The Coen Brothers are Hollywood's weirdos. The two brothers directed, wrote, and produced each work together, and insisted on making movies only in the form of independent production. No matter how big commercial interests were, they could not give up their complete control over the work. The works of the Coen brothers have won the Palme d'Or and the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Best Picture Award and Best Director Award at the Academy Awards, but their works always belong to a niche genre, and their styles always follow on the non-mainstream route. "Barton Fink", "Money Empire", "Frozen", "No Country for Old Men" are the more famous works of the brothers.
Serious Men's protagonist Larry Gopnick is a college physics professor -- a very serious subject and a very serious job. Larry is a Jew. He believes in Judaism. He does rituals on a regular basis. If he is troubled, he talks to a Jewish rabbi (similar to a priest). Larry lived with his wife, two children, and his younger brother, and each family lived their lives with utmost seriousness. But as we got closer, we immediately discovered that things were not quite what we understood. Larry's wife is clamoring to divorce him because she is in love with a neighbor friend, and the wife and her boyfriend are plausibly asking Larry to move out. Larry's brother, who doesn't have a job, occupied the toilet all day, ran to the state border to gamble, and claimed that the police came because his gambling skills were intimidating. Larry's son listened to music all day and used his father's name to mail-order expensive records. Larry's daughter washes her hair every day and goes out every night to have fun. The two brothers and sisters don't care about their father moving out and their parents getting divorced. One only wants his father to fix the TV, and the other is concerned about when his father can drive out the uncle who is occupying the toilet. As for Larry's job, it was messed up by a Japanese student who secretly put an envelope of money in order to bribe Larry to change his grade to a passing grade, but when Larry accused the Japanese student, the Japanese student Instead, the student's father said that he wanted to sue Larry for defamation, but if Larry revised his grades, the student's father was willing not to sue. Larry had no choice but to seek the guidance of his life mentor, the rabbi, but several rabbis just said irrelevant things, and also seriously emphasized that God will not do meaningless things, but since we can't see What is the meaning of God, there is no need to think about the meaning of this life. What a very serious and very funny life.
what is the meaning of life? Biologists may say it is carrying genes, survival of the fittest, and species continuity. Theologians might say that it is to hide evil and promote good, pass trials, and enter heaven. Buddhists may say that it is beyond birth and death, out of samsara, and attained to Nirvana. The Coen brothers said that life is meaningless without gods and Buddhas. In "Serious Men", each character seriously pursues his ideals and lives his own life seriously, but from the perspective of a third party, the lives of these people are ridiculous. In "No Country for Old Men", the person who steals money thinks that as long as he works hard, he can escape the pursuit and is rich, and the person who pursues the murder thinks that as long as he works hard, he can catch the bad guy and achieve justice, but the result decides everyone Destiny, just a boring coincidence. In the eyes of the Coen brothers, life is so absurd and ridiculous, and the more a person lives it, the more ridiculous it becomes.
At the beginning of the movie, the actor Larry explained "Schrödinger's cat" in class, which is a disturbing proposition in quantum physics. It says that radioactive atoms will decay, and decayed Timing is all about chance, and quantum physicists believe that at some point in time, atoms are in both a decaying and non-decaying state (not half the number of atoms decaying and half not decaying) until the observer observes that the atom is in a state of decay. The state will be classified as one of decay or non-decay. For this view, Schrödinger disagreed, so he proposed the hypothetical experiment of "Schrödinger's cat", which locked a cat in a special box, and determined the life and death of the cat by the decay of atoms. According to the theory of quantum physicists, the decay results of atoms can only be returned to the final state after opening the box and observing. Before that, atoms are in a dual state of decay and non-decay, and the same Schrödinger's cat is also caused by The dual state of being dead and not dying -- how absurd? Einstein, a great Jewish scientist, also opposed the view of quantum physicists. Roll the dice". Sadly, terribly, and bewilderingly, modern physicists have shown that atoms can indeed be in a dual state, and quantum physicists were right. If so, what about life? At a certain moment, we are in the dual state of death and immortality, success and failure, happiness and sorrow, until the moment when God's dice hits the ground, everything is finalized, and the probability determines our destiny!
While quantum physicists have drawn depressing conclusions, cognitive psychologists see it differently. Initially, the psychoanalytic school put forward the subconscious mind, believing that most of human behavior is influenced by the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind is influenced by innate physiological desires and childhood satisfaction experiences, so people's control over their own behavior is weak. Later, the behavioral school put forward constraints, arguing that human behavior is completely influenced by physiological conditioning results, and the so-called self-will is a false illusion, just like ringing the bell every time before feeding a dog, after a period of time, just ringing A bell can make a dog drool, even if it wants to. The cognitive school that dominates psychology now has a completely different view. It believes that the way a person cognition determines his behavior, and his behavior determines the consequences. A psychological experiment in 2008 proved that a person's objective popularity will affect the person's future achievements, but a person's subjective "belief" that he is popular also has a great impact on the person's future achievements. big influence. The degree to which a person is liked in reality may depend on the person's appearance, family background, education, and various fate arrangements, but family education and self-adjustment can change one's perception of oneself, and then change the external appearance. How the environment responds, and the results of future achievements. I remember when I was in college, a professor mentioned an experiment where a group of students was tested and asked to assess whether they were more popular in the class than 50% of the class. The result was very interesting, about 80% agreed that I am the more popular 50%. Are the results ridiculous? Of course ridiculous. Are people ridiculous? is not that right. But from another point of view, no matter how God can make this world, there will always be people who will pick on and make trouble, so in the end, God has to give everyone a pair of eyes that can see everything beautifully, a heart that loves yourself more, and then Live in a happy and happy mood and make the world better. As for the dice, leave it to the hard-working 20% to worry about it!
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