There was, if anything, a conscious attempt to not give overt direction. Although, of course, you end up becoming yourself. - David Foster Wallace
It's a sad movie, so let's start with a fun behind-the-scenes look:
——Why are David Foster Wallace's two dogs so obedient, waking up Lipsky in the middle of the night? Because Lipsky had peanut butter on Lipsky's face during filming; including all the pictures of dogs eagerly surrounding them because they put meat on them; - The Big Ship is David Foster Wallace's favorite song at the end of the credits; - —The script was listed in the blacklist of the most unlikely script to be made into a movie that year, but fortunately, the effect of the movie was very good, and David's real family said they liked it after seeing it.
PS Friends who want to read the script, I found the electronic version on the Internet , 86 pages, very easy to read. The main line of the film is actually very simple: reporter David Lipsky (Lipsky for short) interviews writer David Foster Wallace (David) for a few days and nights. Who is David Foster Wallace? The representative work "Infinite Jest" (Infinite Jest), who wrote the book, was selected by Time magazine as "one of the 100 best English novels in the world from 1923 to 2005. The Chinese version in 2020 seems to be out. This book is someone Have you read it? It is said to be more than 1,000 pages, full of endless footnotes and endless word games, with a strong American character, known as the encyclopedia of American culture. Who is David Lipsky? Written for The New Yorker, Time Magazine , Rolling Stone Magazine and many other well-known media, and also wrote short stories. Lipsky was a young reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine at the time. He was impressed by David's talent and took the initiative to ask Ying to interview him. In fact, it is not so much an interview as It is a record of the two men getting along for days and nights. The two always have a chat, and Lipsky uses the tape to record the conversation.
The description in the script about the first meeting between the two is hilarious:
They both want to make a good impression on each other. David wants to be pleasing in Lipsky's article, and Lipsky wants to get exclusive information (such as a response to drug use) from David. So when they first met, the friendship between the two seemed to be competitive. However, although they were deliberately trying to please them at the beginning, they lost this set after getting along. In the film, they seem to have quarreled three times, once when Lipsky accused David of his so-called social skills, once when David was upset that Lipsky was too close to his female friends, and once when David disappointed Lipsky and asked him about his drug use. Let me focus on the debate about social skills. This actually happened a day after David accused Lipsky of flirting with his female friend, and both of them had accumulated some dissatisfaction with each other. Lipsky recalled the past few days of getting along, and felt that David, a smart man, always deliberately lowered his intelligence in his life, in order to mingle with everyone. This seems very friendly, but in fact he is very arrogant and hypocritical. David was surprised when he heard the accusation. His first reaction was: he is not smarter than everyone else. He even said that the only thing he is smart is to realize that he is not smart (But I think one of the true ways that I have gotten smarter is, I've realized that I'm not much smarter than other people.). After he said that, I had the same reaction as Lipksy: Come on, you wrote a 1,000-page book, became famous in the literary world, and said you were just an ordinary person? But then David talks about the relationship between writer and reader. He said that if a writer is at the top, writing will become a one-man show on a distant stage, you will not be able to see the audience below, and the work will lose its clear audience. To write good works, a writer must blend into the crowd and into the "ordinary". This is not a deliberate arrogance, but a natural and conscious observation. I really want to applaud David! He really has a clear, alert, wise mind!
In the film he mentioned a few very interesting metaphors.
American culture makes you addicted to jerking off
David compares jerking off, and thinks that a small one is happy and a big one is gone (no. David thinks the occasional indulgence is very happy, but if you live for the purpose of jerking off, then it is very problematic. This is the problem of American culture- American culture can easily bring you the thrill of masturbation, which makes you addicted and unable to extricate yourself. With the development of science and technology, over time, when virtual pornography becomes a reality, and the pleasure of masturbation is infinitely magnified, what will you do? Two choices: either keep fighting and sinking together, or take the initiative to disappear from such a culture. David made a choice: on the one hand, he enjoys this addiction very much - he said that if he installed a TV, he would watch it all the time. Going down, on the other hand, he resisted being so addicted - so he simply didn't install a TV. Of course, more than ten years later, he made the second choice: disappear.
Depression makes you want to jump from a burning tall building
David fell into depression at the age of 28, and once experienced existence through alcoholism and indulgence. Regarding the cause of depression, David said that because the typical American life logic is "as long as I can do X and Y and Z, then everything will be fine", so when you can't do X or Y or Z, you feel that everything is over . Then he brings up the skyscraper metaphor: "There's a thing in the book about how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it's not that they're not afraid of falling anymore, it's that the alternative is so awful. And so then you're invited to consider what could be so awful, that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. I don't know if you have any experience with this kind of thing. But it's worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false... and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody ' cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function. It's really horrible." "It's said in the books that a man jumps from a burning building, he is not Fear of falling, but the choice that remains is terrible. So you can't help but wonder what choice would be so terrifying to make jumping off a building to your death seem like escaping this horror. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but it's worse than any physical trauma. It's a lot like the old-fashioned mental crisis: you feel like every atom in your life is false...in fact there is nothing, you are nothing, everything is an illusion. You are so much better than everyone else because you see through the illusion, but at the same time, you are so much worse than everyone else because you can't do anything fucking. This is horrible. Then, Lipsky got up and went to the bathroom, leaving David in the living room, he picked up Lipsky's tape recorder, said "I'm smoking, just me and your tape recorder" to it, I was hit and started crying. .I don't know if he was ready to jump off a tall building the moment he said that. David said, "Of course, you can always be yourself in the end, no matter what," Lipsky said reading David's Books are not about reading stories or getting information, but about experiencing what it's like to be David Foster Wallace. You can always be who you are, and at some point you want to be David Foster Wallace. "It is said in the book that when a person jumps from a high-rise building on fire, it is not that he is not afraid of falling, but the remaining choice is too terrible. So you can't help but think, what choice would be so terrible, let jumping from the building go Death seems like an escape from this horror. I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but it's worse than any physical trauma. It's a lot like the old-fashioned mental crisis: you feel every atom in your life It's all false...actually nothing, you are nothing, everything is an illusion. You are so much better than the others because you see through the illusion, but at the same time, you are so much worse than the others , because you can't fucking do anything. It's horrible." Then Lipsky got up and went to the bathroom, leaving David in the living room, picking up Lipsky's tape recorder and saying "I'm smoking, just me and your tape recorder", I was hit all at once and started crying. I don't know if he was ready to jump off a tall building the moment he said that. "Of course, you can always be yourself in the end, no matter what," David said, and Lipsky said reading David's book is not about reading stories or getting information, but about experiencing what it's like to be David Foster Wallace. You always end up being who you are, and at one point you want to be David Foster Wallace. "It is said in the book that when a person jumps from a high-rise building on fire, it is not that he is not afraid of falling, but the remaining choice is too terrible. So you can't help but think, what choice would be so terrible, let jumping from the building go Death seems like an escape from this horror. I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but it's worse than any physical trauma. It's a lot like the old-fashioned mental crisis: you feel every atom in your life It's all false...actually nothing, you are nothing, everything is an illusion. You are so much better than the others because you see through the illusion, but at the same time, you are so much worse than the others , because you can't fucking do anything. It's horrible." Then Lipsky got up and went to the bathroom, leaving David in the living room, picking up Lipsky's tape recorder and saying "I'm smoking, just me and your tape recorder", I was hit all at once and started crying. I don't know if he was ready to jump off a tall building the moment he said that. "Of course, you can always be yourself in the end, no matter what," David said, and Lipsky said reading David's book is not about reading stories or getting information, but about experiencing what it's like to be David Foster Wallace. You always end up being who you are, and at one point you want to be David Foster Wallace.
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