(1) The
literal translation of the play's name as "good wife" is actually ironic. The Puritan tradition in the United States is still there, and the people have higher requirements for politicians' personal virtues than the Europeans, and they also pay special attention to the public's right to know. In the past few years, many sex scandals of popular figures have been broadcasted by the media. The most famous is naturally the "zipper door" of former President Clinton. Although he was impeached because of a lie, he was lucky enough to pass. But Starr's report, like a pornographic novel, is enough for many people to talk about it many years later. In June 2011, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, known as the rising star of the Democratic Party, resigned after passing indecent selfie photos to netizens. The political careers of the few big figures or the sudden emergence of dark horses came to an end. And those "good wives" who had to stand by their side to show support when the scandal was exposed, inspired the screenwriters to experience the pain and contradictions of women caught in this predicament.
The heroine Alicia is a high-achieving student in the law department, but after getting married, she gave up her career and went home to teach her sons and husband, washing her hands and making soup. After more than ten years of such peace and quiet, a pair of sons and daughters have grown up. Her husband, Peter Florrick, is already a district attorney and has a respectable status. They live in a large house in a noble area, full of guests, and lead an elegant middle-class life. But Peter was suddenly exposed to a sex scandal and went to jail on suspicion of corruption. As soon as the curtain was opened, Alicia’s life was overturned, she lost her husband’s generous salary, and her family was in a desperate situation. She had to pay litigation fees, raise her children, and support herself. She could only move out of the House and live in a cheap apartment. .
To make matters worse, all her privacy was exposed in full view. Every detail of Peter's prostitution has been repeatedly magnified by the media. While self-loving Alicia has been humiliated, he must remain calm and try to protect the child from greater trauma. Her sense of security in more than 30 years of life has collapsed, not to mention her faith in love and family.
Fortunately, her old classmate, Will Gardner, who was already a senior partner of a large law firm at this time, offered her a helping hand. After living in seclusion for more than ten years, she mustered up the courage, straightened her back, put on a capable professional outfit, and became a Feng Fu again, becoming a junior lawyer in the law firm. The position is not stable, the competitors are eager to watch, professional shelving for many years, coupled with the aftermath, lawsuits, and family conflicts, betraying her husband, adolescent children and strong mother-in-law also added countless troubles to her, her husband’s political enemy Also waiting for an opportunity to frame. Fortunately, the sword is not old and smart is still there. After a few years of practice, the more he fought and the courage, he reorganized a world and regained his own life and dignity.
This part of the inspirational story is as warm as a feather. When I read Yishu’s novels in Girls’ Generation, there is no shortage of such stories, such as "My First Half of Life", which deliberately uses the names of "Zijun" and "Juansheng" in "Sorrow for the Past" to make reversal articles. Disgusting. But if you are a little older, you will understand. Yishu is not exempt from the vulgarity in the end. Her way of revenge is to make the heroine marry better-isn't her ex-husband a clerk? The successor must be a millionaire. After all, the value of women must be affirmed through men. But The good wife is different. The boss and classmate and old friend Will always admired her secretly. Peter and her grievances are inseparable. In the second season, with the help of Alicia and others, Peter not only got rid of the charges, but also successfully defeated political opponents and regained the prosecutor. The throne seems to be able to make up for the rift in the past and turn around to play the role of "good wife", but now she knows that Peter is not only a prostitute, but also has sex with the former subordinate and investigator Kalinda who later became her good friend, and immediately expelled Peter angrily and officially separated. . In the third season, she took the initiative to terminate the relationship with Will in order to be loyal to her own moral standards. These two men are both elites, talented, handsome, rich and powerful, but Alicia has the courage to say "no" to them despite his broken heart.
Although I hope that she and Will's lover will eventually be married, but there is no doubt that even if there is no Will, or his successor, Alicia, who has re-started, will still live tough and wonderfully.
The heroine interpreted by Julianna Margulies is very in line with the traditional aesthetics of Chinese people: external and internal rigidity, implicit connotation, and the courage and self-confidence of modern women. The screenwriter has reached the pinnacle of her rationality and emotion.
(2)
If Alicia’s line shows a strong and beautiful side, then Peter’s line is full of political filth. Belief is nonsense, as long as it deceives the public; ideas are meaningless, as long as they manipulate public opinion. The most important thing is to get the support of money and power behind the scenes.
Peter's actor, Chris Noth, is well-known to Chinese drama fans because of Mr. Big in Sex and the City. But I love that he started with Law and Order as early as possible. In this show, he is not a resident actor, he usually only appears once in a few episodes, but his presence is almost equal to that of the male protagonist. He interprets the contradictions and complexities of Peter, not just a harlequin politician. Peter is well-dressed and tough. During his tenure, the crime rate in the city has dropped, and he has not humiliated the mission of the prosecutor. He is well-directed, knows people and works well; but the city is deep, good at playing power, and secretly profiting. He has a strong personality, never give up in the Jedi, and is good at studying the situation. He can mobilize various forces and political opponents to help his wife while in prison. In the end, the appeal is successful, the charges are cleared, and a miraculous comeback is achieved. But he is so sleek and sophisticated, and he sees the wind as the rudder. He once regarded belief in God as salvation, but for the sake of campaigning, he first used black pastors and abandoned them as if they were nothing. He has appreciation, awe, admiration for his wife, and the deep affection he has cultivated through living together for more than ten years. He is also very responsible for his children, but this does not prevent him from indulging in a corrupt private life. After the Dongchuang incident, he felt guilty, repented, and worked hard to save his wife’s heart, but once the situation improved, he used a tough posture to slander his wife in turn; when the two moved away, they still had a tacit understanding with his wife. Support each other on the issue...
The two scenes that have impressed me the most so far, one is to recover Alicia. He hesitated to chase after bail at home, wearing a monitor on his ankle, and did not hesitate to trigger an alarm. The second is that he investigated Will based on his own self-interest, but one move was a reasonable and legal arrogance. In order to avoid suspicion, he invited Wendy, who had competed with him for prosecutors, to preside over the prosecution. In the end, Wendy was defeated and he quickly stopped the loss. Wendy was still unwilling. "This is the end of it," he said with horror in his eyes. Chris Noth played this love-hate character alive.
Peter is not without a bottom line, although his bottom line is not moral. In contrast, his political opponents didn't even know what the bottom line was, and openly brought private grievances into the legal realm, and ended up losing out in front of Alicia again and again.
Another very interesting person is Eli Gold, he is Peter's image consultant and campaign manager, and later joined the law firm as a partner. Another profession is a game in the gray area of the United States-lobbying outside the hospital. He was employed by different politicians and interest groups to encourage them to share the "democracy" pie. He has a keen sense of smell, is good at spying on the enemy, is good at dealing with the media, and uses all means to attack opponents. Peter's ability to resurrect salted fish has a lot to do with his careful manipulation.
Eli has a feminine hand, but he has a "professional ethics" for the work he is engaged in, and he is dedicated to serving no matter who is his employer. He is dealing with the "scum" who has no ethics, but he always retains the tender and soft side. He respects Alicia very much, and can be called Alicia's confidant to some extent. Although they are always polite and cold when they meet and speak, he understands and sympathizes with Alicia's situation and helps Alicia many times in a calm manner. What is more rare is that he knows peter. Dirty elections are indispensable for Alicia's shining banner, but try to avoid disturbing her into a cesspool. He used the babysitter hired by Wendy to beat her, but he helped this motivated girl. Perhaps it is because he is used to seeing the sordidness of the world, he knows the preciousness of the light of integrity and ideals better than Peter. The "human spirit" and the "scum" are only one step away, and Eli is a human spirit who can't help but smile.
Lobbying outside the hospital was originally part of the American political ecology. Dirty political games and dirty media are not without value. It tells us: the government is naturally untrustworthy, every public figure's words and deeds must be examined under a magnifying glass, and the public's right to know must be safeguarded. Once seized by political opponents, that is the price that politicians must pay.
(3) In
essence, The good wife is still a legal drama. The court is Alicia's stage.
Americans have very interesting views of lawyers. On the one hand, in this business society with dense laws, it is difficult to move without lawyers. Many of the founding fathers of the United States are legal persons. It is they who created this so-called greatest democracy. It is the bounden duty of lawyers to safeguard human rights and balance justice. On the other hand, professional lawyers are well-paid, profit-only, and clever tongues, just like big companies and criminal accomplices. In American crime dramas, the image of lawyers is often as insidious as Mephistopheles. Against the backdrop of the financial crisis, many law firms are struggling in this drama, and Will’s law firm has also undergone ups and downs. In order to "generate income", it does everything possible. For example, they manage the business for a big drug lord, and Will argues that he only represents him as a "legal business." The partners are still in conflict with each other at every turn. The professional ethics of lawyers is that apart from perjury, they do not ask right or wrong, and proceed from the interests of their employers, and do their best to do deceptive things. Some lawyers even dare to trample on this prohibition law.
Alicia works in this environment. She is a person with a strong sense of morality, but she has to wander in a gray area. Her surroundings, from her boss, her assistants, her clients, and her natural enemies, prosecutors (they are lawyers serving the government), and judges with eccentric political opinions, etc., are all human beings. The human spirit, or the scum of scum, has a slightly worse IQ, and a slightly slower response, and there is no place to be buried. Even people like Eli almost fell into trouble a few times. Alicia hides his excellent insight and eloquence under a gentle appearance, step by step, and instantly kills his opponent. Soon it became the backbone of the law firm.
Will and Cary are representatives of the ambitious. "I want to win" is their common life creed. It's just that Cary is Will when he was young, and Will is Cary after a successful career. The law firm has a high level of hierarchy and it is so difficult to climb up. Cary lost to Alicia's wit, turned to the ground check with unwillingness, and finally became Peter's subordinate, which really found his place. Will walked all the way in a bloody storm, and had already climbed to the top of the food chain, with the dangerous shoal still in front of him. He is good at hiding his weaknesses and emotions and arming himself to the teeth. But occasionally he would be puzzled by the meaning of life that is vying for the first place everywhere. When he was in school, he had a crush on Alicia. Many years later, this emotion has actually become a subtle connection between him and his youth and self. He mistakenly thought that he and Alicia were only in a sexual relationship, but the more he refused to admit it, it meant that Alicia meant to him. The moment Will's inner self suddenly bursts through the indifference shell, is his most attractive moment.
Diane, another original partner of Wiil Law Firm, still loves her more than Alicia. If Cary was Will when he was young, Diane was Alicia who was older and wiser. Will is often fascinated by the authorities, but Diane can break through and look at himself. She is the soul figure of the law firm and the mediator of the interests of all parties. With her presence, the intrigue of the elites will not evolve into a scum-like scumbag at any time. The most faithful person in her play, whether it is political stance or legal spirit. Diane, played by Christine Baranski, is dignified and noble, with compelling momentum, unrestrained thoughts and passionate emotions. She tells people: Even if a woman is in her twilight years, she can still live so ostentatiously.
The scene that touched me the most in the entire TV series was that Diane decided to withdraw the law firm’s investment in legal aid because of fiscal austerity. Law firms fight high-risk and high-return lawsuits, but the legal aid for the poor can only be paid to people. When economic conditions are good, it is counted as charity, and when economic conditions are bad, it becomes a big burden. Originally, she only needed to make a phone call, but finally decided to go there by herself. There are too many backlogs. The person in charge of the Legal Aid Department is busy with a few young students, and even the tie to go to court has to be removed from the neck to turn the belt. Diane waited aside and spoke guiltily. The young lawyer did not even show disappointment. This situation is too normal, they are all used to it. Diane returned with a thoughtful look. She looked at Will and said, I have made a decision and hope you agree. Will and her looked at each other for a few seconds and said: Okay.
It's that simple.
The Legal Aid Department will lose the office if they cannot pay the rent. Diane's decision is to let them move into their own company and ask every lawyer to help them.
What is idealism? It is not the blood that was quickly shattered by reality when he was young, but the enthusiasm that still persists after the vicissitudes of life. I have always felt that Will and Diane are a pair, regardless of age, no love, looking at each other and smiling, not against the heart, this is an ideal state between people.
A person can distinguish the means and the purpose, knowing that life always has to establish a little value besides fame and fortune, while scumbags cannot. Although the profession of lawyers is not immune to "gray", they are still the guardian of the law. This drama allows people to see a lot of imperfections in the law and the dark side of the figures in the legal profession, but as a result of the struggle between the parties, fairness and justice are protected as much as possible. A good system does not guarantee absolute correctness, but it must stress checks and balances. Although it is only a TV series, it also gives a glimpse of the spirit of the United States based on law.
(4) I
have done a lot of "spoilers" in the above. In fact, this TV series has a lot of clues, far more than the ones listed, the narrative style is clean and neat, there are no less than ten clues, large and small, interspersed and interwoven, and talkative. Come, put down a thread, and pick it up after a while, still wearing flowers and leaves, not messy at all. But the main line of life-and-death struggle is always there, and every episode has the tension of "listening to thunder in a silent place", forcing you to keep chasing.
Because of the broadcast method, American dramas are often longer than serial dramas and shorter than serial dramas. Each episode of the series has a story, which is less relevant before and after, easy to control, and more interspersed in the series, only one episode will be broadcast a week, and the broadcast will be closed for several months. The clues have to be woven tightly, otherwise the audience will easily forget the previous situation. But the weaving is tight, and there is little room for interleaving. The first season of "Hero" can be called a masterpiece, but the third season and the fourth season are completely nonsensical, that is, the screenwriter can no longer control the overspread scenes. The screenwriter of this play is very generous. Not only is he well-informed and has few flaws, he also incorporates hot news at any time. This practice is common in American dramas. For example, after the unfortunate Kahn sexual assault case, "Law and Order: Special Victims" immediately arranged him in. But unlike many screenwriters who draw inspiration from current events, I feel that he has such an ambition to include all the things he is interested in in American society and express his own thinking, so he is extremely old. For example, in the drone operator case, Alicia was rarely defeated and suffered a severe blow. The words of the female judge of the military court show respect for life, which is awe-inspiring.
One can imagine how difficult it is to perform this play. Every look in your eyes, even the air coming out of your body, must be able to speak, otherwise, how can you act out a group of "human spirits"? The characters in the play are like the investigator Kalinda, the ballistics expert who has been in love with Diane, the investigator’s dad hired by the local police, the red-haired female lawyer who can always pretend to be a pig and eat a tiger, and even a glimpse of the client. All come alive. In terms of the strength and order of the cast, there has been no other new drama in the past three years.
I seem to be too serious about the film, but it is not. The consistent advantage of American TV shows is that it is humorous and satirical. The most serious plots can also reveal a humorous atmosphere, with a degree of relaxation. For example, in the case above, Will and the female judge's tricks were absolutely overwhelming. The endless pinching between the scums and the scums also produced countless jokes.
I have repeatedly said that the standard of American TV shows is much higher than that of Hollywood blockbusters. Hollywood blockbusters have become more and more commentary on adult fairy tales and gorgeous pictures. Unique American dramas, like the flowing water from the source, are rolling in, with infinite anger.
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