The dimly lit room with only flickering candles, the pale golden wallpaper with an aristocratic atmosphere, and the curly-haired English gentleman sitting next to his dying father listening to his last words. The old father was breathing heavily, but every word was firm. In the next instant, the gentleman who was as pious as Saint Peter at his old father's bedside was on the same side as his snarky wife, and no longer thought about his poor mother and unmarried sisters. At this time, the sky was bright, and all kinds of beautiful projections appeared on the old British buildings. And the whole screen still does not appear that kind of dazzling brightness, but seems to be covered with a faint gray, similar to the kind of unbearable emotion that the film is about to tell. The crisp sound of hooves accompanied by softly raised but not very high music, then the snarky voice of a married woman—all middle-aged married women all over the world—and men Helpless step by step. And then there's the scene I like - large swaths of dark clouds occupying two-thirds of the frame, a leaning verdant tree covered in a light grey on the right side of the frame, a carriage galloping on the horizon - —that light, barely perceptible gray, but that gray was so obvious to my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose that I felt it invaded my body and mind—because it Is it a film from fifteen years ago, or is it because it is an Ang Lee film?
When this screen appeared, it happened to be the fourth minute.
Then came out Kate Winslet's beautiful face with the flow of the gentle piano sound. At that time, she was not the plump rose on the Titanic, the reckless and talented female writer in Iris, nor the sexy mature and ignorant middle-aged female conductor in "The Reader". She was only twenty years old at that time, like a bud waiting to open, youth and beauty were written on her tender pink face. The wooden piano, the soft light blue patterned photosensitive wallpaper, the oil paintings with gold borders, the elegantly curved slender tables and high hangers, all tell the elegant luxury of a middle-class family in the Victorian era.
At this point the door was opened and our other heroine, Emma Thompson, appeared. At that time, she was 36 years old. Director Ang Lee cast her 36-year-old as 19-year-old Eleanor. I think it was a success. The calmness, poise, forbearance, and generosity expressed in that kind of novel are beyond the range that a 19-year-old girl may express. Only a woman who has experienced a little bit of weather can interpret such gentleness and forbearance perfectly. And it turns out that Emma Thompson is indeed perfect. Her kind of beauty needs a little to appreciate. At first glance, she was mediocre, and her dark clothes made her look older. And listen to her slowly, every word is gentle but eloquent, every sentence is reasonable. Looking slowly at her generosity, dignity and self-restraint in life, when she faced Edward, she was not overwhelmed by love, but just waited silently in her heart; when she heard the news of Edward's engagement, she did not lose her composure, even in order to abide by his righteousness. Another girl's promise to keep this painful secret deep in her heart, while she also comforts her sister Marianne, who is suffering from Willoughby's abandonment. She is polite to everyone and hides her feelings perfectly - this is in line with the requirements of British high society for gentlemen and ladies. All the bearable and unbearable, Eleanor has endured. She is a woman who is soft on the outside and tough on the inside, so sensible and well-behaved that it makes people feel distressed.
Such women also exist in China. The one who immediately appeared in front of her was Yao Mulan. When I read Jinghua Yanyun in my freshman year, I realized that Mr. Lin Yutang, who is proficient in Spanish, is actually the most traditional. Only a woman like Yao Mulan who is self-denying for her family and her husband is the perfect woman in his heart, not the passionate and unrestrained pursuit of free love in the West. woman. It's just that I hated not finishing this novel in high school just because Yao Mulan didn't marry Kong Lifu. Later I learned that for some people and certain value systems, there is something more important than love. Yao Mulan knows the whole thing, and so does Eleanor. For the sake of the rules of society and the happiness of others, they all carefully hide themselves perfectly and become a beautiful symbol. I can't say for sure if they have any value in doing so, but women like this are worthy of respect. In the end, when she learned that Edward was not married, Eleanor burst into tears with joy. The long-held feelings finally spewed out uncontrollably, and she cried so happily.
The 05 version of "Pride and Prejudice" also has scenes of crying with joy at the end. When Bentley knelt down and stretched out his hand to Jane, Jane held his hand and cried. Such a lens is nothing new. And director Ang Lee's expression is very subtle, there is no scene of marriage proposal, but he is overwhelmed by the side, she leans on the chair and weeps happily. There is a tacit understanding between them, and this is what the film wants to tell us. Eleanor finally got her own happiness - Austin is a pure and beautiful woman, she has an unfortunate relationship, but the girls in her novels have happy endings. Eleanor looked as beautiful as Angel's gentle smile in the dress, and her 36-year-old face was radiant and delicate at this time. Eleanor is like a piece of jade, gentle and reserved, it takes time to precipitate her beauty.
And sister Marianne is almost the opposite of her sister. For her, only emotion—rich, sharp, intense, and above all that rose from her soft heart—was everything. She threw herself into playing a piece of music, she carefully drew the silhouette of her sweetheart, and when she read Shakespeare's sonnets, the blue sea was turbulent in her eyes. She gave up all her restraint in front of Willoughby, she sat in his galloping carriage, and she didn't care to be the talk of the street and the topic of after dinner. "As long as I love him". she says. Affection! Affection! Affection! Marianne is a true artist, and that artist's temperament is born with the blood rushing around. Those Victorian women, I've read about Jane Eyre's tenacity and self-esteem, Tess's simplicity and rebellion, Emma's vivacious and superior, but no one expresses herself as boldly as Marianne. If life were a huge canvas, she was painting in the brightest colors, while other women of the day were only shallowly sketching in less clear outlines. There's no one better suited to the role of Marianne than Kate Winslet, who has the radiant passion and stunning beauty of Austen's novels. In the BBC version of "Sense and Sensibility" in 2008, perhaps because of the lack of director Ang Lee's overall reserved tone, perhaps because the increased film length gave her more room to play, Marianne seems to be more out of line in performance. . I can't say who's acting is better, I can only say that the 08BBC version of Marianne didn't have the beauty that Austin asked for.
Sense and Sensibility is Austen's first novel. Last winter I was in the library holding that thick Austen Complete Works book and trying to finish it in a semester. At that time, my English was very jerky, and those dense letters made my eyes sore. I remember reading "Pride and Prejudice" while recalling the beautiful shots and images of the movie, and following the clues of the novel little by little, I still had room to breathe after reading it. I can also say that I understood about half of it. When I read "Sense and Sensibility", I felt that it was the most painful reading experience I have ever experienced. I only knew the outline of the novel, and I didn't read the Chinese version of the novel first, but held the thick complete works in my hand. This book is in English, which excludes the possibility of seeking a translation when I cannot understand the sentence. I only have an electronic dictionary at hand, and it drives me crazy to frequently look up words I have never met before, and what drives me even more crazy is that I look up all the new words and still don't know the meaning of the whole sentence. So I read half of the novel and half guessed it, and my understanding of Eleanor and Marianne was only on the surface of their language that I could understand—a vague and ambiguous impression. But I don't know why, those words, what I said was the impression that every word gave me and the atmosphere created by the language seemed to draw in front of me the appearance of two girls and the mountains of the English countryside and the luxurious and elegant or simple but tidy Small villa. So when I saw the 1995 version of the movie, I felt that it matched the impression in my heart. It was a wonderful movie viewing experience that I had never had before, and it evoked a certain paragraph of text I once read that I didn't understand. . Austin's mature writing and my poor English gave me a painful reading experience, and Ang Lee gave me a perfect movie.
During the time I was reading Sense and Sensibility I went to the library for three to five hours a day to read it and finished it in a week - that was a week of my self-abuse, my brain was stuck —I haven't had the courage to open Austen's third novel until now. I'm an unqualified Austin fan, but I want to thank Director Ang Lee. Ang Lee's films and Austen's novels seem to have something in common. As the reviewer said, Austin never makes people happy and sad, and neither does Ang Lee, he has always taken a moderate line.
I prefer Sense and Sensibility to Pride and Prejudice, although the former is far more famous than the latter. Maybe it's because I've only seen the 05 movie version of "Pride and Prejudice", the whole film is too straightforward and hardly worth scrutinizing. Keira Knightley, who plays Elizabeth, doesn't have the intelligence and restraint that Austen describes, no, she's too pretentious, and every word she says sounds so false to me. Darcy looked dumb, like a talking sculpture. The performance in "Sense and Sensibility" is full and powerful. In fact, what I like most is the tone of the film, the old gray, the nostalgic gray. Oh, how many modern people's longings and longings are involved in that complicated and classical Victorian era that never returns!
Oh, I accidentally wrote too much, it seems like a lot of nonsense. I'll change it to use it as a broadcast copy in the future~~~
View more about Sense and Sensibility reviews
