The five-point argument of Robert Stam’s film theory emphasizes the close connection between film theory and historical, social, political, and cultural context, and also emphasizes the intertextuality and pan-text characteristics of film theory (there is a In addition, I think this is a potential for movies, not a dogma that should be the case). In my opinion, "Vengeance is in me" is a film that needs such a multi-angle analysis. When I watched it for the first time, I was thinking that perhaps Edgar Moran's "complex thinking paradigm" is the most appropriate Frame is a unit. This short essay attempts to explore the hidden connection between the narrative structure and the subject matter of social issues in the field of social issues from the "social constructionism" of sociology to the narrative structure of "Vengeance in Me".
"Vengeance is with me" is adapted from the realistic work of Ryuzo Sagi-Akira Nishiguchi's five consecutive murders in 1963. In accordance with creative practice, Imamura visited the murder scene, the birthplace of the prisoner and the police. As he deepened his investigation, he became more and more confused. "Although the prisoner has criminal motives related to money and women, I don't feel that the situation is serious enough to force him to the point where he must be murdered." How to "unclear" "" thing, made into a "clear" movie? This may be a question he had started thinking about 19 years before the filming of "Vengeance in Me".
In the autobiography "The Grass Is Growing", Imamura confessed that during the filming of "The Pig and the Warship" (1960), a film fan who claimed to be a salesman came to visit him. From a story he told casually, Imamura opposed the filming of "I don’t know what to do." Movies that end with "Yes" are of great interest. Of course, a documentary can end with this, but it is actually very difficult for a movie to end with this (it’s hard to think of Feng Junhao’s "Memories of Murder" here). "I think such a pretentiously obliterating the difference between fiction and realism to the audience may be able to create a dramatic climax for the film and draw something conclusive from it." Although this passage reminds people of many Buñuel films. , But what needs to be pointed out is that Imamura’s creations, especially "Vengeance Is in Me", ultimately carry "fiction" in form (that is, narrative structure), and "realism" lies in an amazing portrayal of social fabric. But in fact, the realism of the film is more important, because the time-space separation effect of the form itself additionally reflects the transcendental thinking of social construction. Shohei Imamura is not shooting "unknown or unclear" things, because fiction can only be fiction, he has found a better way-analysis creates an unclear environment.
Also in the 1970s, there were social constructivists in sociology who analyzed the environment of social problems. In the mid-1960s, the "social constructionism" viewpoint began to spread widely. Constructivist scholars in the 1970s pointed out that "social problems" actually arise in the process of social interaction, and they do not have natural facts themselves, but because people claim the process of their occurrence, the "problems" are constructed and generated. Compared with the traditional "cognition is based on experience and objectiveness", "social constructionism" emphasizes "the variability, relativity, and uncertainty in the composition of knowledge." In terms of the way of studying a social issue, it has also changed from the original definitional "reappearance" to the cognitive "reveal". Although it is not known whether Imamura was affected by "social constructivism", it is obvious that Imamura did not use the psychological analysis perspective of most criminal films on Enozu, because he is a part of "unknown or unclear" (even if it is selfish I also want to emphasize that this has nothing to do with existentialism. Imamura has stated in many interviews that if he does not understand the two sides of a person, he will not write about this character. This is out of a rigorous creative attitude). Enotsu's motives for killing have never really been presented. "Vengeance in Me" is the same as emphasized by "Social Constructivism". It exposes a dynamic cognition to the audience in a construction of superimposing facts. In "Vengeance in Me", this form of superimposed use is an interlaced narrative of time and space.
Generally speaking, the interlaced structure of time and space can better depict the complex inner world of the characters through multi-level and multi-variable cross-temporal content interweaving on the basis of establishing the inner connection of the film clues. Obviously, in "Vengeance in Me", as many as 18 time and space interleaved switching, it is not used to express Eno Tsuyoshi's psychological motives for murder. In "Vengeance in Me", the narrative form is not only used for a kind of constructive transcendental thinking, but also plays four completely different roles with the dynamic changes of the four major parts.
I tried to sort out the four timelines of "Vengeance is Me":
① After Enojin Yan was arrested
② When Enotsu committed a crime
③, Enotsu Yan escapes & police visit and investigation
④, Enojin's growth line since childhood
(Among them, ④ is the new space-time line in the middle of the film)
The sequence of time and space presented in the whole film is: ①-③-①-②-③-②-①-②-③- ④ -③-④-②-③-②-③-②-①
[Part A, 28min, create suspense]
After the arrest of Enotsu Yan, a series of abnormal behaviors, the description of Enotsu Yan by the police visiting relevant personnel, and Etsu Yan's documentary and cruel crime scene switched between three timelines, creating a sense of suspense and horror. It is worth mentioning that in the third ① segment of paragraph A (i.e. 19 minutes and 33 seconds), returning to the interrogation room from ②, Enotsu Yan’s resistance to "Why do you assert me" and "Don't treat human life as a trifling matter" "Two lines that are very reflexive in nature. To some extent, this is almost why Imamura is emphasizing why he does not describe the motives of Enozu Yan's crime.
[Part B, 30 minutes, the secret personal experience of the new space-time line]
This part of the newly appeared ④ time-space line was led by the last ③ of part A, and the police finally found the case and went to Enotsu Yan’s home. And ④ secretly unveiled the growth line of Enotsuyan that no one knew about the A segment. In this part, the audience seems to feel that because some of the personal experiences presented are not far from seeing the real Enotsu, but in essence, these seemingly internally related experiences are not enough to explain everything (Imamura did not try to clarify everything. He is just presenting the idea of the clue).
[Part C, 69min, cross-editing emphasizes the approach of arrest]
With the progress of the police handling the case, the narrative is more clear and concise, showing the time and space lines of ② and ③ repeatedly, and the original "interlaced structure of time and space" has also changed, because the time points of ② and ③ gradually overlap, and part C becomes the same time. , Cross editing in different spaces. Therefore, even though this part has a duration of 69 minutes, the tension created by the proximity of the arrest did not make it seem tedious at all.
[Part D, 10 minutes, all time-space lines overlap; time-space condensation-the real life of Enotsuyan not mentioned]
From the ② prostitute at the end of part C to the police, ① Enotsu Yan, who came to part D, pressed her fingerprints in the interrogation room. In part D, the space-time line ① overlaps with the space-time line ③ because of the meeting between Enotsu Yan and his father. All time and space lines are over, only the final frame of Enojin Yan's ashes, emphasizing that he still has time and space where he can't end his self. In that time and space line, the real Enojin Yan's self is hidden.
After completing "The Desire of the Gods" in 1968, Imamura began his eight-year documentary shooting career (according to the autobiographical description, after 1976, due to debt problems, even the documentary could not be filmed). He expressed multiple reasons for this, including funding and actor issues. As far as Imamura’s rigorous creative style is concerned, the fact that he turned to documentary shooting may be that he found that he could not integrate the sociological and anthropological knowledge acquired in the earlier period and field research into the film. In other words, he realized that he needed Time balances the fiction and realism of the image. The keynote of "Vengeance is Me" stems from the creation of documentary films in the past ten years. It is because of his rigorous attitude towards the real investigation of the characters, that he refuses to make up the unknowable psychological part, and this has Enotsu's rigorous and unknowable motivation for committing the crime. And this point coincides with the "psychological phenomenon that does not occur inside people, but is the product of interpersonal interaction and social construction" proposed by "social constructionism". What the audience sees in the interlaced structure of time and space is exactly the "things directly formed by appearance" constructed by each time and space, which is a society under construction. The audience saw the appearance of Enotsuyan in time and space, and saw the direction of the case, but never saw and approached the real Enotsuyan. In the repeated cycles of constructed multiple uncertainties and documentary techniques, the audience was so close. The truth, but there is and can only experience the chilling irrationality. This is probably the answer that Imamura Shohei was looking for to balance fiction and realism.
[The above is a draft, I have not finished it]
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