Long lens as a film shooting method, a means of film artistic expression opposite to the montage theory, from being proposed and systematically interpreted by André Bazin as a new film aesthetic theory, to being continuously tried and practiced in French New Wave films, and then being presented by countless film directors with their own unique personal image style, in the history of the development of long lenses, it has changed from a new "film aesthetic revolution" to a very common shooting method. And often divorced from the authenticity of space, time, and events that it initially emphasized and pursued, it became a means of showing off the director's scene scheduling techniques.
Returning to the abuse of long shots, as Bazin's adopted son and one of the most important directors of the French New Wave, François Truffaut adhered to the film aesthetic concept of his mentor and righteous father, believing that film is the "asymptote of reality", only fragments of life should flow on the screen, and if there is drama, it is only the drama of life itself.
François Truffaut
Truffaut to some extent realized Bazin's documentary aesthetics, "documentary" is at the same time a philosophy, a temperament.
In his most famous work "Four Hundred Blows", the long shot is not only the performance of the length of the lens, nor is it just the concept of scene scheduling and depth of field, it strives to present the original ecology of life, the pursuit of life, scenes, emotional atmosphere of the authenticity, it reflects a documentary beauty, a poetic realism, a best depiction of the human position.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > documentarist human concern</h1>
As a drama film, "Four Hundred Blows" is created with documentary techniques and concepts, and the story told is also part of Truffaut's own childhood experiences and feelings, with a semi-autobiographical nature.
The story is presented to the audience from the perspective of a boy in the rebellious period, and truly presents a cruel and cold social reality through the protagonist's resonant life and growth changes and the externalized performance of the delicate character psychology.
The pain of the boy Anthony's adolescent life experienced by the twelve-year-old boy, in the picture shot in the real scene, under the simple presentation of the realistic handheld lens, it seems so real, and the unpretentious truth renders the teenager's lonely and confused mood very touching.
Whether it is a young mind or an adult audience who has also experienced the pains of growing up, it can resonate with the heart.
After watching the film, I believe that many viewers do not quite understand why the name of the film is the seemingly inexplicable "four hundred blows", in fact, "four hundred blows" comes from the French proverb "four hundred hits", which means that it takes 400 hits to a naughty child to get him on the right path.
However, the protagonist of the film, Anthony, is not a naughty child at all, resulting in a series of deviant behaviors of a child with a good nature, from school-weary to run away from home, and even gradually out of the normal trajectory of life.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > juvenile psychology under documentary techniques</h1>
The descriptions of juvenile delinquency in the news are often labeled, inhumane and deeply explored, but truffaut, as an orphan who lives on the street and eats and sleeps in the wind, and has also been imprisoned for juvenile delinquency for theft, clearly has a unique personal experience and deep understanding of the plight of teenagers and the cruelty of growing up.
Therefore, in his film works, the documentary style and technique give the film characters a rich and three-dimensional sense of reality, and deeply excavate the environment and emotional reasons behind the characters' mental journey and juvenile delinquency.
This is easily reminiscent of another movie with a similar theme , "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" directed by Yang Dechang.
Although "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" is a group portrait presentation as a whole, the psychological changes of the most important character, Xiao Si, are equally clear and vivid, and also expose the loneliness and helplessness of the teenager's growth.
"Four Hundred Blows" and "The Murder on Muling Street" both depict complex characters and vivid details of life, but the difference is that "Four Hundred Blows" is more of a condemnation and indictment of the surroundings and the environment that led to the tragedy of growth.
In "The Juvenile Murder On Mulling Street", everyone is in a whirlpool, both a victim and a intentional or unintentional perpetrator, the story involves a large era background and political environment, and the narrative clues are more complex.
"Four Hundred Blows" focuses on depicting the experience of individuals, and its concise and simple narrative technique forms a distinctive feature of the film's "New Wave" doctrine, and the protagonist Anthony breaks through the shackles of passion and open-ended ending when he finally escapes from the cage and runs to the sea and the unknown, forming a perfect ending of the film to give people reverie and contemplation.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > lonely heart under the dispatch of the lens</h1>
The shooting method of using long shots in many places in "Four Hundred Blows" is combined with the real scenes and environments on the streets of Paris and the shaky handheld shots, forming a distinct documentary aesthetic style of the film and the long shot aesthetics of coherence and smoothness of time and space, complete and open.
At the beginning of the film, the director chose to use a smooth long lens to show the street scene of Paris city life, from the perspective of the participants from micro-elevation to head-up shooting to show the street, the camera lens is always parallel to the perspective of an audience sitting in the car, which looks delicate and melancholy under the background of music, creating the environmental atmosphere of the film's story and the emotional atmosphere of the story direction.
Later, the long shot of Anthony wandering the streets late at night after leaving home strongly highlights the loneliness and confusion of the little boy's heart, and the dilapidated street scenes of the streets of Paris and the passers-by who also wander in the middle of the night with unknown reasons truly show the strangeness of city life and the alienation of people's emotions.
In the first "punished" scene of "Four Hundred Blows", almost all the narrative is completed by long shots.
The picture begins with a close-up of a boy crouching on a table writing, in which the boy takes a portrait of a woman from a drawer and passes it forward, while the camera camera follows this action, presenting the transmission process of the portrait in different scenes and angles, until the protagonist Anthony's hand.
The teacher after discovering the student's small movements let Anthony hand over the portrait, the camera was still, and then let Anthony into the painting to go to the podium to give the portrait to the teacher, the teacher punished him to stand in the corner, the camera moved with Anthony's movements, after he made a grimace, the camera quickly flew to the podium, the teacher stood up and announced that there was one minute left for the exam, and then walked off the stage, and the shot ended here.
In this long shot of about a minute, the director completes a series of complex characters and double scheduling of shots, coherently and smoothly presenting the full picture of the event, as well as the rich details of the process, conveying the director's desire to show the children's minds and the teacher's dogmatism and do not ask questions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > create a strong atmosphere in the lens aesthetic</h1>
The film's most well-known long shot is the long shot of the three groups at the end, the teenager is overwhelmed but desperate to run all the way, the director carefully designed, using a long shot of side heels to show Anthony's running process.
He followed the river through the woods, over the fields, down steep slopes, the camera from rocking to heeling, and then a large panorama showing an environment in which Anthony was at this time.
Anthony managed to run to the sea, which symbolized freedom and unbridled freedom, and let the sea lapping at his feet.
Suddenly, he turned around and walked toward the shore, and finally a close-up of his face full of confused faces, eyes full of complex emotions stared at the audience for a long time, and the close-up shot conveyed the confused and panicked emotions of the characters with great tension, and the picture was frozen here.
In the long shot, with the protagonist's escape and break free, the rising emotions express the invigorating and passionate, but at the end, the tone of the following line falls heavily, smashing into the hearts of every audience who is caught in the myth.
Finally, this group of shots shows the completeness and unity of action and events in time and space at the same time, shows the reality of external space through constantly changing scenes, and shows the complete emotional changes of the characters through the overall situation of the event process, which creates a strong dramatic atmosphere and rhythm.
This makes it extremely easy for the audience to be brought into the emotions of the characters and resonate, fully attract the attention of the audience, so that they can immerse themselves in and feel the meaning and power contained in the image, and the aesthetic value and appeal of the long lens are fully demonstrated here.
Director Truffaut has been trying to constantly break through himself, surpass himself, and reject stereotypes all his life, just like Anthony's escape and running through barriers, "Four Hundred Blows" can be described as a combination of personal style and video style.
"Four Hundred Blows" is the pioneering work of the French New Wave movement handed over by Truffaut, which practiced and developed Bazin's long-lens theory and documentaryism, and made pioneering contributions to the documentary aesthetic style and long-shot aesthetics of feature films.
Nowadays, post-production technology, high-tech shooting equipment, and more and more advanced technology make the expression of long shots more and more dazzling, which is the advantage of contemporary film creation, but it is also a disadvantage, and the pursuit of curiosity and dazzling, making long shots lose their due authenticity and humanistic value.
And "Four Hundred Blows" and other long-lens theory pioneers from the hands of masters, although far inferior in technology today, make it look simple and slightly rough, but it is better than a more climactic artistic technique and humanistic connotation, and the aesthetic value it forms gives the feature film a documentary's true texture and full artistic conception.
Nowadays, it seems to be a kind of rough refinement.