Taking advantage of the Chinese New Year, I first watched "Letter from a Strange Woman" directed and acted by Xu Jinglei. While searching, I accidentally noticed that there was an adaptation of "Letter from a Strange Woman" in 1948. The Chinese translations of the two films differ by one word, but the meanings are slightly different, so the common English name is still used as the title citation.
In terms of content matching, Xu Jinglei is more loyal to the original work. Except that the background was changed to the East, and the characters' identities changed a little, the other contents were basically kept. In the novel, the two live opposite each other, and in the film are two rooms in the courtyard; it turns out that the neighbors are always quarreling and noisy, and there are also some in the film; about the bouquet of white roses given to the male protagonist every year, it is basically the same. The most reserved lines are the lines. The heroine has a large number of narrations, which are basically the original words in the original work. Since the original work is in chronological order, the storyline is relatively smooth.
But that's what makes the film itself less moving than the novel. I can't enter the world to experience this feeling like sitting on the sofa and reading the text carefully, and I can't rely on the narration to complete the outline of the story. The actual situation that appears is that I can't understand that after a girl collided with a handsome middle-aged uncle, she gave her life like this, so there is no sense of substitution. In fact, on this issue, Zweig is also very vague. Although it is a short story, its paragraphs are also very clear. The beginning of each paragraph begins with "My son died last night--". These words are like the breath of the whole novel, even if it has a rhythm. , and at the same time, when we were looking forward to understanding the subtle psychological changes of the heroine, we made just the right cover up. The original work itself has such a defect, and this defect is clearly explained by Zhu Wei: ""Letter from a Strange Woman" is actually saturated with the breath of a vulgar man - which is filled with the solidified religion of love. This love Is it immortal? When love is solidified into a can, it's really supposed to be just a corpse. What I don't like is one of the man Zweig's narratives about this woman, he treats a beautiful woman as an object, his The novel permeates such a perspective on women, through which he meets the cheap consumption of the patriarchal center. For this reason, I don’t know why Xu Jinglei likes such an attitude. On Valentine’s Day, you have to let men and women What are we all doing?"
We wouldn't like that attitude, and I don't think Xu Jinglei would either. Zhu Wei is right, the love in the original book is not immortal, there are immortal elements that fascinate us, and there are also rotten parts. In literary works, the immortal side shines between the lines, and from the text to the screen, the story needs to let the language of the film express this emotion, which is not something that can be done by copying the original text as a narration. This is precisely what Xu Jinglei, who is good at literature, lacks.
How can the film speak for itself? We may take some cues from Max Orpheus' version.
First of all, the American version has made a big change, that is, the male protagonist Stephen has changed from a writer to a pianist. This setting is fundamental. On the screen, the picture and sound are dominant, and the text can only be auxiliary. When the wonderful sound of the piano floated into Lisa's ears from the window, it also reached the ears of every audience, and his talent was felt by us all at once. By the way, let's take a look at the appearance of this male protagonist. Although it is said that Lolita fell in love with the uncle not only because of his appearance, but if a romantic and suave person is not particularly rich, he should be handsome.
The second is the addition and deletion of content. With the traction of music, there are clues to emotional arousal. It is almost blank in Innsbruck's life novel, and the director added the blind date process, the two went to the square to listen to music, the music played, accompanied by Lisa's narration: Although Inns also has music, the meaning of music to her is only in Vienna.
The date after returning to Vienna was the creation of the director's genius. Compared to Xu Jinglei's film of the parade after being rescued, it took him over ten minutes to film the date, from meeting, rejecting the date, having dinner, going to the park, buying flowers, dancing to Finally returned to that familiar house, full of poetry and romance. The dialogue between the two in the simulated train in the special park, talking about each other's travels, is very interesting.
Of course, doing so is risky, and the more deeply the love process is portrayed, the less we can believe how Stephen could have forgotten Lisa. This is a pity of the original book, and there is no supplement for this part in the two movie versions. In the US version, the male protagonist never looked for Lisa again after the tour. It might be better if there were some scenes of him and other women being romantic. More importantly, Lisa should have gone to him before she knew she was pregnant - the switch here, whether it's a novel or a movie, is abrupt.
Orpheus didn't make Lisa a high-class prostitute, her modelling job could already raise children, and her reunion with Stephen in the concert hall made her uneasy. Stephen's "maybe you can help me" makes Lisa desperate again, because he said the same thing on their first date. And it became the fuse of the final tragedy. The entire script was very careful in laying the dark lines, which paved the way for the final climax.
The climax was when Lisa went to Stephen's house by herself. She mustered up the courage to tell him all the truth, but Stephen went to pour the wine and get ice at the critical moment. Lisa gradually felt disappointed. It turned out that the male protagonist's sentence "maybe you can help me" was just a means of gaining sympathy in exchange for reassurance, not because he recognized her; The sentence "You also like to travel?" made her despair even more. In the park, the two of them had traveled twice to all the countries that the simulated train could reach, but he couldn't remember anything. His final flirting "RU lonely?" took Lisa's eyes completely out of the way, mumbling "Very lonely.". It really answered the sentence "There is nothing in the world more terrifying than living alone in a crowd." But Lisa accepted this horror without hesitation.
Lao Xu also put a lot of thought into it. For example, the pipa music in the film was carefully selected. It would be nice to have a female head practice pipa, in the 6 years in Handan, in the years when she raised her children alone. And Orpheus removed the trite vassals and idiocy in the novel and raised it to a new level. Although this love is eager to be answered, it is full of courage - "My whole life is yours, but I would rather be alone." How is "loyal to the original"? Is it loyal to the original plot or to the living emotions that touched all beings in the work? I firmly support the latter.
In the end, all the male protagonists at the end of the American version remembered, and every time his deja vu was real. The most terrifying stranger is "the most familiar stranger."
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