The film "Green Book" brought Mahershala Ali to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor again after Moonlight Boy. Ali plays Don Shelley, a black jazz pianist who has a history of his own, along with a white driver, on a tour of the racially segregated areas of the southern United States in the early 1960s. After watching the movie, the audience can't help but ask: Are the many wonderful piano performances in the movie really played by Ali? There are reports that he practiced the piano for three months in order to play the pianist. But three months of study can play at such a level? Could it be that Ali is a genius?
In 1998, before Tim Ross starred in The Pianist at Sea, he had almost never touched the piano, and the director hired him a piano teacher. The teacher told him that the first thing to know was how to control the rhythm of the hand when playing the piano, and he imitated those rhythms and moved his fingers on the piano. Then, the teacher taught him to put his hands on the correct keys and practice over and over again, and he practiced at least 3 hours a day for 6 months. It is said that Tim Ross did not use a stand-in during filming.
Polanski's 2002 film The Pianist won the Oscar for Best Actor by Adrian Brody. Brody learned piano from an early age and had a certain foundation, but he did not reach the level of proficiency in playing. In order to perform "The Pianist", he painstakingly practiced Chopin's works for several months. So, when you see Brody playing on the screen, he's really playing the piece. But when you see a close-up of the hand, it turns into the famous Polish pianist Janusz Olejnyczak playing.
Today, Mahsala Ali is much luckier than Tim Rose and Adrian Brody. Relying on advanced visual effects, Ali does not need to practice the skills of a pianist. In the film, Ali and a black pianist completed the performance shooting separately, and through the post-synthesis of the special effects production team Pixel Magic, the pianist's head in each frame was replaced by Ali's head, and everything was done. In addition, many of the roads, building surfaces, and Christmas snow scenes in the film are made with special effects, and the audience rarely discovers these secrets during the viewing process.
The black pianist who stands in ali's role is Chris Bowles, 29. He was not only Ali's piano teacher and acting stand-in, but also composed the film music for The Green Book.
Chris Bowles began studying piano at the age of 4 and was admitted to the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, where he made a name for himself in the field of Hollywood film music at a young age. In The Green Book, he recorded several piano pieces by Don Shelley. Since no sheet music survived, Bowles had to listen to the record over and over again, recording the notes one by one, and then devoting a lot of time to practicing. "I practice eight or nine hours a day because Don Shelley is such an incredible pianist, so I want to make sure I'm playing his music in an extremely accurate way."
With the help of the "head-changing" special effect, why did Mahershala Ali learn piano for three months? Ali said in an interview: "The purpose of learning the piano is not to know how to play Chopin in three months, and that miracle did not happen." The real purpose was to give myself a chance to sit at the piano and learn about the flexibility of the instrument and how it would affect my performance. ”
Ali has strict requirements for his sitting posture, even the posture of his arms and fingers. He knew very well that he was not playing the piano, but a pianist, playing the subtle inner changes he made while playing the piano. And when the pianist is not in front of the piano, he must also be able to let the audience see his identity. Just like when you see a ballet dancer in civilian clothes in a subway station, you can always find it at a glance, because the way they stand is just different from other people.
Eventually, Ali's performance made Bowles feel that he was even more of a pianist than himself. Because he's doing something he's not good at at all, but he's acting like he's been doing it all his life. That's why, even today, when film technology is advancing at a rapid pace, there are many things that are still irreplaceable — for example, those real flesh-and-blood performances. After all, relying only on "changing heads" special effects cannot be exchanged for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu Title Image Source: Movie "Green Book" Picture Editor: Shao Jing