In "Becoming Julia", Annette Bening used her ashes-level performance to create a complete and three-dimensional character image. What is valuable is that her delicacy reveals some overtones.
Life isn't always subtle and deep, and so is acting. "Acting" is Julia's specialty, but acting in life should not be the only one she can do. The process of interpersonal communication is actually the process of blending role relationships. Anyone in this world who has been versed in the world has more or less "played" a certain role in different relationships. This is a kind of behavioral acquisition that is given to human beings by society, and it is realized under the drive of subjective psychology. For example, when you attend a funeral (at least my classmates and I have had this experience), it stands to reason that the surrounding atmosphere should be solemn and sad. Generally, you should integrate into this atmosphere on such occasions, and communicate with the surrounding environment. The people wept together in grief to show respect for the funeral and the deceased. But often (this happens more often when the deceased is not a loved one) people are prone to a kind of contradiction in their mood at this time: when you try to make yourself feel sad, there seems to be a kind of inconsistency in your heart. Namely forces drive you to react in the opposite way, simply put, you feel like you want to laugh. Of course, this does not mean that you did it on purpose, but that your incompatibility with the environment at the time led to your strange and out of place emotions. But you can't laugh, let alone laugh loudly, not even with a hint of laughter. So you have to control your feeling of wanting to laugh and try to mobilize the sadness. This process of self-inhibition and restraint can be called "acting". In fact, in the process of "acting", you will wonder whether others are also "acting".
This example may be unusual, but it proves nothing more than that most of the "acting" phenomena in life have a purpose. This kind of purpose may be immediate, or it may have been brewing for a long time, but at least it is expressed through the externalized form of "acting". Julia's "acting" in the movie is not as good as it is.
For example, she used almost the same lines and expressions twice (the second time was more exaggerated) to try to keep Sir Charles and his lover Tom, each time with tears, pitiful, and easy. She can do this for two reasons: one is because she has rich experience in stage plays, and she is familiar with the expression and tone; the other is because she really wants to keep these two people in her heart, and she loves them. She just used a self-professed and effective way to express her feelings at the moment, to achieve immediate or expected purposes. This has nothing to do with the distinction between people and dramas. It is more appropriate to say that she is used to applying this self-consciously superior way to life, and tries to control life. This is a very purposeful mentality behavior. The biggest difference between acting on the stage and acting in life may be that in the former you can show no emotion at all (and you can also attract the audience); but the latter often has strong emotional overtones, even if it's just "acting". Because it itself is a subjective voluntary behavior. There are often scenes of Julia's late mentor in the movie. These are her own psychological activities, which also externalize her inner struggle in disguise, so we can learn from this aspect that Julia is "acting" in life. the source of thought.
"Acting" in life sometimes exaggerates small emotions and deliberately creates effects; sometimes it reduces big emotions and deeply buries them. Of course, sincere emotional expressions cannot be denied. Julia's emotional process towards Tom is condensed into two major categories of "acting" and "not acting", and there are many complex elements in it. At first, she received him in a condescending manner, and she was kind in the cold, which might be the way she always treated outsiders. Then Tom showed his admiration for her, was fascinated by her, and made good friends several times. This is a middle-aged woman who has parted ways with her husband in love, especially a famous actress like her who is a little vain and self-centered. A huge mind blow. But she tried to restrain herself, she "acted", that is, she narrowed down the so-called big emotions, which can be seen from her performance at Tom's house for the first time. She was alert, but a little bit at a loss. This is in line with her conflicted feelings of trying to maintain a high profile but with a spring tide in her heart. The development since then, like the trajectory of many women, she broke the vigilance herself (in fact, the so-called vigilance is not more moral for Julia, but attitude. Because she kept the jazz to him She and her husband are living separate lives, obviously), bowing down, dancing with Tom, and going to bed. There is a scene worth pondering: after a bedtime, she gave Tom two valuable gifts, and asked him for a worthless watch to wear on her hand, and said: "Wear It makes me happy to be on it.” At this time, Julia, acting like a little woman in love, seemed to be 20 years younger. Even she herself said in the scene, "God, I'm a fool, a total fool!" In my opinion, Annette (which is a message from the actor's analysis of the character) is in this scene , the "acting" and "not acting" are very ambiguous. Because it turns out that this behavior of most women in this situation is absolutely normal, absolutely instinctive. They feel that they are in love (at least when the man is showing love for them), and they rejoice inwardly, so they convey this love with gifts, pleasing the man, and then in exchange for the man's belongings, as if in form. Having done eachother, there is no doubt that Julia loved Tom at the time; but on the other hand, the film uses Julia's tiny monologue in an earlier scene to say, "You can go on Playing a 25-year-old girl, 30 is still early... Damn playwright, can't write about women. They're all men, that's the problem." This actually shows that Julia is extremely feminist, and she plays After so long, the drama written by others, in fact, the most eager to perform is the drama written by herself, so life just provides a platform for her. Therefore, whether Julia is "pretending to be tender" or "naturally revealing" in this scene is unclear and unclear. Then, in the next few scenes, Julia seems to feel the threat and crisis of her relationship with Tom. She watched Tom flirt with others, revelling, and behind her sunglasses was a restless, perfunctory face; she rushed into Tom's room, and instead vented and cried like crazy. At this point, Julia has completely abandoned all possible "acting" styles in her life---it is completely revealing her true feelings. She complained, jealous, frightened and embarrassed. All her emotions came to a screeching halt in Tom's furious shouts, and then all erupted again when she returned to her room. After that, in order to preserve the relationship with Tom, "acting" continued. In Julia's view, when trying to win something, when getting along with others becomes less pure or precarious, you should slowly put away your real face, put on a mask of disguise, and play on the scene. For her, this kind of behavior is neither good nor evil, because absolute openness and honesty can become blatantly nondescript. She has long learned to breathe freely in the air that others play, and I also play it, and she knows it well; she is also used to forcing hypocrisy and entertainment as a good thing. Can't tell and don't know. Then, in the next few scenes, Julia seems to feel the threat and crisis of her relationship with Tom. She watched Tom flirt with others, revelling, and behind her sunglasses was a restless, perfunctory face; she rushed into Tom's room, and instead vented and cried like crazy. At this point, Julia has completely abandoned all possible "acting" styles in her life---it is completely revealing her true feelings. She complained, jealous, frightened and embarrassed. All her emotions came to a screeching halt in Tom's furious shouts, and then all erupted again when she returned to her room. After that, in order to preserve the relationship with Tom, "acting" continued. In Julia's view, when trying to win something, when getting along with others becomes less pure or precarious, you should slowly put away your real face, put on a mask of disguise, and play on the scene. For her, this kind of behavior is neither good nor evil, because absolute openness and honesty can become blatantly nondescript. She has long learned to breathe freely in the air that others play, and I also play it, and she knows it well; she is also used to forcing hypocrisy and entertainment as a good thing. Can't tell and don't know. Then, in the next few scenes, Julia seems to feel the threat and crisis of her relationship with Tom. She watched Tom flirt with others, revelling, and behind her sunglasses was a restless, perfunctory face; she rushed into Tom's room, and instead vented and cried like crazy. At this point, Julia has completely abandoned all possible "acting" styles in her life---it is completely revealing her true feelings. She complained, jealous, frightened and embarrassed. All her emotions came to an abrupt halt in Tom's furious shouts, and then all erupted again when she returned to her room. After that, in order to preserve the relationship with Tom, "acting" continued. In Julia's view, when trying to fight for something, when getting along with others becomes less pure or precarious, you should slowly put away your real face, put on a mask of disguise, and play on the scene. For her, this kind of behavior is neither good nor evil, because absolute openness and honesty can become blatantly nondescript. She has long learned to breathe freely in the air that others play, and I also play it, and she knows it well; she is also accustomed to forcing hypocrisy and entertainment as a good thing.
However, the son and Charles are a potential factor for Julia to truly discover and examine herself. Because his son has always been straight to the point with her, and Charles loves her from the bottom of his heart and in his own way. For them, Julia admits and accepts them deep down. It can be said that they are part of the "true and pure" part of her life. In the process of being admired, deceived, and hurt by Tom, Julia also experienced a change in her attitude towards her career from dull, enthusiastic and finally disappointing. That's right, people who can act again are also made of flesh and blood, and they will also have joys and sorrows, laughter and tears. The trip to Jersey was a spiritual break for her. During those isolated days, she looked at the sea, thought, and then found herself again. Continuing to us, maybe everyone has some people in their lives that they can face calmly and tacitly confide in, and these objects are also outspoken to you. Physically and spiritually, we need this "emotional spirit" to balance ourselves out so that we don't get lost in our bizarre and hyper-transmutation society. The occasional escape may be for a more glorious return. Therefore, in the last scene of the film Huacai, Julia made her stage debut, which she wrote and directed in her life, and integrated all her emotions. At this moment, she not only humiliated all those who deceived her, but also won the greatest respect in her career (the thunderous applause of the audience) and in her personality (the son's stand up and bow)---for an actor, A woman, what could be happier than this? So far, the theme of the film seems to have risen to the transcendence of "acting" and "not acting" in life, that is, life is like a drama, drama is like life, summarizing life, directing life.
In the last scene of the film, Julia is tasting her favorite beer alone, her eyes are meaningful and memorable. In her eyes, sincerity certainly exists, but hypocrisy must continue. That's right, in this world, "acting" and "not acting" are actually the same thing to put it bluntly. But the most important thing from beginning to end is that you must understand that to become a person, you need to clearly see the boundary between "acting" and "not acting", you need to adopt different attitudes and feelings for different people, and master the great wisdom of life. But don't be blinded by wisdom, and then you can truly be yourself and play the drama of a lifetime.
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