Dudley Andrew's analysis of the film is also a novel perspective. The criticism is more of a criticism of the film through this film, and of course there is no lack of analysis of the symbols in the film. for reference only.
Academic research makes our obsessions reasonable and allows us to savor the private enjoyment in public. This is undeniable. Movies are the latest example of this psychosocial situation. However, not every film review can be culturally recognized, and not every film can be accepted by the public.
The academic film criticism can be divided into two basic types: sociology and humanities. Film can be explored as a consumer product that satisfies a specific cultural taste. In this case, researchers place themselves in an authoritative position above the work, from a culturally-related perspective-such as history, psychology, Ideological aspect-to interpret the movie.
Alternatively, a film can be considered as part of the norms of a valuable art form. Under careful interpretation, it is the heart of traditional aesthetics. Humanists believe that certain great films are substitutes for a series of religious and aesthetic values. These religious and aesthetic values have brought to life paintings, plays, and stained glass in churches. In this case, the researcher is under the work, full of awe of the uniqueness of the work, searching for answers to questions about human nature, and admiring its expression of inexplicable mysteries.
In this case, the film "Barge Atlanta" must be an unpleasant thing for academics. It has not been all the rage, nor has it won the favor of sociologists. Its theme is unpretentious, unpolished, and seemingly cumbersome. Humanists are ashamed to recognize it as a classic, and it despises those humanists. Fans applauded the unique film value of "Barge Atlanta" and kept it alive. The academic critics are helpless with this film. In addition, Jean Vigo, the extraordinary creator of the film and funder of the Ciné-club, firmly refused to be included in the widely recognized " The cultural tomb of "art genius", all this makes movie fans feel gratified. Speaking of the film "Barge Atlanta", we must adopt a third perspective and review method, relying on the power of its theme, and in a key way to challenge the traditional appreciative language that dominates film reviews.
François Truffaut (François Truffaut) is the most well-known fan of the film. In August 1959, he held an essay contest for readers of the "Cinema Manual" (Cahiers du Cinéma). The article was titled " Jean Vigo’s enthusiasm” (La Fièvre de Jean Vigo), and set up an award for the best paper. In fact, he had promised that Eric Rohmer, the editor of the "Cinema Manual", would write this article himself, but because he was busy directing and producing at the time, he couldn't do it again.
Philippe d'Hugues (Philippe d'Hugues) won the essay competition, and his paper on Vigo was published in the October 1959 journal. This undoubtedly makes Truffaut very happy, because the article is blunt and unceremonious. Although Vigo died young in 1934 when he was 29 years old-at that time "Barge Atlanta" had not yet premiered, even though all the films he made were less than 3 hours in length, despite their total cost The cost of TV advertising is less than one minute. Although they have made too many mistakes in the continuity of the picture, the technical level, and the execution, and the overall need to be polished and perfected, Yu Ge told us that for this person and his works , We need neither shelter nor flattery
Huger wrote: "If'young' refers to errors in directing, lack of maturity, or one-sided view of life, then Vigo's work is not young. The so-called errors of previous critics are for us. In other words, it is part of the price paid for this film." This price has another name, which is the title of this article. The so-called mistakes of previous critics, for us, are part of the price paid for this film. "This price has another name, which is the title of this article. This metaphor is literally a kind of destruction to Vigo, but it also gives him the breath of life in the film-"the poetic fanaticism in life." .
The poetry of "Barge Atlanta" is an unprecedented, fever-like enthusiastic perception: the camera's clear and trembling lens moves quickly, choosing this or capturing that makes the objects and shapes it perceive has a certain compulsion. Sexual association. This is Huge's "poetic enthusiasm in life", which attracts us because it did not clear all obstacles at the beginning, but challenged reality with its own strength. Vigo allows the story to be interrupted by the diversity of objects, situations, and emotions, and at the same time, he connects them with the almost hysterical gaze of the camera. Indeed, this kind of arbitrary diversity is the prerequisite and symptom of his fanaticism: objects crowded the screen, or jumping back and forth on the screen (cats); the defects of traditional framing, or the lack of independent shots for shooting actions, accidentally make the angle , Range and light change; visual distortions create perceptual effects on various levels (fog [3], hallucinations [12]), stained, longing night [13,14]). Moreover, what is most often noticed is the multiple roles of props and actors. Juul, played by Michel Simon, embodies "multiple meanings" through his various costumes (hustling, tender, savage, savage, gentle, majestic, gentle and submissive, and naive. , Old-fashioned Hengqiu), and these are even more achieved through the rapid changes in his outfits. Beside Juliet's sewing machine[4], he immediately became more peaceful and casual than her. As soon as she was pushed, he fell obediently, got up and danced a Cossack, went to a bullfight, and then tried on a skirt. The narrative cannot balance this role and this actor. He conveys a certain meaning that life is completely above history, and at the same time provides prerequisites for Vigo's excessive and fanatical story construction.
The film "Barge Atlanta" is full of such energy and spontaneity and won the unanimous love of the public-except for the first batch of audiences. It is a work that is enduring and full of vitality. The occurrence of unexpected and unplotted actions in the film (such as Juul’s impulsive haircut behavior, his classical wrestling) and the unconstrained conversion of the scope and angle of the scene, all of which are closely tied to a global In the narrative framework, it happens in a time and place that can be located. the most important point is,
The film has a rhetorical model with clear themes and symbolic meanings. These structural systems fundamentally provide a dramatic foundation for the beautiful moments of performance and composition, but they themselves have brewed undeniable energy. When we agree with the logic of the movie's abrupt ending, we are strongly aware of this. The reconciliation between Jean and Juliet on the barge is not only due to the plot, but also due to the rigorous use of parallel editing. In this case, the theme of the bridge has a direct symbolic meaning. The multiple bridges that the barge passed, the bridge that Juliet crossed when he was looking for Juliet, and the bridge-like notes of Jobel, these all intertwined the fragments of the film and reached the climax of moral and dramatic satisfaction [9, 10,15]
These fragments benefit deeply from the many themes they belong to, so we take the ending harmony as a reverberation. Each shot alludes to some emotional values established earlier. Jule crossed a bridge, followed an unidentified woman to a cheap hotel, then accidentally hit a loudspeaker horn on the side of the street and heard the tunes humming by the sailors coming from the "Song Palace", so he found out Juliet. This series of shots makes us feel reasonable, because we have seen Juliet walking alone on a bridge, followed by sneaky men, and she then stayed in a cheap hotel. And Juul had already stolen a Victor speaker before, and had heard that little tune. Similarly, Vigo can abandon the dialogue and meaningful eyes in the final reconciliation with Juliet, and return to the earlier theme: let shaved beard, the image reflected through the bowl of water, he" I can see his love", and then he threw Juliet to the ground using Greco-Roman wrestling. The instantaneous swiftness of this shot is in line with the tone of the movie, and it avoids the clichés in the script-which Vigo hates. In addition, it finally gave an overhead shot of the barge between the two sides of the strait, and the field of view captured a happy couple [16]. At the end of the movie, our applause is not dedicated to the characters in the play, but to Vigo, because he has so skillfully enriched the values shown in the movie, and then combined these values harmoniously.
All in all, Vigo's method is far more calm and temperate than expected, and more foresight. It is undeniable that his grasp of subject matter and material seems boundless in scope and energy, but he has always been faithful to a limited number of materials. He is extremely creative, but this creativity is by no means nonsense. He limited the characters in the play to four or five, and set the location to shoot on a barge or Paris. His props are undoubtedly bizarre, but they can all be easily enumerated and classified. All of these attract us, let us imagine everything in the most metaphorical way. Vigo didn't discuss the world in detail, and didn't put everything that suits his fantasy into this movie. He looked at this world that originally existed, with the purpose of imagining things that didn't exist beforehand.
The audience and critics must quickly categorize the things that the movie cannot get rid of. First of all, the barge itself is both practical and economical; it can be used for both people and merchant ships. Previously, this barge was Juliet's escape tool, and then it became Juliet's prison. The barge is almost endowed with humanity and needs (a superego) to be at the helm. At the same time, there are hidden memories, fantasies and the heavy load of Juul’s wooden house symbolizing sexual desire in its depths. This barge is both feminine and masculine. It travels in the water and at the same time uses its warm cabin to protect the family. Vigo had to photograph this boat at different times of the day and in all kinds of weather, which was very difficult. For example, the unparalleled beauty of the entrance of the Paris locks places the barge (up to then, the entire geographical environment of the whole story) in a larger geographic system, and Juliet hears its charming name-Paris via radio.
On the boat, Vigo insisted on using props with certain life and inanimate properties. The ubiquitous cat-a symbol and stimulus of sexual desire, once scratched Jean and Juliet, once gave birth to cubs on that wedding bed, once sprinted around the broken plate-symbolizing what makes you feel confusion. At the same time, it is also Juul's pet. Soon, we will find that Jean is crawling and chasing Juliet[2], while Julie is jumping on the deck like an animal.
Juul's room itself is a treasure chest filled with symbolic objects. Among them, there are objects with multiple senses, such as the shells Juliet listens to and caressing, the long teeth she beats, the fan designed by someone suddenly covering the screen, and the exquisite music box that Julie whirls [6]. Other objects are shocking and have masculine characteristics, especially the puppet conductor. When the music accelerates, he stands up strangely, enters the camera, and then falls forward exhaustedly [5]. Juliet was sitting behind this toy, which surprised Juliet. The most memorable thing is of course the hand soaked in the bottle [8]. This is a series of comments about the hand and the climax of the shot ("These things are all handmade", "These hands made this "The thing", Julie cut his hand for Juliet, or pretended to strangle her on the blade machine earlier).
Another set of symbolic things that Vigo runs through throughout the film is formed by mechanical instruments. There is no doubt that these make Jobel happy-he is very obsessed with one thing, which I call the "materiality of music", and he is very happy to let us listen to the creaking sound of Juul's old records. , And the sound of air flowing through his cheap accordion. The hawker on the dock let us appreciate him sing the most primitive solo music by himself, while Juliet was amazed by the energy of the broadcast, even though it made more noise than the signal. We even saw customers paying, dancing in front of an old-fashioned jukebox, putting on headphones, and quietly listening to some tunes in the "Song Palace".
The inner opposition between materiality and transcendence in this musical body reminds us that all the operations of the whole are realized through the interaction of opposites and conflicts: the barge is opposed to the river bank, the morning and the night are opposed, and the country is opposed to Paris. Opposite, the boundless sky above the deck is opposed to the mess below. In our world, men are opposed to women, civilization is opposed to primitives, and so on. Two main symbols balance these oppositions: music and the river—music sometimes makes people feel peaceful and sometimes upsurges. It is both material and transcendent; and this line is reflective on the surface, but in the depths. The river that contains everything, under any circumstance, especially in the most critical situation, always flows as always, giving people spiritual comfort.
This kind of symbolic logic, realized by opposing things, is very common in all movies to some extent. The difference in "Barge Atlanta" is that Vigo uses these relationships to expand the inner meaning of the objects, characters, and themes in the film, rather than restricting their inner meaning. Vigo was imprisoned in a story that he did not choose. For the story he threw to him, he used it to make every element of the story express the possible meaning of the story itself.
"Everything has a story behind it," Juul said, Vigo shot this film in this spirit. He tried to fully tap the potential of actors and sets, which created a myth. If the traces of breathing can be seen in the cold air, he will design an energetic plot to spread the breath of the actors throughout the screen. If it happened to be foggy that day, he would ask photographer Boris Kaufman (Boris Kaufman) to use yellow smoke to intensify this effect and use strong light to penetrate it [3]. The shooting of the snow scene in Paris is a legend. Vigo captured the frustrated outlines of people who are unemployed in reality, not to stick to the intent of the characters in the documentary, nor to save time and money, but because it looks perfect, he knows that this kind of picture can express Out of Paris that threatening alternative.
If there are still shortcomings in the independent picture, Vigo will add some unexpected, complete and short shots. When Juliet's wallet was stolen, we could see two pre-appearing shots of the thief. This made all the poor men seem full of threats, and made the thief more humane, highlighting his thin and weak body under the hunger and cold. The nightmare of the thief being chased is revealed through a set of dark shots and the slatted fence we saw. Vigo put an end to this set of shots in a fairly typical way-by letting Juliet watch the thief being arrested, the camera panned to a scruffy, very lecherous old man, who approached her and panted. . The sense of fear and disgust created by the movie was immediately exacerbated by the non-narrative evil image on her skirt. Therefore, the shudder that Juliet experienced was a shudder in the overall concept of evil. This physical aversion was only directed at the evil image, not at the end of this movie full of maliciousness.
Similarly, in Julie's room, Juliet saw Julie and his bleeding hand, and had a strong sensory reaction, and turned to find him a ribbon. But this is Julie's most filling experience, and Vigo won't let Juliet deal with it easily. A cat rushed out from the right side of the screen and scratched her chest. A narrative (knife, wound, desire to heal) is once again greatly enriched by a non-narrative picture and gesture-the cat on the chest. These two sudden attacks undoubtedly made Dita Parlo (Dita Parlo) who played Juliet lose his defense, so it gave Vigo the opportunity to capture the natural reaction of the actor. However, the time itself also means that this infinite world of images will begin to move once it has a small excuse. The cat and the old man are both miniatures, so they are both excessive for the plot and their own decorative existence. Condensation, symbolism, metaphor... The techniques are all derived from the barge and the story world of Paris, with the purpose of expressing a situation immediately in which the plot has developed in logic and leisure and entertainment.
The tension between the story and the imagery was revealed at the beginning of the film "Barge Atlanta"-the "struggle" between the narrative space and the screen space. Generally speaking, the first few scenes of a feature film are very clear and descriptive, carefully sketching the time and place of the story, but at the beginning of "Barge Atlanta", there is no telling where the story happened. It is impossible to see the relationship between the church and the town and the canal. Through the flexible operation of editing, Vigo designed every corner of the lens and brought great changes in scope, angle, and lighting, all at the cost of damaging the fragments he was depicting.
We can attribute the lack of picture proportions to its childlike narrative method, whose effect is to attract our visual attention, because we cannot rely on the smooth development of the story and the world in the story. Vigo makes full use of this characteristic of the audience's attention, and at a certain time will reward him by constructing some visually exquisite and easy-to-understand characters. When Juliet boarded the barge through the sail (we learned that when Vigo found that the pedals on the set were missing, he temporarily prepared these things), Juliet pushed Juliet to the left of the screen. Just as she passed the frame of the lens, Vigo told her to re-enter the lens from the left, walk staggeringly in front of the camera, and onto the deck. This illogical and surprising change of position can easily be interpreted as a visual equivalent, symbolizing her break with the past, the river bank, and the comic community.
Vigo's awkward angle and another more traditional role of editing is to create dramatic tension. The next stage of the film begins with the struggle of mating, full of uncertainty and wildness, not only because of the incredible contrast in the clothing (the wedding dress is crumpled by a pair of greasy work pants [1]), but also Because it violated the "180-degree axis principle" twice strategically. Jean first appeared on Juliet's left side, then appeared on her right side, and then returned to her left side. We forgive these mistakes and assume that Vigo is trying to provide the best perspective on how a virgin loses her virginity in the messy background on the deck. But the sudden change of screen direction symbolizes this moment, and completely expels Juliet from the camera. Then came her unforgettable wedding on the deck of the ship: countercurrent sea water, another barge, a smoking sea boat, the glare of a fast swimming illuminating the dazzling white in the deep twilight Gauze skirt. Here, Vigo’s harmonious visual rhythm is combined with Jaubert’s eager theme, like a salve, which relieves the pain of scratching the face by a cat, and also cushions the 180-degree spatial switching.
So far, we have explained Vigo’s narrative plain and visually rich skills. We embed it into a broader narrative perspective, especially as a rhetorical discourse of a commentary action (parting), or imitating its unconscious side. Fear of losing virginity). Vigo seeks peculiar angles and a more peculiar connection between lens and lens. In any case, his effort has a better effect than the limited metaphors and rhetoric above. I think we must face Vigo’s interest in purely aesthetic images, visual tension and release. Visual release and plot work together, but in most cases it will not expand the plot. The film looks for a way to express the key desires, separation, and troublesome coexistence of the storyline in the footage. This visual pursuit is often vague and even interrupts the logic of the plot, making everyone ambitious to interpret the film confused.
Due to the banality of the narrative and its inadequate expression, because the film has a strong digression on the surface, in short, due to the narrative fanaticism, every image has been forcibly squeezed out of the meaning of "more", this film can only Treating it as a dialogue with the audience is more direct and vivid than the movie we feel used to or pleasing to the eye. In this case, our imagination is stimulated, breaking through the limitations of the story itself, and reaching the real world where this story happened, and thus finally returning the imagination to cognition. Here is the fulfillment of Truffaut's words: "This heavy daydream can lead us to constantly return to reality."
The paradox of "Barge Atlanta" should now be clearly visible: because of the strong and independent attention to the characteristics of the film's recurring form, the film ignored or even frustrated the film's own plot development to some extent. To this extent, "Barge Atlanta" expresses a life level similar to most feature films. To be precise, this is because the feature film uses a closed narrative structure rather than an exploratory structure. . This paradox will surely trouble those critics who want to classify this film as a classic. They find that this film deviates from the standard film processing method and is not suitable for audience attraction. It is a "classic". The profanity of this concept. Critics also cannot classify this film as an "avant-garde" work. Indeed, Vigo has never been a constrained feature film creator. He is rooted in the Parisian and Russian avant-garde of the 1920s supported by a radical social outlook that originated from his father, a well-known anarchist. If you compare the constructivist impulse of "Barge Atlanta" to the aesthetics of surrealist automatic writing, the aesthetics of action painting, and the primitive film aesthetics of Cohl and Jasset The experimental film aesthetics of Clair, Bu'uel, and Bu'uel are very practical, but Vigo’s technique does not deviate from the love story in the movie. Although this story did not come from his own choice, and he adapted it on a desperate night to get rid of its horizontal slack, thus giving it vertical richness. Vigo did not abandon the story, nor did he abandon the spirit in the story.
It is wrong to applaud for the subversion of the theme of this movie, or to think that the film promises far more than what it conveys, so it is also wrong to applaud, as if these errors foreshadow a perfect text, as if Vigo could not shape it. The reason for this perfect text is the lack of wealth, time, and money. This will involve us in the most platonic and Croce-like concepts of works of art. Nor can we look for the spirit that created this movie in the movie works with chaotic elements, nor can we glimpse Vigo's unruly character through the movie. No, this film requires its own value to be cherished, just as the rough, experimental quality of a story is inseparable from its achievements. The straightforwardness of Vigo's narrative style has always insisted on this.
He is not satisfied with embellishing a story that we can fully interpret in our own way, but hopes to play his own story as if playing an instrument, and its voice is immediately conveyed to us. The "error" that we feel from the presentation of the story is the effort that Vigo has made, with the purpose of giving the story a certain note or conveying a sound that it cannot convey by itself. While he played the story, he kept watching the audience. And what about us as spectators? This kind of performance will excite us or embarrass us, but in any case, it directly attracts us. From this perspective, "Barge Atlanta", like all Vigo films, is firstly a film that is perceived, and secondly, a film that is known and understood.
Vigo not only possesses the ability to manipulate the senses, but also has this instinct. Bazin called him "the most deliciously obscene of directors" (the most deliciously obscene of directors). There is no doubt that this is due to his unequivocal interest in the actor’s body, and more subtle, because he is The attention to sound and image texture-this attention is most noticeable when Vigo harmonizes these texts with completely different textures to generate synesthesia for the audience. After arriving in Paris, Juliet climbed onto the deck. When the bell of the barge rang, she melted into the dazzling sunlight. The sun, the sound of bells, her squinted eyes and natural smile all herald the beginning of a new phase in Juliet's life. At the same time, and more importantly, it brings us multiple sensory shocks and makes our fingertips feel a tingling sensation. Vigo tried all the available media, first paying attention to their physical effects, and secondly their meaning. This is why his collaboration with Maurice Jobel has been so successful. Before creating melody, music was a vibration of matter and air. In "Barge Atlanta", we will never forget this.
So far, of all the literature on the types of sensory images in movies, the most memorable one is touch. Vigo uses the most creative way to overcome the distance between our eyes and the screen. What other reasons are there for the design of cats filling up the screen? They attacked Jean and Juliet, let us also feel their claws, and they want to be petted. The messy objects on the bed and linen closet, together with the trembling body of the animal, make the visual images come alive.
Next is the fascination of Vigo’s opponents and tangible symbols: the shell ornaments worn on Juliet’s ears, the nude pictures taken by Juliet, the movement of stroking the canine teeth, the picture of the fan starting to rotate, soaking in the bottle That cut hand, Juul's process of combing his short, stiff hair, his tattooed body, and the power of the accordion keyboard he is playing-all of this affects our tactile nerves. If this is not enough, then, when Juliet’s tongue reacts to Julie’s cut wound in an instinctive reaction that is both attracted and disgusted, she becomes a representative of the audience [7]. Just as her sexual desire was ignited by the scratches of a cat on her wedding night, she is now eager to lick the scars of the old man Juul. Although it’s scary to watch how the meat is cut into pieces with a knife (please recall Vigo’s favorite movie-"An Andalu Dog"
It is a blatant and uncompromising attack on the sensory nerves of the audience), we found ourselves salivating just like Juliet. In this scene, everything you see and hear is the temptation to touch. This is why, no matter how we feel about Uncle Juul, he can only be regarded as a seducer here, showing Juliet his many weird collections, playing music for her, and attracting her to touch and be touched. For us, the entire cabin quickly became a room full of sensory stimulation. An almost continuous shot is taken in a close-up manner, so that we have almost no breathing space, no visual and rational distance. It combines all forms and objects in an atmosphere, it is so close, we can almost smell it.
Vigo was just shooting a film without shyness, stimulating our senses like a pornographic movie. As in the scene of insomnia, the desire of Jean and Juliet is rendered through Jobel’s most intoxicating symphony and the imaginary space created by the matching editing-two intertwined bodies in sex, More and more intense. In addition, each character image has been infected by sexual fanaticism, and finally, the screen is occupied by the puzzling dot pattern [13, 14]. Recently, Boris Kaufman questioned whether he transcended the boundaries of high taste while rendering the most obscene and tangible moments of the film by improvisation. While enjoying the effects, we can also see and appreciate this creative endeavor, just like a jazz pianist suddenly stomping and beating the keys at the climax of his performance, increasing his magic power, and at the same time bringing the audience His attention was drawn to himself, the magician.
Guo's erotic description tendency, direct sensory control, and audience satisfaction are redeemed in his plot. He mainly relies on arranging positions for the audience, rather than relying on the logic of the story. Although our bodies may be involved in fully unfolding sounds and images, we are controlled to watch the construction and presentation of a story in a constrained way. Earlier, we believed that the spiritual characteristics of this film are between the spiritual characteristics of avant-garde and the highly coordinated relationship between the audience's feelings and classic movies. When we reacted to the barge's voyage on the screen, the specific "voice" of the film "Barge Atlanta" asked us to enjoy its story. We need someone to teach us to adopt this ambivalent attitude in front of the screen, and Vigo successfully provided us with teachers: Jean and Juliet.
Although this married couple is still troubled, it is a concrete interpretation of our audience's dual desires for the known and the unknown. Like Jean, we strive to have a satisfactory image and let it make us happy. We hope that these images are chaste and flawless, satisfying our senses, and at the same time not disturbing our lives. We want a stable way of presentation, enclosing the "other" and including everything in it, which is beneficial and harmless, and very beautiful. We want to domesticate this movie, appreciate it, show off it (if we are a reviewer), and enjoy it again as long as we want.
However, at the same time, we and Juliet are looking for an unknown promise, looking for some excitement that can conquer us, fill us, and reform our behavior. When Juliet left home to seek life "at sea", the tremor, eagerness and tension on her face were also models of our relationship with this movie. When we open our hearts to things outside of us and place our destiny carefully in the hands of a helmsman we cannot fully trust, we look out, not paying attention to the helmsman, but observing the lead of this voyage (now our voyage) The world we go to explore.
The first third of the film is dominated by the authority and desire of the concession. As viewers, we are fully prepared to accept his passion for the camera and the passion for possessing Juliet. In the ceremony of love on the first night on the barge deck, there were various hesitations, such as approaching and dodge [1], violent scratches and comforting strolls, and these seemed to aggravate our desires through deliberate and reasonable delays. , Rather than frustrating or avoiding our desires. Jobel’s tune solves all doubts, and in its first note (when Juliet and Jean meet at the bow), its theme declares a trend-our hearing and desires will eventually be satisfied. The next scene is the next morning. When three men play a nocturne for the blushing girl, let them crawl past the camera like cats [2] and whisper lovingly to Juliet. This is how the audience loves Was ignited. Vigo celebrated the narrative and sensory achievements of this story, and he could hardly remove any joy from her face.
Only after they docked in Paris, Vigo encouraged us to ignore Jean's world and pay attention to Juliet's world. When he disembarked and towed the barge to the shore, Juliet felt a burst of vitality because of the special breath that Uncle Jule exudes. Here is the most important development of the film: Juliet, who appeared as a beautiful mysterious figure, replaced Juliet and became the main object we stare at. Although he first appeared on the screen, at that time, he quit the church imperiously but blindly and superstitiously, but his appearance in the movie until the scene of the sewing machine was mainly decorative. As part of the weird new home that Jean brings to the bride, Juul is treated the same as the cat, the houseboat boy, and the barge itself.
In front of Juliet, his performance on the sewing machine captured her imagination as well as the photographer's imagination. Boris Kaufman’s favorite angle is to place the camera 10 feet away from the action. The scene he shoots from this angle is like putting a lively animal in a cage. The scene of Juliet’s reaction reversed her role. From this, we suddenly discovered that we should go beyond the need to treat Juliet as the object of "our" desire, and face the object of "her" desire—Jul.
Soon after, the real positive encounter happened in his room. This room is a psychoanalytic space for memory and fetishism. Here we are standing with the shocked Juliet. The camera is no longer her clear face. It was her surprise. We saw her, and passed her, saw Jule and his history. There, we were deeply plunged into the "alternative" ocean, until we let us break into the room, break into the picture, and re-host the legal, rational, and basic order.
He drove Juli out of the cabin, his actions were destructive, and clearly opposed our two desires (we and let the desire for Juliet, the beautiful image, and the narrative logic and dominance VS. We and Juliet go Pursuing and succumbing to the unknown, succumbing to Juul’s other desires). Jule did not use any external actions of his own to break the traditional dominance of men over wives and the dominance of stories over images. As the third force to intervene between the couple, Juliet gave Juliet the opportunity to plan her life and seek her own image. Correspondingly, Jean lost control of the story and even gave up the rudder. After that, he lived in imagination, imagined himself weak in the water, imagined his first officer at the helm.
Jean, Juliet and Juliet (integrated society, integrated psychology) were dispersed in Paris, and only at the end of the film can they magically reconcile and coordinate. Because Juliet accepted the temptation she felt in Julie’s room, escaped from the grid that was built around her, was dragged by a peddler to dance, tried her own story, imagined herself in another place and being there. Other scenes.
In Paris, Juliet found her image. It is compressed in a lens in a shop window and reflected next to some brightly lit small ornaments [11]. In terms of themes and processing methods, this is the most formal picture in this movie—a purely narcissistic image: seeing yourself in the mirror makes Juliet excited, and Vigo is inspired by the independent beauty of lighting and geometric objects. Radiant. This is the highest point in the film's pursuit of exotic images. In the beginning of the film, this has become the goal that the film is constantly pursuing, if it is not important.
As Vigo’s inclination towards form and Juliet’s desire to pursue exoticism are fulfilled, the film is almost stagnated because of self-focused adventures. But when she realized that she was the prey of other bystanders, the happiness she felt and the bright world in front of her were immediately tarnished and desecrated. Her lovely image reflected in the glass windows soon attracted men in raincoats to come to her. And we ourselves have become more distant viewers, lurking unconsciously.
"Barge Atlanta" is a virgin's dream before marriage, nightmare and full of eroticism. Jean secretly took Juliet away from her house and made her escape from the laws in the house, but he imposed another set of laws on Juliet. Juliet rebelled against the script and restraints set for her, which led her to go to Juul, the hawker, and finally to Paris. But Paris is not a refuge from tyranny, because after she escaped Jean’s shackles, she discovered countless other potential threats-these things involved and hurt her: among them were the low-ranking thieves who sneaked up to her. And the lascivious, they are obviously thinking about what, and the tragic future that can't be seen-those unemployed in long lines, cheap hotels, and all kinds of exploitation she is about to suffer.
When Juliet's backgroundless image was helpless in Paris, Jean on the barge was also extremely helpless-this is a floating story that has lost its value. Let the desperate jump into the canal, in pure illusion, he reunited with the image of Juliet [12]. The visual satisfaction of this picture (like Juliet's shot in front of the window) is complete, but as the movie continues, we as the audience feel the emptiness, or the double-layered nature of this expression technique. Indeed, the fullness of this expression (their shyness and purity) even more shows that they are only reappearance, and it shows the absence of their main body.
Here, we have touched the center of Vigo's concern—the importance of the flesh when reproduction becomes necessary. The most indulgent scenes of the film clearly demonstrate the above point of view. Couples who are troubled by longing and sad for love prepare to sleep, each sleeping in a small bed. At the same time, they imagined each other's body. In the surging single music theme, under the dotted grid of Kaufman, the lonely masturbation of the separated lovers is socialized and aestheticized. Until this scene became the happiest and undetected expression of sex in film history, it was redeemed [13,14]. Through a completely cinematic production process of lighting, editing, and music, the absence becomes the presence.
The paradox of the film "Barge Atlanta" is that "presence" can only be enriched in the process that begins with "reappearance." Let him think that after dragging Juliet onto his barge, he can own her, and in order to show her existence, he put his head in the bucket and said: "I can't see you." "When you really need it." , You will see me", Juliet replied. The plot of the movie is just to control Jean until he jumps into the canal in despair and meets Juliet's shadow in the water. When she does come back at the end of the movie, the complete reality is beyond the "image" of the wife imagined at the beginning of the movie.
This film takes optimism to the extreme. Let the new concept of wife be a new concept of society, a concept produced under the guidance of Juul's spirit. It is Juliet who will save him from the clutches of an evil boss and also save Juliet from another evil boss [15]. He asked them to form a small group-the foundation is the harmony of the group, the mystery and spontaneity of each member, and the loyalty to the collective life.
Juul, who represents the self, became the ancestor of this group. Before returning to his position as first officer, he designed and planned the success of this group. Our last mentor is Julie—not Jean or Juliet, Juliet teaches us how to watch this movie and how to live. Among all the characters, Juul knows best the role of reproduction in everything that history brings us. Surrounded by souvenirs of his past, he lived a very superstitious life (playing with rows, markings of the cross, fear of breaking the mirror), and even turned his body into a tattoo barrier with a "warm" function. The sound of the sea in his shell, the little tunes of musical toys, the accordion he played, and the Victor record player that is always repairing, all these make the air around him always vibrate, full of the possible rhythm of life itself. Through the symbol itself, the character closest to the symbol is truly close to life.
What about us? Jule teaches us to transcend our original one-way dreams—on the one hand, temperance dreams, on the other, chaotic dreams. He would have let us watch this movie the way he listened to his Victor player, treating it as a bulky physical device capable of playing the melody magically. An old view is that the technique of poetry can reconcile our experience with our lives. Vigo not only gave us this insight, but also gave us a dramatic realization of this insight. "Barge Atlanta" is a powerful representation, and its directness requires us to transcend representation. Through the pure materiality of expression, this film attracts us to participate in the images, sounds, and actions of people and things around us. It is not exactly a movie that foresees become reality, a song that is as detached as the pulsation of the sound in the rhythm, and it is not all a kind of ultimate harmony like the reproduction that the public might actually feel.
If this film attracts us instead of preaching to us, it is because for Vigo and Juul, neither art nor morality can surpass everything. These are not so much achievements as they are instincts. Civilization has lost these instincts, but the instincts are all the same. Like a cat, Juul is the most ingenious and moral character in this movie, and his indulge in sensory enjoyment is a guarantee of his authenticity. The same rhythm of life, the same enthusiasm that drives the cats to stray, also drives Juul, Vigo, and every audience who is not yet immune.
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