In Wang Anyi's speech at Fudan University, he named the novel "Spiritual World":
"Why do I call it 'the world of the mind'? Because I think it's produced by a person, absolutely and absolutely. It's a person's spiritual vision. It's entirely out of a person's experience. So it must be It's one-sided. That's an important feature of it. First, it must be personal. Second, and most importantly, it has no function."
Here I must defend the movie. In Wang Anyi's interviews and essays, the movie is often regarded as the opposite of the novel. Of course, this has some truth, but Chen Danqing included his correspondence with Wang Anyi in a collection, The merits of the film are discussed. As a painter, Chen Danqing is naturally more sensitive to film as a visual art. When it comes to creating a subjective spiritual world, the film has its shortcomings compared with novels. One of the shortcomings is that it must be a "compromise". It cannot be truly subversive in concept, but it is in the creation and reaction. In the aspect of human's "spiritual world", movies and novels have the power not to fall behind. The overlapping area between movies and novels is narrative. Within the scope of narrative, movies rely heavily on novels. In fact, this is also because the birth of novels is earlier than movies, and we are accustomed to regard novels as the mother of narrative and movies as the mother of narrative. The offspring, in fact, are just two sides of the same coin. In essence, their narratives serve both "literary" and "aesthetic" aspects.
In novels, there are often writers' self-referrals, who reflect their lives into novels, and there are also director's self-referrals in movies. When I say self-referential again, a premise that needs to be defined is that the author - the writer and the director - must be the "author". This may be a bit of a mouthful to say, why do you specifically point out the "authority"? Are there writers and directors who are not "authors"? Since this is said, there must be, and in number, writers and directors who are not authors still account for the majority.
In the field of literary creation, there is a term "pure literature" that is often mentioned. In fact, it is difficult to say what "pure literature" is, and even what "literature" is, it is difficult for anyone to give an exact noun explanation. Let's start from another angle. Since there is "pure literature", there must be literature that is different from pure literature. In fact, this range is also difficult to delineate. If a literary coordinate system is established, non-literary works must be at one end of the coordinate system. In the middle position, it can be regarded as commercial popular literature, such as "Harry Potter" and Jin Yong's works. In this way, the scope of "pure literature" becomes clearer.
The same is true of movies, which are more complicated to entangle with commerce than literature, because they are seen as "entertainment products" from the very beginning. It's hard to hear from a person these days that fiction is an art rather than a commodity, and movies are often seen as "pure entertainment." It can be seen that in the minds of the public, novels are naturally close to "literature" and "art", while movies... don't seem to be the case.
So it seems more difficult for a movie to prove its "literary" and "artistic". This is what generations of film creators need to do, whether consciously or unconsciously, film directors are trying to inject more "literary" and "artistic" into their films, and then define themselves as " Film Writer". We all know that the "director-author theory" was put forward by Truffauts in the French New Wave. This is more than half a century after the invention of cinema.
Well, the reason for sorting out the "author naming history" of the movie is to use the same reason to identify those "author self-references" that are not "authors". The self-referential here refers to the "author". First, the director must be a recognized "film author", and secondly, the content of the film needs to describe the life of the "author", whether the "author" is a "word writer" or a "video writer" author".
In this way, the first thing we exclude is the biography of the author, because this type of work is a standard "genre film", which is roughly equivalent to the "celebrity biography" in written works. The reason why these works have little "authority" is that they are the products of "product" thinking.
Secondly, what we can eliminate are works created by "movie authors", about authors, but the theme has nothing to do with "author self-referential", such as works with writers as the protagonists, but not works that show the author's life and psychological details, such as Woody Allen The "Midnight in Paris", Kubrick's "The Shining", and Nolan's "Followers" are actually still "genre films". Likewise, filming in film about filmmaking is not something we should consider, such as the fun "Don't Stop the Camera!" ".
Writers rarely turn their writing lives into novels. It seems that they deliberately keep a distance from their real life because they are committed to expanding the "spirit world" that is different from real life. All we can think of seems to be some kind of autobiographical novel, and such novels are mostly written in "past lives" rather than in the present of the writer's writing. All I can think of is the recent "Brother Yingwu" by Li Er.
It may be the "reality" and "reproducibility" of the film in terms of form and subject matter, but the filmmakers have a lot of self-referrals to the writers and directors themselves. From the master director Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia" to Angelopoulos' "Eternity and One Day", the poets are the protagonists. Of course, the two films are not only in the poet's inner world, but also in the poet's inner world. Push the feelings of the film to the height of "national spiritual history".
If the above two masters are regarded as "depressed" filmmakers, then Fellini is the representative of "pleasant", of course, this refers to their temperament and style rather than content. Like Yasujiro Ozu and Godard, I was unable to appreciate Fellini-esque beauty for a long time. They were difficult for me to digest in their dispositional heterogeneity. As I grew up, time began to show its magic. , so Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" and "Eight and a Half" became my favorite movies. Marcello in "La Dolce Vita" wanted to be a writer, but was caught up in the luxury of modern life in Italy and became a journalist. The title "Sweet Life" is ironic, like Eileen Chang's phrase "Life is like a gorgeous robe full of lice".
"Eight and a Half" is a work that really points to itself. To a large extent, this film has become the "original film" of this type, and most of the films mentioned later are regarded as its variations. In this film, Fellini's genius shows the dual dilemma of the director's life and creation, interspersed with childhood memories and entanglement with women, turning the whole film into a playground for personal life.
Paolo Sorrentino, the younger generation of the Italian director, can be identified as Fellini's younger brother, "City of Beauty" and "Youth" seem to be modern versions of "La Dolce Vita" and "Eight and a Half" , but such an analogy only stays on the similarity of the theme, it is unfair to this junior if the style differences in form and content are ignored. Another name for "City of Beauty" is "Roman Ukiyo-e", which takes it a step further to "Sweet Life". The film tells the story of Jab Gambardella, who is also a journalist, in Rome's sensual scene. Social King" life. In addition to the difference in style, the biggest difference between "The Beautiful City" compared to "Delicious Life" is Jabil's attitude towards Rome. The different attitudes of Jabil and Marcello towards Roma are also different attitudes of Sorrentino and Fellini. Both Marcello and Jab are aware of their situation, but Marcello looks at the upper class from the bottom up. He is deeply immersed in it and cannot extricate himself from it. He cannot control his life and has no ability to resist, so he is a Melancholy is angry at the same time, so the holy girl in the film is like an angel who saves him, and the process of the movie is the process of his redemption. Jabil looks at life from the top down. As a successful "social king", he doesn't need to fight with life. All he has to do is accept it. He is melancholy, but he has no anger. He can take it lightly. Duty to the falsehood of the upper classes without bearing any consequences, it's just that he has to solve eternal problems. Sorrentino looked at Rome coldly, while Fellini treated Rome warmly, whether it be hate or love: "I call Rome home as soon as I see him, I was born the moment I saw him, that day It's my birthday." ("I, Fellini")
Similarly, "Youth and Vigor" and "Eight and a Half" seem to be similar, but they are actually estranged. This is a good thing for both parties, and in contrast, they have different beauty.
"Everyone lives in their own fantasy world, but most people don't understand this. No one can capture the real world. Everyone just calls their illusions the truth. The difference between me and them is, I know I live in a fantasy world, and I love it and hate anything that interferes with my imagination." (I, Fellini)
The entire movie of "Eight and a Half" is Guido's "spiritual world", while "Youth and Vigor" is a dual-protagonist mode. The world in the movie is the common world of the two "good friends" of the composer and director. It is the life of the old "author" who is no longer in glory. The life of the old is like the classic fable in the film "Young people look at the world with a telescope, everything is so close, but the old people are the opposite". Although the film also deals with the lives of young people, they are more of an embellishment for the two protagonists. Everything becomes "the unbearable lightness of life" in the face of death, and old age means that you are more aware of the position of your body's organs. What's more, the lives of the two elderly people in the film can't help but connect people to the real lives of the two actors, Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, who seem to be not playing others, but telling their own lives. . It is also worth mentioning that the director played by Harvey Keitel is just like Guido in "Eight and a Half". But it shouldn't be Fellini's old age, Fellini has his Masina.
Bob Fosse's "Jazz" depicts a different kind of director's life: "Broadway director" who is also subtly connected to "Eight and a half", if anything, it's probably because it's musical, it's American cinema .
There is also an impressive reporter in film history. Wim Wenders' "Alice in the City" tells a simple travel story, but it is indeed the most atypical travel story, "the drunkard's intention is not the wine" , this film does not use the life of a reporter as the material for building the film, but shows the "psychological state" of a photojournalist through the creation of atmosphere. Philip represents the image of the "urban wanderer" written by Benjamin, and the film does not Putting the "depression of creation" on the table, there is a touch of despair in the air of the image. Of course, in the end, it was also the little girl who saved his life.
I always unconsciously regard Woody Allen as the American version of Fellini, which of course is not partial or disrespectful to either of them, just like the difference between Italian culture and American culture, Woody Allen's "Manhattan" will The "author director" in "Eight and a Half" moved to the United States and became the "TV producer" played by Woody Allen himself. Woody Allen's "joking" is different from Fellini's "playing", he always emphasizes (in the form of ridicule) his "intellectuality", as if he is a new text composed of texts.
Just as the film writers are divided into two types: "depressed type" and "pleasant type", "writers" in a broad sense can also be roughly divided into two types, one is "country style" and the other is "urban style". One is "classical" and the other is "modern". Woody Allen is "modern urban". Like Manhattan, the characters in Woody Allen's films are the core of the world. They are rich and arrogant, which is why Diane Keaton's journalists and boyfriends recklessly list "authors who don't deserve their name." List", and only in Woody Allen's films can there be a heart-warming truth like "Bergman is the only genius in the film industry".
Woody Allen-esque "intellectual self-deprecation" will only appear in Hollywood oversaturated with intellectuals (and money), and directorial self-referral will only appear in the "world center of the past" Europe, the rest of the world, seems The writer's life can only be written into the film. Europe and the United States can monopolize the right to speak in movies, but they cannot monopolize the production of writers. After all, making movies is a matter for studios, and writing is a matter for one person. Filmmaking requires industry, writing requires only a pen.
It is Hirokazu Abe in "Deeper than the Sea" by Hirokazu Koreeda who can better represent the state of most people who are called "writers". The character played by Hiro Abe is a private detective. There are also no commendable works. He is full of complaints and considers himself aloof, never willing to create works without "soul" for the sake of money. Every writer has to face not only the problem of "writing", but also the problem of "money" in life, and the problem of "family" that Hirokazu Koeda has always been concerned about. "Deeper than the Sea" does not show the world in the eyes of the poor writer, and treats him as an ordinary person: a scholar who is worthless and worthless. It is Hirokazu Koreeda who is good at building an image of a person with details: the mother played by Shu Xilin kept her son's writing text when he was a child, saying that he had a talent for writing since he was a child; his son's career after winning the award was a private detective, which changed the novelist's ability to observe people. It has become a means of earning a living, although it does not seem so glamorous; he still retains the habit of writing his life inspiration and occasional sentences into his "secret notebook" at any time. Trivial details outline who a writer is and how he sees the world: the world is a pile of stuff, and it exists for a book.
Paterson in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson also has a "Secret Notebook," a collection of his poetry. Paterson's identity is a bus driver, and he lives a regular commute every day. His hobby is writing poetry, and he never thought about whether he was a "poet" until his girlfriend asked him to publish his poetry collection. "A bus driver who likes Emily Dickinson" but I'm a "poet"? Patterson is skeptical, just like every writer has this identity anxiety.
A writer has a very funny self-deprecation: writers have to face the "question of the soul": when someone asks me what I do, I answer "write a book", and then ask how much is the salary, where do I work? The atmosphere will become awkward, and in their eyes, you are already equivalent to a "second-rate".
From the etymological point of view, "identity" in English means "integrity", "individuality", "a certain combination of characteristics", and refers to the inner unity, coordination and continuity of individual life. American sociologist Jonathan H. Turner proposed the relationship between self-identity and role, arguing that the self-identity of an individual's life is confirmed by the "role" played in front of others, and only when people realize and express their consistency Only then can its "identity" be fully proved.
In the traditional farming society, surname, blood relationship, gender, etc. together constitute the constant identity mechanism of each individual. In modern life, "Who am I?" is no longer just an abstract question of philosophical significance, but a realistic question of how to locate the relationship between the mainstream and the marginal, the majority and the minority, and the group and the individual in social and cultural relations.
The core of modernism lies in the establishment of self-subjectivity, that is, "people are the purpose". Individuals can break away from the purpose of life under the grand narrative presupposed by society and pursue a life of self-defined meaning. , In the highly scientific and industrialized modern society, "everything has its fixed position, only man can't find his place", man has become a victim of social identity and is caught in the desire to pursue a great image of himself.
There are many identity contrasts in the film: the poet William Carlos Williams admired by Patterson is a doctor, and the French artist Jean Dubuffet mentioned by the Japanese poet once worked as a meteorological observer on the Eiffel Tower. Patterson, a bus driver who likes to write poetry, echoed that.
Patterson has an interesting habit: not using a cell phone, a trait that makes it easy to think of real writers. Many writers do not use or use the most basic mobile phones, such as Wang Anyi, according to her concept: I doubt all machines, so I can understand her doubts about movies. There is also Taiwanese writer Zhu Tianwen.
In the face of technology, writers have three basic attitudes: rejection, acceptance, and ambiguity. It depends on who the writer is and what he wants to write about.
The best way for a writer to be recognized is to win an award, and that's the best way to deal with identity anxiety, but it's bound to lead to other problems. In fact, it depends on the size of the award. In "Deeper than the Sea", Abe Hiroshi's sister couldn't tell what the award he won (I don't know if it was intentional), Abe Hiroshi specially emphasized the name again, sister Said, "If it were the Akutagawa Award, I would not be mistaken."
What if it was the Nobel Prize for Literature?
"Won the Nobel Prize, my heart is really mixed, on the one hand, I feel honored, on the other hand, I feel very painful, I believe that such unanimous recognition and praise, and the decline of an artist, have something to do with it. A direct and unequivocal relationship". This is the acknowledgment of the protagonist's award in "Outstanding Citizen".
Lu Xun once rejected the nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature, because in his opinion, the nomination is the shackle of his own words.
In 1987, the former Soviet writer Joseph Brosky said in his Nobel Prize speech: "The real danger for a writer is not so much real persecution, but the possibility that he may be gigantic deformed, or There seems to be a turn for the better - but it's always short-lived - hypnotized by the face of the country".
To use the lines from the movie is "Win the Nobel Prize and you will become a statue." After winning Daniel's life is full of awards, dinners, lectures, and endless book signings. Among the bunch of invitations, Daniel was only interested in one invitation - a letter from Salas, his native Argentine town, which wanted to award him the title of "outstanding citizen". However, Daniel "has been almost twenty years and I haven't been back since I was 20". "I feel that the most commendable thing in my life is to escape from that place. The protagonist in my book will never leave, and I will never go back." The experience of the protagonist returning to his hometown can not help but remind people of a series of experiences after Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize.
From "Outstanding Citizen" to "Enemy of the People", the way of irony is like "The Sweet Life".
Another "soul question" that fiction writers often face is "how much truth and how much fiction". The answer given by the film is: "The truth does not exist, there is no truth, there is only deconstruction and interpretation, and the truth, or the truth as we say it, is just an interpretation used to influence others."
Perhaps vagueness and mystery are the writer's creed and part of the essence of literature, just like Yan Lianke's "transcendence of reality", a little mention of his recent book "Sleep Together" is also a self-referential novel, In the book, he directly wrote his real-life friends Gu Changwei and Jiang Fangzhou, which he called "a non-fiction of himself and his life". There is also a complete script, which I specifically checked. The script has been made into a movie, also called "Sleep Together".
So don't ask what's real and what's fictional, there's this quote at the beginning of The Beautiful City: It's a journey from life to death, people, animals, cities and things, everything is fiction, fictional stories Never go wrong.
The end of this series is Ceylon's two works, "Hibernation" and "Wild Pear Tree", which are also the starting point of my writing this article, because Ceylon directly uses the writer's situation as a The theme, the most accurate and precise writing of the writer's spiritual world and living state.
Writers are a group of people whose feet are stuck in the mud while looking up at the stars.
"Hibernation" and "Wild Pear Tree" constitute the writer's encyclopedia.
Let's talk about Ceylon first.
Ceylon is a Turkish director and cinematographer, which explains the precise and subtle visual style of his films. The relationship between photography and text has always been complicated. Many directors focus on the sculpting of photography while ignoring the fullness and depth of text. This is far from Zhang Yimou and nearly as close as Bi Gan. In fact, in Ceylon's first film "Small Town", the split between the video segment and the dialogue segment is obvious. By the time of "Hibernation", the image gradually disappeared, and the two gradually took the initiative, and the two merged into a mellow whole. I don't quite agree with what many people say about "talking" and "dull". It's a pity to just stay in the visually pleasing Ceylon. There are many directors who are good at photography, but there are few who have deep literary attainments. Ceylon is on the right track. If "Wild Pear Tree" is regarded as an autobiography of Ceylon, then Ceylon, who has a literary dream, has turned the film into a "book of images". He wants to expand the boundaries of film and better integrate it with literature, so There are long conversations and increasingly long pages, and although I also look tired, many times the power of literature is not obtained in an easy way.
"Hibernation" and "Wild Pear Tree" are two literary dreams, one for old age and one for youth.
The hero Aydin in "Hibernation" means "enlightened intellectual" in Turkish, which is as ironic as "sweet life" and "outstanding citizen", intellectual kindness and hypocrisy, arrogance and introspection , constantly colliding and reconciling, and the writers have to face various contradictions: urban and rural, past and present, the bottom working class and intellectuals, religion and secular, love and family and reality. These form the foundation of a writer's life. Ceylon explored them to a very deep level with an anatomical mentality, like the well dug in "Wild Pear Tree", which seems to have given the final solution, but this is only a "solution" in the sense of the story. The aftertaste overflows the film and permeates my life.
I prefer the ending of "Wild Pear Tree", as Ceylon himself said: "In the last scene, I don't think it was my father's dream, but more like the young hero's idea. Because if it was my father's dream , then he should be staring at the well first, and in fact, before this, we saw the direction of the young male protagonist looking at the well, and then the camera followed him into contemplation, slowly approaching the well. I want to pass this lens , can realize that this is from the inner meditation of the hero, a very melancholy and very dark description of feelings."
"I've always liked to make things vague, because from that you get what you need, and if it's too clear, I destroy your freedom, like I always thought water should be a little cloudy. "
The life of a writer is vague, just like anxiety about his own identity. Writers must always face the ambiguity of the world and the ambiguity of their works, and face the reality that their works cannot be sold (the writer in Deeper Than the Sea is also Same).
"It doesn't matter if you become who you want to be, what matters is whether you live your life to achieve your dreams." This is the line of Hiro Abe in "Deeper than the Sea", like a comfort to every young literary and artistic youth. The point is not what kind of person to live, but how to live.
As Nietzsche said: It is necessary to experience a thing in a beautiful sense and to experience it wrongly. Therefore, the "creator's spiritual world" is to look at the world from the wrong perspective.
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