This is a movie with extraordinary amount of information, extremely complicated relationship between characters, and it needs to be focused on repeatedly. As a masterpiece of the group drama master Robert Altman, it conveys the director's outlook on life in the daily display of life flow, that is: we are so fragile.
I saw the American CC version of the Blu-ray Disc newspaper "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" recommended by Friends , and sent out the analysis of the previously written videos for archiving.
For the director and author, please refer to "Party Group Play and Anti-Bone Hippie: Hollywood Monster Robert Ultraman"
Haruki Murakami wrote an "Robert Ultraman Movie Labyrinth Depicting "Carver's Country"" in his essay collection "Finally Sorrowful Foreign Language" to evaluate this film. At that time, Murakami went to the United States to study, because he was the Japanese translator of Carver's novels, he was invited to participate in the internal screening of "Silver, Sex, Men and Women". After the screening, Murakami asked Carver's widow Tess why the film was called "Short Cuts", which was explained as-"It is not only a collection of short films, but also a short shot, but also a shortcut to life and a small wound."
The structure of Sidfield’s screenplay should be “a series of interrelated events, plots, and events arranged linearly, and finally lead to a dramatic ending.” The traditional Hollywood narrative principle emphasizes the causal linear connection between plot points. Altman went beyond this criterion. He pursues the real life texture that weakens the causal logic, especially the "party style" style where characters collide with each other. In terms of structure, he is particularly good at the three-dimensional network narrative. Altman once commented on his group drama films: "My films always have many characters and complicated plots. Only in this way can I be at ease. Sometimes this line has problems and you can't go on. You can turn around immediately. Turn to another line that can be walked, and the story can continue. I like a large group of people crowded together, always in conflict, always in conflict, so that I can feel at ease."
Altman’s net-like narrative films still develop the story in chronological order, with few flashbacks or flashbacks, and the space is basically kept in the same field. However, there are often more than 20 characters in the film, and each character has an independent plot line. These clues are first displayed in parallel, and then develop individually with the course of time. In the longitudinal dimension of time, due to accidental or inevitable connections, the lives of the characters intersect and influence each other to form a cross node. After the end of the conflict, the characters separate, continue to advance and merge with other clues, forming another node...This cycle repeats, and finally weaves into a narrative network that is interconnected and extends beyond the narrative time.
"Nashville" in 1975 marked the beginning of Ultraman's net-like narrative film. This film combines a loose plot, impromptu performance and party atmosphere, and adds Ultraman's love for music and disdain for politics, forming a complex and open world of images. Ultraman strives to create the feeling of watching the daily cross-section of sentient beings. At the end of the movie, we can feel that the lives of the characters in the movie will continue. Altman continued to shoot a large number of net-like narrative films. In the last ten years of his life (1992-2006), Altman simply only shot films of this structure type, such as "Big Player", "Storm of Clouds", and "Gosford Manor", "The Ranch House is a Good Companion" and so on.
To say that the film that best represents Ultraman's mesh narrative and audio-visual style is "Silver, Sex, Men and Women". This is a synopsis film, but also an eye-catching narrative experiment. It is a masterpiece of the techniques and worldview that Ultraman has accumulated from his film career for nearly 50 years. The film is adapted from 9 short stories and 1 poem by Raymond Carver. Carver had seen Ultraman's "Nashville" and was deeply moved, and "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" can be regarded as two people A literary image-based grafting output of attitudes towards life. Altman and co-writer Frank Bacht freely adapted Carver's work- "Let the characters as intersections, from one story to another" .
Altman selected such characters and events in Carver’s story: the makeup artist and wife who showed his neighbor in "Neighbors", the waiter and husband in the restaurant in "They are not your husband", and the husband in "Vitamin" The black man who speaks badly in the bar, "Please be quiet, okay? The couple who quarreled about past romantic affairs, the man who went out fishing and found the female body in "There is so much water at the door", the baker who was treated rudely and harassed the phone in "Small but Useful Things", " The policeman who sneaks away the dog in "Jerry, Molly and Sam", the vacuum cleaner salesman and pilot in "The Collector", the makeup artist and the pool cleaner in "Tell the girl we are gone", and the lost in "Lemonade" The father of the son. In addition, Ultraman and the screenwriter Frank created two roles, Tess Treller and Zoe Treller. The emotionally dissociated mother and daughter bridge the film’s music-Tess’s jazz and Zoe’s cello. .
Altman moved Carver’s description of the blue-collar class of the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States to 9 families covering different classes in Los Angeles, Southern California, and portrayed the images and destinies of 22 characters in the vast suburbs, using his net-like narrative skills. Weaving the relationship of these many characters, showing the accidents in ordinary people's life, the confusion about deteriorating daily life, and the helplessness after being brutally hit by reality with maze-like clues. Each family is independent and has its own problems and trends. When Ultraman organizes it and realizes a network narrative, it unifies and develops the story by limiting the time and space of plot development and constructing a network of characters. .
First of all, when limiting the time and space of the plot development, Altman used the macro event of helicopter spraying fly-killing drugs to lead the opening. Through the parallel editing of helicopter pictures and TV news in various families, the opening of the film made many characters appear one after another, explaining that the initial story of the story took place in Los Angeles at night. The class and living standards of the characters can also be seen from the furnishings of their homes. The ending film also uses a major earthquake that affects the whole city to condense the character network, thus delineating the story time that is the four days and four nights between the spraying of the medicine and the earthquake. The characters live in different areas of the city, some are far apart, and some live next to each other. For example, the jazz singer Tess and her daughter live next to the TV anchor Howard Finiga’s family. Altman also used a common space-time delineation to concentrate characters in other group dramas. For example, "Nashville" tells the story of 25 characters in the five days of "Music Country" Nashville; "The Wedding" shows It was the wedding scene for two days and one night in the upper manor of Chicago; "Gosford Manor" recorded the interaction of characters in the manor within two days.
Then the accidental or inevitable connection in the networked narrative is constructed, that is, the most important network of relationships between characters. The pre-set blood relationship, marriage, neighborhood, work relationship, etc. are the inevitable connections between the characters that precede the development of the plot, and are also the foundation of the entire film structure. They are successively revealed as the clue nodes of the character network. The 22 characters in "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" form three inherent relationship chains based on inevitable connections (Figures 1, 2, and 3 below).
Figure 1 shows the relatives and emotional relationships between three middle-class families: doctor Ralph Wyman’s wife is the painter Marianne, and she and the policeman, Jean Shepard’s wife, Shirley, are sisters. They can contact each other by phone or Go to the other's house as a guest; Jean’s derailed subject, Betty Weathers, is the wife of pilot Stormy Weathers, and Stormy has appeared in the news of the earthquake disaster in the opening of the film and the earthquake.
Figure 2 shows the relationship between relatives and friends between several families covering middle class to blue collar: bar singer Tess and cellist Zoe are mother and daughter, and they live next door to the TV anchor Finiga’s family; Jerry is killed by Fei Nega hired to clean the pool. His wife is Lois, who provides porn phone services; the two are good friends with special effects makeup artist Bill and his wife Heney, and often go out together; Heney is the daughter of the restaurant waitress Doreen , Doreen has an unsuccessful husband Earl.
The Kane family in Figure 3 has less inevitable connection with other characters and is in an isolated line: the husband Stewart is going to go fishing on vacation, and his wife Claire is the clown performer in the celebration.
These three character clues used internal members to pave the connection between the families, and establish a foundation for story development and a more complex character network; at the same time, they also initially showed the problems faced by the characters, such as the cheating between Jean and Betty, indicating that both families have Marriage dilemma.
After establishing the overall structure with the network of inevitable connections, Altman can arrange the accidental connections between characters through needles. This is the most important and hidden connection in the networked narrative structure. Unfamiliar characters encounter unexpectedly, or influence each other or pass by. The film uses an omniscient perspective to show this, and the characters in it are completely unaware of it. If the audience does not Pay attention and you will miss it. Accidental connection is the dominant part of the web narrative, and it also reveals the essence of this type of film, that is, the unpredictable fate. In Figure 4, dashed lines indicate accidental connections, and solid lines indicate inherent relationship clues. All the characters are connected in series to form a complete "social ecosystem", just as the background of the subtitles at the end of the film is a map of the city of Los Angeles.
When Altman met them by chance, he gave full play to the role of service places and public spaces. For example, the restaurant where Doreen Piglet works, the jazz bar where the female singer sings in residence, the cellist's chamber concert, the hospital, the bakery and so on. At the chamber concert where Zoe played the cello, the doctor Wyman and the painter’s wife sat next to the Kane and his wife, and they agreed to have a dinner together. Stewart promised to take the fish to Wyman’s house, and the concert hall was set up in one play. The accidental contact of the five; in the restaurant where Doreen was serving, the husband Earl had a face-to-face meeting with Stewart and his fishermen. The latter unkindly made Doreen embarrassed and be seen by Earl, which caused a quarrel between the two and was upset. The disturbed Doreen accidentally ran into the anchor Howard’s son Casey, which caused a series of tragedies. Later, Jean and Betty, who went out on a date in the affair, also came to the restaurant for dinner, and it was Doreen who placed the order for them. In the bar where Silk sings in, the special effects makeup artist Bill and his wife and the pool cleaner Jerry and his wife listened to her singing. Jerry had been to Tess’s house before to clean the swimming pool and met Tess’ mother and daughter. I also met Earl, the father of listening to the song. Heney’s mother Doreen caused Casey’s death and indirectly caused the depressed Tess’ daughter Zoe to commit suicide. The performance Tess would not notice the existence of these characters, but her Sooner or later, the family has contact with them, and will usher in the devastating blow of the bereavement; clearing the clues to the death will find that it is Stewart's wretched joke that makes Doreen irritate and hit people, and the knocked Caseyin is pregnant. Man hurried to a dinner with the Stewart family and died without timely treatment. The cellist Zoe, who heard the news, committed suicide due to his mother’s indifferent reaction. Looking back at the opening, it was found that Stewart and Zoe had been there as early as the concert. Meeting-the life of seven characters in three families undergoes a butterfly-effect sudden change due to a joke, and the impermanence of fate is thus revealed.
In the hospital, Dr. Wyman interacted with the Finiga’s family when he was treating Casey. Dr. Wyman also met Claire, who came to attend the birthday ceremony and dressed as a clown, and was reminded of the dinner; at the same time, Casey Grandpa Paul came to the hospital I also met Claire when I was visiting my grandson. Claire missed Casey’s mother Ann, but the two had met in the bakery earlier; Ann described the cake style for Casey’s birthday, and the pilot Stormy was also choosing cakes for his wife Betty. . The three appearing at the same time seem to be unrelated, but as the plot unfolds, it will be discovered that Claire’s husband Stutt, as mentioned earlier, indirectly caused Casey’s death and can no longer celebrate his birthday. Stormi’s cake was betrayed by Betty. It couldn't be sent out, and Gene, the policeman who had an affair with Betty, stopped Claire's clown car on the street, and had a polite, unskilled conversation.
There are also connections between characters through the medium of television. The beginning of the film is a helicopter spraying medicines to kill fruit flies over Los Angeles at night. Parallel to it, the indoor activities of many characters are edited. The TV screen at home broadcasts news about insect problems and solutions (the news anchor is one of the characters in the film). A Howard Finiga). This unifies the time and space of the characters' lives, shows their daily state and class hierarchy, and makes the plot develop into a cross-section of society. In addition, Ultraman has repeatedly used TV programs or advertisements to collide with real life to form montages. For example, the policeman played by Tim Robbins complains about the noise of the dog at home, but the background TV shows a police movie of the police and the police dog cooperating to find the murderer. Then Robbins will throw the dog away. The real conflict between humans and dogs and TV shows Contrast; the plot continues. When the police's wife is doing housework on the phone, the TV shows the dog biting the sofa cushion frantically. This is the scene of the pilot Stormy Weathers destroying the furniture with a chainsaw in the latter part of the story. This was done, and the pilot’s revenge was due to his wife's affair with the police (the name Stormy Weathers means "stormy weather", just like his violent behavior). The characters in these two scenes are both the betrayed party.
One of the most complicated applications is: the boy Casey came home after being hit by a car. His mother called her husband Howard who was working in the TV station. There were scenes of ambulances passing by on multiple TVs behind him, and the sound of the horn continued to be heard. The next scene of Casey lying in bed at home. Immediately after the camera was pushed to the picture of Casey and milk on the bedside table, and then a TV screen of a glass of milk being pushed over, accompanied by a narration: "Accidents happen every day. Fortunately, no one is injured, but accidents are dangerous after all..." Zooming out, the audience discovered that this was what Doreen Piquette’s TV was broadcasting, and it was Doreen who hit Casey. She was talking about it to her husband Earl at this time. Altman uses clever sound and picture editing to show the unexpected collision and connection between the characters and the resulting tragedy, as the original author of the novel, Raymond Carver, said: "For most people, life is not a risk. , But a torrent that can't be resisted."
In addition, Ultraman also uses montages to create similar situations to establish connections between characters and imply destiny. For example, when Jerry was cleaning the swimming pool at Finiga’s house, he saw the cellist next door Zoe stripping naked and swimming naked. The camera recorded the scene of her still in the water with overhead shots; and the next scene was the fisher Stewart and his party spotted it. The female body soaked in the water is similar to Zoe, and also hints at her final death. When Claire learned that her husband Stewart ignored the female body and fished in peace, she was shocked by the indifference of the person next to her pillow, and got out of bed and took a shower. , As if it allowed her to re-experience the situation of the deceased at the time, and at the same time wash away the wounds left to herself because of her husband’s insensitivity; Henney, who looked after the neighbor’s house, had many acts of staring at the tropical fish in the tank. The camera shot her expression through the fish tank. Water and fish once again played an important role.
The English name of the film "Short Cuts" should be translated as "Short Cuts" or "Short Shots", but the universal translation of "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" reveals gender differences or even gender panic themes. The film is full of serial deceptions (both sexes), the grievances caused by one of the couple's mistakes against the other a few years ago, and the deep resentment that eventually turned into violent tit-for-tat. Among them, Jerry, the pool cleaner, had a deep resentment for his wife's subsidy for the family by answering phone sex work, so he stoned to death a girl who had never met and flirted with him in the wild. There was an earthquake when he committed the crime, so the cause of death of the victim was attributed to the victims of natural disasters by the media, but in fact she was an innocent victim of the violent conflict between the sexes.
It can be said that the exploration of the life of various classes in American society and the relationship between the sexes gave the film insights in the meaning of sociology and anthropology. These people who live in different corners of Los Angeles, have different personalities and occupations, and face different family difficulties, under the influence of the complex collisions and intricacies, reflect the human relationship and the contradictions between the sexes in contemporary American society. Altman uses his majestic net-like narrative to woven this realistically meaningful world of living beings, letting the characters full of mystery and inspiration reveal the essence and truth of life.
The most direct and significant influence on Altman's relationship between teachers and students is Paul Thomas Anderson, the middle-aged generation of American independent film industry masters. As Ultraman's year-end acquaintance, Anderson also assisted him in filming the 2006 posthumous work "The Ranch House is a Good Companion" when he was old and sick. Anderson took the mantle from the founder of New Hollywood, and promoted his understanding and innovation of film language. He inherited and revived Ultraman's net narrative structure, combining loose narrative with strong drama. In his few films, you can find the outline and elements of tribute to Altman: "Boogie Nights" which tells the living conditions of the American pornographic film industry practitioners in the 1980s and the ups and downs, and portrays the legacy of intergenerational injuries, and deconstructs the family with skepticism. The ethical "Magnolia" can correspond to Ultraman's "Big Player" and "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" respectively. Anderson once said: ""Silver, Sex, Men and Women" hit my spirit so strongly, if I didn't see this film, I might never be able to write the script of "Magnolia" by hand. I knew what I wanted to say. But I feel helpless about how to express it. Without this film, I really don’t know how to realize the story of "Magnolia"." "Magnolia" includes 12 souls and homeless characters, highlighting It is the talent of Anderson to construct grand allegory narrative. In the climax of the ending, the frog rain fell from the sky with the gorgeous brushwork of the "Bible", and the magical disaster vision pushed the film toward self-destruction and religious irony. This is also in response to the "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" ending in the "Silver, Sex, Men and Women" that constricted the relationship between the characters and targeted the so-called "stable" middle class earthquake.
View more about Short Cuts reviews
