——Comment on "Dr. Strange Love", "A Clockwork Orange" and "Flying Over the Madhouse"
Foucault has his own book "Madness and Civilization", and combined with Foucault's different sexual orientation from ordinary people, maybe There are really a lot of people who don't know how to think Foucault himself is a lunatic. However, you must know that "Madness and Civilization" is essentially a historical work, and Foucault's philosophical thinking, or the philosophical interpretation of Foucault and his theory by others, are all based on history. However, to understand the history of the relationship between madness and civilization described by Foucault in the Chinese context, it is almost easy to produce deviations, especially when there is only printed text. Because China does not have a lunatic asylum, or a history of a psychiatric hospital, if there is, it is also a psychiatric hospital in the 20th century. Compared with the long history of dealing with "lunatics" in the West, this is a dreadful comparison. Therefore, when a Chinese who does not study the West mentions the word "crazy", the derogatory meaning will first enter his or her mind. If you examine the word "crazy" in China, I am afraid that there is no history related to it. "Ji Yun" calls "crazy" as head wind disease, which means cerebral thrombosis. Using "crazy" to refer to "mental insanity" is probably the meaning after the 20th century. Maybe it is also related to the language of a certain country in East Asia. In recent years, we have learned from the West and added some neutral meanings to the word "crazy", which refers to abnormal behavior. This is slowly approaching Western languages. In addition, the word "epilepsy" is more commonly synonymous with "crazy", and since modern times it has gradually included the meaning of "unruly". In his book on the history of madness, Foucault described the evolution of the Western "civilized society"'s views on "madness" and "madness" since the Renaissance. As I just said, this is not in " Exceptional exception" appeared on Chinese land.
In the 21st century, video texts began to participate in "cultural research" extensively. The so-called "cultural research" must reflect the dream of the learned masters to investigate all phenomena in the humanities field. A presupposition of cultural researchers is that a certain phenomenon is by no means a purely philosophical, historical, literary or sociological phenomenon. It must be the result of the linkage of various factors, and no single explanation of any factor is possible. Nothing perfect can reveal the "truth" of this phenomenon. Therefore, they are committed to making themselves erudite, so the video text becomes one of the indispensable objects of cultural research. The three films to be mentioned in this article, "Dr. Strange Love" (1964), "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum" (1975), except for the first one, must be cultural studies. The text that should not be missed. The author is unwilling and unable to become an erudite cultural researcher. I just hope to write some small thoughts in my essay. The merits of this article are to make everyone in the culture look back. Are you looking at past phenomena? Shouldn't the image text be ignored?
The original English name of "Flying over the Cuckoo's Asylum" was to the effect of "the man who flew over the cuckoo's nest". It is not very clever to translate "the cuckoo's nest" into the cuckoo's asylum. Although it is clearly written in the dictionary, "Cuckoo" in some cases means "lack of reason, stupidity, madness", but I don't think every viewer will go to the dictionary. The one that is most closely related to the theme of Zhuowen is this film, which directly sets the story in a mental hospital. In many cases, we will still take the difficult and easy, thinking that the mental hospital is a society, or a government, and the patient is an individual in the society under the jurisdiction of the government. There is no problem in thinking this way, but the rules of the mental hospital shown in the film are not too exaggerated or falsified-as it should be (a film review on the Internet believes that this film shows the "crimes of the capitalist society mental hospital") . We should not start talking about government and society, government and individual issues before we have figured out the relationship between the mental hospital and the patients themselves, and then contact the Czech director Furman for his escape after the "Prague Spring".
Does the mental hospital think the patient has a mental problem? After understanding the film, we will get a negative answer. First of all, except for McMurphy, almost all other patients came to the hospital voluntarily for treatment. Secondly, in a sense, McMurphy also came voluntarily (pretending to be sick). His personal particularity lies in the fact that he was a criminal before coming, so he could not "go as long as he wanted" after all. Third, the hospital could not determine that McMurphy was sick, so they kept him for observation. In this way, the mental hospital is a refuge for everyone including McMurphy in the film, but because McMurphy himself has a strong personality, although he escaped the heavy labor in prison, he did not get satisfaction in the hospital. McMurphy's personality and identity are set for the development of the plot, which is a contingency factor. To analyze madness, our focus should not be on McMurphy: he never thought he was insane. And those characters like Harding and Billy, they feel that they are not normal, this is the key.
Let's pause for a moment and jump to a piece of "A Clockwork Orange". The author believes that the most revealing line in the center of this film is at the end of the second part of the film. There, the protagonist, Alex, received psychological treatment from the institute, and developed an extreme aversion to violence and sex. The Secretary of the Interior Frederick, who tasted this psychotherapy plan, believes that people who healed will no longer make others suffer, but will make themselves suffer forever-everyone will be saved and everyone will be Jesus. It is a pity that only Alex is currently "saved". If there is only one god in the world, then his result will be defeated by the devil. Of course, the film finally resurrected Alex, the Jesus of the modern world, as described in the biblical story. Then, the dirty modern world that has lost law and order, as the old black people said, was awakened by the death of Jesus. Yet? The ending scene of the film is still sex, sex that is encouraged and supported by people. The interior minister’s proud plan to "eliminate crime" was almost completely refuted on the stage by a speech by a seemingly opposition politician. The opposition party said that Alex now has no choice, especially if he has no moral choice, he cannot choose to do good or evil. Ironically, whether it is the Secretary of the Interior or Alex himself, when Alex walked out of the institute, he kept hinting: From now on, you are free. Obviously, what the film hopes to show is that when moral standards also become the government's unified policy, then people are truly clocked.
Go back to the lunatic asylum. The lunatic asylum is established by the government or society, or "civilized". Historically, the lunatics in the lunatic asylum are "uncivilized" people. Alex is forced to be sent to a prison or research institute to "civilize", while Harding and Billy enter the hospital voluntarily or semi-voluntarily to receive "civilization". If the latter do not enter the hospital, then they will be regarded as "uncivilized" people by "civilized", and the final result is also mandatory. The audience may remember such a scene. McMurphy asked Nurse Ratchid if he could do something special without taking medicine. Nurse Rachid replied that he did not consciously take medicine, and the hospital naturally had a way to force him to take medicine. Throughout the whole plot of "Flying Over the Madhouse", McMurphy has always boycotted the hospital's treatment, but he has never been able to defeat the hospital security and act according to his free will. So, what is the boundary between madness and non-madness that "civilization" considers? As Foucault said, everything is the fault of reason. From the Renaissance to the 19th century, the tragic history of lunatics must not be blamed on a particular society or government, but reason and people who uphold rational ideals should be deeply reflected. It can even be said that without reason, there is no history of madness.
Reason itself is innocent, and reason is not guilty of original sin. But in the history of madness, why does reason eat people like the ethics in Lu Xun's writing? In the two films "A Clockwork Orange" and "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Asylum", we all deeply sympathize with irrational criminals and patients. I randomly asked some viewers of "Flying Over the Madhouse" and asked them: Is Nurse Ratchid a positive character or a negative character? The answers are all negative roles. However, rationality is not wrong, and rationality cannot be superstitious. Shouldn't crime be cracked down? If not, why would almost all viewers feel uncomfortable with the violence and rape or promiscuity scenes in "A Clockwork Orange"? The third part of the film is filled with deep worries and thoughts. Should "civilization" choose rationality for people, or should people consciously choose rationality before committing a crime? Is this self-consciousness possible? Perhaps, those patients who voluntarily enter the lunatic asylum are already conscious to some extent, but they have already caused some harm and chaos to the society before entering the hospital, so the consciousness here is not complete. The Indians finally managed to escape from the hospital and ran towards the unknown, but we still did not see the answer.
Is the answer in "Doctor Strange Love"? The film is very short, a group of "crazy" people lead human civilization to destruction. The anti-war theme of the film is very obvious, however, the cause of the outbreak of nuclear war is absurd. In the film, the President of the United States may think that everyone except himself is in a state of madness. As everyone knows, the combat system for nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union was derived through "democratic" discussions. The President of the United States also participated in these discussions. Therefore, democracy does not mean fundamental rationality. Otherwise, it would not be difficult for a "rational" US president to recover serious consequences. Perhaps General Lipa’s over-sensitivity and sexual issues really make him irrational; perhaps, Dr. Qi Ai’s yearning for the end of the world and human destruction and underground life makes him seem to be the most irrational person; but, the end of the world The arrival of, but not only from the impulse and science and technology of these two people, not only from the irreversible nuclear attack plan caused by the democratic system of the American people, but also from the Soviets who will be automatically triggered. The "doomsday weapon". If the world is condensed into two superpowers during the Cold War, then the destruction of mankind turned out to be caused by mankind. In other words, suicide, which is always defined as the motive of crazy behavior, turned out to be the non-crazy of most people. , The rationality of most people.
From the perspective of the three films, rationality has reached its end: rationality cannot consciously choose for mankind in the first place, and it is irrational to forcibly inculcate rationality; on the other hand, the rationality of most people may even lead to the end of the world instead of Utopia. It has been thirty years since the shooting of the three films. Today we revisit the topic of rationality, but there are fewer people who have the time and energy to think rationally. In this era where even thoughts can be consumed, can human beings stick their heads out of the ocean of wealth, stare at the stars above them in awe and awe?
View more about Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb reviews
