·In this crazy world, don't care too much about the three little people. ——"Casablanca"
, like many people, is not recommended by old horses, and I have never heard of the movie "Private Blood". In fact, I prefer another translation, "The Roaring Twenties", which sounds direct and powerful.
Said to be roaring, but the lives of the three soldiers are closer to helpless sadness. From the triumph of the front line, the soldiers only enjoyed the treatment of national heroes for a few minutes, and were immediately beaten back to their original shape by unemployment, prices, and prohibition of alcohol. This country shouts welcome slogans, but leaves no room for survival. Many people can only live in misery. It is better to be born and die in the trenches and smoke a few packs of cigarettes. Eddie was one of the lucky ones. He made a fortune with his daring strategy. He finally settled down, and Uncle Sam brought the Great Depression again. In the final confrontation with George, Eddie said: "The world has changed, it is not ours", he understands that the world is always changing, and they are at the center of the vortex of change. They are as devout as believers, following the world's footsteps throughout their lives, seeking status in the turbulent 1920s, but always being left behind, as if destined to be cut off from it. Maybe they really don't belong to this era. In this way, all efforts are like useless efforts against the era, such as Fitzgerald's famous ending sentence, the boat goes upstream and is constantly pushed back to the past.
Eddie was destined not to belong to this era. He used to be brilliant, but as mentioned above, it was just a "windfall". It was the "fortune of fortune" he made by the prohibition, and it was no different from the "war fortune" made by those arms dealers. The world changed and the fortune passed. He was the first to get rid of it. Away from luck, we see that Eddie is just an ordinary person, not highly educated, not outstanding in skills, and not perfect in character. I remember someone in the nightclub made a joke on him at the beginning of his success. He immediately pulled the cigar out of the other party's mouth and put it back hard, warning the other party "don't talk to me like this", which seemed to be one of his most angry moments in the whole film. . It may not be an important plot, but I have a hunch that it is difficult for such a person who can't hold back his breath to last long, especially in the underground world. Even if there is no Great Depression, Eddie will be killed sooner or later by someone, and it is likely to go down a path similar to "Scarface" Montana or "Goodfellas" Tommy. But in hindsight, it looks like it was George who took the road. George is a common image in gangster movies, impulsive, violent, vengeful, and the ending is usually tragic. No way, character flaws are doomed.
And the ending of the third soldier Lloyd made the first two partners even more sad. Lloyd became a prosecutor, joined Jane, and a 4-year-old boy, who had a happy ending. Do you dare to ask Mr. Prosecutor's complete innocence? He just chose to quit at the most opportune time. Like Eddie or the arms dealer, he was a speculator, and people didn't care about his past. Times are changing, just like prohibition cannot be enforced forever, nothing will be right or wrong for a long time, it only depends on whether Junjie can understand the current affairs and come out in time. And Eddie and George belong to those who have not come out, and they will bear the harm of the changing times.
(I may have extreme views on Lloyd, because I really dislike this kind of master! Spin! Law! People! Things!)
Scorsese said the film "has a perfect ending". At the end of the film, Eddie shot George and fell in front of the church door. He committed crimes through violence all his life, and finally completed his self-redemption in the form of violence. Similar redemption often occurs in Scorsese's characters, such as Charlie, who relieves guilt as a mediator in "Mean Streets" (silently think that Harvey Keitel and James Cagney have similar temperaments, haha guess It's my illusion), La Motta in "Raging Bull" was "blind yesterday, but now he's bright again", or Travis in "Taxi Driver" used a firefight to save a young prostitute and complete the mission of cleaning the streets. It is worth mentioning that Eddie himself is also a retired veteran who turned to be a taxi driver.
Limited to the political environment at the time and the "Hays Code", there are still some main theme fragments in the film (like the role of the prosecutor mentioned earlier), which now seems out of place and very strange. But overall, it's probably one of the best black-and-white Hollywood movies I've seen (though I've seen very few), at least one that's not procrastinating or pretentious, and that's the tightest.
After watching the entire movie, I was inexplicably sad. The veterans are doomed to fail to keep up with this changing world, and all the marks they have left in the 20s can be condensed into a slightly confused roar.
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