Before you know it, Woody Allen, born in 1935, is about to turn 85 years old (by December 1 this year). Compared with the increasingly old age of another master director in my mind, Eastwood, Woody Allen always seems to give the impression that he is a little old man in his sixties, short and thin, and babbling. Throughout his forty years of directing career, although the filming speed is amazing and the content is not repeated as much as possible, the basic narrative mode is still relatively fixed, such as "death", "desire", and "immoral behavior". 's depictions, ridicule of "intellectuals", "middle class", and those poor people who are full of contradictions and eternal predicaments in his works.
Woody Allen's early works were mostly comedies. In the so-called "problem comedies" he created, he constantly satirized and ridiculed various human behaviors that were inappropriate, meaningless, or asking for trouble. However, the side effect is that the accumulation of more and more outrageous jokes on the characters also makes those characters farther and farther away from daily life, and they are more like clowns in fun mirrors than real mortals. Perhaps realizing this, Allen turned his attention to the anatomy of intellectuals and the middle class, piercing their pretense from every angle. However, even if Woody Allen is known as the "Master of Comedy", his pessimism in his bones is the support of the aesthetic ideology of all his works, especially in the crime dramas he directed after the 1980s. very.
After the new century, on the one hand, due to the consideration of shooting costs, on the other hand, due to artistic attempts, Woody Allen moved the narrative stage from his hometown of New York to Europe, hoping to use the changes in the objective world to drive stories and cognition. The change of experience gives the audience a new viewing experience. It can be said that Allen's attempt was bold and the result was relatively successful. The London, Rome, Paris and Barcelona he chose all provided rich space for the film narrative with profound cultural accumulation. Among them, "Match Point", "The Dream of Cassandra" and "Scoop", the three films shot in London are called "London Trilogy", and they all use "murder" as the main narrative line. It was the director who took into account that audiences would easily associate the city of London with cultural labels such as "Sherlock Holmes" or "Hitchcock films."
"The Dream of Cassandra" is a formal and standard tragedy, and instead of Woody Allen's usual focus on intellectuals or the middle class, it focuses on people at the bottom of society. The two brothers, Ian and Terry, lived in London from average families. Ian helped in the restaurant opened by his father, and Terry was a car mechanic. The father's restaurant is not in good condition, and his character is weak. He is often robbed by a strong mother, and the mother's words are full of money-loving philistine atmosphere, and the brothers often learn from their uncle Howard, who is a successful businessman, how to make a fortune. In the film, Allen uses two different spaces to make delicate contrasts and foreshadowing many times in the film. One is the cramped and cramped family space and the depressing atmosphere created by dialogue when a family of four eats, and the other is wide. In the exterior scene, the brothers bought a second-hand small yacht with the money they won from dog racing. The beginning of the film is the scene where the two buy a boat and go to sea. The source of this tragedy.
Woody Allen's sense of pessimism is evident from the very beginning of this story's construction. Most modern people are always trapped in endless trivial matters and cannot extricate themselves. They are tired of daily life and give up the pursuit of ideals. The trajectory of life is difficult to change. This kind of life state is also present in Ian and Terry. . Both are dissatisfied with the status quo of life, but lack the opportunity and talent to change the status quo in a short period of time. At the same time, their respective shortcomings exacerbate the situation. Ian loves vanity and Terry indulges in gambling. The former met a new charming actress, and in order to pursue each other, he boasted a lot beyond his ability; the latter, in order to live in a big house with his wife, did not hesitate to borrow money to gamble, and even owed a lot of gambling debts. The director's undisguised way of telling presents the plight of the characters to the audience. Although there are no ups and downs, the audience is unconsciously worried about the fate of the two brothers.
Just when the two of them were on the verge of despair, Uncle Howard, who had been talked about by his mother all the time, came to visit their family in London. The two brothers seemed to be looking forward to a savior, but what they didn't expect was that although the uncle promised to help them through the difficulties, he would They helped him get rid of a business partner in return. Obviously, the uncle played the role of "Satan", using money and family as bait to drag the two people down the abyss. After a painful struggle, they finally agreed and successfully killed the target, but when the money was in hand, troubles followed.
Woody Allen's crime films have always been heavily influenced by Crime and Punishment, and this Dostoevsky-esque proposition is naturally also used in this film. Since the two brothers have committed crimes, the moral dilemma and the torture of conscience like Raskolnikov are not far away. First, Terry had nightmares and a trance after the murder. After learning the news, Ian was afraid that he would be implicated, so he found his uncle to discuss it, and the two of them planned to kill Terry to silence him. On the small yacht that enshrined the two people's good yearning, Ian put the poison into the wine, but at the last moment he couldn't do it because of the condemnation of his conscience. The contradictory emotions were difficult to dispel, and there was a dispute with Terry. Ian accidentally falls to his death while pushing each other, and a guilty Terry then kills himself.
If the "luck" element in "Match Point" allowed the protagonist to escape punishment, then "Kassandra's Dream" proves that "luck" is accidental after all, and tragedies in life may be the norm. The careers, actions, relationships, and other things we have to worry about in the microscopic world of life in order to give ourselves some meaning and value will eventually lead to failure.
Compared with Woody Allen's ability to infuse tragic consciousness into comedy and construct a powerful confrontational force, this simple tragedy is not so successful or enlightening. Personally, this film is more like a footnote to "money is the root of all evil", and it can also be seen as Allen's version of "a pillow of yellow beams". Tragedy has been doomed since the brothers named their little yacht "Kassandra's Dream". "Kassandra's Dream" is the name of the dog that won them the prize, but "Kassandra" is also a prophet in Greek mythology, but the doom she predicts is often overlooked. Isn't life helpless, sad and unreal?
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