However, everything should always be examined in detail. Several directors have some special circumstances, so that we can't get around their grand, difficult, delicate and powerful themes anyway. There are directors from poets, directors from storytellers, directors from conscience, and of course directors from philosophers. Bergman is one of them. Rather, it is the magnificence, profoundness, and incomparably accurate display of his films that entice us to contemplate endlessly and seriously about the themes of his films.
Sartre said in "Existence and Nothingness" that people always regard "others" as an object, which rudely deprives others of their subjectivity and subjectivity and turns living people into "things." The eyes of others not only turn the free subject of "I" into a rigid object, but also force the "I" to judge themselves more or less according to their views and focus on modifying their own consciousness. Of course, "I" does the same to others. So, "I tried to liberate me from the domination of others, and in turn tried to control others, and others tried to control me at the same time. So he came up with the famous saying that now looks like a slogan, "Others are hell." .
The whole film of "Shouting and Whispering" is claustrophobic in a narrow physical area. The intense and obvious anxiety, anxiety and even bloody red color makes this environment more symbolic of being drawn away. The characters face the overall situation. , The other irrelevant reality does not appear in the film. This is the first factor that entices us to carry out existential interpretation. Red is indeed an ambiguous but strong color. In Zhang Yimou's view, red is a primitive life force, while the red in "Three Colors of Red" is a reminder of the character's situation, and finally reveals redemptive warmth from it. . The red in "Hu" is more similar to "Red", but we can't feel the existence of the light factor from the red. The red in "Hu" is thicker and more abstract and loses restraint. This allows the film to gain access to the soul and power.
So in this context, Bergman began to question the hearts of the four women. Women are the more keen bearers of suffering. In my opinion, the director's intention is nothing more than that. The accusations made by those feminists are unreasonable. The film goes from the physical pain of a woman to the mental pain of all people. Annie's direct experience of death was expressed with a terrible huge gasp—screaming. Without Annie's illness, there would be no tension of shouting and whispering. It is like a bomb tearing up the cover of life. This is like the car accident at the beginning of "Three Colors of Blue". The presence of "death" makes people have to wake up and face the truth of their own existence, which is the so-called "death-oriented existence". We remember Karin's dry body after she took off her bloated and complicated clothes. In fact, women all have their own deficiencies. And they vented it out in the standard Freudian way. Bergman appears to be antelope horns when dealing with these "fantasy scenes", without showing any expression. This is quite different from the abrupt metaphor like "The Seventh Seal". It is more reminiscent of Angelopoulos-like naturalness. This is why I put quotation marks on the "fantasy scene". The flow between reality and fantasy, as Schopenhauer said, is the appearance of will. In a sense, they are all real. What Bergman is very kind is that every time such a scene appears, he uses a close-up shot of a character to give technical hints. It can be seen that he still considers the audience's understanding process very much and is more responsible to the audience.
If the cry is the last cry of despair before the collapse, it just highlights the fact that others are hell, and cannot be changed. So whispered, the cautious temptation between Karin and Mary seemed to only be exchanged for a stronger rejection, although for a while we almost thought that their reconciliation was possible. This passage seems to once again become an example of Sartre's philosophy. However, Anna's existence is an exception. If other women are constantly showing unbearable lightness, Anna seems to constitute the balance of the film. Her plump body is reminiscent of Phidias and Michelangelo's aesthetics of "sublime form". There was a scene in which Anna sat quietly in the shadows on the bed with her dead Anne half naked. The perfect pyramidal composition of this lens means more than just a fit with the concept of classical painting, because she really can’t let people not connect with Michelangelo’s images of the Virgin. Although we don't see many obvious religious factors in this film. But religion is the fundamental background for most of Bergman's creation. If we look at the sensational horror film "The Exorcist" in 1973, a year after "Hu" was released, we will find many interesting coincidences. I don't think that "The Exorcist" is the top spot of almost all horror movies in male dramas for decades because of its scary degree. No one will ignore the strong religious doubts or even blasphemy in the film. In this film, the girl’s breathing after being possessed by the devil is almost the same as Annie’s; and the plot of Karin’s self-destructive body can also be found in "The Exorcism", but the tool used has become a cross; and the same in both films The pastor's unsuccessful prayer at the patient's bed appeared. I'm not sure whether "Qi" has borrowed from "Hu", but we should be able to read similar things from it. Maybe I should mention the fundamental difference between Bergman and Sartre. It is well known that Sartre is an undoubtedly atheistic existentialist. Although Bergman has always been trapped in questioning God, and this is reflected in his countless works, we only need to think about the end of "Virgin Spring" and listen to his extensive use of Bach music, we should Understand that he still did not give up on God in the end. No matter what form God appears in, or does not appear at all (as said in "Winter Light"), the director still seems to need God to achieve the ultimate salvation (but first must go through a process of deep despair and abandonment, it seems It is also the difference between the last salvation of "Three Colors"). In addition, maybe we can get some vague understanding of the religious attitude of directors from the difference between Bach's entire rich and profound music and the dry and pure religious music of the Gregorian era.
But I have no intention to move out a bunch of Christian existential theories of Kierda Gore or Jaspers here. Fundamentally, the exploration of this film on this path, as I said at the beginning, is probably just to frame a lively artwork with my own limited cognitive system. Therefore, I hope to give some thought to restraint at the right time. After all, the most important part of the film should and only be understood in my own long life practice.
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