Everyone has dreams, children dream more, but you've never heard of a child "disillusioned." The dreams of adults are often disgusting and escaping from reality, but the more they escape, the more they struggle, and perhaps reality will get worse, and the predicament may never reach the bottom. Many noir films are male protagonists who are tired of reality, guided by dreams, deceived by illusions (often in the form of femme fatales), and finally embark on a road of no return.
The protagonist Christopher, who has been working as a cashier in the same company for decades, is hard to say that such a career will bring Chris any more freshness and fun, and it does not seem to have brought Chris a decent economic and social status. At his birthday party, the boss gave him a watch, and he was almost grateful; when he went out, the broken umbrella also seemed to prove that his financial conditions were not very good. Generally speaking, the male protagonists in film noir are always living a decent life, and Chris is also decent, but he is the worst type of male protagonists: old man, poor money, old wife earth. He was married to a "widow", not only was he unlikable (even her "ex-husband" couldn't stand her), she looked down on him, laughed at him, and taunted him, and she did have the qualifications, Chris lives with her (it turns out The house where the husband stayed), he did not have much money. So in the marriage, he has no dignity, and there is a large portrait of her former husband hanging in the hall, and she often uses this man to belittle him. As for his favorite painting, although he enjoys it, no one around him appreciates it. His closest colleagues retain the most politeness and restraint, and Kitty is not interested in seeing the paintings he has moved here. His wife disliked his paintings so much that even when she saw his paintings in the gallery, her reaction turned out to be that he was imitating other people's paintings. So when he drank with Kitty for the first time, he couldn't help but acquiesce to the lie that he was a painter. In the end, his talent for painting was affirmed, and his paintings sold for $500, or even $10,000, but at that time it was no longer important, and the couple happily took the painting bought for $10,000 Leaving him, but this admission, to him now, is just a mockery of fate.
But after expressing to his colleagues his envy that his boss has a young lover, his chance to make his dream come true. Kitty is not only a young and beautiful woman who accepts his hospitality, but more importantly, the first time he sees her, it is under the circumstances of a hero saving beauty, he did not even imagine himself, he covered his face , but the "gangster" was really beaten by him. Next, she believes he is a great painter, she gets into trouble and she turns to him for help. A beautiful woman who admires herself, waiting for her rescue, what could satisfy his self-esteem and vanity better than this?
Starring Edward G. Robinson, his characters sometimes have one thing in common: innocence. Whether it was Little Caesar or this cashier who was over fifty years old, they sometimes showed innocent expressions and showed the characteristics of innocence. They naively assume that things will go the way they imagined, so they go further and further down the path of their ideals. Chris's relationship with Kitty is not without unhappiness and embarrassment, but her affirmation of him, her weakness, and her tears conquered him and made him live in a beautiful dream. So he could forgive Kitty for his relationship with Johnny, he even thought Kitty was crying with joy when he heard his proposal, but when Kitty told him that she thought he was disgusting when she saw him, he Only then did I realize that I was deceived, not only by Kitty, but also by my own fantasy.
At last? In the end, he survived, but it was more painful than death. After the dream, the predicament has no end.
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