Originally published in a 2015 issue of "Watching Movies"
(Text/Ghost Feet Seven)
Deceived is an under-the-radar film in both Don Siegel's directorial sequence and Clint Eastwood's career, neither unlike other films of Siegel's contemporaneous period such as "Red Dead" and "Dirty Harry" are genre-ready and not as masculine as Eastwood's perennial heroic characters. But it is strange that Siegel himself listed this little-known film as his favorite in his works, and the reason may be that the characteristics of this genre are not very obvious, and even the story of the characters is not very attractive. In my favorite films, Siegel, as the director, has injected too many social and ethical propositions that he wants to take the opportunity to expound. Even if the film doesn't end up doing the heavy lifting, for Siegel, "Deception" is clearly a film with a unique meaning.
On the surface, "Deceived" tells nothing more than a love murder story. Handsome but somewhat scheming soldiers of the Union Army and female church students who lived alone for a long time, the firewood and fire are full of passion and danger. The film maintains the main features of classical Hollywood melodrama for most of the time, but whether it is the background of the Civil War, the conservative girls' school, or the emotional change from fear to love for the enemy soldiers, all give "Deceived" a new , conveying the richer themes implicit in the film. At the beginning of the film, the teachers and students of the girls' school, from the dean to the maid, are not so much wary of the enemy army as they are of fear of men. Gender power relations are at the heart of the characters' relationships in the film from the start. Living alone and living in God's life for so long is obviously a shackle to these women -- even if they don't admit it. It is worth noting that the film shows in detail the different states of women of different ages and personalities when they express their repressed sexual needs, from the naive heroic vision of Amy, a little girl, to Edwin's refusal to welcome and establish a traditional family. The desire for ideas, or Carol's naked and direct desire to seduce, until the dean represents the possessive with a desire for control. Siegel here clearly wants to show as comprehensively as possible the complex psychology of women in relationships. Moreover, behind the different attitudes of the four women in the film towards John, there are also implied motives and origins. On this basis, "Deception" continues to expand the depth and complexity of its theme. Edwin's initial conservative attitude towards John quickly disintegrated in the sweet talk and physical contact of men, and the paradox of ascetic asceticism and realistic hedonism was completed in her in a "promised future" way. reconcile. But for John, getting married and starting a family was obviously just a perfunctory excuse, and he quickly threw himself into Carol's bedclothes for the pleasures of being close at hand. As another (and more authoritative) guardian of the religious spirit, the Dean himself obviously has more means than Edwin, and he knows how to use "necessary" means to control men. After John was accidentally pushed down the stairs and broke his leg, the dean decisively and resolutely performed an amputation operation on him. This behavior, which obviously alludes to castration, on the one hand symbolizes the dean's punishment for John to go to bed with others, and at the same time also gives John was marked with some kind of ownership—even if he was a wreck, he had to stay. This kind of psychology continues to strengthen as the film progresses, until it develops to a peak at the end, and John's strong will must be left as the Dean's ultimate goal, even if he is to die here.
From this we can see that one of the themes of "Deception" is the power relations and desires between men and women. Although at the end of the film, John, who was not to die, did die in the hands of these jealous and crazy women, but the film did not portray him as an "innocent" victim. His overly flattering and undignified provocative behavior was buried early A self-inflicted scourge. On the other hand, the conservative and repressed southern values and religious colors are introduced into the film, and "Deception" is obviously aimed at conservative concepts and the contradiction between religion and human nature. From the lust of men and women to the wrestling of religion and human nature, the story of "Deception" begins with the ambiguousness of a handsome soldier "mistaking the flowers" (John just gave the little girl Amy who saved him an adult-style kissing), but ended up in the slaughter in the Southern Gothic style. In the story template of "Women are like tigers", Siegel obviously brought this narrow and backward social atmosphere to the forefront. Unlike film noir, the femme fatale women here are not due to the inherent shortcomings of human nature such as greed and selfishness. become vicious. What really shapes them is the narrow and aggressive social atmosphere.
"Deception" tells a thrilling story of erotic entanglement inside the mansion. On the external background, another part of the thematic elements of the film returns to the setting of the Civil War in which the story is set. It is quite noteworthy that the only black person in the film, the maid Halle, plays the role in the story. This is a faithful maid, and she silently implements the girls' requests or the dean's reprimands. However, she was not completely numb. When she recalled the lover who was forced to flee, she also showed loneliness in her eyes. The emotions that the film casts on this character are complex. On the one hand, she is indeed a victim of slavery. She has lost her freedom and love, and can only live in endless labor. On the other hand, she also genuinely cares about this school and these young girls, but has little interest in "revolution". However, in John's view, she seems to be only one of the objects available for temptation. When they first met, John's words were quite frivolous, and when he was furious because of his amputated leg, he even directly insulted Harry directly. If, through John's killing, the film shows how terrifying a paranoid, twisted life can become, then, through silent Halle, the film seems to implicitly question that war and politics are nothing more than gimmicks to hold high the flag. , and the real sufferers, no matter in which party's eyes, are always poor.
As the dean warned Edwin, who wanted to marry John, "whether it's the Confederate army or the Union army, can't protect you", the film hits both sides between the conservative and narrow southern style and the frivolous and superficial northern style s face. It is in this sense that "Deception" strives to create a complexity that becomes a special presence in Don Siegel's directorial career.
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