By Ben Ratliff (Criterion)
Translator: csh
The translation was first published in "Iris"
Yang Dechang's "Guling Street Juvenile Murder" can be regarded as "War and Peace" in Taiwan's juvenile offender movies. At the same time, it's part of another cinematic tradition: the process of a character slowly learning a song as a tool for narrative construction. In this traditional film, the song may come from the whim of the protagonist. For example, Ellie, the protagonist of the 2018 version of "A Star Is Born", spontaneously composed "Shallow Zone" in the parking lot of a supermarket. Later, she sang the song on a well-choreographed stage. (It showed her admiration—and the audience—that she was a star.) In other films, the song could have been handled by quieter, lesser characters. In Gillian Armstrong's "Family Not Happy," for example, Tim and Annie are standing in the living room practicing a piano repertoire, a four-handed version of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee." (It goes to show that they can count as allies in this raucous family drama, and they need some temporary relief from the bebop tremors.)
In "Guling Street Teenage Murder Case", the crucial song is a Ding Bang Lane-style waltz ballad written in the 1920s. Its name is "Are You Lonely Tonight?" "Elvis Presley" ' Elvis Presley's cover made the song known. Is there some secondary meaning to this song? Does it introduce some sort of guiding metaphor? Does it represent the protagonist? Does it illustrate the film, or does it exemplify its context? Does the song live up to its character?
The answer is both yes and no. Each answer has more or less. The song has never been heard in its entirety in this four-hour multi-story, hundreds of characters. The protagonist of the movie didn't sing the song, he didn't even pay attention to it. The protagonist, nicknamed "Little Four" (played by Zhang Zhen), was born into a family of government officials in Taipei in 1961. He is the fourth of five children, and he is the perfect teenager - sensitive, Vulnerable, neither good nor bad, good to his parents, but his relationship with the teacher is quite tense, and his heart is full of unspeakable fear and anger.
Instead, the song is sung by "Elvis" (Wang Qizan), a character like a universe that runs on its own. He looks about ten years old, but he's probably more mature than he looks. Small in stature and full of emotion, he wasn't content to be the mascot in his community. Many of his friends seemed gullible and deceived, as if someone from afar had written so many dull characters. In contrast, Elvis is more shrewd. He was at the local ice cream shop, singing with those rock bands. He hangs a series of Elvis portraits around his desk at home. But his image does not clearly identify his idol, and he looks, walks and speaks very differently from Elvis. In that memorable concert scene, Elvis had to stand on a chair and sing harmonies into the microphone in order to work with the taller bandmates.
However, in Yang Dechang's film, "Are You Lonely Tonight" becomes a strange image, a kind of moon rock-like existence, which returns repeatedly in the image.
In the middle of the film, one of the plot lines reaches a climax, and we also witness the beginning of a new one. On a summer night with a typhoon, Xiao Si went outside to do bad things. He is drawn into street fighting by the Little Park gang, who wage a bloody gunfight against the 217 Gang in retaliation for a series of events that began with a girlfriend dispute. At the same time, Xiao Si's sister (who was not named in the film) was sitting at home with her older brother and second child.
To help Elvis, Xiao Si's sister carefully copied the lyrics of "Are You Lonely Tonight", which was recorded on Presley's record. (For some reason, Taiwanese pirate labels heavily used red vinyl records for American music, which were plentiful in second-hand American record stores in the 1990s.) She chants the song slowly, eventually stopping. In the thirteenth to fifteenth bars: "Is your memory lost / On a fine summer day...".
"I could swear he sang 'a brighter summer day,'" she said, bemused.
The dick looked up at the corner of the room, thinking, "Is this grammar correct?" He tried it in English, "Sunny...sunny summer." He stroked his chin.
Perhaps he was thinking, what is "sunny" compared to? Perhaps it seemed to him that "summer's day" was a more common phrase in poetic English, or that "brighter" and "summer" would sound more like juxtaposed adjectives. We don't know what he was thinking. He didn't even know what he heard. This issue is not going to be resolved, and in a way, it might be seen as a relationship between the song and the movie.
Xiao Si and Elvis are both junior high school students. They are very bored, frustrated in life, and long for some kind of identity or career that is meaningful to them. All their classmates can be divided into children from government families or children from military families. They wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, and they listened to American rock music or sang Christian hymns in church. The movies, news and TV shows they watch are full of authoritarian propaganda. Their parents moved to the island of Taiwan with more than a million troops from the anti-Communist Kuomintang government, established the Republic of China, imposed martial law, and, in their own absence, declared themselves legitimate China. All this has been about fifteen years ago.
They belonged to the "China" favored by the US government at the time, and they lived in houses built earlier by the Japanese. They drift in depression and paranoia. There was a long and unspecified silence. Much of the dialogue takes place outside the frame, where the audience can't see them. Sometimes, they even happen outside the narrative, and the audience doesn't hear them. Yang Dechang has created a unique rhythm where you might hear only the sound of a rooster or a foot pedal for ten seconds in a row. This usually tells you that something bad is about to happen.
However, bad things always happen. Immediately after the Elvis lyric puzzle, the secret police came to his father's house. They questioned him outside the frame and you couldn't hear them talking. They smiled politely, but didn't let him go. They "invited" him to the station with them. No one knows what happened. Hardly everyone put on a worried look. This is the general atmosphere of the whole film.
For a long time, people have wondered about verses 13-16 of Are You Lonely Tonight. The song was written by Roy Turk and Lou Handman, who acquired the copyright in 1926. It's been sung by many singers before Elvis - including Charles Hart, Vaughan de Lis, Al Jolson Sr., Jay P. Morgan Jr., and more. Various covers posted on the Internet show many different versions of the lyrics, such as "Are your memories lost/In a brighter tomorrow" (this version is from the various cats released by Hal Leonard & Co. A version of the Wang Song Collection), or "Are Your Memories Lost / On a Bright Sunny Day" (from "Genius.com"), and the popular favorite "Are Your Memories Lost / On a Sunny Day" summer". Finally, there is the famous studio version of Elvis Presley: "Are your memories lost / On a brighter summer day".
Is it "sunny"? Or, what about just the word "sunny"? Of course, "sunny" has to be followed by an "ah" sound, a tiny, graceful note that allows the mouth to open in a split second to catch the "S" of "summer" in an instant.
In April 1960, Presley recorded his version at his second post-discharge meeting, and the single was released in November of the same year, before he had to compete with the Beatles—their The competition won't start until another four years. He embarked on a smooth road to "beyond rock and roll". At four in the morning, he recorded the song with the softest guitar accompaniment and background vocals provided by Jordanians. He turned off the lights in the studio. As we listen to this song, we can seem to realize that the singer knows that most of the world is ready to hear his voice up close. You could hear the air moving in the room, and he was very close to the microphone. You can hear the sound where the different syllables meet.
After that, he sang the song in almost exactly the same way: in his 1968 comeback special, he added an "ah" after "sunny"; in that infamous 1969 In the live version, he laughed for three minutes because of the vibrato when Sissy Houston sang; Whether he uses a decorative "ah" or a simple "uh," he sings almost the same every time.
This "ah"/"uh" virtual syllable is a very small detail. It didn't appear in the comments about Elvis. It really doesn't matter unless you're really listening as he asks, because a change in the tone of the particle could lead to a completely different meaning. Just like when you look closely at anything and anyone, you see a different angle - whether it's Xiao Si, Elvis, his controversial girlfriend Xiao Ming, and of course Taiwan itself. It once hoped that it could be China's destiny, but in the end it failed.
"Are You Lonely Tonight" reappears in subsequent scenes. In the film, Elvis sings the song to a tape recorder on his desk at home, and we don't know his purpose. While Xiao Si was listening on the side, several different troubles distracted his attention. At the end of the film, Xiao Si is jailed for an atrocity that goes far beyond his capabilities. (Even after spending the better part of four hours with him, viewers are still surprised.) We'll never see Little Four again. We don't see the so-called "end".
However, we still see Elvis. He approached a guard at the prison reception. He was holding a small tape, and he wanted to pass it on to Xiao Si. The first guard embarrassed him. Elvis will not accept that negative answer. After the first guard leaves, Elvis turns to ask another guard. "Sir, didn't you say that audio tapes are okay?" he asked, "are audio tapes okay?"
"Which one do you give?"
"Zhang Zhen."
"Okay."
Elvis twirled a large ring on his left hand, which we had never seen before.
"Okay, leave it alone!" the guard told him.
Then we hear the song, and it's Elvis singing it. Elvis attaches to the tape the letter he wrote to Little Four, which we hear in a voice-over, imitating Elvis' recitation in the middle of the song. We keep hearing the line after the controversial line - "When I kissed you and called you sweetheart" - and then the song breaks. You hear the voice of the first guard. No matter what he did, he came back anyway. He picked up the tape from the table.
"Eh! What the hell is this?"
Guard No. 1 decided the fate of the tape, and he threw it in the trash. In a way, the film takes an abrupt turn at this point: suddenly, it seems to be a film about Elvis rather than Little Four.
Perhaps, "Are You Lonely Tonight" is some kind of voice from the shadows, which is extremely sad and highly sensitive: our relationship is not what you think it is; I am not who you think it is; we can imagine that we may exist in different versions now. Elvis used his oppressive, believable presence to paint the song with heroism. Therefore, this song may tell Xiao Si's confused love for Xiao Ming. Of course, this can also be seen as Taiwan's voice towards the "Chinese nation," a voice that hides a common soul and a lost identity - let's put this interpretation behind us. But the song could also be some kind of hymn, coming out of the mouth of anyone who, for whatever reason, feels sorry for themselves, they are confused, but they make some legitimate demand, and they hope the world can give them a second chance. Look! It's me! You remember me, don't you? You can still discern the integrity of my soul, can't you? Perhaps the most mature answer to such a question is this: boy, that bus has left the platform. Go ask those who care about you. Ask Elvis!
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