The small town in the film was originally a quiet town, until the arrival of Max, Sam's gun went off, and it was the traction of these two fuses, and the town fell into a state of extreme funny and extreme madness surrounded by TV media.
New York news reporter Max Brackett (played by Dustin Hoffman), although he has a strong professionalism, keen news discovery and a sharp perspective, but in a news report on an air crash, he refused to reproduce his boss because of the feelings of the audience. Kevin Hollander (played by Alan Alda) was demoted to a small town for his so-called presence and mocking Kevin on the air.
The town's media manager, Lou Potts (played by Robert Prosky), is a good-natured media man. He adheres to the management concept of "only providing local residents with local news reports". They do not add any lace news. Their news reports are concise and intuitive but not sharp enough. , which increased local news ratings by 3 times. The subsequent hostage-taking incident at the museum brought unprecedented attention and exposure to the town.
Museum security Sam Baily (played by John Travolta), a low-literate, inept, and psychologically incapable man, is caught in a dilemma by turning himself into a criminal because he resorts to extreme measures to get his job back. . Although he ignited the panic in the town, in essence, he was just a helpless unemployed person, the most tragic victim in the film. Max's active media rescue not only did not drag him out of this mess, but instead got deeper and deeper. Sam's family was harassed and criticized like never before, and Sam himself committed suicide in remorse and panic.
Max, an excellent media person who was rejected by his peers, he knew the unspoken rules of the media industry, believed in absolute professionalism, and put reporting before all events, but in the face of Sam's death, his sense of justice and conscience, Like the shockwave of a sam suicide bomb that shook him. In the face of Sam's death, there was no mercy in the crowd outside the museum, only the faces of the media scrambling to report, Max was completely awakened, he said it in a trance, and at the end shouted loudly and continuously: "We kill him! We kill him!••••••”
In Max’s mind, the media used to be a weapon for monitoring social injustice, exposing political scandals, and punishing evil and promoting good. However, when the media no longer respects news facts, it is for hype and ratings. And when they continue to create lace news, reduce the authenticity of media reports, and even some media people do not hesitate to use false information for their own interests to rise, the media becomes a prostitute for nothing to stir up troubles, and small things to become big ones. It has become a feast of scandals, satisfying the curiosity of all kinds of people, and providing people with talk after dinner. However, the lives and spirits of those who have been reported have long been dismembered by the media and the world.
In addition to the media, there is another culprit that caused the madness of the town, and that is the idiots. The media is just a catalyst. It quickly, vividly, and massively combines all topical information to show people, in order to Attract and follow. It is the public who decide the content of the media reports, especially the American media, which is oriented by the ratings. In order to survive and satisfy the public's taste, the media has used all kinds of tricks to introduce the public's aesthetics into an even stranger. , more remote, more absurd, more crazy spiritual black hole, until it engulfs the last moral bottom line of human conscience and society.
The depravity of the media and the tragedy of the idiots have driven the town irrevocably into madness. Modern medicine has proved that a person's madness can be cured, and how can we cure a city's madness? There is no answer given in the film, when a city is hopelessly heading towards madness, we seem to have no choice but to wait for it to be destroyed in madness and then build a new city on the basis of it.•••••Then The scene is like the collapsed tower of Babylon, and the vast land submerged by the angry flood.
"Mad City" is paraphrased as "Crisis Frontline" in my country. The crises include the hostage crisis caused by Sam, Max's career crisis, and the moral crisis and trust crisis caused by irresponsible media hype in modern society. , the privacy crisis. I think "Crisis Frontline" sounds more promising than "Mad City", because at least we can adjust and recover in time during the crisis stage.
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