Taylor Swift's "Era Tour" concert is still in progress, and the schedule is already scheduled for 2024. At the same time, the big movie "Taylor Swift: The Age of Concert Tour," which filmed her concert in Los Angeles, premiered in November and was released in China on the New Year's Eve. The box office has been booming everywhere it went.
In the United States, the film's pre-sales were stronger than "Avatar: Waterfall", and its first-day box office exceeded "Spider-Man: No Homecoming," "Avengers 4: Endgame" and "Star Wars Episode VII: Episode V. "The Force Awakens", which means that several super blockbusters with the highest box office revenue in the North American market in the past few years have all lost to this concert. The dotted glow sticks in the theater and the warm atmosphere of everyone singing happily made music critics cheer: the spring of pop music is here again! It also made film critics sigh: What saved the theater turned out to be a concert. The "threat of images to the scene" that has been frequently debated in the past ten years is no longer a problem. It is better to discuss how the endangered offline screening of movies can be saved by "live images". For a time, 34-year-old Taylor Swift was regarded as a savior across the two entertainment industries of music and film. She not only changed the concert, but may also change the movie.
Taylor Swift's "Times Tour" is hard to get a ticket for. It is a rare item in the second-hand market. The actual price starting from the ground floor is much higher than the ticket price, and there are still fans flocking to it. In contrast, the movie "Taylor Swift: The Age of Concert Tour" is easily accessible. The audience does not need to spend expensive travel expenses and uncertain ticket prices. It can be seen in the nearest theater, and Taking Shanghai as an example, the ticket price of the IMAX theater with the best screening effect in the city is around 150 yuan.
But this does not mean that movies are a "substitute" and "meal replacement" for concerts. In the past, images shot at concerts were considered to be secondary products of movies, and were even questioned as “not movies” but just by-products of fandom. Today, especially when "Concert Tour" boosts the confidence of theater managers, the major studios that are unwilling to be optimistic about "concert movies" may have to admit that "concert movies" are becoming something that cannot be ignored A genre film whose audience reaches beyond the closed fandom. Sam Lenchi, the director of the
movie "Times Tour", has directed "Ben Platt: Radio City Live", "BTS: Dance Theater - Los Angeles", "Billy· Eilish: Live at O2 and other movie versions of many concerts. Renzi has accumulated enough experience in shooting. When filming "Era Tour", he did not position the film as "a replica of concert information for fans who cannot be present." Admittedly, this is a filmed concert, but it is It is also a movie with the theme of the heroine and her concert. "Movie", "Taylor Swift" and "concert" are the keywords that are juxtaposed.
Anyone working in the entertainment industry cannot deny that multimedia images have become part of the "live". In a large stadium with a capacity of 70,000 people, only a small part of the audience can clearly see the actors active on the stage. Swift herself, and the crowds of spectators in the stands were watching live real-time images that were organically combined with the stage. The stage landscape in the center of the stadium was projected on a large screen, forming another on-site spectacle that was far "larger than life." There are two parallel perspectives at the concert. One is sharing the time and space with Swift, and the other is seeing this tall and fit girl transforming into an American idol of this era on the enlarged screen. The film directed by Renzi creates a third perspective through camera lenses and editing, a perspective that is both immersive and omniscient. The images not only give the audience the illusion of "not being there, but being there", but also constantly remind the audience of being detached. "Overlooking" this concert from the outside.The image not only amplifies the concert's extreme stage beauty, which is praised in the industry, but the film also provides the audience with the dual position of participant and commentator. Between the rhythmic switching between close-ups and panoramic views, the audience has the possibility to immerse themselves in Those who were moved by Swift embracing Kobe’s little daughter and being drawn into the atmosphere of the scene will also retreat far enough to view the “Times Tour” as a cultural event or even a cultural phenomenon.
The British National Theater launched ntlive in 2009. Until 2020, for a decade, debate and anxiety about live images came from stage practitioners. The film industry arrogantly believes that "live images" are not enough to be treated as movies, while stage practitioners are afraid that the images reproduced by the media have achieved information sharing at this time, which at least means that the survival of drama theaters is in doubt. For a long time, concerts, dance theater and physical theater have been considered important forms of defending "liveness", because what these "lives" share is not plot information, but the physical existence of performers and audiences. The atmosphere of live interaction in a time and space is difficult to be replicated by the media.
However, with this "Times Tour" becoming a rescue work in the sluggish film industry after the Hollywood strike, perhaps the focus of discussion should turn to movies-"concert movies" and the broader "live video" have become A genre of cinema that should not be ignored, and which may well evoke the function of the cinema as a "temporary community of strangers". When "Oppenheimer" was released, director Nolan believed that audiences were still willing to share stories and values in theaters. Faced with the impact of streaming media, his belief was unclear whether he was too optimistic, too old-school, or both. All of them are. When it comes to bringing young people back to theaters, which one is more powerful, the story, or the attraction of theaters as a community gathering place? "Era Tour" points to the latter. Needless to say, the images of Time Tour cannot recreate the atmosphere of the Los Angeles scene, but the film created a specific atmosphere for viewing in movie theaters in different parts of the world. Even in China, a market where Swift fans are considered to be limited, on New Year’s Eve, audiences of different ages danced with light sticks, and those who could not sing any Swift songs were enveloped in the exciting atmosphere. People watched as they were The copied image has thus formed a brand new "scene".
Whether the "live" can be replicated is a commonplace question that was answered by "Era Tour". The impact it brings is directed at movies: can it become a "live" with a sense of calling and cohesion? This may be the case with streaming media. The key to the survival of Times Cinema.
Author: Liu Qing
Text: Liu Qing Picture: Official stills Editor: Jiang Fang Editor: Xing Xiaofang
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