Made in Hollywood

The film began, and the audience in the screening hall fell silent. All eyes were fixed on the big screen in front of them, and their ears caught the soundtrack.

In the beginning, the sound of the snare drum came from far to near in the distant dust of the war with a firm and sonorous image. The military trumpet with very bright metallic colors replaced the classical trumpet usually used in the symphony, and the low-pitched man He hummed, with words of incomparable gratitude and memory, like the gradually bright morning light in the mist, flowing in his heart without a trace, gradually excited and magnificent, and gradually whispered softly.

The dim star-spangled flag is facing the wind, and the sound of the wind music is also floating. Under this fixed shot, the film gradually opens the curtain of its beginning.

The old man walked quickly from the front of the camera, and when he walked to the cemetery step by step, a timely shot made a close-up of the old man's eyes, so the past events buried in the memory slowly unfolded, and the window of the soul slowly became. bright.

"Where is the opening battle?" Kunites frowned and muttered in a low voice, "Isn't it a landing battle at the beginning? Why is this, this is not Duke's style!"

"That's it," echoed Allen and Jones.

However, the following facts proved that the film did not let them down!

In the sound of the huge waves, a large number of Allied landing craft rushed towards the beach, and many soldiers vomited on the side of the ship, and the shaking scene made Kunites suddenly feel dizzy, as if he himself was slashing the wind and the waves. on the landing craft.

The camera turned to the inside of the landing craft, and the trembling hands of the officer showed the psychological pressure at the moment. The soldiers did not look at death, or were indifferent or fearful or praying, and no one knew whether they would be able to board the deadly beach alive.

At the moment when the front flap of the landing craft was opened, the battle broke out without any warning, there was no foreshadowing, there was no shouting, there were only ruthless bullets and fallen corpses.

The war was brutal and bloody. People seemed so vulnerable at the time. The hail of bullets pierced through helmets and ripped through the body. Soldiers searched for their stumps and arms on the beachhead. After a blast, Captain Miller dragged only the wounded. Halfway... The restoration of the war scene reaches a rare reality.

"This...this is cruel!"

Kunites heard the voice next to him and turned his head to look over. It was the person named Owen who had just talked with him. He covered his mouth, "Is this the real battlefield? Is there no Rambo who can't be killed?"

"There is no hero who cannot be killed in war!"

Although he said so, Kunites had to sigh, this war scene is really cruel and terrifying!

Tom Hanks, who is sitting in the front row, has already watched several films, so he focused more on Duke's production techniques, especially since he participated in the filming almost all the time, and he was considered in this circle. Experienced people, combined with the situation when shooting on set, can always come up with some analysis.

"Obviously, Duke used a completely different approach to editing in post-production."

Tom Hanks is very sure of this. In the opening battle, Duke obviously used a set of continuous shots to reflect the shooting effect, and chose different shots - such as medium shots and close-ups - to present the war scenes.

Among them, in order to particularly highlight the struggles of the soldiers on the battlefield and the bloody nature of the war, he painstakingly used close-up shots to achieve realistic visual effects.

For example, on the beach and in the sea, the soldiers were desperately moving forward. The soldiers who were advancing bravely in the water were hit by the bullets that were fired frantically. At this time, the close-up shot made people more intuitive to witness this tragic scene. The soldier's body flowed out, immediately dyeing the sea water around him red, and the soldier fell down and was submerged by the sea water.

Later, the footage was gradually enlarged, and people witnessed the bright red and tragic scene at sea in the form of a small panorama.

War is cruel and ruthless, and life becomes small and fragile in the face of war, even vulnerable.

Even the most obtuse audience can appreciate this from the opening battle. As a veteran film critic, Todd McCarthy is of course no exception. His face is not very good-looking. Although the film only opens, it is enough for him to judge. Out, this is a completely different Duke Rosenberg movie.

When he remembered the large-scale publicity of the film, the film critics ridiculed in the column that this was an alien version of World War II, and his face became even darker if he couldn't see anything but the explosion.

There are indeed many explosions in the film, and they are continuous explosions, but these explosions are not explosions for the sake of explosions. In such a large-scale beach landing battle, if there is no explosion, it is a joke. The most important thing is that these explosions completely abandoned " The very exaggerated methods of "Independence Day" and "Brave the Dead Island" are extremely real while retaining a certain visual impact.

In contrast, Kenneth Turan, who was sitting next to him, had less prejudice in his eyes, and could examine the picture he had seen from a relatively fairer angle.

In this war scene, Duke Rosenberg obviously abandoned the usual mode of filming and production, and used documentary-style footage to show the war, which is unprecedented - using a portable camera to shoot the landing scene, waist-high follow-up angles, Weaving and swaying pictures, personalized facial close-ups, fast and slow sequences, and overlapping clips using montage techniques to connect fragmented and rush shots…

Everything constitutes the terrifying scenes of the terrifying battlefield, and also creates the unique lens expression of the film.

The wide use of portable camera lenses makes the picture angle of the film lens in a parallel state, or a forty-five-degree angle relative to the object to be photographed. more believable.

An NYU filmmaking graduate and Anna, who spent some time as an associate director in Hollywood, feels the same way.

With an almost soldier's perspective, audiences like her and Erin were immersed in the beachhead of Omaha by director Duke Rosenberg, feeling the deterrence of the hail of bullets and the brutal blood of war!

"This doesn't look like a Duke movie!"

Although Irene Lauder was mentally prepared after watching the trailer, she still couldn't help being surprised.

No beautiful wide-angle shots, no super big scenes, no dazzling sports shots, no sharp editing styles, no hot special effects explosions...

If not very sure that the director is Duke? Rosenberg, Erin will definitely think this is someone else's work.

However, she was not disappointed, the film is as wonderful and beautiful as ever, even if the blood is a bit disgusting.

"Eileen, you should be happy for him!"

Hearing her friend's words, Irene was puzzled, "For whom?"

"Duke Rosenberg." Anna lowered her voice. "Aren't you friends? In my opinion, the first step in his style change was very successful. Maybe this film will become his masterpiece."

This is Anna's true opinion. Just this opening battle is enough to create the epic style of the film. As long as the subsequent narrative does not collapse, this film will inevitably become a classic among war films, even the most classic one.

Just as Anna and Irene took advantage of the end of the war scene and whispered a few words, Kenneth Turan was still analyzing the film.

It's hardly a Duke Rosenberg-style movie, and the shift in style is really obvious.

Obviously, Duke Rosenberg believes that big scenes cannot convey the horror of war very well, so he did not use many wide-angle lenses to show the comprehensive battlefield. Strictly speaking, he only interspersed a panorama at the end of the war. ——The camera gradually pans to the beach full of vehicles, boats and corpses by the soldiers who have seized the beach, and finally freezes on a corpse with the word 'Ryan' printed on the backpack.

In addition, the film uses more medium shots, as well as medium close-ups and close-ups, such as the trembling hands of Captain Miller and the nervous and fearful faces of soldiers, etc., and then Duke Rosenberg used these medium-close shots and close-ups. On the screen and in front of the audience, death in war is shockingly real and unacceptable.

Here, death comes so suddenly, so fast, there are no unrealistic flukes, there are no heroes who are still alive after being shot, and there is no dying counterattack before dying. The enlargement of these death passages can easily make people feel Feeling the fragility of life conveys the fear of war, misery and the decline of humanity.

Using the brutality of war to express anti-war ideas is not new, but Duke Rosenberg has done an excellent job.

Even Todd McCarthy, who was next to him, had to admit that Duke Rosenberg had made obvious changes. For this opening scene alone, I am afraid it could be considered a successful change.

The most typical example is the length of the shots. Todd McCarthy clearly remembers that the average shot length of Duke's first three films was no more than 2.5 seconds. Long shots can only be described as extremely rare.

In this scene, he used a lot of realistic long shots, and it is estimated that the average shot length should be more than 7 seconds. Although this does not have the sharpness brought by the quick switching of short shots, it can show the war process uninterruptedly. People unknowingly blend into the shots and into the film.

What is different for Todd McCarthy is editing. The young director obviously gave up the editing method that did not follow any logic in the past and returned to the ranks of logical editing. This scene in the film was not deliberately done to keep the length of the shot, but Following the logical editing principle of rationality, editing is performed when an event ends or when another group of interesting pictures is explained.

Even if there is a prejudice in his heart, Todd McCarthy did not feel forced to accept the picture from the cuts of the cuts, and the cuts were natural and smooth.

Even though his sense of Duke Rosenberg was extremely bad, Todd McCarthy had to admit that the young director had made great progress, and even had a qualitative leap in his directing level, especially the next one. The camera, Duke Rosenberg's approach to the weakest expressions of emotion, is nothing short of impressive.