Art is a reflection of real life, and artists use different types of artistic language to reproduce, imitate, refine and inject their own ideas into life, and pursue a high degree of harmony and unity achieved by content and form. This essential commonality has made all the artists of ancient and modern China and abroad. Poetry, calligraphy and painting have Su Shi, paintings and calligraphy, painting, sculpture, architecture are all talented da Vinci, etc., leaving us with a period of artistic legends. Although today's detailed social division of labor and specialized aesthetic education have made cross-border art masters more and more rare, there is no shortage of brave people on the road of exploring the true meaning of art.
At this year's Venice Film Festival, the film "Nocturnal Animals" directed by the famous fashion designer Tom Ford won the Grand Jury Prize, and people were deeply attracted by the film and were also impressed by the unique charm displayed by the fashion masters on the screen. Today, this article focuses on the two forms of expression of art, the spark generated by the cross-border fusion of film and fashion, and briefly takes stock of the contemporary masters who wander in both circles and the amazing masterpieces of art born in their hands.
Filmmakers flashing in the fashion world
<h1>Tom Ford: Narrative poet who is obsessed with the runway and the screen</h1>
In the fashion world, Tom Ford is known for his philosophy of elegance and absolute confidence and bold and eclectic design style. The self-sufficient, pure and measured design approach allows it to establish its own unique brand impression. This talented designer, who single-handedly saved the Gucci brand and provoked the YSL beam, has made followers of the fashion circle fall to the ground and worship with his maverick design style. But when he picks up the guide, sends the work to the screen, and crosses the border into a movie, people can still recognize his style. In the film, whether it is the composition, costumes, soundtrack, or the rhythm of the narrative, it is full of a very personal flavor like his design style.
Stills from the movie "Single Man"
Tom Ford's journey to the art of cinema begins with a strong "Single Man" dedicated to gay man Richard Buckle. The film is about george, a university professor, who suffers from a car accident caused by the sudden death of his same-sex partner Jim, who has lived together for 16 years, and is immersed in the shadows all day long. The story of what happened the day before his planned suicide. The background of the story is the 70s, retro and nostalgia throughout the film, whether it is clothing accessories, makeup and hairstyles, or scene arrangement, props selection, will push refinement and elegance to the extreme. In the film's elaborate fashion runway, the tone of the picture changes fifteen times as the plot develops. The smiles of the characters also present the most aesthetic state under his lens, and the artistic beauty brought by the fashion style is fully released in each picture, which is impressive. With his outstanding performance in the film, lead actor Colin Firth was nominated for an Academy Award that year.
Nocturnal Animals is the second film directed by Tom Ford. On the basis of the delicacy, delicacy and elegance of the previous work, the film cleverly uses the narrative technique of "drama within a play", adding humorous but obedient and terrifying elements to the film, showing the director's distinct personal style. Despite the praise for the stylization of his films, stylization was never the real goal of Tom Ford's films. Tom Ford describes his view of cinema this way, "Stylization that lacks the essence of events would be hollow and boring. I do make the work take on a certain unique style, but it has to be relevant to the characters and the story. And working the set and costumes can also make the actors and audiences more identified with the characters I created, and even replace the dialogue. A good film should develop quietly, with character dialogue only when the narrative has to be pushed forward." It can be seen that stylization is only an externalized expression of his artistic ideas.
In a way, Tom Ford applies his ability to express himself through fashion design to filmmaking. As he once said, "Cinema is one of the most exciting designs." It's different from fiction, which can describe the inner world of a character at length, while a movie can't, so I choose to express my understanding of the characters in the novel in my own way." The film differs from the fashionable way of expression, which inspires his creative passion and artistic inspiration.
Stills from the movie Nocturnal Animals
<h1>Karl Lagerfeld: A fashion director in search of classics</h1>
Since becoming a Chanel designer in 1983, the famous designer Karl Lagerfeld has continued to innovate and seek breakthroughs while retaining Chanel's classic designs, and perfectly blending classicism with street trends. He is an arrogant and pragmatic person, pursuing classics and using lenses to make classic moments last forever. This artistic style is also vividly expressed in his 2014 film Reincarnation.
In the short film, the time goes back to 1954. Gabrielle Chanel, played by Geraldine Chaplin, meets a young elevator waitress played by music creator Pharrell Williams in a vacation hotel. The latter wore a white hotel uniform, with slim cuts, black ribbon piping and practical pockets on the uniform. The men's coat then became the Chanel brand, the inspiration for the design and production of its enduring classic coat, in the dream of the film, princess Sissi played by supermodel Cara Delevingne and emperor Franz played by Pharrell Williams romantically danced, adding to the story and watchability of the short film.
The ten-minute micro-film is a tribute to Gabrielle Chanel and the people who had an important influence on the Chanel brand, including the patron of art and literature, Mrs. Gray, Oscar Wilde's friend Ida Rubenstein, writer Weta Sackville West, actresses Jacqueline Fossan and Eve Lavalier. Along with several important men in Gabrielle Chanel's life, he also left the country: the love of his life, the carbo boy, his lifelong friend Aetien Baaler, the cartoonist Sam, and his nephew André Pallas. The century-old classic recreated through the images once again makes people marvel at the charm of fashion through time.
Stills from the movie "Yesterday's Resurgence"
<h1>Masakazu Kawa: The beauty of mourning in different shots</h1>
Before entering the film industry, Ninagawa Mika was already a well-known female photographer in Japan, and was the candidate for the filming of major fashion magazines and brand advertising campaigns. Her photographic works always present the bright colors of large areas, and have become a typical representative of Japan's "material mourning" culture. The so-called "material mourning" refers to an aesthetic attitude that combines sadness and beauty, and it pursues the ultimate beauty, even if it is only for a moment. With the artistic style of the beauty of "material mourning", Shikagawa uses the language of film expression to create, and the films she directs also present a unique oriental charm.
Tsunekawa Shihana photography
In 2006, Shigeru Kawa completed his film debut "Evil Girl Flower Queen", which set off a "craze fever" in the film circle at the beginning of the screening, and received rave reviews at major international film festivals. This film is about the love entanglement of geisha in the Edo period, and the whole film is like a visual feast of eerie beauty, the beauty of destruction, the beauty of depravity, the beauty of withering, the beauty of decay, and the beauty of chaos appear on the screen. I never want to think about the ending, but only want to bloom unreservedly in that moment.
Stills from the movie "Wicked Girl Flower Queen"
Shikazu's second work, "Wolf", continues the "beauty of material mourning" in the style of Shukawa. Intense color collisions, luxurious and eerie room decorations, rainbow-colored cigarettes, diamond-studded lighters, or the huge azure fish tanks in the aquarium, the brilliant colors are intertwined to make people suffocate. At the same time, for the beauty of the women shown in the film, its fragility and fearlessness are also pitiful. A photographer who is proficient in seeing the world through the lens of the camera, through the lens of the camera, the beauty constructed by the camera lens is both so powerful that it cannot be ignored, and it disappears without stopping. In different shots, she interprets this unique aesthetic idea almost perfectly.
Stills from the movie "Wretched"
When movies meet fashion
In order to create a compelling marketing effect, the fashion industry often has well-made, well-invested TV commercials (known in the industry as Fashion Film). Therefore, these advertising blockbusters naturally favor famous directors who are well-known in the film industry. Advertising blockbusters give directors more creative space, and also show a stronger personal style of directors. Fashion provides another platform for directors to showcase their talents.
<h1>Martin Scorsese-esque male dreams</h1>
Martin Scorser, one of the four famous directors of the Hollywood New Wave, directed an advertising campaign for Chanel's men's perfume that year in 2010. At the time of the proliferation of Hollywood blockbusters, Martin Scorsese has always calmly analyzed the various stubborn diseases of society and human beings through his own unique perspective and through movies; in the environment where Hollywood only advocates commercial results, he has always insisted on his own will and spared no effort to pursue the exploration of film language, and is known as hollywood's "film sociologist". Friends who love old Hollywood gangster movies should be familiar with this name. Even collaborations with fashion brands still carry their own distinct qualities.
The scene of the advertising blockbuster shooting
This advertising video tells the story of a dream-chasing man who is determined to break all the shackles. In the film, through the multi-angle close-up of the character's face, the emotions continue to pile up until the final outbreak, and the exquisite use of the lens language makes the commercial film reveal a rare strong artistic temperament. Because of his success, after Martin Scorsese, the merchant invited the famous director James Gray to take over in 2015 and continue to tell the dream-chasing life of the male protagonist played by Gaspard Ulliel, a fashion journey that constantly changes between dream and reality in the hands of filmmakers.
<h1>Wong Kar-wai-style midnight incense</h1>
Also a perfume brand, Dior selected the famous Chinese director Wong Kar-wai for the advertising campaign created by Midnight Poison' perfume. Under Wong Kar-wai's lens, Eva Green performs another kind of seductive beauty that makes people want to be addicted. At the beginning of the short film, Eva Green is like Cinderella who must leave the scene at midnight, staring at the clock that is about to point to 12 midnight from time to time. Wong Kar-wai-style film expression methods such as slow motion and drawn-out images have found new scenes in the film.
Dior: Midnight Poison advertising campaign photo
With the camera footage, the heroine runs on the rotating staircase, and the image composed of the distorted staircase is like the deformed clock of the surrealist master Dalí, and the eternal theme of Wong Kar-wai's film - time once again becomes the main line of the narrative. It also reminds us of the friendship between Cheung Kwok-wing and Maggie Cheung in "The Legend of Ah Fei", a minute before 3 p.m. on April 16, 1960, and the expiring pineapple can in "Chongqing Forest", wong Kar-wai uses familiar artistic language to emphasize the moment when things happened, and the uncertainty of the story coming.
While indulging in Eva's seductive figure, Wong Kar-wai let her accompany the soundtrack of the muse band Space Dementia from the sky and became the bright focus of midnight. The whole short film is like a midnight fragrance, and its charming atmosphere is long-lasting. The combination of art and fashion achieves a perfect unity.
<h1>The European fairy tale of Weiss Anderson</h1>
Still a perfume commercial, Prada's blockbuster for the "Candy" series was done in collaboration with renowned directors Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. In this advertisement that lasts for more than 3 minutes, both the costumes of the characters and the arrangement of the scenes make people feel a romantic European fairy tale style. The characters and background arrangements in the film also maintain wes Anderson's signature symmetrical layout composition, and the plot is quite similar to the romantic comedy of two men fighting for a woman in the classic French film "Jules and Jim", and the three-stage exaggerated performance renders the unique temperament of Prada perfume.
Prada Candy advertising campaign photo
Film and fashion have never been two parallel worlds, and at the end of the intersection, there will always be unexpected surprises. No matter which section of the art map you are in, as long as you uphold the pursuit of artistic ideals, all beauty will eventually meet unexpectedly.
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*References
(1) Zhihu: A love letter written from fifteen hue changes
https://movie.douban.com/review/7894709/
(3) Movie fashion: After watching "Single Man", how can you not want to understand Tom Ford's film aesthetics?
https://read01.com/O2L8NQ.html
(4) Oshare: Chanel micro-film "Reincarnation" big reveal
http://trend.oshare.com.tw/?p=7015
(6) Plum Blossom Network: Chanel reappeared yesterday: a hundred years is very short, and the classic is very long
(7) Color shadow unscrupulous: "Shuchuan real flower: since it is born as a flower, it must be gorgeous and open"
(8) NetEase: Film sociologist Martin Scorsese
(9) V Movie: Romantic Nostalgic European Dream Advertisement "Prada: Candy"
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