Research Essay of Wong Kar-wai’s Use of Camera Coverage

Example Videos:  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-G9KWzga6uOSW7PqpLqOWYszUjzKb6By

The combination of Wang Kar wai and Christopher Doyle is like a chemical reaction. The Hong Kong and characters under their lens have fascinated innumerable movie fans and critics. The art of filming also fascinates me deeply. Cinematographers manipulate lights to create environments and atmospheres. Just as musical instruments show diverse sound changes, photography explores space and time through color changes. According to Doyle, ‘photography is like jazz’.‘

In Wong Kar Wai’s early movies, he used hand-held cameras to create an intense sense of movement. Through the extensive use of motion and unclear images, it explains the complex environment in which the story takes place, while highlighting the inner consciousness of the characters, there’s an example fro Chungking Express that how Wong using the camera coverage to create the whole atmosphere.

(Example video 1) At the beginning of the film, he used hand-held lens, slow motion, irregular composition with shaking, and cross-montage and intermittent editing techniques to draw the audience into a panic through the violent shaking of the lens.Introduce the background crowded people, narrow alleys of the story with a hand-held pan: As the tense and rhythmic music scene shook the crowd, an exquisite woman with blond hair, wearing sunglasses, wearing a trench coat and shoulder bag appeared. Her private detective’s trench coat showed the old-world fantasy and incompatibility with the surrounding environment. The camera continues to shift from the woman’s follow-up to the citizens in the alley: the blue-clothed citizens who are eating and the little girl shopping, everything is calm and soothing, but the camera movement is tense, shaking and blurry, even The rhythm of the music is gradually accelerating, and this contradictory contrast is exactly in line with the woman’s mood and footsteps, highlighting the panic and eagerness of the woman’s heart.

(Example video 2) Doyle also played a very important role in the process of shaping the style of Wong Kar Wai’s film. He also has unique insights into the use of camera coverage. “In the Mood for Love,” the scene at the night alley section was actually shot in Thailand. The street in the documentary is a dirty and narrow. It has become a very dark place which is petty bourgeoisie after they did some retrofits on it. Doyle accidentally found a public aisle similar to a Chinese bucket building in the building next door. The machine and track were erected in the corridor of the building besides the street, shooting through the iron fence to capture the scene of the conversation between Zhang and Liang. All the debris of the residents placed in front of the window did not move, and everything was on the screen as it was. Doyle is very excited when he talks about it. Making a movie is not a completely creative process, but a process of acceptance. Accepting what the surrounding environment gives you and conforming to their trends is a kind of process of balance and openness. Doyle is a person who really understands what movies and scenes are.

In terms of image characteristics, Wong Kar-wai’s view of time and space further reflects the subjective time and space characteristics of modern movies. As early as “As Tear Go By”, the abrupt action in the process of conventional narrative drama has been upgraded, “Chungking Express” The difference in the speed of the front and back frames of the fast food restaurant (step printing and slow motion). The ultra-wide lens shot and distorted space of “Fallen Angels”, the shifting of light and shadows, and the counterpoint of music are similar to the visual effects on MTV. The abstract and primitive ancient world, desert cottages, light and shadow change in “ashes of time” The rotating bamboo cage creates a subjective interpretation of time and space on the image. This time and space sometimes becomes a participatory element in the play, sometimes it is not connected with the characters at all.
(Example Video 3)The space in Wong Kar-wai’s movies is materialized, and the setting of the space is presented in accordance with the psychological space of the characters. It is often expressed as a dreamlike and hazy form of space, and this kind of space makes it difficult for the audience to find it in the movie. The feeling similar to one’s daily life produces a kind of alienated aesthetic enjoyment between the scene of life and the space of the movie. In the movie “Ashes of Time”, Wong Kar-wai puts the story mainly in the desert. This kind of space setting is related to the narrative motif of the desolate heart of Hong Kong people in the place that the author wants to express. The desert is empty and desolate. Gives people a sense of barrenness. In this repression, Ouyang Feng (the protagonist) pointed out those emotional stories that are as desolate as the desert. This poor, barren, and desperate desert intention has also entered the spatial setting of the entire film, even if It is a small hotel outside Gusu City in Jiangnan, and also a barren and desolate in the northwest. Moreover, the secluded space enclosed by the earth wall gives people a huge sense of depression, and Wong Kar-wai wants to express the emotional despair that permeates the movie through this barrenness and depression. Therefore, from this perspective, Wong Kar-wai’s narrative space is a presentation and reflection of the narrative sense and the psychological spatialization of the characters. Furthermore, the narrative space reflected by this emotion presents a fractured and divided form. The way of moving and changing sceneries, transforming and transforming space in other traditional movies, has been completely abandoned and replaced in the ” Ashes of Time”. Its function is to make the film present a personal style of the rhythm. It can also be called as a kind of communication between the director and the audience.

Wong Kar-wai is self-contained and unique representing the highest achievement of today’s Hong Kong film industry in a unique way. It is the polyphonic multi-voice comprehensive dialogue, the two motifs of wandering and searching, rejection and evasion, and a unique and modern view of time and space which constitutes Wong Wai’s highly personalized and perceptual world. (Example Video 4) Time always exists in the linear development of movies. Wong Kar-wai likes to materialize time, and every specific point of time is related to a specific thing or event. His intention is not to time itself, but to set off the spirit and living state of the movie characters themselves. In the Days of Being Wild, the time is displayed in the form of a clock. Wong Kar-wai uses a close-up shot of a clock and the voice-over of the clock sound to interweave time and the dialogue between 2 characters. The action of Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) watching Xun Zai (Leslie Cheung) leave at the end expresses her fear and fascination with him. This one minute has become an eternal memory in Su Lizhen’s emotional world. But the characteristic of an author is not only the constant repetition of maturing stylistic features, but also the dissimilarity and variation. The vitality of an artist is not only to create a classic, but also to dare to break and violate this classic.

The theme of “The Great Master” is a breakthrough for Wong Kar-wai. In his own words, “I want to show the beauty of Chinese people’s human nature to the world.” The movies Wong Kar-wai shot in the past are easy for people to classify him as “petty bourgeois” and “urban”……. This is not a good thing for a director, because it means the solidification of style, but Wong Kar-wai won’t just stop here, he is a person who is good at thinking.. In the official documentary “Road to the Grand Master”, Wong Kar-wai tells the origin of “The Grand Master”: In 1996, Wong Kar-wai saw the cover of Bruce Lee on the newsstand of the Argentine railway station. He was curious at that time why Bruce Lee had such a charm. From this, he thought about what Bruce Lee’s master should be. Then he watched a video taken three days before Ye Wen’s death. One of the pauses in the punching of Ye Wen aroused his interest. He thought Ye Wen wanted to passed on his things, and it was this idea that opened the way of martial arts in “The Great Master”.

Wong Karwai is perfectly capable of the use of camera coverage. He is especially good at using pictures, lenses and colors to express the emotions of characters and create the atmosphere of the story… The image effects he shoots are even labelled as “Wang Kar-wai images.” Many of the pictures in “The Great Master” are beautiful and freehand.. Regardless of the deep meaning, at least the visual effect can bring the audience a beautiful enjoyment…. For example, at the beginning of the film, the scene of Ye Wen fighting with everyone in the rainy night, the rain curtain and splashing water droplets can be seen very clearly, coupled with the close-up shooting of fighting actions, the actor’s punches and footwork movements are very clear every time.. It’s really likely to watch, and there are ways to follow…. In Wong Kar-wai’s films, the highly stylized and beautiful pictures are realized by the shot. ” Wong Kar-wai likes to use a telephoto lens very much, that is, compressing, blurring the background, and highlighting the image of the main character….” which is the opposite technique, but similar effect to Chungking Express. (Example Video 5) In Chungking Express, the step printing effect is achieved by the combination of slow motion, time-lapse and motion blur. The feeling of romance and loss is conveyed vividly (Example Video 6) But in The Grandmaster Wong used telephoto lens. Shooting speeds higher than 24 frames per second exhibit a slow motion effect. Due to the short depth of field, it can make the subject in a cluttered environment stand out. This technique reflects the swiftness of the actor’s fists and feet and the slow fall of rain to highlight the explosive power. This method is also shown in the battle of the character “Yi Xian Tian” in the film. This photography technique enhances the precise visual experience of close-up shots, and emphasizes the characters’ high martial arts and excellent psychological quality, which further has a good narrative and rendering effect for the development of the plot. This image feature has continued in “The Great Master”. Unlike previous kung fu movies, “The Great Master” is more delicate in the display of kung fu. Due to the schedule, Song Xiaofei replace the former director of photography Philip Le Sourd to finished the second half of the movie. Song states that: “In terms of the performance of martial arts, Wong hopes that the film can show a difference to the traditional Chinese martial movies.” The style focuses on the brewing process of martial arts moves or the state of being ready to go.” Therefore, Wong Kar-wai sometimes asks for different things. We often go behind the actors to shoot, such as taking a step back from Tony Leung’s feet, retract your hand or raise it up. Director Wang wants the feeling of accumulating energy before sending a punch.” Usually an actor punches out, and we split it into several shots to shoot: how does the shoulder move? How do you move your arms, how your hands move, what your eyes look like when you punch out, what your footsteps look like, what your waist looks like, step by step?” It is precisely because of the lens with the detailed treatment on the screen,” the audience can feel the beauty of each trick when watching the movie.

Compared with Wong Kar wai’s previous movies, “The Grandmaster” has both a continuation and a breakthrough in his style. Wong expressed his understanding of the spirit of Chinese martial arts through the film, and sublimated this spirit. I believe that the master Gong Baosein in the film said when he taught his daughters and apprentices: “It is better to think about progress than to stop. “And “the martial artist has three stages: see oneself, see the world, see all beings” is also director Wong Kar-wai’s own thinking on life and film career, and his film rollercoaster will continue in this direction.

References

Yves M, 2007, In the mood for Doyle, [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tqmBHZGx04

Wong Kar-wai, 2012, The Documentary of the Grandmaster, [Video]. Iqiyi. https://www.iqiyi.com/v_19rrjru8t4.html

Reihan S, (Host). (2013, August 23) Wong Kar-wai on “The Grandmaster” and the Essence of Kung Fu [Video podcast] https://youtu.be/7rXZCuo2MVQ