one. Ideal American Women under Neoconservatism
The 1984 Oscar for Best Picture once again focused on the life of the American middle class. But the director wanted to express a kind of regret, a kind of regret for the director's image of a good wife and mother. The movie begins with the birth of his daughter Emma and ends with the death of his daughter Emma. It seems to express the joys and sorrows of the middle class as the foundation of American social stability under the background of the times.
Mother Aurora started a widowed life early on, and then devoted herself wholeheartedly to her daughter's education. She lost her parents in her early years, widowed in her middle age, and lost children in her later years. I have to say that her life is actually full of ups and downs. But God is also fair, he gave Aurora beauty, wealth and strength. After she was 50 years old, she met Garrett, the astronaut on the brain of the worm. The love between the two appeared somewhat inexplicable. But what I have to admit is that the two do match well. This combination of old companions is of considerable instructive significance for men and women who were no longer young after the middle-aged crisis at that time. It can also be seen from this that the essence of director conservatism.
Daughter Emma is a beautiful girl. Although she has experienced a rebellious period, she is a good girl from a middle-class family who has received a good education. Soon after falling in love with a university teacher, he chose to marry and have children. Although Emma has never participated in work, she is indeed a good wife and mother. She and her husband Harper have three children, and the third child is born. In fact, it was his mother Aurora who opposed it, but Emma, such a pious person, could not choose to have an abortion. Although three children made Emma very hard, she is still an optimistic, strong and great woman.
The relationship between Aurora and Emma's mother and daughter is very harmonious. The two exchanged phone calls from time to time to communicate. This kind of harmonious single-parent family is actually rare. This touching affection is exactly what the director hopes to express. He hopes to pass, this description of a mother and daughter, especially a woman like Emma. To express his nostalgia for traditional family ethics, and to deeply criticize the chaotic family conflicts in the United States at that time. Emma in the movie is completely the incarnation of traditional American women. And she eventually died of cancer, also expressing the director's pessimistic thoughts about the gradual disappearance of such women.
2. Life is impermanent but we still have to live
Life is unsatisfactory, nine out of ten. Emma faced her husband's derailment, and she was found to have a nauseous tumor. Still optimistic, she seems to get rid of the psychological barriers that have been repeated in "Ordinary People". There is also no middle-class children, moaning, self-pity and self-pity. But it is such an optimistic person who has endured more pain than anyone else. And Aurora, who witnessed all the pain of her daughter, made people admire her strength even more. This kind of experience can't help but make people sigh, whether this is a tragedy of social development or a turmoil in the context of a great era.
In the end, optimistic Americans can always find their own motivation to survive. The trend of social development is unstoppable. But some things that are true, good and beautiful should not be changed. Such as propriety, righteousness and integrity, such as filial piety and loyalty, such as the way of benevolence. More and more, there is a commonality between Catholic conservative thought and Zhu Cheng's Confucianism. In today's dying rituals, Emma from Texas is bound to fail to understand the various deeds of the people in the New York metropolis.
three. The confrontation between modernization and tradition is everywhere
At that time, American society, the upsurge of going to big cities in the 1960s, was gradually declining. In the film, the director used Emma's words more than once to criticize these arrogant urbanites. They lack faith, lack of awe, and are bewildered by interests and materials. The women here have either had an abortion or have been divorced several times. Or unable to deal with the relationship with parents. The tense life in big cities has not only divided society but also traditional families. However, the conflict of ideas between the East and the West in the United States has existed since the Westerns in the 1930s. The fierce ideological conflicts between tradition and modernity, wildness and civilization, religion and secularization show us a real America. It also created countless materials for Hollywood.
Although the director is critical of life in big cities. But the essence of the film is still the American lifestyle of the communicator, from "Ordinary People", "Annie Hall", "The Cramers" to the film "Mother and Daughter Love". All preaching the comfort and ease of life in the United States, such an economically and materially highly developed lifestyle. For Europe, especially those socialist camps in Eastern Europe, it has a deadly temptation. The United States always uses their skilled film industry to spread their way of life through the window of Hollywood, thereby gaining more recognition. On the other hand, our country still has not found a Chinese-style lifestyle suitable for China to spread, or that it has not found Chinese characteristics. In this regard, although we still have a lot to go, time is extremely urgent.
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