Foreword to the Ophires Mini-Topic:
Although I should not use it this way, it is a rare opportunity to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the death of max Ophüls (March 6, 1902 – March 26, 1957) of the director I admire the most, (there is always a death).
I remember that when I was still active on Douban in 2008, I complained that Ofels had not been paid attention to, even in his own time, it seemed that he was not well understood, like Bazan basically rarely praised him; I remember that there was a discussion with the teacher of Daqi Tiger Pi at that time, and he said that there were actually many of which were introduced in foreign countries. But the reality is that there are still not many people in China who discuss him, and foreign researchers seem to rarely hit the core of his film aesthetics. Probably as he told Truffaut: As long as a dozen or twenty people can see what he designed in the film, it is enough.
No, the director who had profoundly influenced Kubrick, and even Ozu's favorite, has not been discussed or studied enough. In several of his literary adaptations (almost all of his masterpieces are adaptations), together they can probably become a treasure trove of literary adaptations; and his well-known camera movements, although completely incomparable with the lighter equipment or more sophisticated special effects techniques now, his form is always used in the most precise moments, and it is inevitable that people cannot help but sigh, in front of Offils, even Kubrick, in terms of formal considerations, are still too rough. And even the historian Sadur and the theorist Birch could not see the skill of Ofes. Probably only the truly knowledgeable filmmakers, who also know his value, would be willing to sign a letter to the Le Figaro newspaper to support the work when his last classic, Lola Montès (1955), was willing to sign a letter to the Le Figaro newspaper to support the work, including Astroc, Rossellini, Tati, Baker, and of course Truffaut, "Defending Laura Montès is defending the art of cinema," their co-signed book says.
Since it probably takes those master-level eyes to understand the beauty of Ofels' films, the best way to commemorate him may be to let him speak out on his own! So the fan network exclusively organized this commemorative feature, except for my own brazenness because I wrote half of the book about him ("Finding the Gap Between Baroque and Zen - The Aesthetic Presentation of Max Offils and Ozu Yasujiro's Film"), and volunteered to write a small article listing his scene scheduling features, the remaining five articles were written by the director himself, and then translated by the super French translation team of the fan network according to the original French text. In one article, the translator was confused and asked me what to do with the many puns and multi-guan in the text, and I said that I would let the text keep their appearance! After all, the man who died in 1957 quoted his 1969 speech in the text! You say, how do you think about and understand this person's head? You will know that no amount of interpretation is true (enough)! I hope that this feature article is only the beginning, not the end, of the reader's understanding of Ofels. Incidentally, some of his best works have had DVDs (labels across CC, BFI, Gaumont, Second Run, etc.) circulating on the market, I say so, you should understand ~
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Letter to the editor-in-chief... (Note 1): Believe me, from my experience, I am not a critic or a professional literati. If you insist on writing an article about my experience in this Easter issue, I ask you to laugh at this note that may not be uniform in style.
There are no clear ideas, just cluttered notes and intermittent ideas, which in the eyes of people in the industry mean rest. The brain travels and tries a psychiatric therapy, like collecting, not simply collecting a single red thread, but multiple colored threads. This makes us change our minds, because in movies, it's the complete opposite: we have to build, to calculate, we need a macro point of view, because movies are an industrial product, and since I started in this industry, my experience has been like this... That's what I'm starting to tell you now.
"Yes! Your experience will be more and more enriched! (From a prophetic word from 1922) My uncle was right. When all the uncles gave cautious and pessimistic advice to the young people who were just starting out, they were right. Experience—which can only be learned through acquired learning—means the gradual loss of childhood ignorance and dreams. We replace reality with fantasy, and we experience all kinds of established and wanted things, as well as uncontrollable limitations in the world. An experienced man is actually a ruined child. We like to entrust our fate to the police, pilots, or dentists.
In Darmstadt, I once met a theater owner who had gone out of business. It was the winter of 1914 after the war, during the occupation period (Note 3). I came from Aix-la-Chapelle and wanted to visit him. In the midst of a snowstorm, I trekked across the Mainz Bridge. My little box was filled with advertising leaflets and hopes. He was at home, lying on the couch, looking gray in the sunlight. He had an ice pack on his head and a wet towel over his extremely weak heart. Under his direction, the rehearsal (I remember the play's name is Edmond) was a complete failure due to various absences, strikes, theatre crises, and noisy circumstances. "All these people, not adults," he muttered, "even the musicians of the orchestra, the artists, not to mention the actors, are big kids..."
35 years later, or rather, the day before yesterday, I went to a production studio in Paris. A colleague (director) seemed to have no love, he said, "I've had enough." It's all kids, it's useless! "Contrary to him, I like kids, of course I don't like kids at all, I like big kids. Unfortunately, around me, in the film industry, the adult era has begun, it's the era of ruined kids. Forty years ago, when the film was still just starting out, my uncle stood in front of the "Children's Park" and predicted that "your experience will be more and more rich!" Was he right? If we've really entered the era of "experienced" cinema, we just want to keep that stability a little short-lived.
"Look for great engineers and dare to question all the rules." If I saw a similar job in the steel industry, I would definitely sign up. However, we don't need a director like this. That's why in recent years, before every movie, I've put this little notice in my virtual newspaper and then I've introduced myself.
To illustrate what I want to express, driving around Paris became the best example. Rules everywhere. A lot of people know the rules, and a lot of people know pretty much. Some will respect the rules, some will not. Those rules are known to be followed by us, or we may not be, in all sorts of ways. So, the rules are constantly changing. The result is that everyone can drive. Driving in Paris is like a work of art. Traffic police are the best directors, and when they're doing the command, people have to obey. The same is true in Morocco. The driving guide in Paris is worth learning from all who expect to be a director. Not according to the guide or map, but lazily in the open-air café will be a glance (traffic police command). That's why my friends spend hours at a time in a café...
If we give the police, or their assistants, or the managers of the Place de la Concorde more autonomy over production and distribution, they will cause a great deal of confusion. Movies don't obey them. Cinema requires strict order, all kinds of definite arrangements. That is its tragedy. Previously, it was uninsured, dangerous, and not threatened. Nowadays, it tries to be an entertainment, to have its own rules, to construct its own regulations, and to demand of itself in this way. And it no longer seeks good and wonderful things, but looks pitifully at the income. Maybe it's the fault of the financial people who have spread all over the world. Giant banks and finance ministers replaced those players, who were responsible for giving the investment. We should understand them.
In the history of cinema, there is one person I really like, and although I don't know him, I would love to work for him. The businessman created a profession in the field and was almost an artist. This person could be Jesse Louis Lasky (Note 5), Samuel Goldwyn (Note 6), Louis Lasky( Note 6). Louis Burt Mayer (Note 7), Marcus Loew. And now, they're all pretty much gone. Such a man should be the creator of passion in the adventures of the movie. If he had appeared in front of me, I think he would have been wearing a cowboy hat, riding boots, and a bullet box and a revolver in his hand. This suit, which can only be worn for me, for an experienced audience, I can't imagine anything else. In fact, he may be wearing a tuxedo and wearing monocular glasses. The inexperienced and magical businessman saw several rolls of film that sped up into two minutes of footage—an acrobat on a bicycle or a monkey—and the cowboy businessman thought that perhaps a longer story could be presented on film, with beginnings, middles, endings, and dramatic movements.
Then, these Western cowboys embarked on the Desert Trail, either on horseback or by train to California, to the desert. There, there was nothing but sunshine, endless sunshine. They built production studios, laboratories, and production companies on top of the sand. The money that gathered, they did not "invest" to spend, but went to gamble. They were the first explorers of the imagination. What they photographed was the first dream, the first kiss, the first fire, the first drop of water, the first war, the first peace, the first birth and the first death. They made the first film.
Today, the expedition has become a business act that attracts successors to these pioneers: presidents, bankers, and ordinary clerks. In order to keep their money going, they only invest their money on certain things. I'm afraid this is the pathology of the entire film industry. When we make a movie, it's like building a castle in a dark cloud. However, castles in the clouds cannot be strong. If we want to fortify the castle, we must drive away the dark clouds.
Excerpt from a speech (I gave a speech to college students at a university around 1969):
"Because of this, out of love for God, I don't want to worship chaos and give up the right to speak to anti-traditional people who are desperately trying to destroy and don't have time to learn to paint." Those recognized avant-garde fashion people get old very quickly because they always want to stay young. The makeup they put on their faces can't hide the wrinkles that have passed through the years. There is an experience that, in my opinion, does not require explanation, is a wonderful experience. I don't know why, but it always makes me have to stop and have a refreshing rest. It wasn't until I met it that my heart started beating again. We should not copy, but humbly follow its path. Appreciating masterpieces is an experience that we should always keep. The preciousness of this experience should be passed on from generation to generation through the hands of the masters to the hearts of the disciples.
Those who have not been baptized by their predecessors will not encounter the blessings of tradition. We go to see F. Kennedy with reverence and love. W. Maunau Murnau), Ernst Lubitsch, Griffith, Sergei M. Eisenstein, vsevolod Pudovkin. We feel them like we feel the echo of beautiful music. They're going to stop us from taking this concert of time too seriously..." A female college student said to a narrator's friend. This teacher is starting to get bored! ”
Excerpt from a speech in Hamburg on 15 January 1956:
"Ladies and gentlemen, your chairman told me that he wanted me to give a lecture called 'The Experience of a Filmmaker'. Instead of rejecting the title, I changed it to a simple 'experience'. Because I don't think there's a creator in a movie. For me, it's almost a principle that the creators in the film are equated with all the people who work for the film. My task as a director is to organize these people to sing together and become the 'creator' of the film. A film cannot be done by one person. I can only – along with my colleagues – awaken the creativity of everyone, whether it's an electrician, an actor, a soundtrack, an editor, or an artist (I can't list the people in this little world I love.
How do you make a good movie? Gentlemen and ladies, what should I do when my costumer draws me wonderful clothes that I can't even imagine? What do I do when I talk to a videographer who always inspires me and often sees more clearly and longer-term than I do? How do we do it? We often exhaust words, but here I think "freedom" says it all, meaning not to get stuck in experience. My fear is that if you dwell on past experience, you won't know how to go next. The door must be open. Although usually we all like to keep the door shut – whether in the production studio or at home, because there will always be a gas repairer or a neighbor who suddenly appears at your door. However, in this field of cinema, the doors must be open for strangers, for people who are not yet experienced. When we have a house with an open door, we are not afraid of not having guests. ”
In the history of cinema, at least as far as I know, there is one very special thing. The profession moves forward only when there is a vacancy, when past experience is no longer helpful. These "vacancies" are precisely the key to the revolution. In that era, Chaplin was born and ushered in an era. After World War II, when Roberto Rossellini made Roma, città aperta (1945), the same changes were made, also unprecedented. At that time, we had never carried a handheld camera, with rudimentary equipment, without lighting, so we shot the tragedy of daily life, filmed a poem, without permission, almost secretly completed. It was a wonderful moment full of magic and surprises. It seems that the lack of experience is an important thing in our profession: how terrible it is to think of a theatrical expression that has only existed for forty years, but has recklessly thought that it has established rules!
If you, like me, come from the field of theater that has existed for a thousand years, we will be proud to find that directors who draw experience from the professional field are somewhat precocious. Especially those technologists who are trying to build the world with the technology they just invented. Watch out for these people! They can be friends when they submit to our will, but they are executioners when they are technically supreme. They are good people, but they don't know how dangerous they can become. When they embrace us with their arms outstretched, they say "This or that has to be done... You can't do that... Because, for example, when you rinse, the copy will not be clear..." Or they will say it a thousand times in their ears, for us, something like a medieval cipher letter. Sometimes my brain is completely confused, and I even follow them. I can't think anymore. Only one thing came to my mind: at this time, they were abusing the soul of the movie. ”
This is serious, and the impact is more profound than we think. They have begun to infect the actors. Nowadays, we can see many actors around the world who are already technically honed before they become actors.
In Berlin, around the 30s, I met an old lady who taught me a lot of things. Her name is Rosa Valetti, and she is very old. The first time I saw her was in the studio. Someone was nailing nails, and she wanted to rehearse a play. She stood up and said, "Where I perform, nails are not allowed." So she went home. Today, all actors can endure the noise of their surroundings without frowning. It can be said that there is no longer any respect for the creation itself. In this way, they made the technology panic and even lose all their internal organs. They don't even have the courage to resist. In this way, technology becomes unscrupulous.
A few weeks ago, I went to a lab. There, through some experiments with chemical techniques, they made the chaotic sounds of my film very clear. I don't want that effect. The head of the lab said to me, "The principle of our lab is to always let others understand what we want to say." I tried to explain to him what I was saying, but he interrupted me and said, "You must understand, Mr. Ophels, that you work for the entertainment industry." I replied to him, "Indeed, and because of that, I want to make something that entertains me." ”
exegesis:
1. The original article was published in the magazine "Deutsche Zeitung" on May 31, 1956.
2. The medium-sized city located in the southern part of hesse, Germany, known as the "City of Science and Technology" in Germany, is also considered a representative of the Art Nouveau movement, which can be traced back to the Darmstadt artist village Künstlerkolonie founded by Archduke Ernst Ludwig in 1899.
3. After World War I, the Ruhr area in Germany was occupied by French troops and lost parts of East Prussia, such as the Polish Corridor. The Rhine region has also been demilitarized for a long time.
Aachen (German: Aachen) is a city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, near the Belgian border with the Netherlands.
5. Jesse Louis Lasky, along with William Wadsworth Hodkinson and Adolph Zukor, founded Fame Players Film (FFPF) in 1912, and in 1916, founded Paramount Pictures and listed it as part of the FPF Company. In 1916, FPF was renamed Fames Players-Lasky. Later, in 1927 Paramount became independent and broke away from Famous Players-Lasky.
6. Samuel Goldwin founded the Goldwin Film Company, whose company was identified as the famous "Lion Leo".
7. Louis P. B. Meyer is one of the founders of The MGM Hollywood Studios. In 1922 he co-founded the Mitterall Company in the United States with Marcus Lowe and Samuel Godwin, then known as the Loew Company. By 1924, Marcus Lowe decided to acquire the Mitterrow Film Company and the Goldwin Film Company.
Translation: Piggy Source: Film Handbook No. 81, May 1958 issue
"Piggy Pig who loves movies and gossips"