1. All the stories on the screen and the stories on the stage are not real stories; all the experiences described and expressed are not real experiences; all the lives told and performed are not real life. Therefore, regardless of high-definition, 3D, 4D, panoramic sound... For a hundred years, movies that have tried to bring the most realistic sensory experience to the audience, as a developing technology, cannot bring reality. This seems to be what Ang Lee wants to express in "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle" in 4K+3D+120 frames, which exhausts the limits of current photography technology. And the narrative of the movie seems to be telling the same truth. Not mentioning literary and artistic works, even real events, even direct news footage, or even face-to-face narration by the parties, cannot restore the reality of this moment. Any history can only be touched by those who are in that situation at that moment. As far as the historical text of personal history is concerned, the situation of the text becomes less and less important, and more important is the situation of the reader. We cannot immerse ourselves in the world of the other, grasp all of his situation, perceive his thoughts, interpret history in such a way that it becomes the other, not a part of us. But we live in our world, interpreting history in our circumstances, whether that is real history or not, but our perceptions are real and part of ourselves. However, this real experience just deviates from reality itself. All immersion is to let external stimuli enter our interpretation mode, but in fact it is just self-resonance with self. We cannot immerse ourselves in the world of others, interpret from their perspective, and resonate with the self and the other. This kind of resonance is what Ang Lee hopes to continuously achieve through technology. But whether on screen or in real life, there is no such resonance. 2. Meaning requires a comprehensive narrative. The memory and received information are filtered, and after filtering, the effective information is organized into a self-consistent logic. The characters in the film are all looking for meaning, for this war. Football, Hollywood, national anthem, redneck, cheerleaders, heroism, capitalism... have never been bombarded with so many cliche elements in such a short period of time. This is a comprehensive demonstration of the mainstream American discourse system. Every character tries to find a part in his own world that is in harmony with the discourse system, and thus find his own footing. Whether it is an agent, a publicist, a businessman, or a cheerleader, they all establish themselves in this discourse system, and establish communication with Billy Lynn, trying to interpret and understand what happened to him. Billy Lynn, in this system of discourse, represents the hero, which is his only label. The agent, through the reality that Hollywood has no one hundred days of prosperity, tries to maximize the value of the hero. Businessmen, with the shrewdness and ruthlessness of capitalism, try to turn the symbol of hero into the greatest profit at the least cost. The love affair between a cheerleader, America's sweetheart, and a national hero is the embodiment of her personal value, and in a society that promotes individualism, the most magnificent march that empowers heroes to fight. This is their different perspective on understanding the world, and in their limited horizons, they think they can completely dissect Proportional Lynn by themselves. But for Billy Lynn, the Iraqi war career has long broken this discourse system, and the real experience cannot be digested through any narrative, so the meaning no longer exists. When the cheerleaders ramble on about Billy Lynn's understanding through their own eyes, it's just ridiculous. For Americans, the most important form of communication is to fully open up and express one another, pouring out all the emotions. But if the two sides are not in the same discourse system at all, not in the same channel, what's the point of this kind of talk? Ang Lee believes that all expressions are invalid, because your words and understanding are inseparable from the established discourse system. The only communication is to immerse in the world of others. So, all people are alienated, and the world Billy Lynn sees is so alienated. And those who are closer to him may only be those comrades who lived and died together and experienced the same history together. 3. True memory cannot be a coherent narrative. Like Billy Lynn, memories are fragmented, unsystematic, and déjà vu will pop up at any time due to various unexpected sensory touches. But the real face of memory cannot constitute a convincing meaning. When everything seems so unreasonable, when the war is so absurd, when the enthusiastic response of the compatriots only seems to hurt, when it hurts the only sister who has deep pain with it, what is the point of returning to the battlefield? In the discourse system of the main theme of American patriotism, he should move forward boldly; under the call and torment of the humanitarian spirit, he should go to the opposite side of the war; in individualism or eastern thinking, he should leave On the battlefield, go back to the people you really care about and who are worth fighting for. However, these fragmented memories only brought conflicts and contradictions to him, but they could not easily point him to a path that he could walk on with peace of mind. A choice between two is much more difficult than no choice at all. Under the attack of ethics, morality and responsibility, Billy Lynn is divided, and he can't make a choice because he can't find a meaning that can fully convince himself. In the end he found peace and answers, albeit painfully. In the face of the crisis of personal existence, Ang Lee once again used the wisdom of the East, or the wisdom of India to provide a way out. I'm not proud of that, but I did what I have to do. Billy Lynn in the midfield is just like Arjuna before the war, hesitating in the decision to fight or not to fight. The hundred sons of Julu are too evil to avoid a fight, but the enemy has his own elders, teachers and relatives. It is also unrighteous for them to fight. Hence the Bhagavad-gita, in which Krishna, the incarnation of the god Vishnu, revealed to Arjuna that a warrior should bear the responsibility of war according to law, and that is the most important thing. In the complex modern social network, you cannot meet the ethical needs of all those involved. Ang Lee shows the contradictions in the mainstream narrative in the United States. On the one hand, individuals are required to realize their self-worth and pursue their own dreams, but in fact all people are bound in a set of established discourse systems, requiring everyone to integrate into in. For Billy, a young man in a small town, this may not be a difficult task, and he may be in a mess all his life, but at least in his vision and situation, his responsibilities are not complicated. For Billy, a soldier stationed in Iraq, too many expectations and narratives bind his true self, and he cannot find himself and the meaning of realizing his self-worth. And Ang Lee said, maybe everything is not so complicated. When people consider their own meaning, they only need to care about the moment, occupy their place, and do their own thing. So in the end, when Billy rejected his sister, he wasn't talking about taking on family debts and so on, and blending responsibility with personal pursuits, but because I was a soldier. This is his current position. The opportunity to be a good brother has been missed. To be justified, at this moment, the only way is to be a good soldier. In fact, Billy had no choice. This society, like a halftime show, has singers, guards of honor, dancers, sponsors, backstage staff, and audiences applauding and cheering below, and Billy, he also has his place, standing on stage soldiers on top. The reason why he is standing there at the moment is because the society he belongs to has such a division of labor, and different people are on top of their responsibilities, supporting the show of the whole society, and by necessity or accident, he is arranged to that position at this moment. From this perspective, a liberal and democratic society, under Ang Lee's worldview, is no different from India under the caste system. The only difference is how the individual divisions of labor and responsibilities are divided. In India, a child of Kshatriya can only be a warrior, a child of a Brahmin can only be a priest, a child of a peasant must be a peasant, and a child of a pariah can only be a pariah, blood and caste determine his position . In contemporary society, this set of narratives is just made more refined. One supports the caste system, and the other supports the patriotism of the American Dream, which maintains the operation of this society. The narrative that this society provides to the individual's survival value is not true. This is what Billy realized in the halftime show, in his fragmented memory, but he finally found his own value and did his best in the moment. responsibility. 4. So, Ang Lee is just once again, in a Western framework, a set of Eastern philosophy and thinking. Perhaps to Westerners, this seems deafening, but to Easterners, for the sake of their responsibilities as children, parents, employees, friends, etc., it is not exactly the Is it our normal normalcy? Perhaps the only revelation of this film for me is: Don't be superstitious about the so-called motivation, don't ask why, even if you're halfway through, you're lucky.
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