actually gave male number one Bell as a foil, which was originally a popular student of the king who did not see the king. First of all, Bale, a Welshman who played Batman, did not shine his very strong muscles or lose weight and lose his upper body this time, but was very wonderfully used by director Mangud to use his face, which again received the topic of the actor's face that I talked about last time. When he played Batman, his nose was completely covered, revealing two eyes; his middle, mouth and lower bumps were very precise, beautiful, and attractive. This time, his whole face is particularly attractive, because under the helmet of the racing driver, when the position is quickly changed in the lane, the audience can concentrate on the faces of the drivers in different lights. The director is also very good at three or four major scenes, and has a very good design for the use of his entire face.
Stills from "Speed King"
Regarding car dramas, after the European and American car dramas represented by "Ronin" starring Robert De Niro many years ago, there are few too wonderful car scenes. The car scene of the movie "Ronin" was filmed in Nice in the south of France, and the Le Mans competition of the French car race of "Speed King" was set up in Georgia, USA, and some french signs and some actors were cleverly used to solve this problem. And he did not deliberately emphasize the customs and customs of France, but talked about the competition completely.
The car chase scene is very difficult to shoot, and the racing scene is even more difficult. Because of its speed, the number of cars, and the camera switching back and forth is really too difficult to do. But this film is currently the best one that humans have made in the language of cinema to make racing cars, and whether there will be any movies that can surpass this scene in the future, we will watch it again.
After watching this movie in the past few days, I feel like I have a bloody resurrection on the silent land, which is very exciting!
"Walking with The Song"
The second one is "Walking with The Song". The whole character of director James Mangud is a fast-paced approach to realism based on the principle of fluidity. He doesn't use science fiction, he doesn't use special effects, and he doesn't use too many historical flashbacks, including when he made "Walking with The Song" many years ago, when Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon played the biopic of the legendary Master Johnny Kaish of the American country singer, and he also used a very simple but very fluid realism. So years later, James Mangud's new work reinforces his own cinematic style and makes us very enjoyable. So after watching "Speed King", these days I turned back to watch the classic "Walking with The Song" when I was bored, bored to the extreme, and home to the limit.
Johnny Kesh has a song called I Walk the Line, and the title of the film uses Walk the Line, a very touching true story. The characteristic of this director is that he likes to present both people and events as historical biographies in real people and real historical contexts. Although it is all role-playing, it is very convincingly restored. In particular, the heroine of "Walking with the Song", the American actress Reese Wetherspoon, who is very powerful and very grounded, her performance is simply pure fire. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress; her performance in this film is truly impressive.
Stills from "Walking with the Song"
Jacqueline Phoenix, who also plays the male protagonist, starred in "Joker" recently became popular all over the world, and this actor is simply a genius among geniuses. His natural rabbit lip physiological characteristics have become a miracle in the history of human actors. When the director deals with the use of his face, the actor as a child switches to an adult, and there is no mention of his cleft lip in the plot, which is also the director's confidence, which is quite admirable.
In addition, the protagonist of the film, Troy Kaish, the folk singer is Elvis Presley's disciple, Bob Dylan's elder brother, the three of them are very close, Zonnie Kesh's face itself is actually very similar to Richard Burton. Burton could have played him if he had been born thirty years later, but Phoenix was very well pursued in terms of godlikeness, and Phoenix was a generation younger than Zonnie Kesh; so he played a folk singer who influenced generations in the United States with a sense of reverence and reverence, a very touching and inspirational story.
Joker
The film "Joker", starring Phoenix, the male number one of "Walking with the Song" mentioned above, is a remake of a classic play, and it is also to the extent that no one has ever come before and no one has come after. Phoenix paid tribute to his predecessor As a Joker star, Phoenix paid tribute to his predecessor, The Joker. Indeed, they are all the hard work of previous generations of filmmakers to achieve today's wonderful point, and Phoenix has put a lot of effort into the performance of "Joker". We know that he is very deep into each role, and in the European and American film circles, he can go deep into the role and prepare for the role, one is Phoenix, and the other is the British actor Daniel Day Lewis.
The scene that moved me the most about "Joker" was the last street riot, and the scenes of resistance, resistance, and demonstration of the capitalist world were in a super metropolis like New York, where all kinds of people, strange things, strange things, moods and sorrows, sweet and bitter, etc. were included in the film. And the role of The Joker Mother is also very rich, with very good flesh and blood supplements, more than the previous editions, more than the comics. The relationship between the Joker and his mother is also brought into a very contemporary mother-child relationship, a tangled relationship between the son and the mother that we are accustomed to.
The most amazing thing is to borrow the subway street scene of New York City, including the very old New York apartments, especially in North America, which are familiar to people who have lived in North America, through his performance, through the exaggerated makeup of the clown's face, real and illusory, and also true and false, to launch a very profound film with philosophical questioning and philosophical torture. From the original original comics to a kind of philosophical thinking that is closely related to each of our lives, that is, our identity in the world, our role, our role, our relationship with the world, and so on.
Stills from Joker
So we're all surprised at how the movie Joker, including "1917," which I'll talk about in a moment, beat The Irishman to more awards because it involves a deeper, more universal exploration of a human value.
《1917》
"1917" is about the World War I, which is far away from us; the costumes of the First World War, the costumes, and so on are a little far away from us today. But this film shows the value of the last "person" through the kung fu sophisticated technique, which we now call one shot to the end, but is actually two shots to the end. After the fall of his comrade-in-arms, how the male protagonist completes his mission and finally makes the war appear in a more ideal and humane state, which is the touching place of "1917". Another problem I think "1917" is that it is so technically perfect that it makes us a little tired, but it is still very worth examining, worth watching.
Succession of the Pope
Let's talk about The Succession of the Pope, in foreign language the two Popes. On the surface, Two Popes are two popes, but the title adds an article The, which means "these two popes", which emphasizes the contradictions and relationships between the two popes. The director is Fernando Merrills, who is also a very good post-50s Brazilian filmmaker.
Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles 1955
We know that the most difficult of western films to make is religious films. Because a lot of the conversations in it involve faith, it involves religious backgrounds.
The actor of the second male protagonist of "The Pope's Succession" is Jonathan Pressy, a Post-40s Welsh actor. Like Bell, Welsh actors are integrated into the drama training of the entire British Isles, and their acting skills, understanding, interpretation and reproduction of the roles are quite delicate. We've seen this face in many movies, but in this "Succession of the Pope", The Presy scene is quite heavy, almost close to the male number one scene. He played the role of Catholic archbishop in Argentina, later dramatically replacing former Benedict, adapted from a true story.
"The Wind Blows the Wheat Waves"
And then there's The Wind that Shakes the Barley. is the work of great British director Ken Lodge in 2006. It is about the Irish people's independence and relationship with Britain, and the whole film presents a deep foundation of traditional European films in terms of props, costumes, makeup, and casting.
"Hot Afternoon"
If you have the time, you can turn over a masterpiece by one of New York's veteran directors, Sidney Lumet, who used a movie starring Al Paccino called "Dog Day Afternoon." It was also based on a true story in New York at that time: a man with a wife and children who went to rob a bank in order to treat his gay boyfriend, and then blackmailed the government to transfer a plane from the New York airport to him, fled from the United States to another country, and was ambushed by the police at the airport.
Stills from "Hot Afternoon"
I know that you have many other good movie recommendations, and I also hope that other peers will introduce more movies that you feel are more exciting. I wish you all a safe exit from this epidemic!
Thank you Dan Dan! (It is recommended to use the screen projection method to watch more cool on the big TV!) ）
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