No matter how much suffering and pain life has given us, God will bestow upon us the tenderest mercy.
It is estimated that many people like me watched "Tender Mercy" after reading "Story" written by Mr. McKee.
Director Bruce Beresford (Bruce Beresford) has directed "Driving for Daisy Street", and screenwriter Horton Foote (Horton Foote) is most famous for his masterpiece "To Kill a Mockingbird". Starring Robert Duvall (Robert Duvall) was already an actor before participating in this film, and he has appeared in "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now" and so on.
With such a peculiar combination, the film "Tender Mercy" has naturally achieved a lot: the 56th Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay was shortlisted for the 36th Cannes main competition unit.
There is no doubt that this is a masterpiece.
Mr. McKee spends almost an entire page in the first chapter of the story telling the film, the story itself and the way it is presented.
Its performance is somewhat similar to the "Paris, Texas" we mentioned before: a story of life, a story that seems to be ordinary and ordinary, and the presentation of the image strips away the ordinary and ordinary of the story, and slowly penetrates into the heart soft part.
Just imagine, someone said to you: "This is a story of a down-and-out middle-aged singer who can't live under the halo of his wife, but finds himself back after a divorce." Or: "This is a down-and-out middle-aged male singer who meets a A young widow who begins a new life story." Ordinary, right? A bit of a midlife crisis, a bit of self-salvation.
The directors and performers present these ordinary-sounding lives on the big screen with their understanding of the world. Ordinary stories are still ordinary after they are stripped away, but they invisibly pull the audience into the story, leaving a trace Warm aftertaste.
The tone of the whole film is warm, warm and soft, which fits well with the story itself. (As it happens, the story also takes place in Texas.)
The music was laid out at the beginning, and the gentle singing added the atmosphere while telling the story.
Reality. The reality we have to face. Middle-aged men who wake up from alcoholism face the reality of being penniless. Real life unfolds slowly with the singing.
The man stayed at the widow Rose's hotel to work to repay his accommodation, and we didn't know the gentleman's name "Mike" until the seventh minute, eight and a half minutes that he was a singer, and the eleventh minute that Mr. Mike was already Stayed at the hotel for two months and proposed to the widow, and in the twelfth minute they were married. Next, the details of their lives are presented little by little. Different people gradually intervene to push aside Mike's past little by little; the younger son Sonny's doubts about his biological father, and Rose's life are also presented.
Whether or not there is any doubt, the camera is presented like this: What did Mike and Rose experience separately? Why was Rose a widow at such a young age? Why doesn't Mike sing anymore? What kind of entanglement did Mike have with his ex-wife?
It has to be said that the script and video presentation are neat, but fascinating .
I watched this movie three times in total, and a very interesting feeling is: every time I watch it, I seem to want to give up for the first ten minutes, but I can't stop after ten minutes.
Here are a few things that have left me with a deep impression after watching it many times:
1. Simple (minimalist style) but rich.
Presenting a relatively complex story in a simple form is mainly reflected in the character settings. The main characters are presented in the form of a "combined family": a down-and-out middle-aged man, a young widow with a child.
The performance of the scene is also boldly presented in a minimalist style, the picture is clean and vast, and the movement of the mirror is not complicated. Under this style, the audience is closer to the character itself and the story itself.
2. Calm, but warm
The actor's life-like performance maintains a calm and objective attitude in the face of conflict, and under these calmness, it is tolerance, love, and warmth.
It is not difficult to find that in Rose's home, or most of the shots showing Rose, the tones are warm (even the buns opened by the young band who came to find Mike are red), and Rose is the representative of warmth . A combination of soft love and rational calm, she is an important person in Mike's process of finding himself and facing life again.
The cicadas chirping in the summer night, the chirping of insects and birds in the afterglow, and the whistling of the distant wind outside the gas station, these sound effects and scenes give people a sense of quietness and calmness. Music has become an important warm element in this calm temperament.
The story ends with Mike singing again, and he is baptized with Rose's son Sonny, whose daughter dies in a car accident. After returning from the funeral, a sad Mike said to Rose: I don't believe in happiness, I never believe it, and I will never believe it in the future.
Son Sunny, who came back from school, asked about his biological father again, and Rose answered the question with patience and love. Sonny brought the baseball to Mike to play with, like any father and son in the family.
Rose came out of the darkness again, stood in the sunlight, and smiled at the father and son who were playing baseball in the distance.
Suffering is like a life process that human beings must go through. It is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible that God is merciful (Merciful). In the Old Testament, Mercy is often translated as "kindness," "loving-kindness." Rose in the movie is a believer, and she has a firm belief in "God" deep in her heart. She believes in these sufferings, and God has always been with her. This makes her also full of love, and the love extended from the light in her heart makes the way she treats human beings, life, and the world full of peace and strength.
These mercy, trust and love make it all go.
【Finish. 】
Text丨Photo by Yue Zhang丨Screenshot of the video, Internet
This article was originally published on the official account of "Tiantang Cinema" (WeChat: BrilliantFilms). We warmly welcome your attention and open your movie world.
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