As a father’s mission, works directed by Jeff Nichols-Talking about the new North American film "Escape at Midnight"

Midnight Special

In the interview, the film director: Jeff Nichols mentioned that the creation of this film is inseparable from the event of his life as a father. The director born in 78 years can be said to be a leader among young and middle-aged film creators in recent years. His beautiful resume is enviable. After seeing his photos for the first time, for the first movie he participated in, it’s not uncommon for him to be an actor. The person is too handsome. The big cousin next door, Faner, is acting in a youth film. , The rhythm of the fire. But soon, he started his first film production "Shotgun Story" and befriended his queen actor: Michael Shannon. After making a blockbuster with his debut, he continued to create in 2011. "Being in", 2012 "Sludge", aside from the works he participated in as a producer, this year's "Midnight Escape" and the upcoming "Love" are all written and directed by Jeff Nichols. It can be said that each of the several films is a handy author-type film, and they are all worth watching again. The stories he created always unfold from family relationships. The crime, disaster, and sci-fi elements woven in the plot make the whole movie break away from the boring and tedious and long negative of ordinary family ethical dramas and the growth of the characters. On the contrary, Inspire deeper meaning of the story and richer emotions of the characters. All these make his movies give a lot of layering. Life pressure and family relations, mental illness, and the hidden dangers of sudden disasters. —— "Being in Life" The influence of the family on children, the debt collection of love and hate, the journey of becoming a man. ——"Sludge" The father's protection of the child, get rid of the interference from the outside world, from the unknown to the obedient. -"Escape at Midnight" If "Sludge" is about how a child has a more comprehensive view and experience of family, love, and even life under the influence of his father and strangers, and gradually grows into a good man's psychological transformation process. While "Existence" and "Midnight Escape" are stories centered on the roles of husband and father, but "Existence" discusses the protection given to family members by the one-way husband and father, and even the excesses under their own mental pressure. protect. And "Midnight Escape" is that while the father protects the child, he is more guided by the child to complete his mission-escort the child to where he wants to go, give him all the trust and support, for He can break all the rules for the future he wants. In this way, the exploration of the role of "father" is one step closer, and the relationship between father and son has also become a two-way giving. When writing a talk about "Father Like Son" last year, the editor of Mtime.com left a comment, after all, the role of "father" was born with "child". People always take more care of innocent children, which is easy to ignore. No good man is born a good father. And the director: Jeff Nichols, constantly using his works to discuss with us the transformation of the roles of good children, good men, and good fathers, which involve relatives, partners, families, society, and even government and religious organizations. Individual influence or crushing. And the story is full of ordinary family relationships and common life experiences, making his movies easy to have an emotional connection with the audience, and feel the characters' inner struggles and personal embarrassment.

As an independent film, "Midnight Escape" is a bolder work by Jeff Nichols. Compared with the criminal shootouts of "Sludge" and the disaster warning of "Being Live", the final ending has returned to reality. And the ending of "Midnight Escape" will only make people look up to the sky. I believe most of the production costs are spent in the last ten minutes of the latter part. It is said that the film has only been shot for about 40 days. This is another, very smart adventure, science fiction, and drama movie. Just like "Jurassic Park", Tyrannosaurus rex does not always appear in "Jaws". "The one who has left the country the most is probably only the dorsal fin." In "Midnight Escape", the 8-year-old boy wears blue goggles at all times, and occasionally releases the special power of his eyes to shine, like a floating "dorsal fin" hidden in a vast ocean. In the middle part of the plot from the escape, the life cut into the movie, on the dark highway, on the journey without knowing the destination, the existence and vision of this little boy are the key elements of the attraction in the first 60 minutes of the movie.

And what Jeff Nichols is better at is believed to be the reason why he is well received in the critics. It is the delicate emotion he makes the characters in the shots show in the movie timeline. Except for those things that he placed specifically and drew the audience’s appetites: the background of the murder case, the advent of disasters, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, he will use the dialogue between the characters and the mutual eyes to convey the differences between the characters. Relationships and metaphors. In "Sludge", the opening chapter of the son peeping at his parents' dinner table conversation, the sense of distance outside the window and the two people's speech are all conveying the estrangement in the family relationship. And the two friends of Erics and Naike took a boat to explore the uninhabited island together, and quickly confessed the friendship between the two. In the film, a large number of empty shots of rivers and highways, cars and speedboats constantly convey the vision of a child looking at the world and life. In the film, the river begins with the mist in the eyes of the child, and at the end Ma De, who regains freedom, looks at the bright river in his eyes and sails towards a free future. In the film, more such subjective shots give us a deeper emotional experience.

And in "Midnight Escape", the opening is also short and powerfully revealing that the male protagonist: Roy and his partner: Lucas, the needless friendship between the two. There is no leader between the two men, who orders whom, or who requests whom. It is that both of them are fully awakened and decide their companions on the escape journey together. There is only cooperation and rotation between them. They both care about the same child and obey the same child. Just as soon as the movie opened, the father of the policeman, Roy, was shot and killed, and he turned to Lucas and said: "You know, the most important thing is: Alton.". During this night journey like a desperado, the historical relationship between Roy and Lucas, the ability of the little boy Alton, who are they being hunted down, and where is their destination? These questions are constantly hanging in the minds of the audience, and the director Jeff Nichols, in no rush, unravels the mystery for the audience bit by bit in the plot. The audience can only experience the current plot instinctively, such as the boy's body, which has gone from bad to worse from the beginning, and finally discovered that it was caused by the government's surveillance and tracking. Faced with the rising sun, which he could not look directly at since he was born, Alton decided to face it himself. At this time, the relationship was too hard to do, and the two brothers who could go through fire and water for each other: Roy and Lucas, began to have a disagreement. Father: Roy refused to interrupt the journey, believing that his son could hold on to the end; and friends: Lucas thinks , The child should be transferred to the hospital for treatment. If we say that these two people are like two typical incarnations of the universal father role in society, one chooses outside help, the other chooses to believe in the abilities of the child. In the film, the father Roy finally faces the "first sunrise" of his life with his child. I have to say, Director: Jeff Nichols is too good at telling stories. As a representative of a group of parents, "father" is not the one who should believe in the children and accompany them to face the problems of life. At the end of the film, the child’s long-cherished wish was fulfilled, letting him go, even failing to see it with his own eyes, and giving all of his own. This is the image of a heroic father in Jeff Nichols's mind. Belief is also the mission that every father hopes to achieve throughout his life. Son: Alton is heading for an unknown world, and even an unknown future. The mother, who is the lucky witness who watched the child go away, seems to express even more. Perhaps the mother is the more emotional and reluctant existence, while the father is emotionally restrained, but devotes and pays more. Of course, this is not to say that the father must pay more than the mother, but that it pays at different levels. At the end of the film, the father in the cell, with a blue shadow flashing in his eyes, seems to imply that there is still a certain connection between the father and the son. Perhaps the son in his eyes has never left and has been watching him silently. After all, they had "watched the morning sun" together. Just as in the eyes of our parents, the appearance of our childhood will never die. This kind of film proposition, placed in the big element of science fiction, is even more touching. The story better magnifies the responsibility of the father and the influence and guidance of the child on the parents. Which child does not possess "superpowers" that even parents do not know? Director: Jeff Nichols said that he often looked at his two-year-old child and thought, what a great responsibility this is. And "Escape at Midnight" is more like a metaphor for an idealized father-son relationship after his self-thinking. When you were a big boy, you would want to have super powers like Superman or the characters in the Avengers and X-Men. And when you become a father, maybe you will hope that your children can have the same superpowers. And what you have to do is to accept him, protect him, dedicate everything you have, and become the behind-the-scenes hero who makes a superhero or an American hero. Metaphor. When you were a big boy, you would want to have super powers like Superman or the characters in the Avengers and X-Men. And when you become a father, maybe you will hope that your children can have the same superpowers. And what you have to do is to accept him, protect him, dedicate everything you have, and become the behind-the-scenes hero who makes a superhero or an American hero. Metaphor. When you were a big boy, you would want to have super powers like Superman or the characters in the Avengers and X-Men. And when you become a father, maybe you will hope that your children can have the same superpowers. And what you have to do is to accept him, protect him, dedicate everything you have, and become the behind-the-scenes hero who makes a superhero or an American hero.

In this "Midnight Escape", there is a generation of imagination about science fiction stories and alien life, from "The Third Type of Contact" in 1977 to "ET" in 1982, and then to "Alien Love" in 1984. Time is so fast. It turns out that these works are more than 30 years ago, or even almost 40 years ago. We are all old, and new sci-fi works, except for "Star Trek", "Star Wars" and hard science fiction adaptations of science fiction. The work, the independent film that Jeff Nichols tried with a small cost, seems to be even more unreturned and expected. In the film, this little boy who puts himself under the sheets, plays with a flashlight, and reads the "Superman" comics: Alton, played by Jetton Lieboch, has a limitless future. The unreleased work in 2016 will be returned. There are two "Book of Henry" and "Happy Father and Son Love". Take a look at the 14-year-old protagonist who previously appeared in "Sludge": Tyre Sheridan, who has now become a new generation of "laser eyes" in "X-Men: Apocalypse", and will soon star in Spielberg's new film "The Player" "Number One", the rising star born in 1996, may be the little actor born after 00 and now only 13 years old: Jetton Liboch's future.

And director Jeff Nichols, from Michael Shannon, a four-time collaboration, turned to an Australian actor: Joel Edgerton, after the supporting role of "Midnight Escape", he will also star in the new film "Love." After Joel Edgerton finally handed over his self-written and directed feature-length debut "The Gift" last year, his acting career has also gradually moved from a supporting role to the star of the male number one. "Jane Picking Up the Gun", which was filmed very early, is not only a actor who got lucky because of luck, Xiao Xuan'er thinks that his strength is already there. He and his brother have been engaged in behind-the-scenes film production and short film shooting. Joel Edgerton used a supporting actor one by one to build up his current position. And he himself is also a leader in the independent film circle. With Jeff Nichols, he can only say that the director's taste in choosing roles is really amazing. From Michael Shannon of "Shotgun Story", " The model worker sister of "Present", to Matthew McConaughey of "Sludge", and Joel Edgerton of the unexposed new work "Love." The starring actors in each film are non-star halo powerful actors. It is a collection of actors that Xiao Xuan'er loves. The story proposition of Jeff Nichols, a creative director, is so interesting. What should we do if disaster is approaching? What should we do if children have extraterrestrial power? And he never discusses such themes vaguely, holding the whole film with adventurous action segments and big scenes, but focuses the lens on the portrayal of ordinary characters, even some paranoid characters. Let us see, under the influence of the general environment, such as "Midnight Escape", government departments forcibly intervene and religious organizations use, under the dual obstacles, how the characters rely on their own strength, continue to advance and explore, and finally complete the individual mind Journey: The child moves towards the future, the mother is free from the shackles, and the father completes the mission. I have to say that this kind of plot design really makes the critics and movie fans like it too much.

The agent played by Adam Driver in the film is more like a passive intervener. Like the audience, he is in awe of the unknown boy, and finally pleads for a testimony. Unfortunately, he is still regarded as an outsider and rejected. After all, the film is expressing how a family can eliminate external interference and complete its own journey in a crisis. The three elements of family, individual, and love can derive infinite stories, placed in different historical backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, and social backgrounds, and make them exist in various forms, which may be distorted or incomplete. , May be satisfactory. And Jeff Nichols' work on the script, his mastery of the emotions of the characters and the rhythm of the film, make his work unique. From the point of view of a male creator, the story is sincere and touching, without losing the taste of a big boy. While involving crime, disaster, and science fiction elements, he does not forget his original intention. His new work is a midnight escape. For children, it can be enjoyed as a sci-fi blockbuster, and for fathers, it can be seen as the completion of a mission.

April 5, 2016 Toronto Xiao Xuan Er Ji——————————————

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