"The Legend of West Lie is very popular in the United States, because everyone's focus is on the technical level, which is what they talk about all day long. Their praise for the film is limited to the technical level, but for me, Technology is important and interesting, but the content is what I am really interested in."-Woody Allen "In My Heart"
"Xili Biography" is undoubtedly a success.
It inspired the audience in an anti-genre documentary way:
Wow, it turns out that serious nonsense can be done like this.
It inspired the industry with overwhelming film skills:
Wow, the original technology can still be used in this way.
However, the two nominations received by "Ci Li Biography" at the 56th Oscars-Best Photography and Best Costume Design, just hint that the focus of the public is on the "technical level", says Woody Allen. Looking back at the "content level" of this absurd factual record, there is an issue that plagues intellectuals, the middle class, and Jews, as well as other living beings; it was wantonly in the 1930s, but it has never been lost before and after. The hotbed of personality-the resilience of personality.
Although there are different opinions on personality shaping, in the long-term context, the parties to the dispute always tend to portray personality as a plant: cultivation and wind and rain may change the process of growth, but deep roots in the soil (perhaps It is nature, genes, childhood circumstances) that determine the direction of growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was such an explanation about personality: personality is a soft spring, hovering between good and evil, and swinging between multiple roles. Among them, the situation is the external pull, and the desire for group identification is the internal push.
I remember once watching a debate. After the judges voted, the only judge who voted for the square started with this: "I don't like to be a minority, because a minority means that I must speak." The troubles of the judges. In the end, it is the troubles of the judges, and people always have the wisdom to solve them in life. In a highly homogenized group, when we are surprised that we have become a minority, we tend to be silent, package our views into a form acceptable to others, or simply remain silent and regard it as a social skill.
In our language, the "submissives" in the group are called "conformity", and the "deviations" are called "heterogeneous". Interestingly, the term "conformity" implies the incompetence of the "submissive", while the "extraordinary" reveals the impulse to expel the "departer" from the inner group. The question before the minority is: Should I shut up for safety or speak up for the sake of who I am. This contradiction has given birth to the dilemma of the "other" .
"I believe that the desire to penetrate a certain core and the fear of being excluded from the circle will occupy certain periods of everyone's life. Even many people will be affected by these thoughts throughout their lives from infancy to old age. Occupy..." ——Lewis "Core Group"
Woody Allen pushed the anxiety of the "other" to the Kafka-style absurdity. The West Li, who tried his best to be assimilated, was reduced into a mirror, showing the mirror image of the surrounding people physically and psychologically. This is what Bruno Bettelheim called "the ultimate adjuster in order to adapt to the surrounding environment." West of the representative of the "personality spring" in endogenous forces extreme, that is, no matter how weak situational forces around, he always will be adjusted based on the context of the personality self. Therefore, in the film, when Xi Li is about to recover, Dr. Yudola is afraid that “being with strong personalities will make Xi Li return to his original appearance.” What is worried is that Xi Li just sprouted. The ego is not yet able to resist strong situational forces.
If the film comes to an abrupt end, then this is just a little story about "love and redemption" and "being yourself". But the last ten minutes of the film point to the more terrifying aspect of the personality problem: Under what circumstances will an ordinary person with a sound personality become a completely different person?
Fascism.
Participants of this "event", even if they do not have the ability to transform like Xili, but when they replace civilian clothes with military uniforms, erase names with numbers, and overwhelm morality with responsibility, they have become like Xili. A qualified actor in a specific situation plays a role that he can't believe in—a murderous machine without emotion.
"In addition to regulations and role powers, the use of uniforms, attire and masks concealed everyone's general face, thereby promoting the emergence of anonymity and reducing personal responsibility, and situational power has become more authoritative. When people feel that they have anonymity in a situation, that is, when they feel that no one will realize their true identity, anti-social behavior is more likely to be induced." -Philip Zimbardo "The Lucifer Effect"
In fact, the concept of “flexible personality” originated from thinking about the alienation of human nature under fascism. Both the Milgren experiment and the Stanford prison experiment (although there are loopholes) warn people to a certain extent: those who are poor Extremely ferocious fanatics are just ordinary people who play the role of persecutors in the context of anonymity, depersonalization, depersonalization, and high-pressure authority. They live in a moment that extends the present, the past and the future are out of reach, obedience dominates reason, action controls thinking-just like Xili who has repeatedly committed crimes in a state of amnesia: that is not the real me .
At the end of the film, for the "dilemma of the other", the old man gave his solution: love . This is a omnipotent solution to an old film and television drama, but it is not unreasonable, because true love is a kind of pleasure that makes people put down their pretense . As for how to resist group myths under the pressure of the situation, Woody Allen’s humor contains a certain kind of helplessness towards human nature:
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