Author: Lin Dazhong
A playful imitation of postmodern forms
one
A very long "inscription" on the pure black background:
Travel is very rewarding, it makes one think, and the rest is just disappointment and boredom. Our travels are completely imaginative, and that's where its power lies. Our travels from birth to death, people and animals, cities and things, are all imaginative. It's a novel, it's just a fictitious story, and Littre can never be wrong, and everyone can imagine that it's on the other side of life if you just close your eyes. --Louis Ferdinand Selina, "Wandering in the Darkness"
And then there's the first shot: the full frame is almost straight at one of our muzzles. The camera zooms out quickly, and on a gray-green brick platform in front of the brown mottled ancient wall is a modern medium-sized cannon that is also gray-green. Three men in Italian soldier attire, two with their backs to each of us standing on one side of the cannon, the other A little further away, facing us, stood under the wall. The soldier's attire is light brown and gray-green on the bottom, which is almost the same as the upper and lower parts of the picture with a slight color difference. Only the three berets and the two rubber wheels of the cannon are black, but they are jet black. Very refined "adjacent color" tonal treatment.
Then "Let it go!" There was a small sound of gunfire, and a wisp of blue smoke emerged from the muzzle. The camera pans to the upper right, a long wall, and a long line of people standing on it, applauding, obviously tourists, just a performance.
A monument, a statue, another statue, interspersed with several tourists. The camera "swims" freely.
Then pushed to the two contrasting backs, an old woman with a cigarette was sitting next to a male statue, the woman's clothes were very dazzling. The camera turned 180 degrees and faced them again, as if to see them clearly, and the expression of the statue contrasted with the expression of the woman, which was all the more nondescript.
The camera left immediately, as if he had seen it clearly. Passing past tourists lying on a bench, a very fat man was washing his hands by a pool in front of a building. This time the position was low, almost level with the water surface of the pool, and a small size could be seen in the distance. Group of people. The fat man got up and left, and the camera immediately pushed past him, but not toward him, but toward the water to face the group of people, swiping low and almost against the surface of the water, as if this was not a pool of water, but a real piece of water. When it was pushed to the half of the pool, there was a female voice singing, and the camera immediately raised slightly and slowly turned to the direction of the singing. However, we seem to see the imposing classical building with columns by the pool slowly turning towards us until it is exactly opposite us, and the camera stops. A row of uniformly dressed women in black are rehearsing or singing on the empty stage in the center above. Then the screen turns to a young woman in casual clothes with a microphone, her upper body holding her hands high, and she is talking loudly. Apparently the camera has "reached" a small group of people after a slight delay. The camera moved back a little, and the woman also put down her hand, and continued to say, at this time, you can roughly see that there are several tourists-like people surrounding her. The camera then turned to the opposite side, and there were several faces of oriental women. Turning back to the young woman, she raised an arm. Turning around again, several oriental men looked up, and one was still taking pictures. Interestingly, although it cuts back to the young woman once, the two shots that turn to the tourist are consecutive. The camera is obviously rotating clockwise, and when it turns to the tourists, it sweeps from left to right, but in the middle, it "looks back" and sweeps again. The same is true for the shot below, pushing towards the front door of a bus, where a man just got out of the car and called on his mobile phone: "You are so annoying!" It seems that the camera glanced at the bus inadvertently, and then continued to shoot that Group of tourists: The person standing in the back row at the far right of the tourists suddenly turned around and walked towards the white fence in the distance. His slightly bald hair was conspicuous. Cut back to the young woman again, cut back again, the bald man has gone quite far, but appears above the blue water of Banchi Lake, because the camera is now back where it was just tracking the singing. Then there is the middle and close shot of the singing women, the eight young women are facing us in a slight arc, with a half-height black guardrail and a blue sky exposed by the vault, and a young woman is a few steps away from them, with her back to us , always black knee-length dress. Then there is a close-up of the profile of the young woman with her back turned to us, and a few monophonic voices with very clear mouth shapes. Then the camera returns to the bald man who has gone far. Obviously the camera has been getting more and more "excited" by these objects.
A close-up view of the man's side and front, followed a few steps. Full frontal close-up of the singing woman, continuous mouth shape, continuous monophonic. The eight women are completely in the rear view. Man taking pictures, close-up, bigger close-up (not yet big close-up), man moves, camera follows, suddenly, a few steps away from the white fence, the head of the man who has been chased in the frame goes from top to bottom disappeared suddenly. The camera didn't seem to understand what was going on for a while, and when the man was found again, he was already lying on the brick floor in front of the fence.
Then came the girl guide who came right away. Then he went back to the upstairs where he sang, but this time it was alone, the woman who taught the monophony just now, was leaning against the side wall next to a rectangular window in another place upstairs, and gently, Singing with love, very quiet, very beautiful melody. Turning the camera again, it is a long shot of the front of the building. At this time, you can see it clearly. The eight women are still there under the middle vault. On the left wall of the rectangular window on the left is the silhouette of another woman. At the same time, a few east Faces hurried past in the direction of the camera. Then turn to the woman again. As the singing becomes higher and higher, the camera zooms in step by step until the close-up. The profile of the woman is as pure and beautiful as the singing. Then suddenly cut to the overhead shot of the eight women, and the camera pushed straight past. It was a vertical waterfall and a pool of clear water outside. It continued to push across the water, and gradually saw a small group of people near the outer fence of the clear water pool. Around a lying figure, a business-like person was walking towards them. A little worrying.
Immediately, the distorted face of a half-old milf rushed to the camera in the sudden and frightening burst of music with a long scream... This was five minutes and forty-nine seconds after the opening.
What follows is nearly six minutes of frantic dancing, with this or that character, or two or three characters' dialogue, which we'll get to know later, but right now we have absolutely no idea what the film is talking about. Fragments The scenes with a strong sense of form are very similar to some meaningful stage performances. Including this scene near the end of six minutes:
In the narrow aisle where the two dance teams stood facing each other, an elegant man came out of the team and lit a cigarette calmly. The camera slowly zoomed in on him, and when the camera was pushed in front of him, a slightly tired face appeared. Says as if to tell us something important: "My children always ask this question, and my friends always give the same answer, 'Women'. I always answer, 'The smell of old people's homes.' The question is : 'What do you really love in your life?' I'm destined to be sensitive, I'm destined to be a writer, I'm destined to be Jab Gambardella."
Then there is the distant view of many figures shaking on a large open-air balcony under the city night view. We learned later that this was just a dinner party at the Jabil family, one of countless such dinners. It's just that this time it's a little bit special, it's Jabil's 65th birthday party.
two
This is the opening part of the Italian film of the new century we are going to discuss, directed by Paolo Sorrentino and released in April 2013. The film not only won the Cannes Palme d’Or and the European Film Awards known as the “European Oscars” for a series of awards such as Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Screenplay, etc., but also won a series of awards in the following year. In 2014, he won the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, the Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Golden Globe Awards and the Best European Film at the 28th Spanish Goya Awards. It can be said to be the highest honor in the European and American film industry, conquering Europe and the United States at the same time. However, the film reviews and audience feedback seem to be a bit confusing.
"The Beautiful City" shows the beautiful scene of Rome's literary and artistic atmosphere. Sorrentino shows the gorgeous carnival of modern Rome very well, and also excavates the decadent side of the city.
Roman brilliance and superficiality, technique and meaning make the film dense and taut. It all seems shocking, and Sorrentino's film, thematically borrowed from Fellini's La Dolce Vita, emphasizes society's empty entertainment. The film will excite, agitate, confuse, and confuse the audience. Without a doubt, this is an annual feast on the movie screen.
Because the filming city is Rome, because of the combination paragraph structure, because the identity of the film's protagonist Japp is a reporter, and because of the director Paul Sorrentino's self-report, "The Beautiful City" was hailed by the media as a "Twenty Twenty" The first century edition of "The Dolce Vita". This slogan is actually misleading.
Although the film carries so many elements, the layout is not huge. The overall tone basically follows the joyful freehand brushwork of Italian films, and even reveals a little cynicism through teasing and teasing about art and religion. Due to the lack of inconsistency and characterization, it may be difficult for most people to watch the first thirty minutes patiently. But in fact, a good movie will leave more space for people to interpret. The more you look back, the more you can discover the charm of the film. The seemingly casual and scattered plot is actually set around the search for the ultimate meaning of life. And this kind of search is something that everyone must accomplish in their entire life.
Although people's reflections are mixed, they are all based on the "written" of the works. If you only look at "what is written" in a work, but not "how it is written", you are unlikely to really understand any work - after the human art language has entered "modernism". Although it is the "post-modern era", to watch most works, including most movies, you basically don't need a brain other than entertainment organs, and of course you don't need this layer of thinking. Not so with real art films, such as this "Beautiful City" or "Beautiful" in its original language.
Although the packaging is postmodern, the implication is modernist. It is a dialogue between modernism and postmodernity on the film screen, or some feelings expressed by modernism in the postmodern environment by means of film.
three
Modernism appeared after the "sociality" of modern society had matured to a considerable stage, and it appeared with the historical maturity of one dimension of knowledge. After obtaining an independent structural social status, and having made a lot of and sufficient speeches as the spokesperson of social conscience, more energy begins to seek a more personal and more extreme outlet. Then there are modernist poems, modernist novels, modernist dramas, paintings, music, architecture, and even modernist films, which constitute another peak of human gnosis.
Postmodernism is the result of the confluence of two forces, postmodernism and postmodern reality. While postmodernists were deconstructing everything and the necessity of their own existence, the torrents of popular culture, carrying the storm and thunder of the Internet and the market, washed them off the horizon overnight. For the first time, the masses were given full equality and a real right to speak, not in the main aspects of society but only in culture. Intellectuals have been relieved of their historical responsibilities, traditional speech has withdrawn from the center stage, and all serious words, vocabulary and ideas have been blocked by the historical general. Postmodernity then essentially presents itself as an attitude, a "Bastille attitude" that is anti-meaning and anti-metamorphic. Because the masses are instinctively physical and materialistic, they only know how to pursue and only know how to buy happiness.
But postmodernity is at the same time plural and constantly pluralistic. The conscience of mankind has not been extinguished, and the fire of humanity will not be extinguished. No longer a core, but can still be a "meta". It is still possible to find a place on the overall discourse platform, but it is necessary to adapt to the new discourse environment and find a new discourse attitude. The attitude of how to speak some meaningful topics in an overall meaningless context.
It is somewhat strange that this effort should first appear in the realm of popular cinema. The Italians provided at least two films, "A Splendid Life" and "A City of Absolute Beauty." "A Splendid Life" takes a completely evasive attitude towards postmodern discourse, and goes straight back to the most simple realism and the most basic humanistic sentiments before the classics, appealing to the bottom line of conscience about life that ordinary people may still have left in postmodern times. "The Beautiful City" is a playful feint to the post-modern environment. In the dazzling, beautiful and bizarre visual impact, in the constant dispelling of all self-deprecation and self-deprecation, smuggling some seemingly The idea of modernism, which has been sublated by history, does not appeal to the intellectual remnants of intellectuals in the postmodern context, but is a game-like backlash against the overall postmodern context.
Of course these may all just be "returns" to something that is dying, but it could be the other way around. Didn't the "Renaissance", which occurred mainly in Italy and affected the entire human history process, start with a fresco in Siena in the 14th century.
Four
Different from "A Splendid Life", "City of Absolute Beauty" is a work that requires "deconstruction" before it can be "interpreted". But it is not the "deconstruction" of "deconstructionism", but the "deconstruction" of "deconstruction structure". Because in the "structure" of this film, there is a subtle dislocation of "said" and "referred to" (here "referred to" and "said" take conventional semantics, not Saussure's meaning), no Seriously "deconstruct", you have no way of knowing what they're talking about.
First of all, it is necessary to "deconstruct" the "structural" function of the exterior lighting in the five minutes and forty-nine seconds after the opening and the frantic dancing in the next six minutes, so that it is possible to "enter" this film correctly, and not be stunned by it. Or bewitched by bizarre visual appearances.
The first shot of each of the two major sections before Jabil's "show up", the location section and the dance section, is a hole straight at you. Only the first time was a muzzle, and the second time was a woman's mouth. The muzzle retreated a little (actually, the camera receded) and fired a shot at you, and the woman spit out a sharp, loud shriek at you. Although we soon learned that the shot was for tourists, the woman's scream was just a very common scene in a hot dance.
This film is not like making a movie, but more like writing an article, the paragraphs are very clear (so it is no wonder that some people think of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita"), and the audio-visual gap between the paragraphs is huge. The pure black background of the "title inscription" for several consecutive frames suddenly turns a cannon muzzle that is directly in front of you. It lasts for a few minutes, and the scenery is far more unique than the sightseeing film, and suddenly turns a woman's mouth screaming at you, a distorted half-old milf's face, and bursting hot dance music. None of this can be pointless, but what is the point.
And the contrast between the woman and the statue. Once on the back, once on the front, twice in the same frame.
There is also a contrast between the beautiful face of the singing woman and the unbeautiful face of the male tourist, but it is not in the same picture, but in the combination of the two pictures. Judging from the appearance, this should be one of a group of Japanese tourists. Japanese people are also very beautiful. Why did they choose such an almost square face with slack muscles and such a sluggish and stupid smile? .
This obviously has nothing to do with race or the like, because the woman in the front is obviously Western or even local. But why highlight this contrast. Is this related to the beauty of Rome, or the glitz and decadence of the upper class, or is it not related to these, and what is it related to?
related to "postmodern". Although "beauty" has long since been pulled down from the supremacy of "aesthetics", stepping on "beauty" is a "postmodern" matter (beautiful actors or costume sets are another matter, here It is about whether to treat beautiful things as "beauty", appreciate, intoxicate, or even admire, revere, and worship attitudes. The former belongs to "physiological aesthetics", the latter belongs to "meaning aesthetics", and "physiological aesthetics" is magnified, "Aesthetics of meaning" is subverted or even spurned, which is also one of the characteristics of "postmodern"). "Beauty" must be destroyed, coordinated, unified, and must also be destroyed, in order to belong to "postmodern". However, this kind of destruction in this film is slightly exaggerated, with a hint of ridicule and irony that are not easily detectable. Doesn't "beauty" have to be destroyed, then I will destroy it for you to see. Isn't it true that pure art can't get into the Oscars? So all this "beauty" starts from a muzzle that is full and overflows the picture very suddenly, so that the tourist's head will fall comically vertically from the picture, so everything that was originally very "beautiful" must start with An abrupt accident and the hurried escape of some people involved in it ended.
Of course, that's a bit of an overstatement. After some people fled in a hurry, the last scene of this section of the film is that another ten people are surrounding the accident victim, and a person who looks like a businessman is also coming. If this section really ends with the escape of some people, it will really be a "post-modern" work.
Fives
What is more interesting and must be appreciated is the use of the lens in this passage. It's almost like there is spirituality, and that spirituality is very special. Like a elf who has never been in the world full of kindness and curiosity to visit this tourist place and tourists. When he saw the woman and the back of the statue, he seemed to be saying, "How could this be?" When he saw the woman and the front of the statue, he seemed to be saying, "So that's how it is. !" And his "eyes" swiftly back and forth between the singing woman, the oriental tourist, and the man who got off the bus, the curiosity and naughty almost like a child's. If it weren't for children, why would it skim the surface of the pool so low, like a large area of water, why would the columned building slowly turn towards us, as if it had been enchanted by a game, why did it turn It didn't stop until it was completely positive, and why there were so many completely positive pictures, just that the singing team had several times, it seemed that they had to look at them completely.
This is not a rhetoric of modernism such as metaphors and symbols, but a playful attitude. It is a very mild "joking imitation" of the attitude towards postmodern games, and "joking imitation" is one of the rhetoric of modernism.
Mild destruction, mild imitation, this little bit of "lightness" changes everything. "Said" is not what it "means". It does not express the beauty of Rome, but uses the beauty of Rome to construct its discourse platform, a discourse platform similar to post-modern but not post-modern, providing a prelude to everything after that.
If there is no "prelude" of five minutes and forty-nine seconds, the film will be screaming at the camera and bursting with dancing music, I am afraid it will really become a postmodern work, and the Oscar people may not be. A small golden statue will be sent over.
But why is there a crazy hot dance with strong assumptions on the stage for about six minutes after that, is it another "prelude" after the "prelude"? Yes, this is a prelude to two "hedging". The prelude of two "hedging" with great contrast and bursting tension. Just for the limited narrative of this film or to show how high society is, there is no need for so many pictures and such a long film length, except that the characters are old and the clothes don't match, you can't see it at all. What does high society have to do with it. This is still a "dialogue", a "dialogue" to "postmodern discourse". Hot dance, one of the iconic vocabulary of "postmodern discourse", is not "expressed" here, but is still "borrowed", "jokingly" and "disassembled". So the whole section starts with the hysterical roar of a half-old milf, and ends with the narration of an elegant gentleman. Therefore, it is necessary to repeatedly enlarge the part of the dinner party with a small overall scene into a fake stage with a little bit of expressionism, and occasionally intersperse some pictures with great contrast, such as a graceful dancer in a black dress. Suddenly, there was a small group of dwarf figures next to a white square beam of light, and so on. Although since then, almost all of these have reasonable narrative explanations, but at this time, the continuous bombardment of the carpet-like hot pictures only constitutes the "discourse" of "he refers", and has little to do with what the picture itself refers to. There is only a very subtle dislocation between "he refers to" and " refers to", making it difficult for you to notice it for a while.
Or a "cocktail". Although the "meaning" of the hot dance and the previous scene are different, the "structure" is the same, both are "mixing cocktails". The total amount of "auxiliaries" that are "blended" is not large, but the ingredients are complex enough and superior. Exaggeration, contrast, games, banter, stageness, etc. And it is two consecutive "cocktails", the first one is soft and the second one is extremely hot, which expands your sensory tension to the extreme, and then puts you in a very hypothetical picture, which is equivalent to inviting you into In a certain prescriptive framework, I began to listen to Jabil tell his "story" - in fact, there are not many "story", the real meaning is outside the "story", in the telling of the "story". That is to say, in the process of "speaking", the way of "speaking" is not about the content of "speaking". Although this is just a normal means of the so-called "non-story" and "non-character" narrative of modernist literature that has withdrawn from the historical stage, because what is to be expressed is not "story" but "discourse".
So in a certain sense, it can be said that for audiences who only "watch the story" but not "listen to the words", this film does not have to be watched at all, and it was not made for you at all. Although this is a bit rude to say, it is the truth. That's why the Oscars give it an award to show that the Oscars still have something in place, or want to do so (though they can't produce it themselves).
Five minutes and forty-nine seconds of "blended" exterior lighting and nearly six minutes of crazy dancing are just a premise platform for the subsequent "discourse": there are a lot of pictures and few stories and some dialogues, but the meaning But not in the pictures, stories and dialogues themselves, but in their sum. It's like drinking a "cocktail". To drink a "cocktail" is to drink the "whole" of the "cocktail", not its individual elements. Studying the "cocktail" is different, not only to study its elements, but also to study its "blending" process, as we have done and will do. Going forward, though, the "cocktail" metaphor is clearly not enough. At present, it can only be said that the first two "preludes" are "modulated" in this way, and the following "production" method is more complicated.
six
This is about twelve minutes after the movie starts. Then close to eight minutes before Jabil walks into a very dimly lit room for an "interview", which can be seen as the third paragraph of the film: the dinner is over, the guests disperse in the middle of the night, and Jabil goes outside early in the morning After taking a walk, when I came back, I met a neighbor on the same floor who didn't like to take care of others. Then I got home and finished breakfast in the kitchen under the service of a housekeeper who was not too young. Wake me up", laying down on a sofa bed and having a stream of consciousness dream. The matter is extremely simple, but the brush and ink are very fine, otherwise it is impossible to draw such a long film.
The distant view of the open-air balcony under the night scene of the last scene in the previous paragraph is the interior scene of a moving car in the dark. Previously, in the "Intermission" of the hot dance, there was a scene of a man and a woman talking face-to-face, and there was another scene next to him. A chubby old man trying to interject, and now it's the chubby old man driving the not-so-young lady home. Later we learned that, excluding Jab and the dwarf female editor, this old man should be the third or fourth character in the film. This scene should count as a bit of narrative duty, but it doesn't. After seeing the distant view of the terrace in the night, we already know that those hot dances were just a dinner party, and now we see one of the guests sending another guest home, indicating that the dinner party may have ended, and there seems to be a little bit between the two. The unclear relationship needs to be slowly understood, which is of course a "narrative". Moreover, the picture, tone, etc. are also handled almost the same as the ordinary movie processing similar scenes, which belong to the most conventional processing of similar scenes. If this treatment develops, it should be a conventional narrative, or at least start a more conventional narrative. But no.
The charming lady refused the fat old man's request, "Then I'll go to sleep on your sofa", and got up and got out of the car. , is a very beautiful picture with a strong sense of modern form: on the blue of the very soft knitted fabric that spans the whole picture, several round lights of light brown and yellow that are also soft and warm are cast on several parts with obvious texture. On the very soft light brown round sofa stool, the top of the picture is a long white fence and a dark night scene, and in the middle are two soft white light-emitting cross-sections that are square in length and curved in shape. Lamppost" (I really can't find another word for it). A very beautiful combination of complementary colors. At one end of a "recumbent lamp post" in the middle, there is a black mass that is not very clear at first. Then the "black" stood up suddenly, the dwarf woman he had seen before. Then the camera changed to a different angle, looking from one end of the long terrace to the other, the exact same scene changed from very beautiful to very "cartoon" in an instant: two "plants" children's paintings are generally more spherical The split tree-shaped "floor lamps" are "sticked" in front of us like two doorposts. In the middle are the round lights, sofa stools, "lying lampposts" and the same two at the far end that we have just seen. A luminous "ball tree", between the white light of the two "ball trees" near and far on the left and the white luminous body formed by the "lying lamp post" in the middle, a short black figure seems to come from " The Seven Dwarfs" came towards us. Then the camera cuts to the room, the upper body of the walking dwarf woman, the face is not very clear, but the carefully done hairstyle is very eye-catching, and the clothes do not seem to be black. The background is a thin row of white decorative lamps on a light gray-blue wall. "Friends?" the woman called inquiringly. Turning to another room, this time it was shot from outside or from outside the window, because we were facing a large floor-to-ceiling window with a lattice in the middle. The light inside was very bright, and the background seemed to be a white curtain. Sure enough, the woman opened the curtain and walked in as if searching, and stopped to look left and right, as if to make sure that no one was there. At the same time, we also fully saw that the woman's very elegant dress was a very soft one. Elegant light dark green. Turning to the terrace again, it is the other side of the terrace, which is relatively simple. At first, the camera is slightly lower than the terrace plane. The woman is standing half-sideways on it. She should be taller, but she seems to be shorter. The sky behind it has begun to show a light dark green similar to the woman's clothes, and a red and yellow semicircle billboard that appears to be "jumping" at the top of the billboard. At this time, the camera pans slightly upwards, and it is almost flush with the terrace plane. The white letters on the black-shaped billboard are very eye-catching: "MARTINI" (Martini), and the woman shouted "friends" and "friends" twice in a row. Then, the camera turns to a group of half-sized girls in white nun costumes behind a row of black iron bars in the doorway of an ancient building in the early morning, and a string of young laughter like silver bells, and then a half-raised Jabil who is drinking water from a public tap close-up, etc.
The camera seems to "narrate" all the time. The scene on the car in front tells us that a guest has already withdrawn. And told us through the dialogue between the two that it was five in the morning. Now, through the behavior of this lady, it tells us more clearly that the guests have all dispersed, and directly tells us through the picture that the sky has begun to dim. But soon after that, we learned that this peculiar-looking woman is a senior editor with a lot of voice (the status of Western editors is far above that of ordinary writers, which we cannot compare here), and has a high IQ. , how could it take so long to understand such an obvious thing? Although when we first saw this lady in the gap of the hot dance scene, we thought she was leaning on a white square beam of light, in fact, she may have been taking a nap because she drank too much, and now she just woke up, the so-called white square beam of light It's just one end of the "lying lamppost". Although in any case, the director needs to find someone to drink a little too much, sleep for a while, then wake up and look around to find someone to tell us that the guests are indeed gone and show that they have been very serious and meticulous "narrative", but why not Looking for any one of the guests, but to find this one. Or to put it more clearly, why did you find such a special actor to play this role? Is it to show some aspect of high society? Is there some kind of symbolic or metaphorical meaning? Or just for the picture.
Just for the picture. All the meaning, meaning, and implication of this work are not in the things it narrates, including the subsequent performance paintings, the haggard saint, etc., nor in the lines it publishes, including Jabil’s previous “appearance statement”. ”, and in all the combinations, the first is the combination of pictures and pictures.
The self "dissolves" rather than "deconstructs" the other
one
The combination of pictures and pictures, what else is there in the essence of the film, just like the writing of words, except for the words and the connection of words, what else is there. However, for traditional films and traditional writing, the combination of pictures and pictures or the connection of words and words are just means. It is necessary to use them to write stories and characters. The meaning and meaning of the works are in the stories and characters written. . Modernism upended all of this. The so-called "non-story", "non-plot" and "non-character" are of course not necessarily in fact, and it is unlikely that they are all "non", and it is not very important how rare the "non" is. , they become means and carriers rather than ends and meanings themselves. The meaning and meaning are in the "narrative" of "narrative", that is, in the various "flavors" of the combination of pictures and pictures or the connection of words and words, just like Chinese painting cabbage, the meaning of meaning is not in the painted cabbage. , while in the brush and ink of drawing cabbage.
Rome and the upper class are the "cabbage" of Sorrentino, and his "brush and ink" are his pictures and the various "flavors" of the pictures. There are many rhetoric of modernism and some subtle changes. For example, in the scene of the scenic spot, the playful imitation is so light, because in the "post-modern era" you can't be really serious about anything real, you have to be a little loose, very casual, and don't care, even if you want to ridicule. It must be the same, or banter, otherwise it will be regarded as an outdated antique and lose its right to speak ("violent aesthetics" can of course be arbitrary, and must compete). But starting from the dance part, Sorrentino's "pen and ink" is much more complicated. "Sabotage" and "playful parody" are a little more, but not the main ones anymore. The main thing is to "deconstruct" or say "dissolve". The "deconstruction" of the picture itself and the "dissolution" between pictures and scenes. That special character was designed specifically for that.
Any picture has a structure, and any structure consists of several elements. Removing any element will damage the structure, but not necessarily destroy it. But it is possible to add an element. That particular character is that element. Because the picture can bring audio and dialogue, but the visual is still the most important. The camera changed to a different position, the shadow stood up, and the "beautiful" turned into a "cartoon", without this "special shape" can not be achieved. "Aesthetic" belongs to "pre-modern", "cartoon" belongs to "post-modern", what is this "metaphor" or "dissolution". Or just "contrast". Or just "screen game" or "game screen" anyway. You see, the same scene, the same props and lighting, it looks like this when viewed horizontally, but it is completely different when viewed vertically. In more words, no matter what the film, the picture, or the director did not say anything, because postmodernism can do anything except "violent aesthetics", and everything else must be "inaction", you can't tell "God" anything, you can only let "God" see it for themselves .
For example, the so-called "dissolution" of "between scenes". The sedan one is the "dissolution" of the hot dance scene, the "dissolution" of the cold scene against the hot scene, the "dissolution" of the conventional narrative to the bubble narrative, the "dissolution" of the ordinary to the bizarre, and the "dissolution" of no impact to the strong impact. ". The terrace is another "disintegration" of the car. It is Aesthetic's "dissolving" of the ordinary, and then "dissolving" itself, and the cartoon "dissolving" Aesthetics. Of course, you can also understand the so-called "dissolution" as "hedging" or even "opposition", "contrast" or just the opening and closing changes of the author's pen and ink, etc. But even if you understand them as "hedging" or even "opposition", "contrast", etc., you must understand that their meanings are accumulated and superimposed over time, just like the storyline of a traditional movie or novel will continue to development the same. Don't you think that the terrace feature is an "overlay" of the entire six-minute dance, including the confession that seems to be the closing remark. You can't just watch the hot dance from the hot dance, and only understand the confession from the confession. Of course, if you only want to understand the "meaning" of the film from those express lines, that's entirely your power.
two
This is a "discourse making" film. Of course, some things need to be said. Of course, the things mentioned cannot be completely meaningless, but the meaning of "discourse" is even greater, and it is necessary to read "what is said" and "can be said".
What we mean by "capable places" is not Saussure's "capable places".
Saussure used the laboratory method of natural science to extract language phenomena from language use, and to study and define them from the perspective of the physiology of the recipients of language phenomena. Therefore, the "signifier" of sound is heard first, and then the "signified" of its meaning is identified. The sound of "signifier" comes first, and the meaning of "signified" comes after, which is "signifier"/"signified".
And we speak of "neng-shou" according to the actual use of language phenomena.
In actual use, no matter language phenomenon, word phenomenon or symbol phenomenon, it is the relationship between the three of "can-do-can".
The former "Neng" is the sender of information that can speak, write, and give; the latter "Can" is the receiver of information that can listen, see, and receive.
The "suo" in the middle is "suo" in the former, and "shou" in the latter. The so-called "medium". The recipient is to accept the real information of the other party through this "media", not just the "media" itself.
Therefore, as far as the recipient is concerned, regardless of language, characters, symbols, pictures or any information, the "signified" comes first and the "signifier" comes after, which is the relationship between "signified"/"signifier" . The so-called "interpretation" is nothing more than understanding "energy" from "what".
As far as the film we are now "solving" is concerned, almost twenty minutes have passed so far. We visited a scenic spot, watched a dinner party, heard a monologue from the protagonist, and then was repeatedly told that the dinner was over. We saw the protagonist take an early morning walk, ate breakfast, slept and had a dream. At the same time, a lot of words can be felt. What is or is what we "receive" or what the film in general "gives" us. It seems that this question cannot be answered yet. The narration has not really begun, and the words will continue to be superimposed. We can only follow the film to "closely read" step by step, because only "close reading" can make the words "emerge" from the narrative. And it was said earlier that the two "preludes" were setting up a platform, and now it seems that until Jabil walked into that very dimly lit room to do the "interview", they were setting up the platform, all preludes, or more traditional Rhetoric says, it's all "laying the groundwork". Their meaning, I am afraid that only by continuing to read, can gradually understand. It is not a historical accident that the "close reading" method was born with modern literature. Although there are not many people who use the "close reading" method to "read" movies, although the "modernist films" that need close reading have already withdrawn from the stage of history and entered the archives .
three
But "reading carefully" is by no means word for word. We will have to "read" for about an hour and 20 minutes, and only when Jabil's third "monologue" will have a general understanding that the basic form of music after "Overture" is "Rondo". "The main theme" is a night party, two "talks" at Jabil's house, and one performance painting party. "Interlude" is always first a picture of someone driving at night, then Jabil going for a walk and then coming home. The "main theme" continued to develop. The first "clear talk" was relatively boring, and the second "clear talk" seemed to have more "content". After taunting the self-righteous female writer, Jabil said a few words. What seems to be a "point of call" for the film's "high society" theme: "We're all on the verge of despair, and all the bears do is look after each other, stay with each other, and joke around." But that doesn't really matter. If these are important, you can send them to journals or find them in journals. There is no shortage of such things on the plane. What matters is how they appear in the development of a film's "Rondo"-like "theme" parts, and how these "theme" are "supported" by the changing but constantly "circling" "interlude" .
After the first "clear talk" at night, it was "showed" that one of the businessmen and his wife was driving at night, and that Jabil was accompanied by a middle-aged woman who had just arrived in Rome with a good demeanor. Jabil was in the woman's bedroom. The second "monologue" was published on the small balcony outside, which was a "circle" of the "monologue" at the end of the six-minute hot dance. The view of the Roman aqueducts of the subsequent morning walk is a "circle" of the view of the Roman streets of the previous morning walk. Of course you can think of these as nothing more than a daily portrayal of Jabil's usual life, but how do you explain that after being suddenly told that your first love as a teenager was dead, and after sending your aching husband home, you are on the sofa again The "stream of consciousness" memory that happened on the bed turned out to be exactly the same as the previous "stream of consciousness", starting from a pool of clear water facing him directly from the ceiling. Could it be that the pool of clear water is always hanging from the ceiling of his bedroom, or that his "stream of consciousness" has a fixed activation mode. This is of course "hypothetical". It wasn't certain the first time it appeared, but the second time it was. And this "hypothetical" is just to emphasize that this "stream of consciousness" is a "convolution" of the previous "stream of consciousness", lest people not be able to hear all the "convolutions" before and after it, and its entire "Rondo" melody. And without this kind of "contrast", how much power can a limited story and witty lines have.
After the second evening "talk", it was also a couple who "acted" driving at night. Jabil went for a walk as an exception, but went all the way to a nightclub owned by an old friend whom he hadn't seen in 30 years, and "encountered" the old man. The friend's 42-year-old daughter Ramona is still a stripper. But nothing "happened" at the moment, and returned home a little disappointed, smoking a cigarette and pouring himself a drink on the expansive terrace, and then (apparently a little selfishly) raised his glass to the man on the small balcony above. Greetings from ignorant neighbors. It's a "circumference" to "speaking up" to the neighbor in the elevator after going out for a walk after six minutes of dancing.
The third evening party was followed by performance painting, followed by Jabil taking Ramona on a tour of a hidden art collection, which was quite long, and then driving at night by a young man, one of Jabil's friends, Otto. Mrs. Vera's problematic son. We've met him twice before. The second time there was an interesting conversation with Jabil. There's obviously not much plot basis for him to drive the night train, but someone has to drive the night train after an evening event, because it's the indispensable and iconic first verse of every "interlude." Then the terrace in the morning light is a "circle" to the terrace in the dim light. After that is Jabil's third seemingly "monologue" - although it is not a monologue, it is a "circle" of the previous "monologue".
It seems that the first sentence of the "monologue" is: "Many people think that funerals are a very accidental event and there is no rule to follow, but this is not the case. Funerals are the best thing for the upper class." The picture is Shen Helan With these few words, the light group rose rapidly and turned towards us and flew towards us. By the end of this sentence, it was clearly discernible that it was the outline of an airplane. We knew in advance that this was what Jabil and the manager saw when they walked to a large terrace in the garden outside the palace after taking Ramona to visit the art collection. A somewhat mysterious sight, because when Jabil first started talking, the plane was a moving white light in the dark night, and of course we thought Jabil was going to talk about something mysterious. Actually it is not. When the camera turned, it was a woman in black standing upright. The picture was a little weird, a bit like a stage set. The woman folded her hands and pressed lightly on a long black table in front of her. The three large rectangular glowing windows on the back wall hung a black dress that was the same as the woman's body. At the same time, the voiceover: "You will not forget to attend the funeral," or Jabil's voice just now. One more turn, it looks more like a stage: Jabil in an orange coat, white shirt and trousers and yellow and white leather shoes on a beige couch under the pale yellow spotlight, with one right leg crossed and one left arm lightly draped over the couch. On the back of the sofa, a self-possessed expression seemed a bit unpredictable, and the camera lens was also slightly elevated (it was completely flat for the woman just now). Obviously, he continued to say: "The way I stand on the stage." Obviously, the words we heard when facing the black and blue sky and the white light group just now were said here. We soon learned that this was Jabil teaching funeral workers "upper class".
Of course, this is also "narrative" and "representation" of high society, but the information given by the screen scheduling is obviously more than that, but it is difficult to tell what they are for a while. For the time being, only one thing can be affirmed: this clear stagedness is too obviously "hypothetical". But what is "hypothetical", we have to look at it again.
Four
But I'm not in a hurry to continue to look down. I can first "comb" the one hour and twenty minutes I have watched, and at least three points can be found:
1. From the first picture of "Muzzle", the "hypothetical" of the stage has always existed, but only fragments appear "intermittently", and at the same time, they are constantly strengthened and strengthened.
2. From the relationship between the "open mouth" and the "muzzle", the "circularity" has been generated, and it is also continuously strengthened and strengthened.
3. From monuments, statues, statues, to the connection between the pictures of an old woman with a cigarette sitting next to a male statue, from the connection of the distorted face of the bursting music to the scenic spots, several pictures are connected, and several small paragraphs are connected The strong contrast between the cohesion and all the big paragraphs is also always there, but there is no tendency to gradually increase. What is the strength of the object being compared, and what is the strength of the object to be compared.
The beautiful face of the singing woman is very unbeautiful to the Japanese tourists. A beautiful aria of a singing woman slips off the head of a Japanese tourist. The "cold" of the night train is the "hot" of the dinner party. The terrace is "beautiful" and "ordinary" to the night train. "Cartoon" and "beautiful". etc. This is in the "Overture" section. In the three "circumferential" passages we just discussed.
After the first "clear talk" in the evening, after being suddenly told that their first love when they were young is dead, on the way to send the aching husband home, two grieving old men walk with each other in the pouring rain On the next section of the masonry ramp, suddenly at the turn, a nun in a white nun's uniform yelled in their direction, turned and ran. Obviously, this has nothing to do with any plot. This fleeting episode is a deliberately "hedged" and "broken" stroke. What is "broken" is "sorrow". "Sorrow" over the death of a loved one. To one of the men, it was a young lover, and to the other man, it was a woman who loved her for life. Such "sadness" is too natural and justifiable, but it must be "broken", so it is difficult to explain it with "contrast" and "contrast".
After the second evening "clear talk", Jabil met Ramona, nothing happened that night, and Jabil invited Ramona to dinner. During dinner there was an interesting conversation between Jabil and the son of a friend who was having some problems. The son mentioned Proust and Turgenev, "Don't take those writers too seriously," Jabil told him. "Then what should I take seriously?" the son asked rhetorically. "Nothing but this menu of course," Jabil replied. The subsequent "conversations" between Jabil and Ramona were obviously different from those of celebrities, which were more homely and more real. It seems that this cynical celebrity and this daring and noble woman still have some simple true feelings in the depth of their relationship. Then suddenly, the picture changed to a half-sized boy with an uncoordinated figure who was practicing as if he were playing freestyle football. It's like a spoof juggling in acrobatics class. Then turn to the scene where Jabil and Ramona are talking on the terrace of Jabil's house. From Ramona's words, we know that the boy is the object of Ramona's first love. "Embedding" the content of Ramona's conversation in advance is obviously "broken" to the previous scene, but the writing is not very heavy. After all, those conversations have some meaning and not much meaning, but the next one is different.
"I write by inspiration, and I'm an inspired writer," Jabil said. This is the Jabil we know well, and to say anything is at least a joke. Then Ramona turned the conversation to a more private side, "I told you about my first time, but you didn't tell me anything, it's your turn to say it." Ramona leaned towards us. On one of the couch, Jabil is getting up from the side sofa to fetch wine on the coffee table, and then Jabil is filling us with an old face. slowly:
"One summer, on an island", "I was then", "18 years old, she was 20 years old", the hazy silhouettes of a young boy and a girl face to face in the night are slowly narrowing the distance.
"I leaned over to kiss her, and she turned her head." The camera turned to Jab's face again, and the expression was obviously changing: "I'm very disappointed." At least the expression on his face was also disappointed. Jabil was clearly beginning to be drawn into memory (memories here, nothing to do with any "stream of consciousness").
"Then she turned to look at me again," and there were no more memories, but Jab's face, the same below: "Nursing me with her lips... She smelled like flowers, and I didn't move, I can't move at all." The camera cuts back to the face-to-face silhouette of the boy and girl, and then cuts back again, Jabil's expression is a bit uncontrollable:
"She took a step back and said to me..." Then she didn't say anything for a long time, the camera slowly moved away, and Ramona looked at his face in surprise. Ramona's "first time" is obviously not referring to this, Jabil is talking about the first kiss during the first love. Ramona was a little frightened, this man who had been through the vicissitudes of life actually still has such deep true feelings. It's also the first time we've seen something so genuine on Jabil's face. Ramona got up understandingly, "I'm going home, it's too late." "Want to come to the party tomorrow night?" Jab had also recovered. Then the camera turned, and it was a fat half-old woman in fancy clothes on a gray-black background with a gray-white aperture. The camera moved slowly, and the woman's face became more and more fat and swollen, and the camera slowly panned a few faces that were nervously waiting for something. Then cut a larger close-up of the fat woman, then cut a few other nervously waiting faces, and finally the fat woman's profile face and a flying knife. Then the camera was pulled into a panoramic view, and the knife-throwing man appeared, etc. It turned out to be an acrobatic performance. Although we later learned that this was the opening scene of the performance part of the party before the performance painting, such a scene change is obviously a deliberately arranged "insertion" and "broken" stroke, and we can also give This kind of writing is clearly defined: it is not "contrast" or "contrast", but "dissolution".
Fives
Why do you say "deconstruction" instead of "deconstruction"? "Deconstruction" is to deconstruct the other side, and "deconstruction" is to deconstruct oneself. "Deconstruction" is to enter the other party to deconstruct, and "deconstruction" is to dissolve one's own establishment. "Dissolve" is the extensional use of "deconstruction" with ingenious or ulterior motives. "Deconstruction" must be "subtraction", and in the end it is possible to "return to zero". If the "dissolution" is "pretend", it may be "addition", so that the object of digestion is not "decreased" but "increased" or even "expanded". The stage presupposition and feigned tension of the fat woman scene (because the audience isn't told it's a performance) both reinforce the "pretend" nature of this hedging resolution. But no matter whether I "pretend" or not, I am also "dissolving", saying something meaningful or a little true and immediately "dissolving" it, you can't say that I am not "post-modern" enough. And that thing was kept. I myself have dispelled and negated myself to such an extent that who can dispel and negate the "I" (the final word to be expressed). However, this process of "dissolution" begins at the moment when the so-called "montage" appears when a picture assembly with a clear hypothetical strong contrast appears, and the feeling of the object to be "dissolved" explodes instantly because of this "montage". The tension is "amplified", and continues to be "amplified" in the feigned assumptions and tensions that are apparently deliberately delayed and intensified after the "montage". So "I" is not only stable but also "expanded".
Hypothetical, convoluted and dissolved, a little bit of milk, evaporated milk or yogurt of stories, characters and dialogues is "churned" into a large "milkshake".
the goodwill that has faded
one
Therefore, there is absolutely no need to find out what other meanings other than "mocking" in the performance painting scene, that is, "mocking", which is a coincidence. But it is done in the general already formed expansion hypothesis and continues to strengthen this expansion. It is worth studying, but it has been appearing before and has not been very important. After the six-minute dance, the slightly fat old man who was the "first" to drive the night car, an old friend of Jabil for decades, was not very successful in both life and career. The playwright who now seems to have "succeeded", not with society, but with himself. In a previous conversation between the two, Jabil advised him that instead of imitating D'Annunzio, "try to write something of your own, like a feeling or sadness." He replied, "I know You haven't done it for so many years." And after several attempts to call it "shit" by the apparently unimpressive actress he was chasing, he finally succeeded.
At about an hour and thirty-one minutes into the film, between the two "big episodes" of performance painting and the Withered Saint, between what appears to be a "third monologue", "Funeral Teaching" and funeral scenes, and Jabil and After Ramona's lingering and several scenes in Rome in the early morning (night, early morning, street scene, water scene, still "circle"), it is a man who is clearly outlined by the stage lights in the dark background, playing quietly. The picture of the guitar and the soft sound of the guitar, then the close-up of the playwright's face we already knew and some lines that we hadn't expected to write before (which we've heard at least twice).
"I spent the whole summer preparing for September (translation or questionable, the verb "flower" should be the present perfect tense, "I always spend". "I always spend the whole summer preparing for September". "September" is supposed to be the start of the season), no further plans. Now my summer is spent reminiscing about the goodwill that's gone. Partly from burnout, part from carelessness ("cause" is probably also wrong translation).
Pause. Then: "What's wrong with nostalgia? It's the only pastime for those who have no faith in the future." A pastime that can be given.” Or: “It is the only pastime that anyone who has no faith in the future can enjoy.”)
There is a longer pause, and the camera is also pulled away. The "playwright" is clearly facing a line stand similar to a music stand on a stage. A little far on the left is a guitarist in a round light, and a little on the right is a simple Wooden chair. The other lights hit the Playwright and the chair slightly scattered. The mode and taste of simple and typical "small theater" performances. "Playwright" lowered his arms and raised his head slightly to one side, as if looking at the sky, "There is no rain..." He lowered his head to the line stand again: "August is coming to an end, and September has not yet begun." (There seem to be two lines that are missing and untranslated) Then he raised his head to face us: "It's alright, it will be fine." He bowed his head gently, and the lights faded away. "Excellent!" Facing the vaguely recognizable expectant face of the "playwright" in the dim light, there was obviously a cheer and a round of applause from the audience, followed by a round of applause and a round of cheers, but neither very warm. The stage lights turned on again, and the "playwright" finally lifted his head deeply with a sigh of relief, but when he put his head down again, he saw a very young woman sitting in the front row, obviously not very interested. He left quickly, and although the other audience members were still applauding, they gradually became enthusiastic. Finally, the curtain call scene in applause.
Then the camera turns to other.
two
"Remember the goodwill that has passed away", "This is the only pastime for those who have no faith in the future", or "It is the only pastime for those who have no faith in the future."
The "playwright" did what Jabil himself did not do, and at the same time, he was doing a "speaking" for Jabil, the "spokesperson" of the film, which he was inconvenient to do. Jabil, who is always sarcastic or self-deprecating, is clearly inappropriate to say this. At the same time, the entire section has been treated relatively plain and light, it does not constitute any contrast to the previous picture (the exterior scene of Rome in the morning), and there is no contrasting picture to impact it after that (then Jabil walked into an archway of an ancient building. screen). It is conventional and understated. Or because, to a certain extent, this is also an "endorsement" for the film, which is part of the core concept of the film. But it's hard for you to judge all of a sudden. Everything is "empty meaning" and "complex color", and no "monochromatic" is used any more. This aesthetic principle established since modernism obviously still applies. You can deduce from this that all of this, with Jabil as the "first point of view", the nostalgia for the beauty of Rome, the emptiness and self-deprecation of the high-society life in which it resides, belongs as a whole to "those who have the goodwill that passed away"; for it also knew it was emptiness and mocked it, and now even this has "passed away".
Is there anyone else who would consider something "empty" today?
Only those who pursue "meaning" will feel "empty", will have a sense of "emptiness", and have the concept of "empty".
"Empty" belongs to modernism, to the meaning of blank meaning, to "the goodwill that has passed away".
And this film is just "remembering" the "goodwill that has passed away". Because "this is the only pastime for those who have no faith in the future", or "this is the only pastime for those who have no faith in the future."
Because although we have lost faith in the future, we have not lost our attachment to meaning and kindness. Can you think so with any certainty? It seems not. At least not yet, but obviously it cannot be denied either. And the deduction of the film down, but it makes us "can".
The sigh of "emptiness" no longer exists
one
Immediately after the curtain call, Jabil walked slowly through an archway in an ancient wall towards us. Looking at a giraffe under the stage lights on a small empty field surrounded by ancient walls, the picture looks beautiful and strange. Turning to Jab's surprised face again, he took off the top hat he was wearing, as if to pay homage to something. Turning to Jabil's subjective perspective, the giraffe's long neck and upturned head are becoming more and more bizarre in the large elevation angle. "Jabil, why are you running here?" An old man came from the depths of the camera. "Arturo, what are you doing here?" Jabil asked back. "Didn't you see it? I'm rehearsing for my magic show." At this time, the old man had walked up to Jab, and he could see clearly. He was much older than Jab, but still in good spirits. "This is tomorrow's special show: The Giraffe that disappeared."
"Can you really make this giraffe disappear?" Jabil questioned.
"Of course I can make it disappear," the old man said with certainty.
Jab paused, then said, "Then let me disappear."
"Jabil," the old man tilted his head, "do you think if I could really make people disappear, I would still be playing circus tricks at this age?" He made an exaggerated gesture on his chest. Then he raised his hands, "It's just a trick." He turned and walked away, as if he was busy with something.
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