In an interview with Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix, they are in medium shots.
The table lamp of the two ** exudes a soft light, and there is a window in the background. Joaquin's experience as an actor led him to look directly at the camera, and Ridley frequently looked out of the picture somewhere in the picture, where the image of me was probably placed.
Medium shots are always reminiscent of portraiture or still life. D**id Bordwell once described Ridley's style as "visceral pictorialism," summing up his arrangement of figures and landscapes in his delicate compositions. Placing the camera in a place where only the lamps and windows can be seen can already express many things, such as the slow-moving aliens, the foggy streets of the future, the jungle corners of the English countryside, and the court, streets, and battlefields of Napoleon Bonaparte. In his extensive visual arsenal, mid-shot scheduling is a conspicuous skill.
Poster for the movie "Napoleon".
The middle scene, which is just the right distance, has become the most suitable scene for conversation. The eighty-six-year-old director shows no signs of weariness, and in two corners of the world, we talk about the conflict between the cinema and the streamers, the future of this art form, and the gentleness and violence of the French emperor in "Napoleon," which will be released on December 1.
Napoleon's exhaustion
Artists are often rebels. They are passionate about exploring the hatred in love, the sadness ...... after happinessAnd the mediocrity of great people.
Virginia Woolf imagined Queen Elizabeth's exhaustion in Orlando: "She was getting older and tired......As soon as she sat down at the table, she would hear the roar of the English Channel, and she would actually be afraid - whose curse was this?Who's whispering?She described the vulnerabilities and fears that would never go down in history, but as she read them, the Queen was no longer a list of names in the book, she became flesh and blood.
Ridley Scott used a video to show Napoleon's exhaustionNapoleon would cut his chin when he shaved, gasp nervously before the war, and look very embarrassed in the face of women. The ** scene in the film can be called a comedy, he does the same mechanical movements, but his wife Josephine is always expressionless. In a table scene, she even accused him of being too fat to his face, but he still gave up on himself and saluted the lamb chops on the plate. He was so irascible and arbitrary, and when he was defeated at Waterloo, it seemed to us as a very natural thing to do.
A still from the movie "Napoleon".
However, Ridley still used the word "great" to describe the mediocre Napoleon in the interview:“……Only by creating such a great character will the film be successful. ”
Ridley's way of understanding greatness, is clearly different from many creators. Nearly 100 years ago, Abel Gance filmed Napoléon (1927), an epic poem that needed to be screened on three screens, in which Gance sincerely portrayed a revolutionary hero clad in holy radiance, repeatedly using symbolic editing to liken him to a soaring eagle. Marlon Brando, who also starred in "Napoleon's Love History" (Désirée, 1954), himself did not like the screenplay, but still portrayed a great man in the context of Hollywood, who was calm and elegant, and radiated a soft light.
A still from Napoleon's Love History (1954).
And in Ridley's Napoleon, greatness is no longer an aura, it becomes a curse.
Ridley's interest in Napoleon stems from Napoleon's unknown illnesses and his awkward relationships with women. But it's not just these women who have anything to do with Napoleon. In the end credits, we read that he sacrificed millions of soldiers in dozens of battles. When he wanted to enjoy an ordinary relationship a little, the million undead reminded him behind him: Don't think about living a normal life, greatness is your destiny.
A still from the movie "Napoleon".
As a result, Napoleon kept going back and forth between two narrative threads:On one side is Josephine's storyline, which is the daily life that Ridley wants to explore;On the other side is the great military exploits in the historical facts, and it is the biography stained with blood and tears. On one side is gentleness and clumsiness, on the other side is murder and violence.
Joaquín Phoenix, who was trying to become Napoleon, was also torn between the two. Joaquin Phoenix talked about his impressive scene in the interview:"In the last scene, Napoleon was a loving man, playing with the children in a sweet scene. However, the British ambassador came. So, in the next scene, Napoleon changed his face and went out to join the ...... of the debateOur question is, how to grasp this duality?”
A still from the movie "Napoleon".
When these two Napoleons occasionally collide together, it inevitably feels absurd. Josephine was simply unable to bear offspring for him, and as a result, he became "an obstacle to the prosperity of France." When many viewers heard this line, they probably laughed just as much as she did in the film. She was like a spectator, belonging to another time and space, and that so-called prosperity didn't mean much to her.
We all know that Napoleon would win the battles of Toulon, Marengo, and Austerlitz, and that he would eventually be defeated at Waterloo. So Ridley found some new enemies—low self-esteem, lust, ambition, and exhaustion—that history doesn't find relevant, but that's still dealing with hundreds of years later.
The fifty-one years that Napoleon lived through, which had condensed the fantasies of several generations, were now compressed into a few hundred minutes of film. This time, he seemed so slow and bloated, wriggling in the sands of history, trying to overcome the old enemy of the void and live up to the expectations of the name "Napoleon".
A still from the movie "Napoleon".
Ridley Scott's ambitions
Ridley Scott's first feature film also happens to be set during the Napoleonic period. Two swordsmen who had a blood feud, one inclined to royalists and the other Bonaparte, constantly threw themselves into the fight for their lives. Both The Duellists (1977) and Napoleon open show a woman fleeing in panic, hiding from the violence of her time, in the countryside and at court.
The Man in the Duel (1977) poster.
In that underbudgeted debut, Napoleon was absent, but he was still everywhere, a shadow hanging over the city;In this latest blockbuster, Napoleon is still everywhere, and this time he appears in all the frames, showing off every inch of his body. It seemed like a brilliant set of starting and ending points, but Ridley, like Napoleon, demanded endless perfection, and his desk was forever full of ambitious plans.
When it comes to authorship for the vast majority of directors, it's nothing more than content, style, or genre involved. But to talk about Ridley Scott, we have to consider a lot of things that are not so "artistic", and we often forget that they are also movies. William B., a scholar who studied RidleyParrill notes that Ridley has "an encyclopedia of the film industry, a mastery of camera angles, post-production effects, and all the processes that go into making and distributing before release."
When I asked him about his interest in big-scale films, his first reaction was not to talk about subject matter and content, but to think about the industrial environment. He mentioned that individual companies tried to get rid of the theaters, but they gradually found that things were not so easy, and that some productions were not actually suitable for online and charged monthly.
He also cited "Top Gun 2: The Lone Ranger" (2022) as an example, the filmmakers originally planned to stream ** after a small release, but because of Tom Cruise's strong opposition, they had to go all into theaters, and as a result, they made a billion dollars in the first month. Speaking of this, he smiled and said, "It's just that people press a few buttons, but they can't make so much money, and now they're starting to think about making movies like mine again." ”
He is passionate about making films made for theaters, believing that they are still profitable. He also praised Sony Pictures' creative strategy in the release of Napoleon. Since its premiere on Nov. 22, the film has spread to 56 overseas markets, and as of Nov. 26, the global box office has approached $80 million.
He always has a commercial position in his vision, which is undoubtedly related to his experience in the advertising industry. In his opinion, advertising will "teach you something that you can Xi't learn, film school will only teach you insider knowledge, but the director needs to communicate with the layman audience".
Many directors have made commercials, but Ridley has done more than just film. Before he made his first feature film, he was already a well-known British advertising master. Back in 1973, his heartwarming images of Hovis bread were classicsUntil 2019, he was still directing commercials for Hennessy, experimenting with his grandiose sci-fi style. As of today, he may have shot more than 2,000 commercials. These images, which are purposefully aimed at evoking visual pleasure, not only earn income, but also hone the skills of the audience.
He uses amazing control to coordinate all aspects of the film. His elaborate storyboards are so famous that they're even called "ridleygrams," but that's just the basic starting point for the film. He is involved in screenwriting, directing and cinematography, and is also familiar with production, special effects and distribution, and can also unite his peers and hold some positions in interviews during the promotion period.
Vincent Lobrutto chronicles his astonishing mode of work in Ridley Scott: A Biography:Wake up at six every day and talk to studios around the world;Creating films, series, short films, and commercials at the same time, handling the different processes of countless different productions, and managing the operational ...... of Ridley Scott Associates (RSA).
Creators who are new to directing are often troubled by the complexities of the film industry – why can't they just write scripts and make movies?Why even think about business?Ridley never asks these questions. If no one is in charge of everything, then he learns everything.
Ridley on set.
Excess films
Ridley Scott has been directing nearly thirty films since he made his first feature film at the age of forty, but he still wants to go faster.
He told Deadline's reporters that in recent years he's found a way to save time:"With two cameras at the same time, it's twice as fast, and with four, six, eight, it's four, six, eight times faster. You need to shoot a day's footage, and I did it at 11 o'clock at noon. In the Waterloo scene of Napoleon, he shared eleven cameras. This highly complex way of shooting means a lot of material or even a surplus of material.
As a result, his work became the art of choice, and it seemed difficult for people to summarize his style, and he would determine the final plan according to different themes and genres. Based on the historical biography of Napoleon, he chose a relatively classical approach. We can see many elements of old-school imagery, such as the scheduling of the composition of the medium scene, the superb pictorial photography, the subtitle cards that distinguish the chapters, and the voice-over ...... of reading the letters
A still from the movie "Napoleon".
Interestingly, it was precisely in the process of this choice that he showed something less classical, "Ridley-esque". Parryer, who has analyzed Ridley's editing strategy for organizing footage, is that, unlike many Hollywood directors, he doesn't use invisible cuts to draw the audience into a coherent narrative. His editing is more like following some kind of unique rhythm.
Based on this huge amount of material, Ridley created his own visual game. One second Napoleon was in the streets of the day, and the next he was in the middle of the nightAt this moment, he was still thinking about Josephine, and in the blink of an eye, she cheated. The battlefield scenes at Waterloo are even more dazzling, and it is impossible to determine the location of those eleven viewpoints.
Of course, if Ridley wants to keep his rhythm, he will need to sacrifice something else.
For example, the truth of history. Many have long complained about the historical problems of Gladiator (2000) or Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), and Napoleon is not immune to criticism from scholars. Ridley's response was "nosy" and "were you there".
For example, the reality of the senses. In films like Napoleon, House of Gucci (2021) or All the Money in the World (2017), Ridley compresses too many characters and scenes, emphasizing the rhythm of the images while lacking coherence, which inevitably makes it feel detached.
A still from the movie "The Gucci Family".
Above all, he sacrifices his image. In the process of producing high-density images, he is also constantly cutting shots and paragraphs. In addition to the two-hour theatrical version, "Napoleon" also has a four-hour streaming version, and those silent materials seem to be longing for a larger length and eager to break free from other media.
However, Ridley Scott doesn't care about filming excess stuff at all, and the last thing he lacks is energy. He's good at creating for cinema, but he can also do other things. Occasionally, he would be distracted by commercials, or try out the kind of episodes that you can subscribe to at the "press of a few buttons", such as the recent "Alien Cataclysm."
He always walks ahead, playing the role of the general who waits for his retinue to follow. Of course, there is a world of difference between movies and war. In the end credits of Napoleon, the millions of soldiers who died for Napoleon Bonaparte first appear, without names. But then, the screen began to scroll with names and surnames, and it was a group of people who fought with Ridley Scott.
The eighty-six-year-old director, as if never tired, threw himself into battle after battle, not for destruction, but for creation.
Executive Producer: Ge Haichen.
Edit Timmy
Interview & Written by Chen Sihang.
*Edited by Yu Zichen.