Billy Wilder's "Upside Down Ace" is not inferior today, and it perfectly satirizes the inherent ills of journalism - this is a purpose of information dissemination, but attracts attention by unscrupulous means An industry that exists as a means.
The film tells about an accident that happened to reporter Chuck Tatum. Leo, the owner of the small town, was trapped in a cave and could not escape. Small incidents packaged into national headlines and turned into a carnival where people all over the country are keen to talk about and "swipe" their sympathy. The whole farce ended in tragedy. Because Tatum deliberately delayed the rescue in order to prolong the life of the news, Leo died of pneumonia when he was only 12 hours away from being rescued, and the crowd dispersed in an instant.
On the one hand, Tatum's process of making news made things bigger and attracted the attention and attention of government departments, which gave Leo the hope of faster rescue, but on the other hand, he eventually murdered Leo.
"Nightcrawler," which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay last year, explored the same topic: To what extent is news allowed to be made?
Especially in China, the freedom of the press is restricted by various official-controlled content, not to mention that even the Southern Department, which advocates freedom of the press, has been criticized in terms of journalistic ethics. Whether journalists are intentional or unintentional, under the pressure of competition, it is too easy to lose an objective and fair position, and to report from the perspective of attracting the public's attention - countless headline parties, vulgar "small" news, manufacturing Populism is black for black's sake.
However, the essence of the problem is not that the media is actually human nature. The crowd in the film, the businessmen who sing and sell and even build a playground, and the crowd who watch the "accident" live and watch the "accident" actually don't help the matter directly, it's just that the masses are entertaining themselves. Just moved. And the reason why news is made is that the masses love to watch it. So in this way, it is not only the reporters who killed Leo, the force behind the manipulation of the reporters to murder Leo is the masses.
Do not like to think, conform to the crowd, which is the characteristic of the crowd as a whole. Just like everyone who is not a military fan usually joins in the fun to watch the military parade today, non-fans also have to take part in the World Cup to watch the football, because if they don't do this, they will feel the loneliness of being rejected by the crowd. This feature also leads to the crowd being easily induced, they will believe what their short-sighted can see, instead of the truth, because the truth is often so complicated that it takes brain cells to study and think. And most of the job of journalists is to dig and even make them for their superficial brains.
In addition, let me talk about a few things I found after watching five or six Billy Wilder films:
The protagonists are basically not simply "good guys" or "bad guys", but the bad protagonists will eventually have a process of awakening. For example, the protagonist of this film Tatum learned that Leo had pneumonia and could only live for 12 hours, and he threw it away at once. Selfishness and greed, turn to guilt and seek redemption. The same is true for the protagonist in "Double Indemnity". The end of the film is to kill the heroine to seek redemption and die. The little white face of "Sunset Boulevard" finally made up her mind to leave the rich woman, but finally died in the rich woman's swimming pool. This can sometimes seem abrupt. For example, a selfish person like the protagonist of this film finally realizes that he has changed too quickly after murdering people. He has no idea of hiding his crime and seeking a way to survive, and is instantly sanctified.
The women in Billy Wilder's films are all eager to escape from their husbands/fiancés. When they see the hero, they can't help themselves, and they want to cuckold the guy at home. It is estimated that Billy suffered such a blow when he was young that he hated women so deeply.
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