In fact, for filmmakers, it has always been a thankless thing to shoot food: the prop group should specialize in making food, and the scene should pay close attention to the consistency of food in different shots to prevent it from being ruined; Actors, on the other hand, have to keep eating in one shot after another until their stomachs burst.
So in many movies, food is only a symbolic existence: we will only remember that Kane and his first wife are getting farther and farther apart at breakfast in Citizen Kane, but we will never remember what they both ate and whether they really put food in their mouths.
But some directors just don't believe in evil. Food has always played an important role in their films. Today, let's talk about the interesting things about directors and food.
For Japanese movie master Yasujirō Ozu, food is essential. Just by looking at his movie titles, you can know how important food is in his works: Pumpkin, Taste of Tea Soaking Rice, Taste of saury ...
The food appearing in Ozu's movies is all home-cooked dishes, and Lamian Noodles, fried pork chops, saury and tea soaked rice all reveal the secular flavor of ordinary people, which is very suitable for the parents' shortcomings described in these movies.
For Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, food has other functions. Looking for a marriage in his films often speaks slightly melodramatic and elegant lines, so adding food elements to his films has become a means for Wong Kar-wai to make his films a bit of fireworks.
The snack bar of The Story of Teddy Boy, the convenience store of Chongqing Forest, the food stall of fallen angels and the Wonton Noodles stall of In the Mood for Love are the symbolic meeting places for Wang-style characters. At the same time, Wong Kar-wai also likes to set off his/her loneliness through the scene of the hero eating alone.
Italian director federico fellini's favorite Italian food is quite different from Wong Kar-wai's favorite Shanghai snacks, but for the two directors, the role of food is similar.
Ferini's films always have grotesque and surreal plots, so the food that appears from time to time in them becomes the thread that keeps the kite from flying too far, whether it is a gluttonous feast in Satirikon or a simple and simple home-cooked dish in Amakot.
Food can also make us feel close to those characters who seem difficult to get close to.
We all thought that mafia members were a bunch of bloodthirsty demons without humanity, but we didn't expect that in The Godfather, they would put aside their business and seriously discuss the formula of spaghetti sauce. We all thought that a neurotic "detective" who cut off his ear would live in isolation like a savage, but we didn't expect that he would be as keen on shark fin soup, fried chicken and steamed sea bass as ordinary people.
In the films of Coppola and Johnnie To, the daily atmosphere brought by food is always in sharp contrast with the overall temperament of the film. Some people think that this daily atmosphere makes the violence in the film more terrible, but the author thinks that this atmosphere can actually make us better understand those anti-social violent characters.
But in the eyes of other directors, the action of "eating" is not only the daily behavior itself, but also symbolizes power and greed.
Peter Greenaway, a British director, is very good at referring to greed with his appetite: whether he is an overeating architect in The Architect's Abdomen or a voracious gang leader in The Chef, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, his whole body reeks of greed, which makes them finally become their own grave diggers.
In quentin tarantino's movies, you will find that those villains often have amazing appetites.
Stuntmen Mike in King Kong is not bad, and Colonel Randa in Inglourious Basterds has a special interest in dairy products and fruit stuffing rolls. In Liberated Jiang Ge, the farmer Calvin has been eating sweets such as candy and cakes, while Jules in Pulp Fiction is a bully who steals other people's hamburgers and takes a big bite.
Jules' action is undoubtedly a symbol of some kind of power: he is like a vicious dog urinating on the territory of other animals, because he knows that no one dares to complain about him. Similarly, Colonel Landa's style at the dinner table also shows his domineering character: he ordered dessert and milk for the heroine Susanna without authorization, and didn't care whether the other party liked it or not.
In martin scorsese's films, food either represents a certain social significance or represents a rebellion against a certain social significance.
Billy in Infernal Affairs, because he ordered a cup of unmanly cranberry juice in a bar, caused strangers to laugh; The dazzling tableware in The Age of Innocence and the complicated etiquette on the dining table all show the conservatism and depression of new york's upper class in the19th century, and also make the hero and heroine more determined to break through the social constraints.
And in Boy, Henry and his gang are using sumptuous meals to laugh at trying to control their society-they are privileged in prison and eat even better than when they are outside the prison; In "The Wolf of Wall Street", Jordan Belfort threw several valuable lobsters directly at the FBI agents.
For Scorsese, food often symbolizes the dynamic relationship between control and anti-control between society and individuals.
Just like every great director has his own quirks, every great director also has his own unique eating habits, from which we can see many clues about their personalities:
Some directors obviously don't like eating very much, so their eating habits are both regular and boring, such as Woody Allen and ingmar bergman.
Woody Allen's breakfast has never changed in more than 50 years: a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a bowl of MaiQuan with skim milk and raisins, and some bananas on top.
He has been eating these things for more than 50 years, not because they are delicious, but because he thinks that breaking this habit may bring bad luck. As an atheist, his only superstition is that bananas for breakfast must be cut into seven pieces. He said: "If I don't do this, in case something terrible happens, I will destroy the delicate balance of everything."
Bergman, on the other hand, only eats a specific brand of biscuits and a specific brand of Swedish yogurt when filming. If someone is found stealing his cookies on the set, he will be furious and suspicious. Just in case, he won't eat the top cookies every time.
Obviously, the eating habits of Bergman and Woody are as cautious and worried as their movies.
But these two obsessive-compulsive disorder patients, together with two directors with anorexia, Jan Svankmajer and Dario Azhentoby, are so lucky.
Svenmeyer suffered from severe anorexia in childhood, so his parents had no choice but to send him to a special institution set up by the Czech government and force him to eat. On the contrary, the painful memories of childhood made Schwimmer super sensitive to food when he grew up. Among the famous animation works, such as The Tree of Hunger, Food and Dimension of Dialogue, he takes food as the theme, showing a series of fantastic Kafka nightmares.
As for Ajento's anorexia, it is even more terrible: due to his special intolerance, he can't eat bread, pizza, cheese, dairy products, or even drink coffee. He doesn't like to see any food on the set, and he doesn't eat anything during filming.
He loves to make horror movies, and even projects his aversion to food into his works: in the scene of "Evil Wind Bursts", he deliberately turns the food into a horrible color like cheese through color processing, because he hates cheese most.
Schwimmer and Ajento were still thin until they were old. But more great directors will gain weight after middle age than when they become famous, because they really love eating.
Quentin tarantino has changed from a emaciated young boy to a generous and wretched uncle. Because he enjoys eating, he can't even understand why actors are unhappy when they play eating.
Quentin hopes that the audience will have a big appetite after watching his movies: "If you don't want to eat fruit rolls after watching Inglourious Basterds, if you don't want a cornflake after watching King Kong is not bad, then it proves that I screwed up."
Quentin's Kill Bill and Jiang Ge Liberated are both tributes to Italian westerns, but this sub-genre probably wouldn't have been born without the greedy director Sergio Lionel.
While working for the crew of the epic film "A Fire Burning the City", Lionel was fired for eating too long at noon. Unemployed, he began to have time to write the script, and then he wrote "fistful of dollars" ... Later, when filming this film, the crew had a very rich lunch.
He even joked that the reason why his movies are so slow is because "all the plays we made were done in slow motion within an hour or two after lunch".
The Italian compatriot who loves food more than Lionel is Ferini. He loves lasagna and risotto, but his favorite is Italian national food-mozzarella cheese.
After he was old, because he had a history of stroke, the doctor warned him never to eat mozzarella cheese. However, with his wife Julietta? On the 50th anniversary of Marcina's wedding, he still couldn't control his hands reaching for mozzarella cheese, then he choked, suffered another stroke, fell into a coma, and died the next day.
How many movie geniuses' faces and lives are buried in an uncontrollable mouth!
Look at the difference of orson welles's body shape in Citizen Kane and The Other Side of the Wind, and you can understand what I'm talking about. One of Wells' gluttony records is that he ate 18 hot dogs at a food stall in Los Angeles. And his dinner is very regular: two medium-rare steaks and a pint of scotch.
It was unhealthy eating habits that led to his obesity and eventual death in his later years. While filming The Other Side of the Wind, the crew went out to eat at noon, but he ate potato chips alone because "if no one saw you eating, you wouldn't get fat" ...
However, when diet is associated with the great director, strange things don't always happen.
Martin scorsese's mother, Catherine, is a first-class chef. During the filming of mean streets and Angry Bull, she often cooks for her son and his friends, such as Robert De Niro and joe pesci. In Boy, the scene in which she plays the old lady asking her son and his friends to stay for dinner in the middle of the night is simply a reappearance of real life in the movie.
So, hurry up and watch Martin's family documentary "Italian American" for his parents, because there is Catherine's unique secret recipe for cooking spaghetti!