Movies are not a language, but they are like a language. Film is not a language in English, French or mathematics. First of all, there should be no ungrammatical phenomena in movies. You don't need words. For example, babies can understand the pictures of movies months before they develop their language skills. Even cats watch TV. Obviously, in order to enjoy movies, you don't need any corresponding movie intelligence, at least the lowest level.
Film is not a language, but it is like a language. Because it is like a language, it may be beneficial for us to study movies by some methods of studying language. In fact, in recent ten years, this method of studying movies, which is essentially a linguistic method, has become more and more important. Since film is not a language, strict linguistic concepts can lead to misunderstanding. Since the beginning of movie history, theorists like to compare movies with written language (partly to prove that it is valuable to study movies seriously), but it was not until 1950s and early 1960s that a wider new category of ideas was developed that people realized that words and speech were just two of many communication systems, and then they could study movies seriously as a language. This all-encompassing category is semiotics, which studies the symbol system. By redefining the concepts of written language and oral language, semiotics affirms that movies should be studied as a language. Any communication system is a "language": English, French or Chinese are "language systems". So movies may also become a language, but it is obviously not a "language system".
For semioticists, a symbol must consist of two parts: signifier and signified. For example, the word "word" is a combination of letters or sounds, which means signifier; It represents another thing, and this is what it refers to. In literature, the relationship between signifier and signified is the center of art: poets use sound (signifier) on the one hand and meaning (signified) on the other. The relationship between the two is very interesting. In fact, the beauty of poetry lies in this to a great extent: the dance between sound and meaning. But in the movie, the signifier and the signified are almost the same: the symbol of the movie is the short circuit symbol. A painting has some direct relationship with what it refers to, but a word rarely has such a relationship (except for some hieroglyphics).
However, movies do look like a language. So how does it work? Obviously, one person's imagination of an object is different from that of another person. If two people read the word "rose", you may think of the "peace" variety of roses you picked last summer, and I may think of a rose that Lola gave me in February. But in the movie, we both see the same rose. The filmmaker can choose from countless roses and then shoot the selected rose in countless ways.
In movies, the choice of artists is infinite; In literature, the choice of artists is limited (this is easy to understand, for example, when you want to show a rose in a movie, you can choose from 10,000 roses in Qian Qian. But there are only three words in the text for you to choose from. But for the audience, the opposite is true. Judging from this relationship, movies are not hints, but statements. This is its strength and its danger. Because it was imposed on the audience. This is why it is beneficial and even important for the audience to learn to read pictures and then master some of the power of this media. The better a person understands a picture, the more he understands, and the greater the power of the picture to him.
Montage has now become a worldwide movie term. Its juxtaposition with long shots is called two "double-edged swords" to change movies. In a narrow sense, montage refers to the means of arranging and combining elements such as lens picture, sound and color, that is, the picture language, sound language and color language we often say. It is a rhetorical device in movies, and there are many remarks about his nature. When reading an article, the reader must create a picture by himself, while the film reader does not. In order to complete the rational process, both readers must explain the symbols they feel. The more their intellectual activities, the more balance can be reached between the audience and the creators in this process; The better this balance is, the more vital this work of art will be, and the more it will arouse * * *. The earliest film textbooks-even many recently published textbooks-have made a blunt comparison between film and written language with a short-sighted enthusiasm. According to this standard theory, the lens is the word of the film, the scene is its sentence and the scene is its paragraph. If we want to explain the increasingly complex hierarchical arrangement, this comparison is feasible, but it can't stand the analysis and scrutiny. At present, a word is the smallest and most convenient unit of meaning, so is a shot equal to this? Not at all.
First of all, a shot has a time length. During this period, there are a continuous number of images. So, does a single picture or picture frame constitute the basic unit of film meaning? The answer is still no, because each frame contains countless potential visual information, as do the vocal cords that accompany it. If we can say that a focal plane is like a sentence, because it can state that it can completely solve the problem itself, then the problem is that the film cannot divide itself into such easily controlled units. We can technically define a movie as a "lens". But what if there are clauses in a shot? The camera can move; A scene can be completely changed by translating or moving the lens, so should we say that this is one lens or two lenses?
Reading psychology, you will find that the process of watching movies and TV is actually a process of attracting audience's attention and observation. Get his attention first, and then, when he has paid attention, you can show him a process (because movies are sports and sports are a process).
Our feature films, whether pure propaganda or philosophical thoughts, have left attention and observation and focused on "profundity". Even the commentary of the short documentary on Qiantang River Tide should say two words: "They seem to be thinking about something when watching the tide." So start with a monologue from the bottom of your heart. Hollywood movies can understand psychology (psychology is the basis of film language and all its laws), because they can learn psychology well and make money. Three minutes before the opening of a Hollywood movie, there are always unique skills instead of farewell speeches. Why? Grab the audience's attention first, and then put two or three question marks in their heads. Let them obsessively observe how this process develops. Some people say that Hollywood movies don't play with noumenon, script, narrative, genre and gimmicks ... it's really embarrassing through the internet.
Attention only plays the role of maintaining the direction and deepening some psychological activities. Therefore, the main function of the expression form is to attract the audience's attention to its content. If the form looks good, the audience will pay attention, and the audience will pay attention. You can show your content through this form that can attract the audience. If film and television creation does not pay attention to the form of expression, it will not attract the attention of the audience to the content.
Attention is not only manifested in the cognitive process, but also in other psychological processes. For example, in emotional experience, if you don't pay attention, you can't express your feelings. If you don't pay attention to the object, whether you want to express happiness or fear is uncertain. At the same time, attention is inseparable from personality characteristics, because attention belongs to the main aspect, and a person's interest, ability, temperament and personality all describe the characteristics of a person's attention.
Film language is commonly used. The introduction of film language includes the combination of empty lens and lens ... it is often used to introduce environmental background, explain time and space, express characters' feelings, publicize stories, express the author's attitude and so on.