This article was first published in "Muweier" https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vK_CYABjHRfPVzHVdE0F3w
Remember that at the beginning of this year, the French Cannes Film Festival announced that American director and producer Spike Lee will serve as the chairman of the jury for the main competition unit of the 73rd Cannes Film Festival. Many people don't know, what does this mean?
In fact, this is the first African-American jury chairman in Cannes, which is of great significance .
Spike Lee won the 88th Oscar for Lifetime Achievement Award. His most prestigious work was "Do as it should be" 30 years ago. But now, "Do What It Should Be" has been hailed as the greatest black film . This film has used mature techniques to shape the contradictions and oppositions in the black community and portray the outbreak of a black movement.
If this year's Beijing International Film Festival can proceed as usual, "As It Should Be" is very likely to become one of the most popular films in the "Classic Restoration Unit" .
In the opening scene of "As It Should Be", with the music of "Fight the power", a young woman squirms her body frantically. "Fight the power" has also become a very eye-catching sentence throughout the film. The tall Radio walks up and down the street carrying a big radio, and the song is repeated in it. Simely who stammers also stammers. To fight.
Why fight? Who to fight with? We can analyze it in detail.
Before talking about "struggle", we must first understand a very important concept in the United States-" community ". Foreign theoretical circles have gradually improved the concept of community. In summary, foreign scholars believe that the basic elements of community are mainly:
1. There is a population that is organized to live together according to a certain social system and social relationship ;
2. There are certain geographical and environmental conditions, including geographical location, topography, resources, climate, economy, transportation and public facilities;
3. Have its own unique culture , system and lifestyle ;
4. Emotionally and psychologically, they have a common geographical concept , rural concept, and a sense of identity .
It can be seen from this that the community first has regional characteristics , but also contains certain historical and cultural meanings, institutional facilities and physical facilities.
The environment in the film is in such a black community.
In such a community, because of the number and cultural advantages of black people, they consider themselves the owner. The young black people in the community can laugh at the newly-moved lads at will.
At the same time, American community governance is a process in which multiple subjects participate freely and equally. The power of community governance is not monopolized by the government or community representative agencies, which means that in this black community governance, black self-management and restraint account for a large proportion But this does not mean the absence of state power .
In the film, two police officers wandering around the street are constantly appearing. Although they are too lazy to resolve a small dispute, their presence declares the presence of state power.
When two police officers were patrolling the streets, there was a very eye-catching scene: two police officers and three old black men sitting on the side of the street looked at each other. There is no dialogue in this shot, but it is very worthy of careful consideration. Why is it designed like this?
Palme d’Or award-winning director Mike Moore made a small animation in his masterpiece "The Columbine Campus Incident" (2002), which described the "fear" throughout American history and criticized the abuse of violence by white Americans because of their fear of blacks. We can also extend this scope of application to blacks. Blacks and whites should be in a state of mutual "fear", so they are "vigilant" to each other.
National institutions are controlled by white people, so this vigilance extends to the national level. This is also a good understanding of the lens design: the two sides are like vigilant opponents. Although there is nothing wrong with each other, they do not trust each other .
Let us think about the causes of some black sports incidents in reality. Many of their fuses are "trivial things", such as speeding, petty theft, etc., but once they are fermented, they can easily lead to tragedies. Because both sides maintain a posture of fighting at any time.
2019 Cannes hot "Les Miserables", almost the same theme reappears
This also confirms another interesting point of the black movement: suddenness .
The conflict in the film is actually very fast from the beginning to the death, not even a day, and it is also caused by some trivial things. But this also contains its inevitability, and the mutual distrust here is accurate to the different races of the community.
Residents of Italian and Korean descent are also in a state of distrust and cursing with blacks, but they are also dependent on each other. Italians and Koreans need blacks to consume their goods, and blacks need to go to their stores for consumption, but they are worried that Koreans make money and take away their homes and jobs.
This contradictory state is extremely sensitive, and the occurrence of violence may have a chain reaction . The consciousness of the black people’s community owners expanded rapidly after the violence. They seemed to be able to dispose of the "outside population" at will. Therefore, after the black people burned the Italian pizzeria, they also planned to rob Korean shops. The Koreans had to emphasize "You "me same" and "I black" in exchange for leniency.
Back to the two questions we talked about at the beginning: Why fight? Who are you fighting with?
The first question is that the pizzeria owner discriminates against blacks, but if you think about it carefully, it is the personal dissatisfaction of the leading three and the pizzeria owner that accounts for a greater proportion of the cause of the struggle.
So the second question, who do you fight with? Is it the Italian American? It seems like this, white people have a relative sense of superiority. But this is not convincing: Black people seem to be in a state of doing nothing and not working but looking for things everywhere. Are they too sensitive?
The three people who took the lead in finding things. They vent their personal emotions more than they want to seek equality for the blacks, and the ones who set fire to the pizzeria are talking about Martin Luther King and Malcolm's stutter every day- this is very important, because it directly determines Is this "struggle" reasonable ? The tall Radio died at the hands of the police who suppressed the riots. When the private dissatisfaction with the white people gradually developed into a confrontation with the state institutions, the nature of everything was different.
This seems to have become a dilemma, because in this chain-like link, it seems that there is nothing wrong with everything, but the final ending is so at a loss and no way out .
In the end, Spike Lee concludes with the words of Martin Luther King and Malcolm. These two passages are too "ideal" compared to the film. The violence of self-defense can easily develop into venting hatred and inherent racial discrimination. It does not necessarily change in communication.
The kind black old man in the film keeps saying to do the right thing, but what is the right thing?
This problem has been affecting Spike Lee.
Here is the director’s attitude. What does Spike Lee think?
Spike Lee should have dual identities in American society. He is an American elite and a black elite . This requires him to look at this matter from two standpoints. He deeply understands the absurdity of this "Fight the power", but the unconscious superiority of white people does exist.
As a black man, he stood at the forefront of anti-racism, criticizing Oscar's "pure white", and left angrily after winning the Oscar for Best Picture in "Green Book" (2018), in "Black Party Members" (2018) Zhong used Griffith's tactics to fight back against the KKK.
As an American elite, he cannot demonize whites in order to cater to his own racial preferences. He must be committed to the tolerance and friendliness of blacks and whites, just as he did in "The Miracle of Santa Ana" (2008).
In the same diversified China, many ethnic minority movies have also emerged in recent years.
Although China does not have the fierce multi-racial confrontation like the United States, Chinese minority directors usually stand on two different levels when filming their own national films: they are both national and they promote the mutual tolerance of multiculturalism, and contribute to the society and the nation. Provide entry points for reflection and improvement .
This may be the inspiration we got from Spike Lee and "For What We Should Be".
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