I was just thinking about taking the arts exam and you said I've been playing supporting roles

Chapter 257 Textbook! He gave life to the characters!

Click!

Mo Sanmei was concentrating on repairing the spine of the person who died in the car accident, her eyes sharp and focused.

The deceased was his ex-girlfriend's husband.

"Sigh~~"

Looking at the scene in front of him, Guo Xun felt that the breath he just took was not strong enough.

Too perverted.

Make a movie and act it out like a documentary.

It's a bit too real.

"..."

Everyone turned their eyes to Chen Jin, including Andre, all with a look of disbelief.

Because of what was happening, almost everyone present was completely dumbfounded.

Mo Sanmei, played by Chen Jin, actually presented the entire process of restoring a dead person to every audience member.

And as if that weren't enough, the footage is in black and white, with only the sounds of tools and breathing.

The impact is strong and it's not just goose bumps.

Guo Xun has already said "fuck" several times in a row.

This long shot is very long, but everyone was surprisingly immersed in watching it because it was not bloody because of the black and white and the filter.

“Wow~~~ That’s awesome!”

After reading this passage, Guo Xun couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

He felt as if his back was wet and he looked very nervous.

Everyone also felt as if they were being pulled away from the camera, but the plot of the movie continued.

But the scene just now has been lingering in everyone's mind, enough for them to remember it clearly after watching the movie.

You can even recall it long into the future.

……

Da da da!
It rained heavily at night, and the streets and alleys of Wuhan's old city were washed by the rain, shining with cold light, and the accumulated water reflected the distorted light and shadows of the neon lights.

wow——

The white car carrying Xiaowen was speeding on the wet road. Its red taillights pierced the rain curtain. The sound of the engine mixed with the noise of raindrops hitting the windows.

Mo Sanmei, played by Chen Jin, rushed out of the funeral home wearing cheap flip-flops. Her unbuttoned floral shirt was blown up by the wind, revealing the hideous scar on her neck and the tattoo on her arm.

pat!

After running for just over ten meters, his left slipper got stuck in the gap of the drainage ditch. He staggered and threw off his right slipper, stepped barefoot into the cold water and continued to run.

Xiaowen was picked up by her mother just now.

The two of them worked together in the store for nearly half a year.

When she thought about the little things in her daily life, Mo Sanmei's eyes became red.

He chased after Xiaowen's taxi like crazy.

"Huchi~~Huchi~~~"

Mo Sanmei ran wildly in the rainy night, but her ruffian running posture, which she had developed from hanging around in the market for a long time, became increasingly strenuous.

His shoulders leaned forward and his arms swung widely, but he looked particularly clumsy in the rain.

Tsk la la——

When his feet slipped, he instinctively opened his arms to keep his balance, but mud and water splashed all over his trouser legs and the gold necklace swung violently on his chest.

His eyes were red and his face was ferocious, making him look extremely embarrassed at this moment.

"Xiaowen...Xiaowen..."

The rain blurred Mo Sanmei's vision. He wiped his face with his sleeve while running, unable to tell whether it was rain or tears.

"Third brother~Third brother~~~"

Xiaowen sat in the back seat of the car, tears streaming down her face as she banged on the rear windshield again and again, watching Mo Sanmei chasing after her, shouting non-stop.

“Xiao Wen!!”

Mo Sanmei's Adam's apple trembled, and her voice sounded extremely hoarse in the rainy night.

Every shout was broken, the veins on his neck bulged like struggling earthworms, and the blood from his front teeth knocking his lower lip mixed with rain water flowed into his collar.

The tension of this line is moving.

"father!"

Xiaowen finally shouted out.

She looked out the rear window at Mo Sanmei, whose eyes were torn and whose whole body seemed broken. She cried till she was hoarse and could no longer hold back the desire in her heart.

Unfortunately, the car was speeding up, and even though Mo Sanmei tried her best to catch up, it was still useless.

In the end, Mo Sanmei could only watch the car disappear from her sight.

boom!
He staggered and fell to his knees on the ground. He raised his head and stared with red eyes. His bare foot was covered in blood.

"Ha ha……"

His chest was gasping for breath as if a bellows was being pumped, and he stood up with difficulty, his knees already covered in blood.

He was about to continue chasing after her, but after taking two steps, a look of despair appeared on his face.

I'm out of energy.

I can't catch up at all.

Mo Sanmei supported her knees with her hands and gasped for breath. She raised her head and continued to stare at the direction where the vehicle disappeared. She swallowed her Adam's apple; her fingers dug deeply into her thigh muscles, but she seemed unaware.

thump!
Finally, Mo Sanmei knelt down in the rainy alley with a wry smile.

The sound of rain weakened a little, but the muffled sound of knuckles when fists hit the ground became clearer and clearer.

"Ahhh-"

A series of suppressed sobs came out of Chen Jin's mouth.

He punched the road, venting the powerlessness in his heart.

Finally, he collapsed to the ground, curled up in a fetal position, as weak as a patient.

The rain fell quickly on him.

The camera now shot a low-angle shot of two blue plastic slippers in the puddles.

The sole of one shoe was worn off and the laces of the other shoe were broken.

Mo Sanmei once struggled for her dignity to survive and was a marginalized little person. But at this moment, it seemed that she had lost even her last bit of dignity.

His tough outer shell of a gangster was completely shattered, and he was as fragile as an orphan.

Is this the last straw that breaks the camel's back?

The sound of crying finally came from Mo Sanmei's curled up body. At this time, the red light from the rear of the car in the camera gradually disappeared in the blue-gray rain and fog.

The picture transitions from the wet floral shirt to the "starry sky shroud" that Xiaowen scribbled with colored pens in his memory.

In a 360-degree surround shot, the two people are gradually swallowed up by passers-by as the space rotates. At this moment, the fate of the individuals seems extremely pale.

"How long has this kid been filming?"

Zhang Huijun couldn't help but ask Tian Zhuangzhuang beside him.

Tian Zhuangzhuang smiled and held up three fingers: "Less than three months!"

Zhang Huijun: “…”

"Really, I don't think it's a PR thing. In fact, he can also win the award. He must be popular in China anyway!"

If this acting skill can't even win the Golden Rooster Award, Tian Zhuangzhuang will definitely destroy the Golden Rooster stage.

No kidding.

Andre looked at Chen Jin several times, not to mention Lawrence who was sitting on the other side of Chen Jin. This guy simply couldn't imagine that the young man sitting next to him was the character in the movie.

It's not just a contrast, but a kind of transcendence in performance.

This role is not a true portrayal of the actor, but one that really requires the actor to use his real abilities to perform.

Lawrence had never seen the young actor next to him perform to such an extent in his life.

clap clap clap!
In the small viewing room, thunderous applause suddenly broke out for Chen Jin's highlight performance of the car chase.

This was not the first time the crowd applauded.

The scene just now is the most tear-jerking scene in the whole film, and it resonates more with people than the silence during the burial.

This is also a long shot.

The film starts from following Chen Jin's staggering back, to capturing his ferocious face from the side, and finally rotating 180 degrees to shoot his kneeling silhouette. The street lights above his head are blurred into blurred spots of light, just like the "stars" that Xiaowen mentioned!
"..."

Guo Xun stared at Chen Jin, who was standing beside him with red eyes, watching the movie.

He felt the same way.

Even though Guo Xun was determined, he was somewhat touched by Chen Jin's performance just now.

In fact, during the burial scene, there were already exclamations from the entire screening room.

The funeral scene uses high-contrast black and white to symbolize the boundary between life and death, while the memory fragments use saturated warm colors to highlight the tension of life.

This is the picture after Chen Jin and Tian Zhuangzhuang had a discussion.

The impact of black and white is quite strong, especially when the body is being buried, the feeling of death is even stronger.

And the entire process is shot in one shot, creating an immersive sense of ritual.

The effect presented is solemn and suffocating, which makes people's scalps numb; coupled with the current scene of the male and female protagonists parting, everyone feels very sad in their hearts.

The more warm the beginning is, the more sad the ending is.

The emotion of Xiaowen's departure had not yet left everyone's hearts, when the next second, Mo Sanmei's father, Lao Mo, passed away.

The blow of two people leaving in succession did not bring Mo Sanmei down.

On the contrary, Mo Sanmei has transformed from a ruffian to a mature man.

Life seemed to be redeemed.

Bang bang bang!
The fireworks blossomed on the big screen with the most beautiful and dazzling splendor. Mo Sanmei conveyed her awe for life with her calm and firm eyes, completing the reconstruction of life values.

“What we bury is not death, but the stories that the living dare not remember!”

The last shot is a sentence that Lao Mo said when he was sitting on a bench and chatting with Mo Sanmei before he died.

This was the only time the father and son had a quiet chat.

It was the day after Lao Mo taught Mo Sanmei the techniques of an undertaker.

The father and son's similar expressions and movements seem to have merged together.

This is of course a metaphor, meaning that Mo Sanmei eventually became a person like Lao Mo, the inheritance of father and son.

Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Starring: Chen Jin

At the end, white subtitles appeared on the big screen, causing all the audience to be stunned for a moment.

Then, there was applause that resounded throughout the entire screening room.

It lasted for a full 10 seconds.

Guo Xun also stared at Chen Jin, totally not knowing what to say.

Chen Jin's acting in this drama is much better than that in "The Hawthorn Tree"; even though Guo Xun already felt that the role of the third brother in "The Hawthorn Tree" was very good, this "Life Events" seemed to have fully released Chen Jin's acting strength.

The ability to speak lines naturally in dialect, and the performance of various micro-expressions, especially eye contact.

The voice changed from the ruffian sound in the early stage to various changes later on.

too strong.

Guo Xun looked at Chen Jin several times throughout the whole process, as if he was meeting Chen Jin for the first time.

It was really because the role of Mo Sanmei had such a subversive impact on him.

Even the one-shot burial scene could not overshadow the brilliance of his character from beginning to end.

Mo Sanmei has been brought to life by Chen Jin.

"Can you watch it again?"

Old man Andre suddenly smiled at Tian Zhuangzhuang. Tian Zhuangzhuang stroked his white beard and nodded: "Of course!"

For these judges, the first time they look at the story as a whole, as well as the camera language, techniques, etc.; the second time they look at the details, the places that were overlooked in the first time, and peeking at various metaphors, blank spaces, etc.

This is a very interesting thing for an old director who considers himself an artist.

In fact, there are many allusions and innuendos in Lao Tian's film.

This is the difference between a veteran director and a commercial film director.

Maybe his films tend to be more obscure and literary, but the quality of the films has indeed improved a lot.

He used the funeral industry as a microcosm of modern society and pointed out the alienation of human nature in a materialistic society.

There is also the Chinese emotion between father and son, which is even stronger and more silent.

Various recurring "unburned paper money", "broken incense sticks", etc. symbolize unfulfilled obsessions.

Water elements such as rain and river run throughout the film, implying the cycle of life and death.

Etc., etc.

In short, after watching the movie, Chen Jin felt that it had completely surpassed the level of the original movie he had experienced.

As for the ratings, Chen Jin alone has no say.

He scored full marks anyway.

This is Lao Tian’s first work and it is obvious that it has been polished with great care.

No one left, including Lawrence next to Chen Jin, who continued to watch intently.

Chen Jin also read it very carefully the second time.

Guo Xun was carefully appreciating Chen Jin's performance. This was very important to him. He had just watched the plot of the movie, and he wanted to see again, how strong was Chen Jin's performance?!

As for some of the things the director wants to express, we can watch the film and analyze it carefully later.

As for Chen Jin, he watched some of the techniques used by Lao Tian and the photographer in this movie.

……

Everyone had different purposes, but they all sat upright.

This time, Chen Jin watched the film for the purpose of learning, and felt the strength of the academic director.

Maybe some of their movies really didn't do well at the box office.

But the depth of the film is definitely there.

First of all, the visual style has a very strong contrast in tones.

The warm yellow of urban life versus the cold blue of funeral scenes creates a sense of opposition between life and death.

There is also the bustling noise of the city in Wuhan dialect, contrasting with the suffocating silence in the death scenes.

The roar of demolition sites gradually drowned out the bells of funeral homes, symbolizing the disappearance of tradition.

There are also metaphors of various lenses.

The most important thing is to photograph people.

Chen Jin performed very well in the film, and the character arc was fully portrayed.

Lao Tian has not forgotten that Chen Jin was going to win the award, so his character is kept comprehensive and complex.

“A very meaningful film!”

“I feel it’s more in-depth than The Funeral Director, but it’s a little less artistic and the camera language is a little weak…”

After the second playback, Andre started chatting there, and at the same time looked at Chen Jin and smiled and said: "Your performance is impressive!"

This is recognition of Chen Jin's acting skills.

"Thank you!"

"If this movie had premiered in Venice two years ago, it would have shocked everyone!"

Andre sighed.

Chen Jin obviously understood this.

It is very difficult to surpass the previous achievements.

Because "Departures" came out of nowhere two years ago, if "Life Events" had come out first, there might have been no "Departures"; the tone of "Departures" is very sad, the story is actually very simple, and the artistry is quite strong.

In fact, there are many realistic emotions, and it also highlights the greatness of the profession of an undertaker. It is the first film to narrate life and death.

But "Life Events" is actually more profound!
But films of the same type are inevitably compared, so it is difficult to win a big prize.

Because it already exists.

In other words, "Life Events" should not win the Golden Lion Award.

Even though "Departures" did not win any of the three major awards, being original and re-creating based on the work of predecessors are two different concepts.

Although "Life Events" did not refer to "Departures", the judges will not use this reference.

In their eyes, no matter how well "Life Events" is made, there is already an award-winning blockbuster similar to it.

"I also think Chen Jin acted very well!"

Mr. Xie Fei said: "It's not easy to play this role at the age of 19. Apart from the most brilliant and professional one-shot scene, the car chase, the appearance, and the philosophical chat with the old man on the bench are all the sublimation of the character!"

"Old Tian, is there any meaning in the part where a deceased person looks up to you when he was alive?"

Zheng Dongtian asked some doubts.

Chen Jin next to him quickly translated it for Andre, who was actually quite curious as well.

"It is mainly to strengthen the discussion of existentialism. The blank space over there is a tribute to the philosophy of life and death, Camus's absurdity, Heidegger's existence toward death..."

Chen Jin was a little confused about this.

These are also some inherent problems that many academic directors have when making movies.

Because Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Yimou and others initially learned Western directing styles, such as the New Wave, etc., so they will more or less have some Western colors.

The discussion after the movie was heated, and Chen Jin got the answer he wanted.

His acting skills in this film have been recognized by many people, and...in fact, including Zhang Huijun, everyone was very surprised.

Because of Chen Jin’s age.

It is definitely not easy to play such a complex role at this age.

What's more, there is that killer shot of the burial highlight, which is an even bigger plus.

“When I watched it the second time, it was really creepy!”

"I still can't believe that this role was played by you!"

Guo Xun said this sincerely, and at this moment, several scenes of Chen Jin in "Life Events" were still flashing in his mind.

“A natural actor!”

"I feel like you're even more powerful than Zhou Xun back then!"

Guo Xun was definitely not flattering. Anyone who has seen this movie would only remember a few highlights of Chen Jin.

On the contrary, the plot of the film seems a bit overshadowed by comparison.

This is not to say that the movie is bad, on the contrary, the movie is very good, but Chen Jin's acting skills are what make the audience remember it even more!
Just like "Dying to Survive", it has such a high rating, but the scene where Lu Shouyi eats will be forever remembered in film history.

The burial scene in Chen Jin's film is definitely textbook-level.

But there are so many famous scenes, such as car chases, appearances, conversations between father and son...

To be frank, from the moment Chen Jin appeared on the stage, the character of Mo Sanmei seemed to have possessed his life, which was given by Chen Jin...

A good actor can do this.

But in the past, only some actors over 30 years old could do it, such as Baoqiang smoking and the trees being alive.

And now, 19-year-old Chen Jin has made Mo Sanmei a classic!

(End of this chapter)