As an Ang Lee fan who has watched "Youth School" no less than ten times, I'm very used to Ang Lee's routine. Li An is good at using code words, and the real expression and the impetus of invisible emotions are all under the iceberg, and they must be considered together before and after. Here, I slowly dig out some dark lines I saw. I just watched it last night. There are many details that may be wrong. Please correct me.
Let's start with the "beauty" line. The bright line of this line is: Lynn talks to her sister, stating that she is a virgin. Then he was interviewed as a hero, and ten minutes later, he made out with the beautiful Feishan. The ball game began, the music was played, and at this moment of the Holy Spirit, Lynn had an extremely beautiful fantasy about the future life, and burst into tears. After the singing and dancing performance, Class B and the staff argued, and the cheerleading girls came to hold hands and go down. At this time, Lynn and Feishan had a second conversation. This very plain conversation contained a deep mystery. Finally, the two kissed and said goodbye after the game. Lynn saw her sister and said this again: I may be a virgin until I die.
In this line, there are several questions that you can think about first:
1. Why is a good-looking white Texas boy still a virgin at the age of 19? (This does not conform to common sense)
2. Sexual fantasy of emotional orgasm, big house, golden retriever, why did the director deliberately arrange a female superior? Why was Billy crying at the time?
3. In the second conversation between Feishan and Lynn, she said that she was troubled by trivial matters, and mentioned (the engine rattled, the roommate's cat scratched the sofa), what do these two lines mean?
4. When saying goodbye, Feishan expressed her admiration for Lynn, and everyone understood that she loved the label of a hero. Why did Lynn tell her sister that she was still a virgin? (denying and erasing everything that just happened)
The second line is "food". The most important thing in life is to eat. From the beginning of "Diet Men and Women", Ang Lee has mastered the language and meaning of food quite purely. What to eat, with whom, and how to eat, food itself brings all kinds of meanings that are unspoken. Let's start with the film: when Lynn just came home, his mother said to make him cheese baked chicken, and the refrigerator was already full of his favorite Coke and Dr.Pepper. Family dinner with coke, cheese baked chicken (turkey), and a big, ugly dollop of quinoa. Entering the stadium, Papa Johns, Burger King and various sausages are sold on both sides. When they just sat down, they stared at the audience in front of them with large portions of Burgers and chips, and had this conversation: "What do you think these people are thinking?" "Deep questions, philosophy, God, life. The meaning of that." Next, the gorgeous lunch, and the close-up of the feathered turkey, the plump ornately decorated buffet bar, and then the gobbling B-Class soldiers, scaring the guy next to him in a Chanel suit. an old grandmother. At the dinner table, a shale gas developer came to talk, and was then scolded as a punching bag. After that, the soldiers of Class B returned to their seats and bought a cup of coffee per person. Someone in the middle suddenly got a bottle of Whisky and hid it (important, pay attention!) I don't know where the bottle of Whisky came from, only that someone sent it. Another code word related to food is "headache medicine", which appeared three times in total. I asked for it from the manager from the car. When I got to the venue, the manager forgot to give it to him, and then gave it to Billy after meeting the big boss. In addition, it is far-fetched to say that the name of the dead colonel is also related to the food, and his name is "Mushroom".
In the line of food, you can think about the following questions:
1. Why was the dead colonel called Mushroom? If you know what a mushroom is, you can actually understand why the director named it that way.
2. Lynn's family dinner, turkey, quinoa, cola, the color of the picture on the whole table is very monotonous. Why don't we feel the joyful, celebratory family atmosphere at all when our son returns with honor?
3. The director used food to render ordinary American people, fat, bloated, vulgar, drinking Coke, eating hamburgers, eating French fries, and pizza indiscriminately. What is it to illustrate?
4. In that gorgeous lunch, why? The director wants to deliberately render the soldiers devoured and stunned? One of the important lines is: The Stadium Cake is so good, why is the director's choice of a piece of nutritious cream cake (rather than foie gras, steak and other better and more advanced foods) )?
5. What do the three occurrences of "headache medicine" indicate?
6. Where did that bottle of Whisky come from? Why was someone giving them whisky all of a sudden, who is that? Why send them Whsiky?
Finally, all the questions just raised, the bright line and the dark line, may be connected to the themes of "money" and "rich and poor". On the money line: Starting with premium hotels, lengthening the Hummer, we have a gorgeous scene to begin with. Hummer's black PR said that making a movie costs $100,000 per person, and then they started discussing what the $100,000 would buy. The camera jumps, Billy comes home, and his building is very dilapidated and in disrepair. Talk to my sister-in-law and say that my brother went out to work (later this brother did not appear in the whole family scene). Father is paralyzed. Then there are the scars on his sister's body. He was hit by a Mercedes when he was driving back from work late at night. When he was in the hospital, his fiance dumped his sister. Billy angrily smashed his rich fiance's new sports car before being forced to join the army. The big boss, Ogasby, the owner of the team, greeted them for the first time and expressed his respect for the heroes in front of the camera. The second time he appeared was negotiating contracts with them, and the style of painting changed suddenly. During the meal, when talking about being discharged from the army, a technical soldier said that he could go to an IT company and earn a good income. In the middle, I smoked with waiter brother. The three said that someone spent 200,000 dollars just for the right to buy a seat, and they wanted to support their family. The treatment was too bad, and they also wanted to join the army. There are good benefits. The three were silent and finished smoking a cigarette. Turning back to filming again, the offer of 100,000 yuan failed, and the only offer was the squad leader and Lynn, which turned into a huge gap of $5,500 per person. By the end of the day, his sister came to him and drove an apparently old wine red used car.
Money is the fundamental driving force behind all action and all existence in modern society. Food, clothing, and housing are all related to money. In the pure money line, the questions we can think about are:
1. From the things they want to buy, the soldiers of Lynn and Class B show that their native How is the family situation?
2. From Lynn's family structure and family members, why is their family poorer?
3. My sister wants to keep Lynn, is there any deeper reason besides guilt and reluctance?
4. The intensification of contradictions about money is reflected in the boss. The boss invites them to the stadium. In front of the camera, all kinds of respect and worship almost cry, and they go to the conference room to talk about the ruthlessness of the movie Offer. What is the boss thinking?
5. Why is the shale gas entrepreneur so friendly at lunch, but angering the squad leader?
6. After stepping down in the play, the soldiers and the staff had the first conflict, and the staff in the parking lot rushed up to beat people. Why are these grassroots staff so rude and brutal to them, and even rushed up to take revenge? (Temporary workers, temporary workers)
Okay, three lines, we have finished talking about the main issues. Next, we reconstructed the conflicts, contradictions and changes in values layer by layer, and finally understood how the director built the dream layer by layer in this play, then broke the dream, and finally completed it - Mahayana Buddhism A philosophical expression deeply integrated with existentialism.
The central issue to be explored throughout the film is Billy Lynn's self-worth, fantasy, collapse, and reconstruction.
On the first floor, what we see is the glory, the attention and honor of the soldiers who sacrificed themselves to defend the country. At this time, their meaning is constructed as the hero of the country and the pride of everyone. The soldiers themselves feel very high in this role, it's their first layer of illusion, I'm a hero, I'm being worshipped, I'm being admired, we can perform together with Destiny, we're in all kinds of mainstream media across the country attract attention. This is the first layer of fantasy.
Then, the first layer of fantasy was quickly broken. "Sometimes I wonder, are people like us worthy of protection?" Ordinary people who are full of fat, vulgar, and even hate them. This fantasy of me for the people was quickly shattered.
When they start to speak high-sounding words. When Billy had to join the military to avoid jail time. When they glorified their military careers in front of the media. They go back to the reality of the second layer - that joining the military may not be a great choice to be active, dedicated to meaning. In fact, it is a choice that everyone is forced to make out of helplessness and desperation. Just like Billy, who is wearing a silver medal at this moment, in fact, he had to join the army only to avoid going to prison and for his sister. Like the battle in which they were considered heroes, tense, chaotic and incoherent, tactical mistakes and mushroom sacrifices. He became a hero because of that day, and it was the worst day of his life, not honorable, not great.
Starting from the omnipotent hero, Ang Lee broke the dream of this cloud gently and pulled them to the bottom of the earth. Everyone is struggling in the abyss of their own lives, but they have no choice in American society. ordinary people. Billy asked the monitor, if you had a choice, would you go back to Iraq? The squad leader said three times that I had no other choice, so the question wasn't an issue at all.
In fact, the hero is an illusion, there is no choice, it is the truth. So, we take part in the war because we are poor, because we are powerless, because there is no other choice, we are losers, is that the whole meaning and answer?
Here, there is a third layer of fantasy. We used to have no choice. Today, when we are heroes, whether we can use the name of heroes to exchange for a reasonable price in the commercial society is also a kind of compensation for ourselves. Going to the media, the platform, and being interviewed are all false halos, but the "100,000 US dollars" that may follow is the most important thing that all soldiers have been thinking about. Can people simply give themselves a price and sell themselves as some kind of commodity? Money brings a certain sense of security, choice, and the joy of life being changed. Is it possible?
And the path from "hero" to "successful realization" marked by 100,000 US dollars eventually proved unworkable. Everyone asks themselves, what is my value? Am I really worth it? For the students in class B, they anchored their hero value on the $100,000 offer for filming. People who have lived in the commercial society for a long time know that price is used to measure everything. So, what nihilistic and patriotic meaning can't be recognized by "vulgar people"
when the monitor and Billy are in the boss's conference room, and because of $5,500, they feel humiliated like a beggar, and finally say: sometimes nothing is better than something. Sometimes nothing is better than a little. Behind this sentence, there are actually two meanings. The first layer is that if the price given by the commercial society is high enough, good, then we actually don’t mind selling ourselves. But the second layer, the psychological gap, after the price gap brought about, is like the moment when the "hero is worth 100,000" depreciates to "5,500 US dollars" after inflation, which is the moment when the self-worth is shattered. .
Well, the dream of the third commercial monetization is shattered. Where to look for self-worth?
This stadium does not belong to them, this society, these dreams, probably also do not belong to them. What belongs to them may only be the battlefield, the real one, the Iraqi battlefield, the real distance. They only have each other and only belong to each other.
Back in the Humvee, drive to camp. They said with relief, I love u. Experience a dream together, a shattering, and in the end, everything is like a delicious but nutritious cream cake, like a firework that bursts in an instant but has no reality. Therefore, everything is actually just a human being, facing one's own heart and one's current situation's choice. When it is labelled, interpreted, magnified, interpreted, and even exchanged and traded, it is just delusions and illusions that bring more pain.
Hinduism, mushroom, talk about cause and effect, talk about something larger than life, the symbol is the white elephant sculpture. Buddhism is based on three absolute truths: all actions are impermanent, all feelings are suffering, and all dharmas have no self. What is worth noting here is that the two dharma seals, impermanence of all actions and suffering, are the truths discovered by the wise men of ancient India long ago, and that "all dharmas have no self" is the truth discovered by the Buddha himself. Then, Ang Lee chose "Hinduism" instead of the symbolic metaphor of "Buddhism", precisely because his answer to the two objective truths that all things are impermanent and all sufferings are suffering is different from Buddhism.
All dharmas are without self. The Buddha said that suffering arises in our mind. If we can achieve a state of no-self at any moment, suffering will have no attachment and cannot arise.
And Li An said that all actions are impermanent, all feelings are suffering, people are powerless in society, and they are tortured by various illusions and external conditions. We can't be without me, but we can choose all of me and face the reality with the greatest honesty and the greatest courage. Even if there is no choice, even if there is weakness and pain, this is life itself. This is existence itself. We no longer need to look for the nihilistic, American dream meanings of "making money," "being a hero," and "defending our country." Dreams are broken, people do not lie to themselves. In this world, if one wants to move forward, one can only and must move forward.
This is Nietzsche, it is Camus, it is Dostoevsky's answer.
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva vowed that if hell is not empty, he will not become a Buddha. Every hero says he saves all beings. The meaning of castles in the air In the face of the rotten and shallow public, are all the blood and tears in your life really shed for these people?
Tan Sitong used the guillotine to wake up the audience, Kang Youwei was eventually overturned and characterized as a villain. Everyone on the stage only left labels and Facebook, which turned into glory than the worst day in your life. The media bloodthirsty bites you as a person's deepest wound . One day, we will no longer seek understanding, and we will no longer seek explanation and narration in the sense of being a person.
The sentient beings are not the one next to you, and there must be a concept of nothingness in the philosophical sense. There are some jobs in the world that must be done, and some responsibilities that must be undertaken. After all, the subject of existence understands that the responsibility is only for his own redemption, which is related to others, and has nothing to do with others at all.
Existence precedes essence is Sartre, and Karma is Ang Lee quietly. The audience laughed and scolded the audience and commented at will, the existence of the heroes and their own existence.
Because, I always understand that my responsibility in this life.
View more about Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk reviews
