Several details in "City of Philharmonic" are very interesting.
The jazz pianist Commander Gao and the unknown little actor Sister Stone strolled on the huge Hollywood studio. Sister Stone told Commander High that she particularly hated Jazz, and Commander High was shocked: How could it be possible! The two immediately appeared in a jazz club. But the way they listened to the music was frustrating: the four musicians on the stage played hard, but the high commander under the stage made a loud noise and explained this to sister Shitou until the last note of the piece fell on his "speech." It just ended. We have reason to doubt whether they came to listen to jazz, or Commander High used music to pick up girls like all literary and artistic youths.
What Sister Stone has done is not inferior: She was late to the movie, and the film has already started, but in order to find someone to facilitate, she actually raised her leg and stood on the stage in the middle of the screen, letting James in "Rebellion Without a Cause" Dean's huge close-up was projected on her face. If she was in a foreign country where the folk customs were a little rough, the audience would have thrown all the objects in her hands and smashed her teeth all over the floor. But fortunately, the American people are very civilized and friendly. All audiences turned a blind eye to such a large foreign body in front of the screen. Only the commander high saw the lover's beautiful shadow, and the two smiled at each other: finally had the opportunity to touch each other while watching the movie. It's a kiss.
Commander Gao and Sister Stone, one is a professional musician and the other is a professional actor. The other complained that the audience was not listening when they were playing in the bar, and the other was often interrupted by the examiner’s phone chat during the audition. Emotions, they all know how it feels not to be respected by others when they are performing, but when it's their turn to be the listener and audience, they instantly threw the original unhappiness out of the sky, and replaced it with the hatred they were just now. The same face to his colleagues and profession.
This is actually very confusing, because the two people in the film are still repeatedly emphasizing the pursuit of their "dreams." Seeing their attitude towards their music and film careers, I wonder what their dreams are?
In director Damian Chazelle’s famous work "Burst Drummer", he portrays a pair of music master and apprentice: as a teacher, he constantly inflicts unbearable personal insults and mental and physical torture on students, hurting his self-esteem. , Using various methods to plunge him into fierce and cruel competition, forcing him to break through his limits, tempting him with examples of personal success, and instilling him with the logic of the winner being the king; while the students are constantly under such strong oppression Stimulate one's desire for success, practice crazy just to be the first, best, great, "to be talked about by others forever". "Burst Drummer" is covered in the shell of music, but it sells the mainstream American capitalist philosophy of personal success: it portrays life as a never-ending confrontational struggle, either recklessly and frantically struggle to achieve success, or fierce competition Failed and forgotten. Music here is the same as finance, stocks, investment, salary increase, promotion and entrepreneurship. It is a tool to win personal success and satisfy inner vanity. It is a winning weapon to overwhelm opponents and a step to the peak of dreams. In addition, it does not have any other special spiritual, emotional and human values.
Not long after the start of "City of Philharmonic", Commander Gao was fired because he didn't play the repertoire prescribed by the boss in the bar (we all thought he wanted to play free jazz, but he just played another warm and popular song. It’s just a little tune), so he vowed to open a club and play whatever little tune he wanted. Sister Stone encountered the same situation. She failed in auditions, so she decided to set up her own way under the suggestion of Commander Gao, and she wrote, directed and acted in a one-man show. The goal they set is to stop being called around as unknown little people, and what they want is a certain sense of success and dignity that is recognized by others. No wonder they talk and laugh loudly when others are playing jazz, and swagger in front of the screen when watching movies. Music and performance are just springboards for their personal goals. It doesn't matter to them. What they want to get rid of is the shame of being fired in a bar for playing a minor and the embarrassment of being dismissed in a coffee shop because of absent-mindedness. The key is to "step up" to stand on a high position and look down on all living beings, gain the right to do what they want and the status of not being dictated by others. This is their dream. By the way, "Climb hard, step up step by step" is the lyrics that have been repeatedly sung against the backdrop of a series of gorgeous dances. The theme of "Climb up to enter Hollywood" has been finalized as early as the first five minutes.
So these two people with very similar goals in life got together, always supervising each other, don’t forget to go out and throw others (of course, it may also be that each other finds a sense of superiority in each other who is still an unknown rat, this point is high. The commander bluntly pointed out in the film). When Commander High became a pawn of a band like a clown, Sister Stone scolded him angrily: Have you forgotten your original intention? Your dream is to open a bar. At first it sounds like she is a bit logically confused. Is there a fundamental difference between participating in a band business and opening a bar? But her subtext is actually: "I start to look down on you now, because you are very happy to be a pawn for others, didn't you say you want to be your own boss?". When Sister Stone's one-man show failed and returned to her hometown, Commander Gao drove to chase her, and almost knocked her head to remind her: "Have you forgotten your "dream" of becoming a "superior"? Success is not about sitting at home and waiting. !". So Sister Stone continued to participate in the audition and won a chance to star in a film tailored specifically for her.
The word "dignity" has a special meaning in the Hollywood context. In the opening scene of the famous musical "Song in the Rain", the host asked the actor and movie star Kim Kelly what the secret of his success was, and the latter said into the microphone affectionately: "Dignity is always dignity" (Dignity, always dignity). Then there was a series of flashbacks. We saw his experience of becoming an emperor superstar by struggling from an unknown stuntman, and then the lines of "dignity, always dignity" were repeated in a sonorous tone. In an instant, we suddenly understood the "dignity" he insisted on emphasizing: it does not refer to the indelible spiritual existence value shared by the human group, but specifically refers to standing out from the bottom of society to achieve a high-level status, changing from an unknown person to a star-loving moon. The great satisfaction after the focus of the person. It's not just money (Interestingly, although money is one of the goals pursued by everyone in Hollywood, but in public expressions, it is often actively concealed, and secondly, it gives up its main position to the dignity of the shining star "), and it is the sense of superiority gained in a superior position. We clearly see how the Hollywood-style "dignity" described by Kim Kelly works: at the end of "Song in the Rain", in order to achieve the star status of his lover, he devised another actress who has always hated When a person's dignity is ruthlessly deprived on stage, her value drops to zero. Although "Song in the Rain" is the happy ending of Happy Ending for everyone, the cruel Hollywood rules are occasionally revealed here: the "dignity" of any person is only in the cruel and ruthless life and death competition that produces value and meaning.
Coincidentally, in "Burst Drummer", director Damian Chazelle told the story of Charlie Parker through the mouth of a music teacher: the latter was hit by the angry leader drummer Jonathan Jones when he was young because of a performance error. In, he was ridiculed in the background, but he practiced harder the next day. So in the conclusion of Damian Chazelle, the reason why a generation of jazz saxophone master Charlie Parker became a master was just because he didn't want to be the laughing stock of others. Damian Chazelle does not hesitate to make up a fictional celebrity gossip here, just to graft the issue of "dignity" with the theory of success.
So at the end of "City of Philharmonic", Sister Stone walked out of her luxury car in high heels and walked proudly into the coffee shop where she worked five years ago, and ordered two cups of coffee as a villain to demonstrate. . The audience realized that she was no longer an obscure little person. She got married and developed a career. Then everyone saw the high commander who was free because of having a jazz club. The two of them met each other on stage and the other staged a romantic match. Love imagination. But we can’t forget that they broke up because they couldn’t take care of each other in the pursuit of Hollywood-style “dignity”—is it true that one of them will help the other to succeed for the sake of love, and that they are willing to be others. The unnamed junior butchered? The answer is: NO. Therefore, the last gorgeous dance really can only stay at the impulsive "satisfaction" stage. The last two people looked at each other with smiles of mutual understanding and encouragement: Well, each became a "human master". Continue to work harder on the road.
The song and dance are intended to sculpt the "extraordinary" dreamed of by Commander Gao and Sister Shishi. But the charming and bright costumes and the unpredictable setting are decorated by the dance steps that they have been mixing with garlic under their feet and the singing that lingers on the edge of out of tune. The exaggerated, ridiculous and expressive movements in the classic Hollywood musicals are lost because of the stiffness of the two actors' limbs. No matter how gorgeous the camera movement is, they cannot hide their amateur singing and dancing skills. And behind this schematic dream song and dance is actually an American dream-style personal struggle story that can no longer be traditional: two small people at the bottom of the society encourage each other to climb up for the success of their dreams, music, movies, drama, Even love is a handy climbing tool that can be grasped in the process of "upward", and the realization of personal value depends entirely on his position recognized by others in social life: high will help the cloud straight up, and low will lead to pain. This kind of life values is of course understandable, even in my opinion, it is not dreamy and romantic at all. On the contrary, it has the "naked" realism "power" because it outlines the bitterness and bitterness encountered by countless people on the road of pursuing success. . This is probably why so many audiences-from ordinary people to senior film critics-are deeply affected by it.
What I want to sigh is that after nearly a hundred years of going around in American movies, there are John Casavets, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Coppola, David Lynch, Spike Lee and The baptismal innovations of Robert Altman and others in concept and form have turned back to this difficult-to-transfer Hollywood successful screen reader routine.
When I walked out of the theater, I remembered the movie "Patterson" released by the independent film master Jim Jamutong in 2016: A bus driver in a small American town. In his daily life, he writes poems to describe the little things in life to express his heart. Emotions. He is sincere and introverted, asking for nothing in the world, and he doesn't even want to show his poems to anyone. What Jiamuxu conveys is that individual value does not depend on the ordinaryness of his identity and appearance, but simple and sincere emotions will penetrate prejudice and discrimination and shine forever. This is actually another kind of sentiment, the opposite of "City of Philharmonic". The latter is high-profile and aggressive, full of eager desire for personal success in the name of art, and can sacrifice everything and even precious love in order to achieve the goal; while the former is plain and gentle, communicates poetic artistic conception with simple life, art is his expression in silence The only way to love the world around you.
Of course, the two are not the same degree of acceptance by the public. "Patterson" is as unknown as his protagonist, and "City of Philharmonic" is a hot work that has won 14 Oscar nominations. Perhaps the value of "City of Philharmonic" is that you will feel the kind of agitation that it records when you watch it after many years, especially for the United States, the temperament it exudes is so in line with reality, it can even be Think of it as an interesting and accurate pop culture footnote in the Trump era.
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