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Towards the end of "One One", the girl Tingting had a dream. She was lying halfway on the lap of her deceased grandmother, and exclaimed: "Why is this world different from what we imagined?". Similarly, in the film, Yang Yang, who was still in elementary school, stood in front of her grandmother's mourning hall and said in a childlike voice with an overtone: "I think I am old too."
The theme of the movie "Yi Yi" is revealed to the audience in such "dotting" lines that constantly appear. In the film, there is a huge gap between the principle of life and the expectation of life among the protagonists in the film, and the reality. Ideals are worn out in the collision with frustration and confusion. So through the words of the two children, Yang Dechang asked them to tell the main idea of the film. Of course, this is also Yang Dechang's inner monologue. His life insights and philosophical comments are thus directly conveyed to the audience through his lines. This is not only true of "Yi Yi", in most of his previous films, the audience listened to his summing up and enlightening points while watching the film, just like listening to the Chinese teacher in the school class to summarize the main ideas and central ideas of the paragraph.
Two years as early as "Yi Yi", Yang Dechang's most sincere film partner and Taiwan's most important film director Hou Hsiao-hsien filmed "Flowers on the Sea". These two films are regarded by many film critics as the pinnacle of their film career. If the difference between Hou Xiaoxian and Yang Dechang in the 1980s was not so obvious (in Yang Dechang’s 1985 "Childhood and Bamboo Horse", because of the addition of Hou Xiaoxian, it even has a mixture of Hou’s intuition, simplicity and Yang’s destiny. In the above two works, they show completely different or even completely opposite core creative intentions.
Hou Xiaoxian showed a very calm and atmospheric observer perspective. In "Flower on the Sea", we can't find any conclusive judgments. It only has a naturalistic, open portrayal of the inner emotions that throbbing within a few details under the perfect setting of the situation. The character's posture, emotion, and subtle interaction with the environment are Hou Xiaoxian's most fundamental expressive intentions. "Yi Yi" is just the opposite, although it deliberately keeps the characters and the audience a calm distance in form, while at the same time using a gentle and introverted tone to distance itself from the predecessor "Independence Age" and "Mahjong" with the jokes and coldness. , But it still inherits the usual characteristics of all the films of Yang Dechang since "A Day on the Beach": all the characters are the clones of Yang Dechang, he asks himself questions and then answers himself. No matter how sad, fatal, compassionate and irretrievable these answers are, they are the basic arguments used to start and end an "video essay".
2
Regarding the nature of images, Roland Barthes once made a breakthrough in his famous book "Bright Room". He believes that photographic images contain two basic elements: "Studium" and "Punctum". “Knowledge” is the “object” information in the content provided by the photo. It is always consistent with the photographer’s intention. It is the content determined by the photographer, and it is also the basis for us to summarize the meaning of an image. But the "thorn point" comes from a certain accident and unexpectedness of the photo, the details recorded by the shutter in the instant, such as the moment of light changes, the subconscious actions of the characters, the moving objects and the composition of the characters in the instant. Spatial location relationship, etc.
When discussing the characteristics of the "thorn point", Roland Barthes clearly realized that the "contingency" that does not exist in traditional plastic arts (sculpture and painting) is an essential existence that cannot be removed from the image. From another perspective, the "comprehensive" element of images can come from paintings, poems, novels and other traditional art forms, and it can even be used as a carrier of politics and social ideology to connect plastic arts, literary works, and film images. But the "thorn point" is unique to the image. It is a brand-new nature that it gives to artistic creation after the birth of photography.
For a long time in the first half of the twentieth century, the vast majority of filmmakers did not rationally realize the existence of the "thorn point" (although the effect of the Hollywood star system is largely derived from the "thorn point" Capture and zoom presentation). It needs to wait until the post-war Italian neorealism consciously smashes the Hollywood-style closed loop structure in the drama, allowing the free and wandering scatter perspective to penetrate the body of the movie from the content, and combine with the "thorns" of the image. Get up, and this opens another door to the artistic expression of film.
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Hou Xiaoxian after the 1990s is a typical image capturer. It is said that he repeatedly watched Italian movies, from which he suddenly realized the existence of an abstract perspective. Starting from "Dream of Life" (1993), he has reinvented himself, taking the film's narrative perspective away from the characters, but it does not coincide with the creator's line of sight. This virtual wandering perspective gives the characters great freedom to express, allowing them to be liberated from the formatted plot and concept, and sway their own charm in a wandering state within the framework of the story situation. This This is what we saw in "Southern Kingdom, Goodbye Southland" and "Sea Flower". Under the guidance of this method, Hou Xiaoxian, as the core creator, actually withdrew his position behind the characters. He is more like a guide, leading a group of characters into the set set up in advance, and then Step back quietly to observe and record the details of their behavior and emotions.
Yang Dechang is not on the line of expanding the "thorn point". On the contrary, what he has always cited as the core of his creation is the repeated refinement and polishing of "knowing the face". In other words, "ideology" or self-expression is the gist that he has been presupposing from beginning to end. Therefore, he especially emphasizes the unity of the narrative theme: characters of different ages, social classes, and statuses are facing the same life puzzles imposed by him as a creator. All characters are finally unified under Yang Dechang's personality framework.
In the documentary "Goodbye Yang Dechang in Ten Years", Wang Weiming, who was once Yang Dechang’s assistant, described a section of Yang Dechang’s narrative structure: He took a cigarette case as an example, and compared the paper that constitutes the cigarette case as the material of the main idea, emphasizing that only Cut off the two pieces of paper on both sides, this paper can be folded into a tightly closed structure, and any content can be loaded into it to form its entity. This is the core of Yang Dechang's creative method: what he deliberately creates is a ring-shaped closed system structure, no matter how the characters and events in it develop, they must be revolved to a fixed single point in this system.
No matter how strong Yang Dechang is in the content of the film, he is far away from the open art expression path pioneered by Italian neorealism, and returns to the most basic narrative structure of Hollywood, that is, any action is Corresponding reactions will inevitably occur. Any result must find its cause, and any details must serve a dominant theme and thought expression. And "stab points", or "incidental", can't find any place in this system.
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From this we return to "One One", its structure and theme are very clear: all members of this family, fathers, daughters, sons, and even wives and brothers, all face the same problem: the perfect world they imagined They are all at odds with the life they expect, and they are all faced with the choice of depression, compromise or persistence.
This is the doubt that NJ, as a father, felt when the company was facing difficulties and his personal emotional life was facing a turnaround. He especially expressed his regret that he could not be autonomous in life in the dialogue with his old lover, and at the end of the dialogue with his partner. , Clearly pointed out: "I don't do what I like to do, how can I be happy?"; Tingting's longing for love as a daughter is seen by the conflict, deception, betrayal, and the hesitation and coldness she has experienced He was also caught in perplexity and loss; and the young son Yangyang was always scorned and ridiculed by his older classmates and school teachers when he was curious about the outer world. He ended up at the funeral of his grandmother. , Sincerely uttered the same sigh as she did before her death: "I feel I am old"-the growth of age means that those unachievable dreams, uncapable emotions and unfulfilled expectations will gradually accumulate, desperately Stuffed one's life. When the staff around Yang Dechang recalled him, they all described him as a child in his heart. And here he finally borrowed the mouth of a child to express a heavy sigh for the world and his life in the last work of his film career.
Yang Dechang is a director with quite creative ideas in film technology and scene scheduling. However, the skillful use of these ideographic techniques cannot stop him from allowing the characters to continuously release large lines of sermons to clarify his intentions. One of the very important reasons is that he has never been able to perform smoothly from the actors. Ways to get the expression that meets their expectations.
Many people like to compare Yang Dechang with the representative figures of American independent films in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Robert Altman, John Kasawitz and Martin Scorsese. Indeed, in the structure of the film and the atmosphere it conveys, Yang Dechang and them have quite a lot of interoperability. But one of the most important characteristics of these filmmakers, that is, the stimulation, reliance and control of actors is completely absent in Yang Dechang's films. It’s hard to imagine without Robert De Niro’s "Taxi Driver", without Ben Gozana’s "Husband" and "Murder of the Underground Boss", or without Elliott Gould’s "Long Farewell" What will it be like. Although the standard bearers of American independent films at the time had a strong sense of conceptual expression, they also left a great deal of freedom for the protagonists, and even used the temperament and personality characteristics of the actor as a play and scene scheduling show. core. Their style characteristics are conveyed through innovative expressive means combining form and content and emotional emotions rather than straightforward preaching.
On this point, Yang Dechang's expression focuses completely different from them. Chen Xiangqi, who played the heroine in "Independent Age", once told how she was overwhelmed by the large middle-aged male perspective lines written by Yang Dechang when she was in her early twenties, and she was completely unable to enter the performance emotions and the final scene was deleted. . It reflects from the side how Yang Dechang fills the actor's performance space with irrepressible ideographic intentions, and suppresses the actor's initiative to a minimum. The sequelae is that although the characters show typical methodological diversification (sometimes exaggerated restlessness, sometimes quiet and self-control), in essence, they are like "walking corpses" lacking a clear self. Everyone is burdened. Yang Dechang's soul danced heavily, and everyone was repeating the inner monologue that belonged only to Yang Dechang. For this reason, the "thorns" that are full of human charm in Hou Xiaoxian's films are hardly seen in Yang Dechang's films.
Although "One One" is the one with the softest tone and warmest atmosphere among all his works, it still makes "movies can extend the life of three times" and "can we only know half of the things" such a highly philosophical enlightenment. The lines are continuously released from the mouths of children and boys and girls whose identities are completely misplaced.
In terms of structure, the different plot details and story lines of "Yi Yi" are exquisitely and completely matched, especially the parallel cross-editing paragraphs where father and daughter face emotional confusion at the same time are cited as classics. But looking back at it as a whole, because it is Yang Dechang's figure that is projected behind the characters, the individual language, behavior, and thinking that belong to them are inevitably dissipated in the consolidated system structure under the unified ideological leadership. Even if it looks perfect, it is still a "rigid" movement that can only move in one direction at a uniform pace.
What needs to be mentioned is that among all Yang Dechang's films, the only thing that distinguishes it from other works in terms of texture is "Guling Street Juvenile Murder". When talking about this work, Yang Dechang will repeatedly emphasize that it is based on the memories of childhood and middle school life. It is the emotional memories that give the film a lingering emotional atmosphere. All the reasoning, sentimental sadness and social criticism are wrapped in this distinctive sad and cold atmosphere. When emotions surpassed reasoning and diffused, the vivid images of Xiao Si, Xiao Ming, Honey, etc. immediately appeared on the screen. This is the only time in Yang Dechang's film career that his perceptual creation transcends rational expression, and he therefore made the best film of his life.
5
Is it true that "knowledge" and "thorn point" are a pair of contradictions that absolutely mutually exclude one another and the other? When we look back at the Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave in the 1950s and 1960s, we carefully appreciate the Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s films, Marcelo Maschuani or Parc in Fellini’s movies. Franco Chiti in Solini’s films will find that critical, emotional, philosophical, and even subversive ideology ("Kimi") is largely dependent on these famous faces and irreplaceable His personality traits and rich emotional and delicate interactions ("sting points") with the environment are conveyed in a moving way. It is their postures, gestures, expressions, expressions and smiles that have become weapons that challenge and even subvert the secular world. This is due to the in-depth observation, understanding, and sincere appreciation of the above-mentioned film masters for people-not only the characters in the play, but also the human nature of the actors themselves.
In Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s, filmmakers often complained that excellent film actors were too few morning stars. This is probably why Yang Dechang prefers to return to his school to continue to find new people to join the performance team. The lack of high-quality actors is indeed an important objective constraining Yang Dechang. But on the other hand, the stylized emptiness of performances and the concealment of the actors’ personal presence in his films are more derived from his almost oppressive instrumental use of actors (this is in "Ten Years Goodbye Yang Dechang", which comes from different parties. This is not just a question of the actor’s own abilities, but also perhaps due to the excessive trust in self and the fundamental lack of appreciation of the world around him caused by Yang Dechang’s lonely self-appreciation mentality.
In the final analysis, "self" is not only the foundation for Yang Dechang's strong personal style, but also the "prison" that limits his vision. Losing to find a balance between self-appreciation and open vision, he eventually overestimated the theme of "Yi Yi" that lingered in his mind: the frustration of expectations, the confusion of dreams, and the compromise with reality. Isn't it the first lesson in life that everyone faces as they mature? Only those who do not want to grow up will wear different masks to chew the pain of loss repeatedly. If their heart suddenly becomes clear, they have already made the choice between giving up and persisting in an instant-either to live in peace among the gangsters, or to pursue their dreams Without giving in, wandering and perplexity are just the external manifestations of excessive inner desires that cannot be given up.
A setback in the growth period that has been surpassed by many ordinary people was repeated in "Yi Yi" as the ultimate puzzle of life in the way of a creator's monologue, and repeated in the nearly three-hour film. It is gentle, touching, and full of care and compassion for the questioner (that is, the creator himself), but it is far from reaching the height of a core problem that touches the soul. The flat monologue that puts all effort into it actually shows the creator's single vision and wishful thinking about the external world. This is the double weakness of Yang Dechang's film creation methodology and inner thought expression that can be glimpsed through "Yi Yi".
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