This article was first published on the "Adventure Movie" public account, and reprinting is declined.
These are my stories, my culture, my family, my thoughts. ——Joe My words, my pain, I was alone in that room, turning your appalling behavior into literary gold. ——Joan
On January 22, Beijing time, the nomination list of the 91st Academy Awards was announced. Among them, the two films "Rome" and "Favorite" led the audience with 10 nominations, and 8 nominations for "The Birth of a Star" and " "Vice President" also followed closely.
Compared with these hot movies, "The Good Wife" is slightly "low-key" and only won the nomination for "Best Actress".
Also nominated for the film queen are Olivia Coleman, who performed well in "Favorite", and the successful cross-border screen rookie Lady Gaga.
Mention of Glenn Close, who played the heroine of Joan Castleman in this film, is very strange to many audiences, but Granny Glen , who is over seventy years old, has long been a strong contender for the Oscar queen .
In 1987, Glenn Cross portrayed Alex Forrest in "Fatal Temptation". This role was ranked 7th on the American Motion Picture Association's 100-year list of the greatest screen heroes and screen villains. This is an accurate treatment of the "bad woman" image. Kong won her first Oscar nomination for "Best Actress".
Glenn was nominated twice for "Dangerous Relationship" and "Unidentified Male and Female".
Under the influence of many factors, he was defeated three times by his opponents, making Cher, Judy Foster, and Meryl Streep three actresses.
This year is the fourth time that Glenn Cross has competed for the film queen . With the accumulation of years, "Old Opera Bone" Glen's acting skills have become more and more exquisite, and he has contributed the most delicate and sincere performance of the year. I hope to borrow After this.
In "The Good Wife", Glenn Close plays a meticulous, caring, loyal and low-key wife. She gave up her dream and assisted her husband Joe Castleman (Jonathan Press) in the work of 40 years. When the husband won the Nobel Prize in Literature, their marriage encountered the most severe challenge and at the same time revealed their greatest secret.
one
The film begins with a rising night. The camera follows in the footsteps of the Castlemans and uses flashback techniques that happen to happen to portray a female image on the verge of collapse.
Compared with her husband Joe, who always talks eloquently, Joan does not speak much. She always stands quietly behind her husband, holding his coat and sundries.
Although Joan played by Glenn Close has been on the fringe of the frame, she is the absolute protagonist in "The Good Wife."
She has a strong aura as soon as she appears , even if she is "hiding" in the corner of the camera, it can make the audience ignore the star-studded husband who has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature-her changes in expression and small movements are always involved The mood of the audience.
Glenn Close's control of facial language and body language is very precise, especially the subtle changes in facial expressions.
The camera focused on Joan's face several times, whether it was the slightly flushed cheeks and gasping when he was with her husband Dunlun, or the smile that disappeared after being called the wrong name at the banquet, Glenn used her expression to show the audience What is " moisturizing things silently ".
In addition to facial expressions, Glenn's "tears" are also extremely lethal:
After hearing that her husband won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Joan's eyes were full of tears, surprises and confusions;
When the husband and the guests at the banquet talked about the trivial life of the two, Joan looked low, and his eyes seemed to be covered with mist;
After learning that her pregnant daughter (played by Alex Wilton Reagan) gave birth successfully, Joan and her husband happily embraced each other, her eyes filled with excitement tears.
There are several other scenes similar to this, none of them are exactly the same-her tears are always full of different emotions, with helplessness, perseverance, depression, and even more grief and anger.
Her tears were always rolling in her eyes, and within a few seconds, her tears were stopped abruptly, as if she had been smiling all the time, and she had never had such negative emotions as aggrieved and frustrated.
This role is like a woman in the Eastern traditional concept, that is, the image of a housewife we often say "to dedicate everything to the family" . She always handles household chores in an orderly manner, takes care of her husband everywhere, and has never made any mistakes.
At the same time, she is not exactly the kind of woman who gives up her dreams , she just buried her ambition deep in her heart and realized her dream in an alternative way.
Glenn Close's performance made this complex and multi-faceted female character three-dimensional and vivid, giving Joan a vigorous vitality. Just in terms of its performance, it is worth an Oscar statuette.
two
Through the introduction of the film, one can't help but think of the French film "Adelmans" of the same year. The script concepts of the two have many similarities, and they both put a lot of effort on the actors' lines.
In "The Adelmans", the characters in the play often talk about literary masters such as Dostoyevsky and Brecht. They are full of philosophical thinking and literary temperament, but there are also some high and low songs.
The script of "The Good Wife" is adapted from the novel of the same name by Meg Wolitzer. The lines are witty and easy to understand, and can be easily understood by ordinary audiences. At the same time, the characters in the play give humorous words and witty words, often with words in the words, full of irony .
Some netizens jokingly called "The Good Wife" as "The Castleman Couple", clarifying the similarities between the two films, and also a bit of ridicule.
In this film, through the lines, we can more clearly see the personality characteristics and story trend of the husband and wife.
For example, the husband Joe always quotes-and repeats the classic short sentences in the literature to cover up his shortcomings, while the wife Joan speaks with golden sentences, and the words are full of true wisdom rather than "the emperor's new clothes."
For example, in his speech, the husband thanked him for having a good internal helper, and once again exposed his mediocre eloquence and old-fashioned methods. This behavior was also one of the factors that caused the conflict between the two to erupt.
For another example, every time a husband talks to a woman, he will use the same sentence, and at the same time give him a walnut that says "I love you, true". This old trick is used repeatedly After many times, and he is totally unable to refuse sweets and greasy foods, he can see his personality characteristics even more.
Joe in the movie is like a young and energetic teenager, appearing in front of the public with a false side, boasting of his insignificant talents, doing whatever he wants, and not being restricted by family ethics .
Joan is a good wife and mother who has tolerated and tolerated her husband for 40 years, but after one blow after another, she broke out.
" Why endured for 40 years, but suddenly broke out within a few days? " I also asked this question after watching "The Good Wife" for the first time.
After the second scan, the logic of the story is clearly clearer. In a flashback, we saw Joan talking with an unknown female writer (played by Elizabeth McGovern). Joan said to her: "A writer has to write (The writer must write)", then the female writer warned Joan: "A writer has to be read, honey (dear, the writer must be read)".
Two simple lines of dialogue reveal the "intimate relationship" between the author and the reader , which makes Joan give up being an author and eventually become a reader.
These two lines made her try her best to assist her husband for 40 years, without complaint, until her husband said "my wife doesn't write" to others at the dinner party.
This line was explosive. It was sharp, false, and disgusting. It instantly penetrated Joe's psychological defense .
These words from her husband are the biggest cause of Joan's outbreak.
So when the King of Sweden asked her later, she said: "I am a kingmaker".
Kingmaker , especially the Earl of Warwick (1428-1471), a great nobleman in England, was a famous king in the War of the Roses. He helped King Edward IV of the York family ascend the throne in 1461, and later restored King Henry VI of the deposed Lancaster family to the throne.
Joan used this metaphor to describe his life, sad and true, which paved the way for the dramatic ending of the film.
High-quality lines are worthy of praise, but all the problems in the film cannot be denied, for example , the conflict between father and son in the film is not strong enough, the discussion of marriage issues is not deep enough, and the shallow discussion of the status of women in the patriarchal society .
These defects make the "good wife" and not a microcosm of the times, just a fictional story .
This is often the case. We always regard stories as a symbol of an era, but stories are just stories.
Just like the works in the movie, they are not the "culture and ideas" of the husband Joe, but the "pain and loneliness" of the wife Joan. They are the horrible behaviors and true stories that the husband has done in the past 40 years.
three
In 2018, the total box office of North American movies reached a new high, reaching $11.9 billion. At the same time, USA Today said that 2018 was " a markedly small year, far inferior to the bumper scene of 2017. "
Even in such a small Oscar year, it is still unknown who will win the prize.
In the Golden Globe Award, known as the "Oscar Weathervane", Glenn Close won the film "Best Actress in a Drama" award for his brilliant performance in "The Good Wife".
Subsequently, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) ceremony on January 28, Glenn Cross once again defeated "Favorite" heroine Olivia Coleman and won the "Best Actress Award."
It is worth mentioning that the Screen Actors Guild Award is the most important indicator of the Oscar performance category, because in the Oscar's award rules, all awards except for the best film are selected by members of the subordinate divisions. The number of actors in the actor department accounts for about one-fifth of the total number of judges, and most of them come from the actors' union.
Therefore, to win the Screen Actors Guild Award, in a sense, it locked the Oscar actor and actress' throne in advance.
Of course, it is not absolute. In the past ten years, there have only been two accidents:
First, after Viola Davis, the heroine of "Help", was elected to the Screen Actors Guild Award in 2011, Oscar gave it to the heroine of "Iron Lady" Meryl Streep;
The second is that in 2016, Denzel Washington, the male protagonist of "Fences", was elected to the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Oscar was given to the male protagonist of "Manchester by the Sea" Cassie Affleck.
The awarding of the Screen Actors Guild Award made the originally uncertain situation less subtle, and it also made the menacing "Favorite" heroine Olivia Coleman less likely to win.
Can Glenn Cross, who has won two cities in succession, advance all the way and succeed in being sealed?
Can SAG and OSCARS blossom in this film co-produced by the United States, Britain and Switzerland?
let us wait and see.
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