Characteristics of Impressionist Films

During the1920s, the French film creator Louis Delluc joined a group of talented directors such as Abel Gance and Zhemin Drucker, as well as some film directors who had succeeded in commercial films, and wanted to reform the films made by film company owners for commercial reasons, so as to improve the French films that gradually declined after the First World War ... However, his efforts were not supported by the producers. After the death of Diluk in 1924, Some people make commercial films, while others take the avant-garde road. Because some of Delluc's theories and creative ideas are closely related to the later French avant-garde film movement, most impressionist films are considered as the prelude of avant-garde films or directly classified as avant-garde films. His important works include: The Wheel by Guns (1922), Fever by Drucker (192 1) and Spanish Festival by Drucker (19 19).

2。 The Realistic Existence of French Impressionist Films

In France in the 1920s, avant-garde film directors ruled the whole French screen world. During the ten years from 19 17- 1928, many film schools appeared in the exploration of film aesthetics, which constituted an extremely complicated film cultural phenomenon and converged into an unprecedented film aesthetic movement. The pioneer movement of this film began with the exploration of impressionist film aesthetics. This genre runs through the whole avant-garde film movement from 19 17- 1928.

Impressionist painting theory holds that the poetry of works comes from the original state of life. Under this aesthetic concept, impressionist masters insist on taking objective daily life and natural landscape as the object of artistic ontology. It can be said that impressionism painting school has become the most objective painting school in the 20th century. Based on this, Louis Delluc put forward the so-called "photogenic" in 1920. In fact, this is a declaration of the application of impressionist aesthetics to film art. Impressionist movie master used the camera, a new artistic expression, to explore the composition of an accidental phenomenon-instantaneous phenomenon, trying to capture the morphological characteristics of air, sunshine, flowing rivers and instantaneous things in daily life scenes. This is a creative method based on objectivity, looking for creative means that can create dreams/endow reality with poetry from real life. Therefore, all objectivity is the subjectivity of impressionism. Impressionist filmmakers pursue their feelings and experiences in real life as creators, and pursue immediate impressions or primary memories of objective things. It is in this case that individual perception is highlighted, the original expression of the whole film program is broken, and the artist's perception of life/life becomes the core of film creation. The birthplace of impressionist film France is the birthplace of film. When Lumiere recorded the whole process of the train entering the station, people only marveled at his technological miracle, and regarded the film as a "scientific treasure" at most, without paying attention to the artistic possibility in real life bred by the combination of light and shadow in the image. When Impressionist movie master completed the extension of Lumiere's films, we saw the aesthetic concept of Impressionism in reality. As Louis Luc said, "Life is making movies all the time, and movies should also make life as much as possible". Undoubtedly, Delluc emphasized the affinity between film and life, and part of this affinity pointed to the European "art film" movement which flourished once in ten years, in order to fight against the drama film system divorced from life. In this confrontation, he emphasized the relationship between film and life/life, and transformed visual movement/rhythm into the essence of life. In this transformation, film images have become the most realistic means to express unrealistic things.

On the other hand, the rise of French avant-garde film movement, especially the rise of impressionism called "the first avant-garde", can be said that this film type is a combination of many practical factors. Delluc, the pioneer of French impressionist film, suggested that the premise of this school was anxiety about the collapse of the French film industry. As we all know, film, as a mass communication culture, has become a cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored in the 20th century. In the 1920s, the mature narrative form of American Hollywood films quickly occupied the European market with great competitiveness, which led to the collapse of the French film industry, and the once popular "art film" went to death in a dramatic dead end. As a counter-argument, the impressionist avant-garde film has the potential intention to revitalize the French film industry, which has become an independent/creative destination of film art and led the film to the ontological/personalized/creative elite cultural circle. It is in this subversive European film revolution that we have to admit at the same time that impressionist directors, while accepting impressionist aesthetics, made inevitable compromises on the film industry and commerce in order to revive the economic subconscious of French films and their own economic pressure. As Sherman Drucker said, "The bankruptcy of filmmakers is not helpful to movies". In this way, impressionist films are combined with the types formed in French "art films". However, in the process of this combination, the exploration of realism or naturalism visual aesthetics of recording images finally made the film truly become an art and began to get rid of the adaptation of famous works, so that the film was no longer a vassal of the past aesthetics. Impressionist movie master sought the opportunity of film noumenon from the creation of realism or naturalism, which became a strong support for their advocacy of "photojournalism". Therefore, Jean Epstein came to the conclusion that film is the most unrealistic poetic art media based on the most realistic foundation. Under this judgment, a realistic or naturalistic narrative procedure and a poetic combination of light/shadow/movement/rhythm/montage images appear constantly: Jean Epstein's loyal heart/Gunce's wheel/Drucker's fanaticism ... This situation can clearly see the combination of melodrama and impressionism poetics. In this kind of movies, due to the compromise between producers and audiences, there are often exaggerated and coupled plots, strong outdated emotional patterns and character relationships. When we see Epstein's The Beautiful NiVirnes River, we can be delighted to find that the "art films" in the 20th century10s are not pro-natural. Here, we have a plenty of detailed expressions of daily life and emotions, and capture the flowing beauty in nature. However, it is a pity that melodrama is very abrupt and falls into the conventional narrative mode, and the hero saves the United States. This is a realistic way out for a photogenic director and Zola naturalistic novel after the groundbreaking film revolution, which provided more possibilities for the formation of French poetic realism in the 1930s.

Impressionism failed to save struggling French films economically, and failed to satisfy the avant-garde directors' desire for exploration. Abstract/Dadaism/Surrealism stepped onto the stage of film art in the torrent of complex discourse of modernist literary thoughts in the 20th century. However, under the flourishing age of this modernist film art, it is facing a greater crisis. The first is the survival crisis of its own art; Secondly, the French film industry experienced a more violent collapse. In this case, a group of avant-garde film directors began to face up to their own living reality/the situation of French society and the spiritual crisis of the whole world. Their creation began to return to reality, from formal aesthetics to realistic practical creation. Therefore, documentaries have become the outlet for many avant-garde directors, and Evans/Cavalcanti combined personal avant-garde artistic aesthetics with social reality. On the other hand, some avant-garde film directors ideologically worship the miracle created by Hollywood in the United States. They insist on finding the fulcrum of artistic survival in the feature films of avant-garde movies. Under such circumstances, realism/naturalism is obviously the artistic discourse with the widest audience base and becomes the best choice for avant-garde artists. Widdel/Vigo/rene claire, especially jean renoir, the son of impressionist painter Boueyre Auguste Renoir, once again began to explore the realism of film art, from the avant-garde film form/stunt to the description of life/nature, the film history is called "French poetic realism". As the name implies, they once again linked the narrative paradigm of realism/naturalism with image poetics, made a new exploration of "photojournalism" and began the realistic exploration of "post-impressionist images".

3。 Impressionist movies are what we usually call impressionist movies. This is a film genre that appeared in the 1920s. The founder is Delluc, a French film theorist.

Deluk was a novelist and playwright when he was young. He joined the film industry after seeing the decline of French films too fast. He died young, so impressionist films didn't last long and formed an influence.

The basic idea of impressionist movies is to save movies from commercialized and vulgar words, and to make art movies reflect the lives of ordinary people. Therefore, the most striking style of impressionist films is popularization.

The appearance of French impressionist films fully demonstrated the artistry of films.

In the AD1920s, the French film creator Louis Drucker joined forces with a group of talented directors, such as Abel Gance and Philosopher Drucker, and some film directors who had succeeded in commercial films, and wanted to reform the films made by film company owners for commercial reasons, so as to improve the French films that declined after the First World War ... However, his efforts were not supported by the producers, and at/KLOC-0. Some people make commercial films, while others take the avant-garde road. Because some of Delluc's theories and creative ideas are closely related to the later French avant-garde film movement, most impressionist films are considered as the prelude of avant-garde films or directly classified as avant-garde films.

The representative works of Impressionist films include Delluc's Passion and Silence and A Xin's Wheels.

4。 Impressionism school

CCTV International Channel (March 365438+10/October 65438 +03:50).

French impressionism runs through the whole avant-garde film movement from 19 17 to 1928. This genre is also called "the first avant-garde" because it embodies the creative intention of the avant-garde in film art for the first time. Louis, the core figure of this school; Delluc admires the majestic momentum of Griffith's films in American films, the delicate feelings in Chaplin's films and the expression of nature in Swedish films, which have aroused his enthusiasm for revitalizing French films. He once called for "French movies must be real movies, and French movies must be French movies" in the form of slogans on the front page of his film magazine. He often used the word "impressionism" in his discourses, and in 19 18, he created the Spanish Festival (made into a film by Sherman and Drucker), which became the original masterpiece of the impressionism school. Delluc discussed film aesthetics from two aspects: film theory and creation. In his article On the Camera (1920), the photographer should work hard on the theme and skills of the work to find the theme and expression means that are really suitable for the film. Film must get rid of the platycodon grandiflorum of drama and literature and make itself truly an independent seventh art. "

Germain Dulac's Spanish Festival (19 19), a representative figure of impressionist psychological narrative, shows that two men are fascinated by a woman, jealous of each other and finally kill each other and die. Drucker's other works are based on a simple story frame, which highlights the psychological state of the characters and conveys specific feelings and emotions through visual structure, that is, they show the so-called poetic state of the works. (History of Foreign Films)