"Whoever masters the past will master the present, whoever masters the present will master the future." The opening of the film quoted a "quote" from the book. Michael Redford seemed to be very punctual in bringing this prophetic novel to the big screen in 1984. The protagonist of the story came out with uncomfortable coughs. Perhaps the director was commemorating Orwell, the genius prophet who died of tuberculosis. After Orwell wrote this novel, there have been countless events in the world that exactly match the description in "1984". If he could live to see how this stupid, absurd and fragile world was manipulated and ravaged, I don't know whether he is happy or sad to change to his own prediction.
In the country described in "1984", everyone is under the control of the party, and the will of the supreme leader "Big Brother" is the will of the party. Big Brother is omnipotent and always correct. The portraits of Big Brother can be found in every corner of the city, and every area is under Big Brother's care. Seeing this, I think this scene is kind of cruel. Our big brother has also been printed on paintings or made into aluminum badges or statues all over China in every corner of the population. Finally, because there was no aluminum to make the airplane, the production of the badge was stopped. All the scientific and cultural achievements in "1984" are from Big Brother's wisdom leadership, even if they are not directly related, they are inspired by Big Brother's thoughts.
The people have an extremely personal cult of Big Brother. People shouted slogans or used the same gestures to express their respect to Big Brother. The director put the actors in uniform blue clothes, which should be a tribute to the Soviet Union. I think the audience in our country will feel more cordial if the actors wear green clothes. Those unified collective gestures have appeared in "Victory of Will", in any documentary film of the Cultural Revolution, and in endless military parades. As a young and ignorant, I once held an oath to a piece of red cloth with countless children holding up the Young Pioneers ceremony. Big Brother will not become more kind because of the love of the people, but will exercise his power more rationally to make the world a better and more unified world. "Telescreen" is everywhere in the city. It can give instructions at any time, monitor people's eating and drinking, and even get up and do exercises at any time. Every word that people say may be considered as anti-social progress. Foucault once pointed out a "circular prison" model. Its spatial feature is a circular prison building with a central monitoring tower towering above the center of the circle. Each prison in the building is within the monitoring range of the central monitoring tower. Inside. Whether it is a high-ranking official who comes to patrol or an ordinary little jailer, as long as he is in the monitoring tower, he has absolute control over each prisoner due to the division of the space. Centralizers seem to be well aware of the relationship between control and dominance and spatial structure.
Of course, the most serious crime is the crime of thought. In the film, the thought prisoner who was locked up in a cell with Winston Smith, after being caught, finally learned that he had always been a traitor to society, and the informant was his young daughter. The mental manipulation and brainwashing of the next generation is something that no centralist cannot ignore. Hitler has done this, Hideki Tojo has done it, the Red Guards are also victims of this, and there are countless people from elementary school to university and even doctors today. People who are familiar with Marxism, Lenin and Mao. Even if a person knows that philosophy should not be so dictatorial, after experiencing so much education, he may not be able to keep his head sober. Big brother teaches the children to love the party and be advanced. The advanced performance is to monitor the parents, expose the parents, righteously destroy the relatives. Director Chen Kaige always couldn't forget such a scene when he recalled his childhood. When his father was criticized, the teenager Kaige also pushed his father. As an adult, Chen Kaige has always regretted this. Perhaps in the middle section of "Farewell My Concubine" Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi exposed each other to the director's reproduction or confession of the past.
Foucault also cited such an example in "Crazy and Civilization". In 1656, Paris established a "general hospital" to impose a general confinement on the mad and insanity, but even civilians were imprisoned indiscriminately. Because from a "rational" point of view, these people are "irrational". It is this rational power operation that makes it unnecessary for the power to confront the "non-power" classes. There is no need for real confrontation or conflict between them. "Ration" itself has already won without a fight. Big Brother used the method of listing numbers to continuously publicize to the people the progress of the country under his rule. Every industrial and agricultural index is improving, the economy is constantly setting off new climaxes, and people's lives seem to be improving. This passage in a novel or movie was almost perfectly reproduced during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Of course, even George Orwell’s imagination is not as rich as the Chinese media in the late 1950s. The progress of chocolate in "1984" is based on the unit of "gram". In 1958, our country stated that the yield of rice per mu could reach more than 100,000 catties, which explained the scientific basis.
Certain words must be forbidden to say, and books cannot be written casually, but the prohibition is not complete. Scholars have to eliminate some unfavorable vocabulary. As a result, the dictionary is getting thinner and thinner, and the rest are all good words. There is another important aspect. "Sex" is also contrary to reason. Sexual instinct makes both men and women only care about their own happiness when making love, and forget the party's teachings, and the party can't control it, so Big Brother called for a ban. sex. When Winston Smith and Julia hugged naked, the secret police rushed into the house, and a policeman punched Julia in the stomach. This scene chilled me. The proliferation of power and the influence of brainwashing politics make people lose their humanity and become "rational" machines controlled by others. Only machines are the most rational. At the call of the big brother, the vast number of female citizens who are rooted in Zhengmiaohong began to take an oath to ban sex and take pride in it. The lack of sex life will cause more hysterical "reason", people have infinite energy to war, criticize, or worship leaders. Many years ago I saw Teacher Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age". In such an unconscious environment of the whole country, Wang Er and Chen Qingyang also preserved their humanity through sex.
The ending of the story is that Winston Smith and Julia confessed each other's reactionary events, and Winston Smith finally said "I love you" to the portrait of Big Brother. In the end, he dared not say "2+2=4". The director ended the movie with a freeze-frame scene of Winston Smith staring at the camera. This clever shot seemed to foreshadow a kind of infinity in time. Don't think that the gloom depicted in the novel is over. What "1984" brings us is not just a coincidence of historical memory, we need to know how to get out of the shadow!
Wei Xiaobo
2006-12-9 0:12 in Zhuzhou's shabby room
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