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- "This film is especially grateful to Dr. Eudora Fletcher, Paul De Guy and Mrs. Catherine Fletcher Varney." However, they are all completely fictional characters in "Celebrity". Woody Allen deftly blurs the lines between plot and documentary in the opening scene. Susan Sontag was sitting in front of the window wearing a dark shirt, white gulls flying behind her from time to time, and the scholar's name was prominently printed on the coffee cup with only a round mouth. She commented on the protagonist Xili in a quiet and comforting way, opening a movie journey that is both real and fantasy for the audience.
Xili is a "chameleon" character, he shuttles between various people, not only can he mix into any group with his speech and behavior, but also his clothes and even his face can change with the environment. This time, Woody Allen is no longer satisfied with only depicting characters with borderline characters in a realistic tone, but also breaks through a physiological boundary and endows the protagonist with supernatural abilities. This seems to be a more exaggerated and witty stroke of modern society's alienation of people. There are many masterpieces of video writing with the theme of heterogeneity. Truffaut's "Wild Child" chooses to start with "education" itself, discusses the complex relationship between nature and society through the lens of scientific and educational documentary language, and gently summons the mentor of the new wave, Mr. "The Mystery of Spallhauser" reflects the consistent rigor of the German nation, questioning the meaning of enlightenment with the mouth of a "fool"; Lynch's "The Elephant Man" is like a charming fairy tale, continuing the optimism and optimism of Hollywood's century-old DreamWorks. Warmth. Compared with these, Xi Li does not seem to have any problems. After all, he is neither ugly nor isolated from the world. The aliens depicted by Woody Allen are generated from within the human social system, which is the embodiment of his joking style.
Xili's personality is one of the themes of the film. Woody Allen seems to want to criticize first and foremost those who are trying to move between the masses. In order to be liked by others, they are willing to weave lies, and then give up their ego and disappear into the invisible under another powerful personality. At the end of the film, Xi Li joins the Nazi party, which is his wonderful home, where he can enjoy the greatest invisible (unknown Nazi soldier) and visible (powerful ideological illusion). This obviously contains a mockery of the hypocrisy of modern American society. But Woody Allen is still thinking about the multifaceted nature of the characters. From another point of view, Xi Li is a weak person who tries to integrate into everything. In other words, he hopes to make himself invisible to society, but the result is a more eye-catching feature. Here comes the dilemma of survival. Woody Allen said, "The trait of pandering? I think it's a portrait of all of humanity." But Woody Allen seems to have only hints and no answers to our common existential crisis. When Dr. Fletcher is in the country house for the experimental treatment of Cili, there is a scene of two people sitting opposite to each other. Cili, who occupies half of the screen, faces the audience from his side, imitating Dr. Fletcher in his usual defensive manner. A kind of mirror image is very prominent, and Xili seems to have become a replica of Dr. Fletcher (Xili had a similar feeling when watching the performance with female stars before). We can sum it up like this: Xili represents an extreme of human beings, and everyone can find themselves at this extreme. People are eager to heal the extreme, and they are also trying to heal themselves. Celeste's healing also became the key to human redemption. Interestingly, whenever Dr. Fletcher stagnates, she uses hypnosis to get Sally's true thoughts, and Woody Allen seems to be trying to imply that human beings are faced with situations where they are hypnotized by hypnosis. Come to yourself to obtain the truth about yourself for the possibility of healing. The above-mentioned mirror thinking and hypnosis models have to remind us of Lacan's classic theories, but there are two mirrors here, one is the screen and the other is Xili, and they simultaneously throw out the subject's cognitive thinking to the audience. So, is Woody Allen paying homage to Bergman's "Masque" this time around? I think yes, but this time it's tiny and discreet.
Mia Farrow is undoubtedly an excellent actor. Woody Allen once compared her to Diane Keaton and accurately pointed out that she is an all-rounder who can perform a variety of roles, and Keaton's unique temperament often makes the audience have to. Preconceived. So Eudora Fletcher's role (which, according to Woody Allen, was the name of his childhood principal) must be hers, and Mia Farrow's face reveals a subtlety The amateurishness can even make us feel her hesitation, hesitation, and even weakness, which is in contrast to her firm words and persistent research. The doctor's mother even spoke out to the public about their family's problems. All of this is implying her homogeneity with Xi Li, so she must heal him, as if a kind of fate.
Without the American social media and popular psychological mechanisms, Xili's character alone may not have allowed him to experience such ups and downs. People are curious about Xili, people are crazy about Xili's superpower, people are angry about Xili's scandal, and these are closely related to the media industry. The film repeatedly shows the media's polishing and shaping of Xili at that time. The city hall, press conference, open-air speech stage, these symbolic places have become important symbols of Xili's turning point in life. Woody Allen even inserts a reporter's interview with Fletcher's mother's failed lead, which is his consistent satire of the media (similar passages also appear in the later "Deconstructing Lover: The Eighteenth Hell". Who's on the next floor? - Reporter.) Interestingly, Woody Allen seems to have intentionally set Sealy to be a participant in a number of important historical events, and he even sparked social movements (union strikes, three K party). This arrangement makes Xi Li like a point, which affects the whole society, but in turn is restrained by society. The point and the surface form a kind of tense interaction, which may point to Xi Li itself as a metaphor for the development process of the entire human society.
But if the film had only the aforementioned social irony, it would be close to mediocrity. The terrible thing "Xili Biography" tries to convey is not the exposure of Xili's personality and the criticism of social mechanisms, but the image itself, that is, how to use image techniques to weave a credible story. The form of "Xili Biography" itself is a metaphor for a social propaganda industry. When the old photos are complemented by the push-pull lens and the narration, the rough images that are made to be worn out on purpose show the face of Xi Li, the authoritative intellectuals back to the study sofa and make a loud statement, and most importantly, plus the person who knows how to shoot and A "real" event took place when the New Yorker director of The Magic of Editing. Woody Allen's use of this is clumsy, he doesn't want us to be really convinced (the intentionally exposed camera in the film is an example), but just parodies this model of filmmaking, which insinuates us as a machine The unique way of absorbing and preserving information in the era of reproduction. Outside of Xili and society, what really controls us is the image itself.
Back to poor Xili, the film seems to have given him a kind of redemption at the end. The tragic experience of youth, the reincarnation of Moby Dick and even the love of a doctor are all prompted as the key. He was finally at peace with himself and the world, saved by love. It fits with Woody Allen's usual merciful ending without pushing it toward true cruelty. In the end, when Saul Bellow and Owen Howe made the final summary of Xili, the feigned expression and movements were captured by Woody Allen with great precision and ridicule. But who can be sure that this is not yet another self-deprecating complicity among intellectuals? After all, everyone is like Xi Li.
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