I remember that in 2015, when the first trailer for "Long Live Caesar" was announced, there was news that the Coen brothers admitted that the new film they had shot was actually not a comedy. However, seeing the trailer of the movie, we really didn't believe it. It wasn't until the film was released on February 5th that the audience really understood that the directors did not lie.
If this happy trailer is just a patchwork of some branch plots, what is the main line of the movie and how should it be opened? Judging from the evaluation of foreign media, we have to mention two previous works by the Coen brothers to pave the way. It happens to be most of the domestic movie fans, before waiting for the resources of "Long Live Caesar", it can be used to solve greedy first. The movie "Barton Fink" in 1991 tells the story of an excellent New York playwright, Barton Fink, who came to Hollywood to create a B-level screenplay around the 1940s. He stayed in a hotel with a weird atmosphere, trying to concentrate on writing. But because a series of strange things happen, I can't concentrate on creating... The starring actor of the film: John Tetoro, is the unlucky policeman in the familiar transformation series. This "Barton Fink" was the first film that won the Palme d'Or, Best Director, and Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival at the same time, and it was unanimously approved by the judges. You will find actor: John Tetoro. Since the 1990s, he has participated in many Coen brothers' films "Miller's Crossroads", "Murder of Green Toes", "Three Kings Escape" and so on. His acting style is unique, which is very suitable for the weird and absurd characters in the works of the Coen brothers, and show the plot stories that seamlessly connect reality and illusion.
Speaking of this, "Barton Fink" starring John Tetoro. Just as a playwright, the transition to a Hollywood screenwriter, whether it is a transition from art to commerce, from pleasing the audience to pleasing the boss of a production company, the inner struggle and entanglement of a screenwriter is full of drama. However, the Coen brothers always add social and religious satires and metaphors to the bizarre stories they are best at, so that their films are full of dark humorous plots in structure, and can come from many aspects in themes. Interpretation satisfies the taste of a wide range of people, and it also allows movie fans to constantly find ways to interpret, which is full of the thrill of watching movies. This "Barton Funk" has the possibility of interpretation from the Bible, as well as from the perspective of social status and personal consciousness. This sounds exciting, just like when people find out that George Clooney’s "Three Kings", the story structure is ingeniously overlapped with Homer's epic "Odyssey", and it is full of intoxicating countryside. music. A series of encounters of the little people are shown interestingly. The bard, the Last Judgment, and the last crowd being washed away by the flood can all be interpreted with epics. The film is not only good-looking, but also satisfies the author and the viewer, the creation and the The joy of interpretation.
The Coen brothers, the combination of film + philosophy, often have a high generalization ability. They can use a typical character to represent the power of a group. Use the contradiction between an individual's consciousness and behavior to show the creator's thinking dilemma between mainstream consciousness and free will. Some interesting names are used as symbols, suggesting the position and status of the characters. Of course, there are also their best dreams, the switch between illusion and reality, which makes their films full of horror and suspense. Some people say "Barton Funk" is one of the obscure films. However, if you only cut it from the perspective of a screenwriter's story, you will see a series of pungent and interesting passages, witty and satirical of the Hollywood system and the embarrassment of famous writers. There is also the protagonist, Patton Funk, who is cowardly and arrogant. Afterwards, the development of such a plot, as well as the bizarre murders, fires and other bridges, will lead the viewers to a deeper level of interpretation. The awakening of free will about the social crux and the counter-mainstream makes the film become a character. Wrestling with his own soul, a profound work that constantly shuttles between reality and imagination.
What's more, if people who know a little bit about religion and the Bible, of course, if they are Western audiences, they will get it more directly. The Coen brothers added those biblical stories in the plot, giving all the bizarre passages and plots. All the changes can be explained. Some people say that the religious complex of the Coen brothers is not a whim, it is often their starting point for filming. And they can always make the film full of black humor, but at the same time it makes people feel that the plot has a deep meaning. This "Barton Funk", self-deprecating the Hollywood system, is more related to the collective consciousness of the war years around 1940. And in the latest "Long Live Caesar", more shows the 1950s, after the war, the Hollywood studios that were prosperous for a while, under the prosperous performance, inside a group of bad debts. And, more of them show that those familiar classic plays of the 1950s can be regarded as a kind of emotional remembrance. The casts in the film each represent the protagonist of the most popular genre film of that era. While nostalgic, we can also enjoy the pleasure of handsome men and beauties in turn.
This is what we saw in the trailer. The beautiful Hollywood of the 1950s was hilarious and unstoppable. But the Coen brothers never did it. They just told us a series of jokes. While enjoying seeing the story behind the camera, the Coen brothers continued to use religious elements to lead us to explore, a popular Hollywood production company How executives seek balance and salvation between work and faith. If we want to experience the contradiction between a man's life and religion, we cannot avoid another Coen brothers' work "Serious Man". The 2009 "Serious Man" The Coen brothers' works over the years are all male themes, using a man to represent a broad range of people. And this "Serious Man" embodies an ordinary university faculty member: Larry Gopnik, who has encountered a heavy blow in life, his wife’s affair, work improvement, financial crisis, all of this, Larry, who was in distress, could only turn to the rabbi of Judaism to help him get out of the predicament and return to a normal life. In this film, the Cohen brothers chose to explore the relationship and contradictions between life and religion from the perspective of Jews and Judaism.
The film is also full of cold humor. A man stands on the roof in a serious manner. This is the only thing he can reach, the commanding height of life. As Larry's predicament continued to intensify, he met three rabbis from low to high, but none of them could change the fate of life. And as a representative of the innocent public, he has no clue and no solution to what is happening around him. The feelings of powerlessness and resignation of the little people made the audience deeply sympathetic. And everything the film wants to say, the Coen brothers are placed in the fable at the beginning of the film. On a snowy night, an uninvited guest visits, whether it is a good-hearted person or a devil, you will never know. The theory of "Schrödinger’s Cat" mentioned in the film is also the same. There is uncertainty in everything, but the actor Larry cannot understand that this uncertainty is happening to him. It is out of pure causality, too much. There is no answer to the question. Whether it was the first rabbi who asked him to look at the problem from another angle—the problem continued to worsen; or the second rabbi who asked him to ignore the existence of the problem—all he could do was wait; the highest-level rabbi didn’t say anything. After some life's baptism, Larry finally said that when faced with his brother who was more miserable than himself, sometimes, when life is difficult, you can only help yourself.
A person is an angel or a demon. What happens is fate or random. It's all up to you, whether you use reasoning, wait for the result, or accept random facts. In the film, many things are only explained. The wife is about to marry the affair, the record store sends an amazing bill for no reason, and the brother is caught by the police. None of this explains the exact reason, and many things are unanswered. When the actor Larry changed the student's grades for money, the film ended with dark clouds and a tornado coming, and Larry received a call from the hospital for him to have an interview. This time, it seemed that the reason was explained again, but the result was not explained. The beauty of the film lies in the double protagonist, father Larry and son Danny. This can be seen from the beginning of the movie. The father is undergoing a physical examination, and his son is listening to the Walkman in class, and is preparing to pay back the money to a fat man. These two lines reached the end of the film. Faced with the tornado, the son did not say the words to pay back the money. The father received a call from the hospital, and the film ended, and he responded rigorously. The father who believed in Judaism all his life, from low to high, visited the rabbi for help, but failed to get out of the predicament, but was played by life instead. And the son is experiencing the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, from a child to a man's journey, seeing the highest rabbi that his father had no chance to meet, but he didn't get any profound enlightenment, but found what he wanted most in his heart. The Walkman, being told a few lyrics, is thought-provoking, just like the theme of the film, all this may or may not make sense.
The Coen Brothers' "Serious Man", although it lacks a criminal comedy, is also full of unexpected side plots and bizarre dreams. The interspersion of dreams is the customary expression technique used by the Coen brothers to reveal the characters' hearts. From "Miller's Crossroads", "Raising Arizona" to "Old Nowhere", the insertion and self-reporting of dreams are very important. In "Serious Man", it is even more inserted with dreams one after another, showing the protagonist Larry's fear of infidels, fear of rivals, lust for neighboring women, and so on. If you take out the dream scenes of each of the Coen brothers' films separately, it must be a great essay. In 2016, "Long Live Caesar". In addition to dreams, kidnapping is the favorite plot setting of the Coen brothers. They are keen on kidnapping scenes, from their "Ice and Blood Storm", "Raising Arizona", "Murder Green Toe" "Long Live Caesar" and other works, the objects of kidnapping, from women to children, this time "Long Live Caesar" is the same. In this way, the film, with the color of crime and comedy genre at the same time, becomes a standard black humor mixture. The drama, the exploration of the reasons and results of the kidnapping, is very attractive to the audience and has been tried and tested. At the same time, for the playwright, the suspense in the kidnapping bridge contains the double conflict between the hostage and the kidnapper, and between the kidnapper and the criminal purpose. For "Long Live Caesar" to succeed at the box office, to a large extent depends on the screenwriting skills of the Coen brothers and the crime comedy genre market, and of course, the appearance of a large number of casts. While the film is classic nostalgic and pungent and self-deprecating, the main line is more like "Serious Man". The former describes the dilemma of "Hard Life", while "Long Live Caesar" describes the choice of "Hard Job".
The main protagonist of the film, Eddie Mannix, the director of Capital Picture production company, is actually more like Eddie Man Fix, a trouble-shooter-a Fixer. The story of the film took place between his two confessions. Within 27 hours, he dealt with tricky events one after another, while at the same time entangled in the choice of whether to quit. His working condition is more like the ransom box that can’t fit, and he can’t deduct it anyhow, but Eddie is still trying hard, just like he often feels that he can’t handle the work, but when someone asks him whether he needs to change When there was a box, the box was closed in good condition. There are many highlights in the film, such as turning the editor-in-chief of a female gossip magazine into twin sisters. The serious director of the drama film: Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, was killed by the action film actor forced into by the big boss. There is also a study group of funny Communist Party members, about the integration of history and economy. The actress played by Scarlett Johansson: DeeAnna Moran, who became pregnant after she was unmarried, and the director refused to be responsible, so Eddie had to go and find someone to help settle the situation. The Soviet submarine appeared in the middle of the night, and the secret joint of the party members went with the dog, and in the end it was because of the dog's heavy losses.
Not much to say about the plot, let's talk about the religious plot in the film. In a section of the film, four clergymen gathered for an unprecedented time to discuss the story of the birth of Jesus in the film being filmed. To ensure that this bridge did not offend any sect, the four clergy: Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic clergy, and Jewish rabbis, the great debate on "The Nature of Christ." began. Sometimes I feel that the Coen brothers dare to let go of such a bridge and can still control it. Among them: Is Jesus the Son of God? God is a bachelor? God loves Jesus, God loves everyone, God is God, and so on. A series of controversies such as God loves Jesus, God loves everyone, God is God, and so on. At the end of the film, Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney, returned to the set and completed the last set of shots of the birth of Jesus after a lesson from the boss Eddie. When he was passionately reciting lines, his eyes filled with Jesus. Light, this is the light from a god, a truth. The solemn moment touched everyone on the shooting scene, but soon, he forgot the words, and then scolded angrily: "Son of bich." This kind of bridge will always make you feel too Cohen NS.
The film uses a pleasing Hollywood plot of the last century, interspersed with five genres, in the chaotic work, following the male protagonist, experiencing confession and choice, this time, the Coen brothers, gave us feelings and jokes, gave us Suspenseful plot and profound religious discussion. The stories that took place in Hollywood during these 27 hours have made people feel unfulfilled. Cohen deliberately used the same film company name as in "Barton Funk", as if Capital Picture has always existed in the fictional world. It is said that the male protagonist: Eddie Mannix has a character prototype, a famous person who played for MGM in the early stage, who specializes in helping companies and superstars solve various problems.
In the film, the priests say that God is divided. The Communist Party says that the human body is divided. Perhaps the Coen brothers are explaining that everyone is also a splittist full of contradictions. In work and life, it is inevitable to face difficult problems, and only oneself knows which one is right.
February 8, 2016 Toronto Xiao Xuan Er Ji——————————————
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