War Horse (2011)
Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch
Director: Steven Allan Spielberg
Review
When analyzing films, we usually describe the film in Shots, Angles, Lights & Shadows and Colors. In the film War Horse, Steven Spielberg is quite a master of lights & shadows, shots and colors. So analyzing those factors is quite interesting and will attribute to better understanding of the movie WAR HORSE.
Shots
back to the past and till today, shot is always the most important part of any kind of movie, and "Long shot for comedy, close-up for tragedy" was one of Chaplin's most famous pronouncements, which demonstrate the importance of using shots to trigger emotions.
expansion of the long shot and close-up
The Gold Rush 1925 long shot
in the comedy The Gold Rush, because the camera is about 5 meters away from Chaplin, which is a medium shot, so the action is recorded objectively. Then the audiences will absolutely laugh at Chaplin because of his stupid manners.
City Lights 1931 close-up
however, in the comedy City Lights, at the last scene of this movie, the camera is about 10 centimeters away from Chaplin, in the theater, no one is laughing at this scene.
so why?
because this is a close-up shot, and makes the audiences get involved into the character and generates huge affection.
So, based on the comparison, it is easily to get to the conclusion that shots is quite important when stimulate and influence emotions——TOKYOPaprika
shots are various and each one has their own personality. Utilizing different shots can help to stimulate the audiences' emotions.
shots: deep focus shot, full shot, extreme long shot
medium shot (two shot, three shot and over-shoulder shot,)
long shot, close-up, extreme close-up.
extreme long shot: extreme long shot or establishing shot is usually pictures further than 400 meters away, actors will be arranged in a huge background, such as, war, the west, history and martial. Extreme long shot is usually common in epic because in those kind of films, the background also displays a particular actor.
medium shot: medium shot is the most practical one above all, it is adopted to express emotion or relationship between two or three people. And medium shot has three branches, two shots, three shots and over-shoulder shot.
long shot: it is complicated and not accurate, the money-costing shot because long shot requires lights resetting and in the acting field, when doing this shot, most of the time, people are waiting for the director of light & shadow to say "all set!", this shot is pretty annoying.
close-up: it is used to exaggerate the importance of someone or something because of the because the actors are recorded in multiple of 100 or more. And it is usually a metaphor of something.
Shots in War Horse
Based on the concept I talked, adopting them in the movie War Horse can be quite impressive.
the beginning of the War Horse
Like I said, during the movie War Horse, it is a story between a human and a horse, and it is happened during the World War I, so establishing shot is really important in this movie. So Steven Spielberg displays a extreme long shot at the beginning of the movie in order to let the audience be in the story.
another extreme long shot
same reason like I said, but the extreme shots are shrinking to let the audiences to feel like they are approaching the main character and getting into the story.
extreme long shot 3
it becomes smaller and smaller, the audience now are regularly getting into it.
extreme long shot 4
from the picture, we can see that the shots become smaller again compared with the extreme long shot three. The audience now feel like they are quite near something.
long shot
Finally, the shot changes into long shot, and our main character jumps into our eyes.
close-up
using close-up, we can see the expression on the main character's face quite easily, and using close-up will plug the audiences in to the story more and more. Because when we see the expression of the boy, the audience will then consider what happened and why. Close-up will stimulate the emotion of the audiences.
Remember: shots are only tools, stimulating emotions are purposes.
——TOKYOPaprika
a medium shot
Based on the concept, we know that medium shot has the specialty of describing the relationship or emotion between two or three people. So in this scene, using two shot can absolutely explain the relationship of the horse and the man to the audiences. This scene is quite important because it is the confirmation and beginning of the boy and the horse. It represents the friendship, the unbreakable bond between them. So based on that, Steven Spielberg chooses to using a symmetry scene to infer the importance. The audiences simply do not know this hidden using, but the audiences feel it when watching.
And that is the brilliantine of Steven Spielberg——to show but not to tell.
expansion of the medium shot
in the movie How To Train Your Dragon, we can see the same use of the two shot, also using symmetry of the medium shot to express the emotion and relationship between the Dragon toothless and the boy Hiccup. Those two films seem unrelated in any way but shots tie them up.
close-up 1
close-up 2
in these two scene, Steven Spielberg uses close-up again to stimulate emotions of the audiences and to deepen the substitution (代入感) of the audiences.
medium shot
long shot
in the shots above, we can see that in order to stimulate humorous, Steven Spielberg uses long shot to show a sense of humor (Chaplin is quite a master of this based on what I said before). We simply feel it, but the audience do not know the function of it. That is the difference between director and audiences.
And these two scenes is another typical example of " to show but not to tell " and "Long shot for comedy, close-up for tragedy".
Colors in War Horse
when talking about colors, someone thinks that color is the most unimportant part in movie. That is further beyond the wrong and quite stupid.
even in the black and white movie, the director of lights & shadows knew to use light and shadow to stimulate feeling. Like I said, they are all tools, emotion stimulation is the purpose. Colors are absolutely necessary and different colors represent different kind of feelings.
extreme long shot 1
establishing shot is quite impressive and practical when putting the character into the huge background and stimulate a sense of lonely. However, the warm color represents family, friendship and other kind things infers that this a happy ending.
close-up
under the warm color, mother's face is dyed into red to represent hope.
extreme long shot 2
medium shot 1
still under the warm color, the unity of the family becomes more impressive and will absolutely stimulate the emotions of the audiences. Besides, this medium shot is a symmetry one to demonstrate the relationship of the characters as well as to enhance the importance of this shot.
medium shot 2
another medium shot, and the same reason above.
Lights & Shadows in War Horse
lights and shadows and the most complicated department of the film industry because the change of the scene refers to the change of the lights and shadows. Different scene require different kind of lights and shadows.
in the section of Joey's running away, Joey is always represented as figure (剪影), when considering figure, hero are usually represented as figure. However, in the film War Horse, Joey is represented as figure that because Steven Spielberg wants to heroize Joey and enhance Joey's braveness. And the stage setting of this scene has a lot of iron wire which refers to the war and the hardness to go home.
putting Joey as a figure behind the flames is quite a beautiful scene and fancy even the background is under the war. When this scene is used, the audiences is astonished by the cruel of the war but is much more surprised by the braveness of Joey.
no contrast, no beauty——TOKYOPaprika
different angles of the same scene can generate a feeling of messy and the chaotic of the war field.
another scene based on the same reason above.
Conclusion
So, in the movie War Horse, different scene is a canvas, and the director is the painter to make each scene beautiful and meaningful. In every film, no scene is useless because film is money costing and each scene has its reason to appear. Steven Spielberg does this well.
thanks for reading till the end! I know this is bored but using my own knowledge to analyze films professionally is quite interesting.
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