I don’t watch much of Ang Lee’s movies, but "Brokeback Mountain" impressed me deeply. Of course, Heath Ledger is one of the reasons. The wild grasslands of the western United States and the life of cowboys are also the reasons that attract me to watch this movie. , But after reading it, what impressed me the most was Li Ang's handling of details. Jack kept the shirts of the two of them. Ennis hugged Jack's shirt with his shirt. After learning that his daughter was getting married, he read Jack I swear silently. The movie is still a plain narrative here, but it is already a climax of tears in the hearts of the audience. I think this is Li Ang's ability to control the story.
The movie "The Wedding Banquet" is the second part of the Lee Ang Family Trilogy. There are two themes of the whole movie, one is homosexuality, and the other is the difference between Chinese and American cultures, but in essence, or the main thing is still speaking. The cultural differences of beauty are only the eggs laid by the chicken of homosexuality. This is my most direct and simple understanding of this movie. The cultural differences reflected in "The Wedding Banquet" can actually be regarded as the director's own personal feelings. Ang Lee has the dual background of Taiwan and the United States, and his environment determines that he can more sensitively feel the huge difference of this kind. In some respects, Taiwan is more serious than the traditional plot of the mainland. The mainland has undergone too much change since 49 years, and many traditional things on the road of socialist construction have been discarded. Because Taiwan is relatively stable, many traditional things have been inherited. When Ang Lee came to the United States from Taiwan, he faced a completely different nation from the bottom of his heart.
At the beginning of the film, a special background for the male protagonist is set. An Asian man exercises in the gym with earphones (a typical American lifestyle). In the earphones are tapes sent by his mother in Taiwan, explaining in turn some of the director’s settings for the storyline-the father is a veteran or a teacher; the male protagonist is not young, and his parents urged the blind date (typically Chinese life) is still a very trendy way-mate selection club. Next, Simon came out and introduced the homosexual relationship between Gao Weitong (the male protagonist) and Simon through a dialogue. At this point, the director's contradictory settings for the story have appeared, and the entire narration is clear and smooth without any redundancy.
It is worth noting that the scene in the gym at the beginning of the article also reappears in the following clips. It is also the protagonist who listens to the tape sent to him by his mother while exercising. In the following clip, the director said through Simon that Wei Tong would go to the gym when he was in a bad mood, which indirectly showed Wei Tong's disgust and distress for his parents' blind date. The attitude of the actor on the blind date is very clear to the audience. He will not actually go on the blind date, but he cannot tell his parents the fact. Although his way of thinking and lifestyle has been completely Americanized, he also knows that traditional Chinese culture is difficult to accept such things as homosexuality, not to mention that he is the only child in the family and needs him to pass on from generation to generation. It is conceivable that Wei Tong's heart is very painful (in the following clips, it is said that this is the secret that he will do for 20 years), but there is no scene in the movie that is very miserable to show the pain of the hero. I think this was specially arranged by Ang Li. The clip that Zai Weitong confessed to his mother can completely allow the actor to play once and vent all the years of depression. But in this way, Ang Lee's mastery of the story is lost. Ang Lee uses this indirect way to express the mood of the male protagonist, expressing the implicitness of the Oriental from the perspective of the movie narrative (referring to Ang Lee in this case).
The reason why "Wedding Banquet" is called "happiness" in my opinion is that the whole atmosphere is joyful, the narrative rhythm is relatively fast, the film soundtrack does not have a sad passage, and the characters' sad emotions are vented to the end. The plot unfolds as a scam. The characters participate in the scam for their own purposes. When I watched this movie for the first time, I always worried about the people in the scam once the scam was revealed. What will happen to fate. Based on my experience in watching movies, I often feel depressed when encountering such family-themed movies with parent-child conflicts. I think the reason why the director made the overall atmosphere a "happy" feeling is to avoid this depression.
The beginning of this scam was based on the common "interests" of Weiwei and Weitong. In order for Weiwei to obtain the green card, Weitong did not want to go on blind date, but also to reassure his parents. In fact, the scam ended in a happy ending. Wei Tong was still with Simon, Wei Wei got the green card, and Gao's father and Gao's mother could hold his grandson. But at the end, there is still some sadness left. A veteran surrenders to American culture. The price Weiwei paid to gain a foothold in the United States is a cruel reality. However, for Wei Tong, the United States is a sanctuary, in such an environment he can be a homosexual without having to hide. What the director wants to tell us is that the cultural difference between China and the United States is an objective existence. It is not painless, but it is not intended to sting some people.
"The Wedding Banquet" is a very chewy movie, and many places are worthy of careful taste. What the teacher said in the class about editing and the use of montage is still in the cloud, but I would like to use "The Wedding Banquet" to analyze the scenes and scenes.
In "The Wedding Banquet", there are almost no distant shots, and the narrative environment of the story is basically limited to a small area like Manhattan. The director’s goal is to make the audience feel at ease and regard this movie as a small-produced family drama. However, in terms of the content, it explores the major theme of cultural differences between China and the United States. This way of expression is actually It uses the lives of a few people to map these large groups of people caught in the cultural generation gap. The concentrated performance was at the wedding banquet. The low-key and depressed Orientals usually vented so fanatical, which surprised the Americans at the dinner.
Wei Tong took his parents to Simon’s house and was going to go to the scene before the marriage notarization. The whole scene mainly used three camera positions. One was to shoot his father and mother from Simon’s perspective, and the other was to shoot from Simon’s perspective. Weiwei also has a shoulder shot of Guo Weiwei, Weitong and his father. I think this is a very tense section. Starting from a peaceful breakfast, Weitong's announcement of marriage is very abrupt to his parents, or even unacceptable, but Weitong and Weiwei are well prepared. Simon is playing soy sauce, so the positions of the two cameras are arranged for Simon's perspective. I see this passage as a cultural collision on the dining table, and also the first head-on conflict between Weitong and his parents. In fact, marriage is a form, but Chinese and American cultures have different understandings of this "form". Weitong said, "I didn't get married to explain to others," while his mother said, "I didn't want to explain to others. Why did you get married?" Obviously it is a different way of thinking. Many people have done a lot of research on the different ways of thinking between the East and the West. Generally speaking, Westerners look at problems according to the attributes of things, while Easterners look at problems according to the connections of things. In the mother's mind, getting married is not one's own business, it is a part of interpersonal communication. In Weitong's view, getting married is one's own business. It is remarkable that it is related to his parents and has nothing to do with other people.
What's interesting is that in the entire dialogue (5 people), only the mother and Wei Tong kept talking, Weiwei had a single close-up shot but never spoke, and his father appeared in both shots but didn't say a word. But the audience can clearly feel that it is the two of them who are upset the most. Mother and Weitong are two extremes, the two extremes of the East and the West, but Weiwei and his father are not. Weiwei came to the United States from the mainland. She stayed in the United States to seek her ideals. She is not completely American (without a green card). When Gao's mother gave her those old clothes, she could feel these things. Weight, she has a sense of tradition in her heart. Dad Gao is not completely traditional Chinese either (he understands English). He can accept it calmly after learning that Wei Tong is homosexual (I am surprised at this point). He is someone who has to accept this cultural difference.
Another very interesting scene is the conversation between Simon and Dad Gao at the beach. In this shot, the director has kept a mid-range scene unchanged. What's interesting is that the character has always been facing the camera, and the father's rickety back and gray hair are undoubtedly displayed. Such a scene is like a father and son talking in depth. Ang Lee explained to the audience here that the scam was finally revealed to the world, but the truth was revealed very calmly, and nothing like Wei Tong's worries happened. Dad Gao has been pretending to be hiding in the dark to hold his grandson (seeing here, I think he is a bit old and cunning), Simon said "I don`t understand" and he replied "I don`t understand!". Hearing what he said and seeing such a haggard back, the audience could easily understand the meaning of this sentence. An old man who came out of the war years came to a completely unfamiliar country like the United States and faced a problem that he had never thought about-homosexuality. The cultural differences (people from the two countries) and the changes of the times (the old man's back) are all shown in this shot. It is not difficult to understand the phrase Gao Dad's I don`t understand. At the end of this dialogue, the director replaced the middle scene with the distant scene. The sea water occupies most of the space on the screen, as if to imply that Simon and Dad Gao are more open-minded.
Finally, I want to talk about the soundtrack of "The Wedding Banquet". When oriental music appears in the movie, the sound of the pipa is often present, and the rhythm of the pipa is fast, and the atmosphere of the music is not too dignified. Many scenes are interspersed with Eastern and Western music. When Simon introduced Weiwei’s living habits to Weiwei (before getting married), the soundtrack was European and American music. Then when the scene turned to Weiwei’s break, it became Oriental music, followed by Simon and Weiwei. The scene is European and American music again. Such rapid conversion implies the living conditions of a person with Eastern connotation like Weiwei in the United States. When interacting with people, you must follow the American rhythm, and when you are alone, you will switch to an Oriental state.
In the last few scenes of the movie, Eastern music has been used as a soundtrack. It seems that the Easterners know better lyric when parting. At the time of parting, the five people looked at their wedding photos again, and turned to the last page of photos of Weitong and Simon. This piece of traditional music has always been accompanied by the parting process. According to the understanding that the film's soundtrack is an abstract and pure expression of the theme of the film, this piece of music is the voice of Wei Tong's parents at this time. Some are desolate, some helpless, unable to be satisfied, but there is nothing else to ask for.
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