Manga Zhong Hanliang In the 2010 music album "Visual Animals", there is a song called "John Travolta". At the time, I didn't know why it was called. I recently saw an article in an American film review that said that John Travolta's 1977 musical and dance film "Weekend Night Fever" was a severely underrated movie, and Zhong Hanliang’s John Travolta was related to the actor John Travolta. NS? Very curious, so I have to find it and take a look. In fact, I’ve seen John Travolta’s movies before, such as the famous "Face" with Nicholas Cage, and the famous "Pulp Fiction" directed by Quentin, but his name in mainland translation is another longer one. So when I saw it, I didn't think of being alone.
Why is it that this movie may actually be underestimated? Because this movie explores the deep confusion of young people from all aspects. The connotation of some youth films we see now is very different. Today’s youth films in China are all trapped in little love and cannot extricate themselves. Little ideals and deeds are all about the college entrance examination, and the complex inner world is very complicated. Less involved. But this movie allows us to see that young people of this age have greater and deeper doubts about the world they don't understand, and their understanding of themselves.
The protagonist in "Weekend Night Fever" is a group of young people around the age of 20. In the movie, the intense content related to the massive secretion of hormones is almost reflected in it, such as drug abuse, dancing, speeding, fighting, adventure, sexual opening, etc. They are venting all the indispensable hormones all the time. Young people, in the rapid changes of society, the impulse generated by the changes of the body, and the various conflicts between the gradual growth of the mind and the confusion of ideals and reality are the main content of this film.
Relatively speaking, the starring John Travolta plays a 19-year-old boy named Tony. Compared with his group of buddies, he is a different young man. He works in a hardware store, but loves to dance. He often shows up in the ballroom on weekends. . Many girls showed up to show their favor because they admired his handsomeness and chic dance style, but he basically didn't like it. Unlike other youths who like to mess around with nothing, he clearly told those girls that they didn't want them, even if they took the initiative to send them, they didn't want them. From this point of view, Tony is an amazing boy to some extent. When many people around him are honored to pick up girls, he already knows to refuse people and things that waste energy, so he has his own persistence and principles. This is another kind of deep charm.
One of the movies in the movie is about the choice of life. The male protagonist Tony’s brother is a priest, which makes Catholic parents proud. He also walked this way according to the wishes of his parents, so he is a parent. The good boy in his heart, and relatively speaking, Tony seems rebellious and unsatisfied with his parents. One day my brother resigned from his career as a pastor because he had doubts about the meaning of serving a person on the cross. My parents felt that the sky had fallen and felt sad. The brother said that he had thought about it, he was not willing to live according to the wishes of his parents, he had to choose the life he wanted. Why live? How to choose? This is a big topic.
As for Tony himself, he simply feels happy to dance. With his slender figure and long legs, when dancing on the dance floor, his whole body follows the strong rhythm of the disco. Joyful. He fell in love with a girl who liked to dance, and soon became a partner for the competition with her. It’s just that this girl is obviously different from the world he wants. This girl pursues a successful life for the upper class and is determined to study hard to become a person of that class. The boy played by John Travolta did not expect to be so far away. He just felt that dancing was very difficult. Happy, just jump down and talk about it. Although they are quite distant in knowledge and values, they feel very harmonious when dancing, and they also have a kind of ambiguous feelings when dancing. But this kind of collision also made each other see that there are other kinds of life to choose from. Life is not just in front of your eyes, it's not just living being full and having fun. Therefore, the promotion of people of the same age may be more effective than parental teaching.
He is also very idealistic, fair and generous. In the dance competition, I thought my pair danced very well, but later discovered that a pair of black couples danced even more people. They were so beautiful and wonderful, but they only won the runner-up. He believed that it was the reason for the racial discrimination of the judges, thinking that he was not worthy of such an honor, and he gave up his championship on the spot, which caused an excited conflict with friends around him who did not understand his behavior. From a certain point of view, this kind of brave admission of one's own shortcomings and the mindset of breaking discrimination and prejudice is invaluable among this generation of young people. Because only by being objectively aware of your own shortcomings can you achieve truly effective growth. This may also be an important theme for this film to let us know.
And some of his other buddies, after graduating from high school, they want to buy a new car or pick a girl. Everyone's ideals are different, which has caused many people to drift away. I am afraid that it is not entirely due to the environment, and some are due to talent. Just like Tony, dancing is like the power that grows from his body. He is good at it. He can't contain the happiness that this power brings to him, so he has the motivation to show it and better realize his potential.
In addition to the secretion of hormones that makes people full of passion and dare to try and challenge, there are actually other negative possibilities. These young people seem to have mature bodies, but their minds are far from keeping up. This is the biggest cause of all kinds of contradictions. When encountering various things, I still don’t know the most correct way to deal with it. For example, knowing that my buddy has been beaten by another group of people, and if they find that group of people without asking indiscriminately, it’s just a violent beating. In the end, both sides were injured and even nearly killed. Later, it was discovered that the wrong person might have been hit, regretful but no longer able to make up.
One of their brothers, because of the lack of safety measures for sex, caused the girl to become pregnant, but the girl refused to have a miscarriage, and he did not want to marry her, so he fell into an infinite entanglement and pain that he did not know where to follow, and the same pain No one of the children of his age has the ability to experience the real solution for him. He felt very lonely and at a loss. When he was doing adventurous actions on the bridge, he fell off and fell, causing the biggest tragedy of the movie.
There is also a girl who likes Tony. After being rejected by Tony, she vowed to mess with all the men to prove that she is not needed by him or needed by others. When she messed with a few boys in the back seat of the car, it was almost equivalent to rape, she felt very uncomfortable and felt her shame—because this way of revenge on others was stupid, and others didn’t care at all, and finally suffered revenge. It's actually only yourself that hurts.
At a very young age, it is indeed easy to make mistakes because of being immature and irrational. Some mistakes can be remedied, and some mistakes become a shadow with a lifetime. When I was young, I relied on my youth without any scruples, and when I finally understood one day, I realized that I would spend the rest of my life to pay for my past.
There is a character who passes by in the movie, but the meaning is not simple. It is the former cohabiting man of the heroine (Tony's dancing partner). She said she is grateful that this older man gave her a lot of pointers when she was mentally confused. How to let her do it, this is something that young boys of the same age can't do. This may be a possible aspect of modern girls who like uncles, because older people can give them life guidance, give them a sense of spiritual security, and make them less detours. However, what makes people think is why parents who are not young people can give young people such psychological guidance, why the parents in the movie are reprimanding and disappointed, and they are not able to listen to the true voice of their children so as to give them reasonable And let them grow wildly and brutally and even seek help from outsiders? This point actually makes parents think deeply.
This movie was quite a sensation in the United States in the 1970s, because the dance performance of the starring John Travolta in it was very wonderful. From the beginning of his appearance, he walked on the street in a swaying rhythm. His long legs were very eye-catching. Later in the dance hall, a few dances made people unable to look away. This is a person who uses his soul to guide his body to dance. people. In those few dances, the rhythm of disco music was so beautiful that the audience couldn't wait to sway with him. It is said that the starring John Travolta was the American dance king in the 1970s. He was born as a dancer in the United States because of this movie, which caused a dance frenzy. Some of his classic moves of the year can be found in modern dance. He has become an idol of many people who love dance in other parts of the world.
Although John Travolta became popular after this movie, the film market was surging and new generations emerged. He also had a long downturn. After more than ten years, he finally turned back to the top with a few good movies. The lineup of film actors may be sighed by many people for his experience, but life is like this, with twists and turns, and no one can guarantee that it will always rise, and such actors never give up in the face of difficulties, and they are low-key and humble in the face of good times. , Maybe it is the important meaning we feel outside of the movie.
Disco was once popular all over the world. If we still have an impression, the mainland disco in the 1990s was very popular and it was also influenced by the Hong Kong culture in the 1980s, while the Hong Kong in the 1980s was deeply influenced by the American culture in the 70s. For children who are talented in dancing and are very obsessed with dancing, perhaps Zhong Hanliang was very impressed by John Travolta because of this movie, except that he used the name "John Travolta" in a dance song written in a club in 2010 to himself A tribute to the former idol, when he was promoting the film at the Rome Film Festival in 2012, he was finally able to take a photo with his former idol, John Travolta, to realize his dream. After years of hard work, I finally stand on the same platform with my idol. How happy it is, and what kind of hard work it takes to achieve it, this spirit is enough to make people admire.
I watched John Travolta's movie "Weekend Night Fever" because of Zhong Hanliang's "John Travolta". I have learned more about these two actors, this movie, and even this song. Although the world looks big, people are separated by thousands of rivers and mountains in different time and space, but at certain moments, they are connected by chance and coincidence. This is really a wonderful feeling.
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