David Lynch once quoted Floyd in "Walk with Fire": "The reason why the weird becomes weird is because we are too familiar with it in private, and it is also suppressed because of it. "And the weirdness in daily life, and the peculiar sensibility drawn from it, are what fascinates me most about Lynch's movies.
"Mr. Streit's Story" is often regarded as the most "unlike" one of Lynch's works. In fact, Lynch is not the "author" in the strict sense of the film. Initially, his art and life partner Mary Sweeney (Mary Sweeney) saw this true story in the "New York Times": A 73-year-old country man Alvin Straight, ignoring his eyes and body injuries, drove Lawn mower, go to visit Lyle Straight, the brother who had a stroke, and hope to reconcile, regardless of previous complaints.
Swinney has always been eager to pursue the wisdom displayed in a concise way , and Mr. Stritt ’s life creativity, pure courage, and “age-be-damned attitude” are all deep. Attracted her and made her buy the copyright of the story. In her opinion, this lovely old man is the epitome of the entire human situation-in our journey of life, we all obtain what we need from others, and also give others what we can give to Dingxi, and strive to solve the problem. Difficulties arise, and try to face the inevitability of death with grace and calmness.
Lynch at this time was a visiting artist at Wisconsin State University. There, he completed a lot of artistic paintings (when trying to talk about Lynch, we should always remember that he is a comprehensive artist, his paintings are as important as his movies)-the fusion of human and animal characteristics, pain A sunken female, her mouth spouting red clouds, her head twisted and deformed by extreme pressure and thoughts...
However, Swinney realized the other side of Lynch. That is "Dave" (the nickname of "David") with a very soft and sweet heart, but he is often affected by the uncommon sense spiritual temperament, lost heart, compelling family, passionate sex, violence, sadness, etc. in his works. And the pain is obscured and submerged. She believes that this work can unlock Lynch’s affectionate artistic temperament, allowing another warm and clear spiritual force to burn for a long time like a campfire, not just a faint flame swallowed by the powerful darkness around it. And when Lynch finished reading the script, he also expressed his great love, taking the appearance of Mr. Stritt's story in his life as a matter of destiny.
This is the story at the beginning of the birth of the most "unlike Lynch" movie. Knowing this, we seem to be able to understand why we say "The value of "Mr. Stritt's Story" to Lynch is just like the value of "Summer of Kikujirou" to Takeshi Kitano"; understand that every lonely old man has a heart Bright, pure and brave heart, understand the "weird" of this movie-it is "weird" and "weird" is too clear-as the original English title of The Straight Story implies; understand that the movie wants to tell : Powerless in the past, unable to predict the future, only to grasp the courage of the present and the possibility of all the good life, according to the original, even with the usual logic of things, it seems a little weird, love those kind-hearted people.
- time -
The old man’s story always talks about time. In the United States at the end of the 20th century, I think time flies quickly, just like the flow of capital and the rise of tall buildings. But in the small town of Laurens where Mr. Straight lives in the film, the pace of time is extremely slow-forming a balanced tension with the chaotic rhythm of the outside world, which is a reverse correction of alienation ; and for the residents of the small town , Time is not in a hurry—they are already in sync with time.
At the beginning of the film, a very intriguing line appeared: Alvin fell at home and missed the daily gatherings of old friends in the bar. We saw a small door opened on the wine-red exterior wall of the bar. An old man came out to look for Alvin. After a while, another old man also leaned out with a wine bottle, walked two steps, and said: "We're waiting "At this time, an hour has passed by their agreed time. During this hour, what are the "American tough guys" in work jeans and red and green caps doing? They may cock their legs, shake their heads, and talk without a word, in short, They're waiting . And what will they do when Alvin comes? Probably no different from waiting. The elderly are the type of people who have the most time, but they are also the type of people who have the least time. Sandwiched between "more" and "less", the most comfortable way is to make peace with time and become the sluggish time itself in this small town.
This peculiar state of calm in fact also spreads over old age and extends to other age groups. My neighbor Dorothy—the middle-aged Fafu aunt wearing a rose-red shirt, drinking pink drinks and eating pink dumplings—sees Alvin who has fallen on the ground and said a line that makes outsiders laugh: "What's the number for 911 "And this line doesn't seem funny to Dorothy. In small town time, people are not used to being broken.
The movement of the camera also permeates this concept of time. When the Straight family first appeared in front of the camera, Dorothy was lying on the bench beside him. Dorothy got up, the camera followed her first, and when she turned right into her room, the camera turned and pushed closer to the back wall of Straight's house, pulling closer to the blue window. It seemed that the camera knew in advance what would happen next. After a while, we heard the sound of falling to the ground from the blue window (later we knew it was Alvin). Indeed, the movement of the camera shows how the creator perceives-it perceives everything in this small town, takes the audience there first, and waits for things to happen.
Another result of reconciliation with time leads to reconciliation with all things in the world dominated by time. Audiences who have watched Lynch movies will be familiar with the bright blue light caused by thunder and lightning, which often creates a new dream. But in this film, what is brought is a simple dialogue between Alvin and his daughter Rose: "Yeah, I love a lightning storm." "Uh, me too, dad." They are already very familiar with the changes in this small town. Then I felt natural and kind, even the strangest of them.
I think the real dream scene does not appear in the variation of time, but in the backlog of time. The pain is constantly being diluted by time, and loneliness can no longer carry more time, so in those moments of solitude, it is like the sand in a jar, and it flows out quietly with the infiltrated water.
The night before Alvin's departure, Rose was also thinking about her own thoughts. She was lying on the window frame, her eyes shining like her father. The water pipe was still spraying water for some reason, and the rubber of the pipe was lying softly on the lawn. A ball rolled over briskly, and a little boy followed. After picking up the ball, he walked to one place, paused on the spot, and then continued to move forward, leaving the camera. The lyricism of the music is just right, a bit mysterious, a bit silent, and a bit plain sad. I don't think this scene of picking up the ball is exactly what happened in the movie, it really exists in the picture Rose received, in her dream. The child's pace is paused, her thoughts are floating, time is rushing...
- pain -
There are pains that are happening in the film, there are pains hidden deep in memory, and even possible future pains, but they all have one thing in common-with the characteristics of social irony .
Rose’s family caught fire accidentally. At this time, she was begging someone to take care of the child, and her youngest son suffered severe burns. She did nothing wrong, but was deprived of custody by the court. This is a seemingly perfect way to "protect the child." The shortcomings of the centered system and procedures, and the seemingly tolerant society’s slurping of her verbal innocence, represents discrimination against her mental retardation. Believe that there is a connection between the two), it also brought half-life loneliness pain to the kind mother; Alvin on the road foresees the woman who killed a deer every week. She wore messy red hair and waved her hands up and down. Cried out: "I love deer!" Behind this pain is "have to drive down this road every day, 40 miles to work and back" life pressure and anxiety that cannot be resolved; Alvin is facing a glass of milk in the tavern Talk about the war nightmare that caused alcoholism: the joy and guilt of surviving, the guilt and self-blame that can only be concealed from killing a companion by mistake. Now, brother Lyle has a stroke, but the two have not talked for many years due to some quarrels. This is a pity. It is possible that the sudden death that does not know when will become eternal...
On Alvin's road trip, a young guy on a bike asked him what is the worst for the elderly. Alvin replied that he remembered himself when he was young. This answer has two meanings: First, the young vitality is lost, the body is gradually weakened, and even the lawn mower that has been used is no longer good, which makes it difficult for him to lead what he wants to do, and even lose his independence. ( This is why, after the first failed return trip, Alvin was so angry that he hit the fuel tank of the lawn mower with a gun and burned it down; even though he resisted the drugs and stents, he could only accept it in the end, carrying two crutches on the road. ) ; the first two, the young are not all beautiful, it carries forget those in need, the need to suppress pain.
The way to cope with pain is not to wait for time to dilute, but to take the initiative and bravely to let go, and even need to jump out of the small town's slow time scale, to resist passive acceptance and wait for inaction. The eldest Alvin did the best. The pain of his daughter passed away passively in the night like a dream, but Alvin resolutely embarked on the journey alone. There is also a very interesting plot: he picked out the meat of the deer that was killed and roasted and ate it, and put the deer horns on his small trailer. Anyway, the deer is dead, so use it to the fullest, with some seemingly indifferent but warm mockery, and with some "anti-human" optimism, go ahead.
-Dear one-
Go ahead and hold on to my dear one.
His biggest support on the way forward is his daughter Rose, and he and her share a kind of tacit understanding of love. When Alvin went to the hospital and went home after seeing the patient, Rose asked her how, he just smiled and said, "He said I was gonna live to be 100." This was of course a sentence to reassure his daughter. The daughter also smiled, smiling innocently, and then looked at the sunlight outside the window. Didn't the daughter see the father's white lie? I don’t think so. As Alvin said, the daughter is not stupid, she understands the father's stubbornness, and when she sees his father still smiling, she knows that his father's mental condition is healthy, and he understands what he is doing, so he will let his father do it.
The end of the journey is to meet his brother Lyle, this section was also handled by Lynch simply and powerfully. Alvin came to Lyle’s cabin under the shade of ginkgo and red maple. The first "Lyle" call was louder, but the second call was weaker than the first, because there were countless emotions surging between just two shouts. He doesn’t know whether his brother is okay, or whether his brother is willing to reconcile with him (the actor’s skill level can also be seen here), and then the camera zooms in. The audience seems to expect Lyle to lean out of the small door and zoom in. But he was interrupted and switched to Alvin's eyes that were a little worried, missed, regretful and excited, and when the audience was worried about whether Lyle would appear, Lyle called "Alvin--" in the cabin.
This is a tearful scene. If you don't see the person, hear the voice first. In the dear world, words are not used . The powerlessness of words is that their function is to allow more strangers to communicate with each other, which makes its meaning empty and popular. People who are familiar with it can understand who is going to do what it is when they hear a call, and they can be familiar with its richer implications in one sentence.
In the end, none of them spoke of the iconic "reconciliation" dialogue. What we saw were two stubborn and gentle old men, seeing their particularly bright eyes because of eye diseases, and seeing the mysterious night sky shining with stars, we knew that they had long been relieved. And we might as well regard this starry sky as the little magic that Lynch could not help revealing at last-hiding his belief in another, more primitive power in the world-whether it was Henry Spencer or John Merrick in his previous movies. The artistic image of Laurel Palmer's mother and angel appeared in the most simple and natural form of depiction.
This is really a very simple movie, but also a very emotional and charming movie, there is no lack of Lynch's little humor in the lens. Probably the same is true of our life, it is not complicated, and those who truly embrace it, those who rush to it-no matter how fast or slow, as long as they do their best, as long as they have the faith of love, they can reap the satisfaction and happiness they expect. . I hope that whether we are old or not, we can have the courage to take the initiative to embark on a path of relief, even if we rely on the traction of a lawn mower. Oh, don’t forget to bring a coffee machine, three or two folding chairs, and wish you a smooth journey.
Note: The background information for the creation of "Mr. Streit's Story" is referenced from Greg Olson, Beautiful Dark
This article was first published on the public account: Compound Eye CinemaUp
View more about The Straight Story reviews
