In fact, the film contains a profound philosophy of life, metaphors and exposures to Hollywood and even the United States at that time, the scene management, the use of camera language, and especially the wonderful dialogue, all can be called an excellent film textbook. No wonder Deleuze has sincerely admired this film in his works. Even from the artistic point of view of a French intellectual, this kind of melodrama-like film from the assembly line of a major American studio is not without artistic value. Yes, so winning the Oscar for the best picture that year really deserves its name.
And Monroe was fortunate to play a small role in such a classic movie. It must be a memorable experience in her interesting career, no less than the failed cooperation with Oliver.
The story of the film is very cliché-we have to admit that the British are the most able to tell stories in the world, and the Americans are the most able to tell stories on film. They have a natural narrative talent that can tell otherwise mediocre stories. It is very exciting, and it has set a model. So far no country in the world can essentially overthrow the hegemony of American movies. Why do people like to watch Hollywood movies, from Gone with the Wind to today’s North American movie rankings? The film is not just a shameless kitsch and commercialization for intellectuals, but their outstanding narrative genius and accurate grasp of the audience's psychology.
People always like to hear other people tell stories.
This kind of narrative ability even Godard admits is the talent of Anglo-Saxons.
Therefore, the United Kingdom produced Shakespeare, Dickens, and Austin, and the United States produced Orson Wells, which became the blessed land of Hitchcock.
The story is about a scheming and courageous woman. How to fabricate a lie to win the sympathy and trust of a playwright’s wife, and then successfully break into the side of a big star. Starting from a follower, it is important to get acquainted step by step in a planned way. The playwrights, directors, and critics of China used all kinds of despicable means to replace the status of a big star and become a story about a rising star. If you are willing to use the word unspoken rules to understand a successful example of an actress, it's okay, because in order to get a role and career, this woman will not hesitate to seduce the husband of two benefactors and a man she thinks is of practical value. Such stories are indeed old-fashioned, and they are almost always performed today and in the future.
You can also understand it as the history of a woman's struggle, but it also contains a profound exploration and philosophy of human nature.
First of all, it is the denial of the true self and the desire to be another person that destroys precious qualities such as honesty, kindness, and simplicity. This is the result of the so-called desire for success.
In fact, the motif of the loss of innocence has been enthusiastically discussed by Westerners. The most famous version in film history is "Citizen Kane".
The film also adopts a flashback, flashback narrative method, and tells her story with the memories of the characters around the heroine.
At the beginning of the film, the various characters related to this are introduced with the scene of the awards ceremony, and the heroine herself has already achieved fame. The relevant characters of the film have already appeared on the scene, and the ending has been shown to the audience, so the next step is to lift the veil of this woman.
Through the narration of the playwright’s wife and the big star, the audience learned how this woman realized her plan step by step and replaced the aging actress.
In the process, the heroine showed off her genius in lying and acting, deceiving almost everyone, but the audience saw something else from the acrimonious maid of the overwhelming star, that was the true intentions of the woman. Suspect.
In fact, it is the maid and the insidious dramatist who have never been deceived by her pitiful and moving appearance, and everyone else has fallen into her trap, especially the two deceived women, when they are surprised to find themselves In an irreversible situation of being controlled and threatened, one chose to retire as a housewife, and the other was saved from being taken away from her husband only because of the plan of the wily critic.
In the film, the audience found her lie for the first time because she was standing on the stage with a costume on the pretext of putting the big star's clothes on her body.
Every woman knows that to possess another woman’s clothing is to some extent an attempt to replace or become this woman. If you don't understand the psychology of women's almost totem worship of clothing, you can't understand the psychology of women.
There are two scenes in the final exposure of her lie, and they are the most classic scenes in this film.
It was all seen through the eyes of the sophisticated and sleek critic.
One is that after she succeeded in replacing the big star in her premiere-this is the turning point of the film, and her true intentions and image are finally revealed.
Critics saw her seduce the lover of a big star in the crack of the door, a director who always looked depressed in front of a strong woman, but the man rejected her after seeing through her tricks.
The beauty of this scene is that it is completed through a half-closed door, and it seems that the audience has also become a voyeur.
The second classic scene is when a critic visits the heroine's house and asks her some questions about her past experience and life experience.
At this time, the audience can't see the heroine herself, she is changing her clothes under the pretext, so we can only vaguely see her shadow on the door.
The questioner is in the bright place outside the door, and the answerer is in the dark place inside the door, but during this questioning process, the audience can feel her panic and flicker from the contrast between the heroine’s shadow and the language. The word implies that she is lying.
This classic scene is that it does not directly expose the heroine's lies face to face, but tells the audience that she is lying in a way that only hears her voice but does not see her. So the effect is even more amazing and shocking.
At the end of the film, a new girl started her adventure again. She stood in the mirror and tried the clothes of the famous heroine, and then her shadow in the mirror suddenly became countless.
This is of course a metaphor, meaning that countless such stories and women will always exist. Although they are as short-lived as comets.
Regarding the performance of the actors in this film, they are all in place, because the director accurately grasped their respective temperaments, as if they were not acting but themselves. Betty took Weis from the bossy strong woman to the frustrated old woman, and the writer’s wife’s virtuous and gentle Nearly stupid, the heroine has gone from pitiful and unsophisticated to despicable and shameless. On the contrary, a few male actors are very pale except for a critic who is unsatisfactory. I think this is the story of three women after all.
Mankiewicz has always been known for shooting and creating tit-for-tat dialogue and driving dramatic scenes, so every scene is full of dramatic tension, but this inner tension is handled with humorous and philosophical lines. It's not in the actions, but in the language.
Many lines in the film can be regarded as classics. What I personally admire most is the sad monologue of the big star Ma Ge on women.
She said that many women lost precious things on the way up, but one day, they would think of those lost things in their early years, so they came back to look for them.
A woman has only one real job, not a career or fame, but a pure woman, waiting for her husband at home at six o'clock in the evening.
She finally chose to be an ordinary woman, both helpless and bored.
I like Davis, she smokes beautifully.
The film vaguely exposes the American success and the hypocrisy of fairy tales. The heroine of the film does not hesitate to change her name and surname in order to become famous, fabricating a miserable life and gaining sympathy.
You know, when the experienced critic revealed her real name and life experience, she collapsed at once, the name of an immigrant, a poor family, a history of humiliation and shame.
Anyone who knows or hears about the rules of Hollywood knows that it is a place full of lies, from Strawhen to Edith Hyde, from Godwin to Laura Parsons, used by these humble but clever people. A fairy tale woven by lies to conceal the true self, these stars, who made stars, themselves are people who have no past. Even outside of Hollywood, how much is true behind the so-called successful American dream?
Finally, I want to talk about the significance of the heroine's costume in the film.
When she first appeared on the stage, when she entered the circle of theatrical celebrities, she was dressed in a neutral, plain and shabby dress, a windbreaker popular during the war, the button that was tied to the collar, and the men’s Panama hat, like a boy. The image makes people think-especially the women think it is completely harmless and non-threatening, so they successfully won the trust of the two women.
Then in the following scenes, she appeared in the capable suit of a shrewd and capable professional female secretary, still not very threatening, until she appeared in a dark women’s evening gown at the celebrity’s family gathering. It began to make the big stars feel threatened, and it also began to have an impact on the men.
When she finally made her debut, she appeared completely in star costume, trying to exude the allure and elegance of a woman. At the final awards ceremony, she appeared in a gorgeous white dress, completing the transition from Cinderella to Queen. plan.
The costumes of the actresses in the film are samples of Eisenhower middle-class ladies' costumes in the early 1950s. Mink coats, pearl ornaments, elegant dresses that highlight feminine charm, classic high-heeled shoes, Davis's hairstyle is prominent from beginning to end. With its grand and heroic personality, the others are ladies' hair to interpret the dull and boring era that is about to pass.
The original English name of the film is about everything about Eva. Who knows if this is another fairy tale. In the world, people are always acting as others, hoping to be others, and have lost their true self. The true me may only be It's only in swaddling or graves.
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