"No Man's Work" is a three-hour film that tells the story of the protagonist, German Colt, who grew up from a young boy in 1937 to a young avant-garde artist in 1961. Another important supporting actor in the film, Karl, is a professional medical professor who once served as one of the heads of the Life Decision infirmary during the German Nazi Party's rule. The blood of normal people is actually brutally trampling on people's lives. What made most of the audience grit their teeth was that in the end, the murderer still fled and failed to get legal sanctions.
This article will focus on the psychological origins of the artist Colt's transformation from an East German social realist painter to a modern avant-garde artist in West Germany, and will attempt to apply the triple psychoanalysis of the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud. Personality theory, analyzes the process of young Colt's search for "self", the process of identity dialogue with the viewing subject behind Colt's artistic concept "No Master", and why the doctor as a symbol of Nazi relics was not sanctioned The reason for this, and then deeply understand this conclusion: what human beings can grasp is only "self".
(1) Finding "self"
When the "self" (ich) first appears in the film, it is the object of criticism and rejection. In 1951, the professors of the East German School of Painting advocated the artistic concept of social realism in the classroom, art should be close to the people, and the image of the working people who are passionate and hard-working can only be drawn on the paper with a brush. And criticized the formalism of art, such as Pablo Picasso's late paintings. The anamorphic nudes and unrealistic visions in the surrealist genre are also considered to be representatives of decadence and obscenity.
At that time, East Germany was an area dominated by the former Soviet Union, which held high the banner of communism. All manual labor and spiritual creation must take the happiness of the people as the ultimate goal, and the uniform group appearance replaced the individual with individuality. Art is no longer a way for artists to express their personal emotions and thoughts, but has been reduced to a tool that serves politics.
The social realism school that is popular in the field of art can be regarded as a symbol of "superego", and the objects monitored and imprisoned by it include "ego" and "id". From the perspective of the artist in the film, it has been imprisoned by the "superego" twice, and once was the bloodline cleansing program under the Nazis. Colt's aunt was called by the passion of life and became the "id". The fanatical victim of , was judged to be a psychopath and died. The other time was East Germany, which believed in communism. However, Colt would not choose to repeat the mistakes of his aunt, because at this time, his "self" consciousness had been suppressed in childhood, and his "ego" consciousness had been suppressed. Not fully awake yet.
In 1961, Colt and his wife moved from East Germany to West Germany, where he first encountered modern art in Düsseldorf, where he met an artist who had been in the Air Force. The veteran uses only butter as material for his artwork, and is a firm believer in Descartes' "I think therefore I am" belief. Having experienced the disaster of World War II, he believes that the world around him is in jeopardy, and instantly escapes into illusion and nothingness. Only "self" is the existence that can be identified and perceived. As a symbol of the kindness and fraternity of the enemy people, butter is deeply imprinted in the individual experience and artistic concept of the veterans.
Colt lingered in the creative freedom space obtained by chance, but once again lost his "self" in a variety of artistic styles. Fortunately, he was guided by veteran artists. Colt finally embarked on the road to find his "self", but the vast road was full of thorns and traps. He was freed from the shackles of "superego", and he had to be alert to the madness of falling into "id", so that he was in the thick fog. Identify the image of "self".
Colt followed the long river of time upstream and returned to his childhood, the source of enlightenment of life. It was the savageness of being unable to smell the shackles of the "superego" because of his youth, and it was the eagerness of the "id". And the "self" is just at the moment of birth. It is the naked body of the real young aunt in front of me, and it is a naked body portrait on paper.
The so-called freedom of the artist is actually the right and opportunity to pursue the "self". And the artist's whole life creation sequence is just a perfect footnote for the perfection of "self".
(2) The audience is the "self"
The title of the film is translated as "The Work of No Owner", referring specifically to the characters in the photographs copied by Colt, but the relationship between the characters and the artist is stripped away by Colt himself. In the eyes of most art critics, these images are It appears casual and amateur, while Colt completely closes the space of meaning. A shallow explanation for Colt's choice is that, rather than explaining what each photo means to the artist himself, he opts for a more avant-garde concept of art that rejects meaning.
Colt's point of view of lottery numbers appears twice in the film: "If I now randomly pronounce six sets of numbers, they are boring and meaningless, but if the six sets of numbers are lottery winning numbers, there is a The beauty of harmony is in it." To understand Colt's work by following this method of capturing order from meaninglessness, you will find that Colt did not simply go to the opposite of meaning by rejecting meaning. In the eyes of viewers in art galleries, these are just amateur photographs, images that have been reprocessed after copying paintings. They cannot find a harmonious order from randomly selected photos, perhaps because they are not real viewers. Only those in front of the screen who can truly appreciate the beauty of harmony are the real audience.
As the subject of the movie in front of the screen, sometimes he knows everything from the perspective of God, and sometimes he follows Colt's perspective, but the only subjective shot in the film is when little Colt stretched out his palm to block his vision when he was a child. It is also the moment when his "self" is just about to be born. For screen viewers who have a deep understanding of Colt's personal experience, each photo contains meaning and the beauty of order.
(3) Grasp "self"
There is also a word "truth" that frequently appears in the film. In the eyes of my aunt, who is wrapped up in the "I", "everything you see is true and beautiful, and you should never take your eyes off it." Obviously, this is an extreme view of reality, which does not pay attention to everything that happens in the real world. Selectively accepted way. However, everything in reality is not the existence of idealized beauty, especially in the period of Nazi rule, it is the ultimate manifestation of human indifference and evil, such a huge gap will inevitably lead to the death of my aunt, that is, the demise of the "self".
Colt was doomed to be different from his aunt from childhood. When witnessing the scene where his aunt was taken away from the mental hospital, Colt's mother first stretched out her hand to cover his eyes, but being removed by him meant that he was indeed practicing his aunt's "never look away", but Later, the subjective shot of Colt reaching out to block his view shows that he is a personal choice different from his aunt.
The doctor who committed mistakes during the Nazi regime is a symbol of Nazi relics, and is also a "superego"-like existence. With the audience watching his actions with an omniscient perspective, the expectation was that he would be brought to justice by the end of the film, but it wasn't. The interpretation of this choice may be because Colt already belongs to the realm of the "ego" at this time. Compared with the power and power of the "superego", the "ego" does not have the ability to transcend its existence.
Because as an individual human being, only "self" can be grasped.
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