Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Cast: Rami Said Malek, Lucy Boynton, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander
Directed by Bryan Singer
Review
Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury, who defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound, their near-implosion as Mercury's lifestyle spirals out of control, and their triumphant reunion on the eve of Live Aid, where Mercury, facing a life-threatening illness, leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music. In the process, cementing the legacy of a band that were always more like a family, and who continue to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music lovers to this day.----Rotten Tomatoes
Editing in Bohemian Rhapsody
Variety of Shots
At the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody, even without dialogue, the audience can feel Freddie Mercury is more closer relationship with his mom compared with his father. That is mainly because the use of shot. When Freddie Mercury is with his mother, it is 2 shot(2 people in the shot). Usually this kind of shot is adopted to buddy films or romantic comedies. Generally, two shots have a spilt focus rattan than a single dominant: The bifurcated composition usually emphasizes equality, two people sharing the same intimate space. Thus, it is suggesting parallelism and intimacy between Freddie and his mother. However, in the next shot, it is over-shoulder shot, the audience sees Freddie's father over his shoulder. In this condition, Viewers can be made to feel insecure or isolated, which suggesting strangeness between Freddie and his father. Overall, these two shots already foreshadowed gap and awkwardness of Freddie's family relationship.
This 2 shot is used to show the intimacy between Freddie and Mary. She is picking cloths for him. They share the same space showing parallelism and equality. This 2 shot foreshadowing and serves the future film plot: they get married.
When Band Smile's lead singer quits from it, Freddie come to talk with Roger Taylor and Brian May about joining in the band. During their conversation, Director utilizes shot / reverse shot and cuts back and forth between characters A / BC / A / BC to convert emotion and gets the audience being involved into the movie.
The close-up can seem to force an image into our faces, the closer the shot, the more intense the emotion. The close-up 1 is when Freddie is thinking about joining in the Smile Band, the audiences feel his inside mood by his expression. The close-up 2 is Mercury being offered an opportunity from BBC. He is excited and shocked by it. Choosing close-up is an effective way to convey the information and emotion to the audiences. Thus, we can share the same feeling the character is possessing.
When Mercury is creating Queen's most famous song the Bohemian Rhapsody, the shot becomes closer and closer to the main character in order to expressing more and more intense feeling to the audiences. When you are creating something important in your life, you filled with passion and enthusiasm. In order to get audiences feel the same way, the director choses to zoom in the main character in screen. So the audiences can feel indebted as if it were received in person.
This is an extreme close-up when Freddie Mercury is holding his last vocal concert. What we can see is only Freddie Mercury's pure blue eye. This extreme close-up not only conveys intense emotion but also the blue in his eye is like an apt symbol of Freddie Mercury's emotional meltdown. Although he is gonna die in no time because of AIDS, the blue shows hope.
180 degree rule
The director violates the 180 degree rule in these 2 shots. On is the front of Freddie Mercury and one is the back of him. During the movie, I think it doesn't interrupt the understanding of whole movie, but I didn't see any point to do so. The only reason to shot from Freddie Mercury's back is to make him heroic because of the high angle. However, other than that, it is really not that effective to break the 180 degree rule.
Eye-line Matching
Mary looks at Freddie, cut, Freddie looks back at Mary (They are looking into each other), it is really useful to get the audience involved into the movie and foreshadowing Freddie and Mary's relationship will go deeper and further.
Parallel Editing
One event: the Queen Band is traveling around for their cross-country concert tour
another event: the Queen Band is performing during their concert.
In order to featuring events happening at the same time in different locations, the director decides to use parallel editing to show it. He cuts back and forth with conversations and events to suggest these two events occurring at the same time.
Transitional Device
Through these four pictures, we can see that the director adopts dissolve as the transitional device to jump into another event. That is quite an effective to tie two entirely different scene together and helps foreshorten the time of telling the story, which makes it much more cohesive.
Fast pacing editing
In the Film Bohemian Rhapsody, every time when the occurs Fast Pacing editing, it is gonna be at the concert or when Mercury is creating another song. So these 3 pictures is being edited really fast from different angle and location, which makes it dazzling and conveying emotion.
There is another example of fast editing, when Freddie Mercury is creating Another One Who Bits The Dusts, it is being edited really fast to show excitement.
Besides the Editing Techniques
I really want to tell the color in this film. The director uses color really well when Freddie Mercury is questioning about his sexuality. Red is a color linked with sex and red is a startling metaphor of his fierce aroused sexuality, his reawakening sex interest towards male.