Text | Mr. Tambourine
last night
On the last night of 2018, I chose to spend the last time of the year in the cinema, watching a movie like "Last Night on Earth" - at least it's the talk now.
Before the movie was released, as a literary film, its pre-sale box office was astonishingly high, which was inseparable from the success of its pre-publicity-the last day of the 18-year New Year's Eve, and the ambiguity that continued to ferment in the dim cinema, These two points have attracted a large number of audiences, including passers-by who are looking for a way to celebrate the New Year's Eve, lovers, and a small number of literary film lovers and movie fans.
The fact is predictable. On the afternoon of the 31st, the first batch of audiences who watched "The Last Night on Earth" in the theater had already revealed that the film was not accepted by the vast majority of audiences, even if It was at the "New Year's Eve" that I watched, and there were waves of audiences who also expressed their "uncompromising" on this film.
Obviously, this literary film full of "advanced style" - an hour-long 3D long shot, intertwined reality and memory, surreal dream experience - has a small audience, and it is among the 200 million pre-sale box office. A minority, and also a minority among ordinary theater audiences.
Landing on the big screen nationwide on a large scale, and attracting a large number of ordinary audiences with its successful publicity, "The Last Night on Earth" is destined to encounter waterloo in word of mouth after its release, and lead to a sharp drop in the subsequent box office.
Ordinary audiences can't understand it, and professional film critics don't seem to buy it. More precisely, it is polarized, which shows that there are certain problems in the film itself.
What I want to point out is that although such a writer-oriented and fan-oriented movie is not perfect, it is by no means as worthless as passersby think. This highlights the fierce conflict between popular preferences and niche literary and artistic works.
So, what is the relationship between so-called elegance and popular and taste aesthetics?
Polarities and "Grey Areas"
Whether it is taste or aesthetics, there are actually two poles such as "elegant" and "popular". The public's preferences tend to be simple and easy to understand; a few people, either consciously or due to good education, can understand and appreciation of more elegant things.
This is like the two poles of "black and white" - the "elegance" that has a lot of ink and needs to be cultivated for a long time is the black pole; a piece of white paper, which is inherently natural, is the white pole.
Whether it is black or white, there is no such thing as good or bad. But first of all, we should acknowledge the fact that any attempt to break such a binary opposition is dangerous, and it will inevitably bring about relativism and confusion in terms of value. In the chaos of black and white, literature and art have no direction to move forward, and naturally there is no progress.
On the black pole, you don't have to look down; on the white pole, you don't have to be dissatisfied. The two poles should be mutually reinforcing, and both poles need to develop.
As for how to divide black and white, there is a certain objective standard. The definition of this standard is imprecise. Different theorists have different theories, but it really exists and is an objective existence. It cannot be denied because it cannot be clearly defined. Black and white polar facts.
The mission of the theoreticians and creators is to explore the boundary between the two poles through their unique works, so as to expand the scope of literature and art and promote the development of culture.
Although black and white are opposites, the boundary between the two is blurred, not black and white, with a buffered "gray area". This "gray area" is wide, which is often referred to as the taste of the refined and the common. In this wide area, there are a large number of cultural products, which cannot be represented simply by the two labels of black and white.
In actual situations, "pure black" and "pure white" are easy to distinguish, and for things in the "gray area", a more appropriate expression is "a little more black or a little more white". The concept of "gray area" is proposed here, which inevitably has an eclectic color. It and pure "black and white" together constitute a new pair of binary oppositions - pure and eclectic - which has a new From the perspective of understanding and judging literary and artistic works.
public approval
Returning to the topic movie "The Last Night on Earth", it fully illustrates a problem - high and low. As a creator, you should have the awareness that on the road of practicing pure artistic ideals, you must move forward alone. It is normal to be neglected and not understood. Only time will tell you whether all your efforts are really worth it. It could be art, or just amuse yourself.
In other words, if the work is very popular and everyone is full of praise, this is a very dangerous state, because the work itself is mediocre enough to eliminate the personality to a great extent, and it is possible to be recognized by most people.
In the film "Outstanding Citizen," the hero's worry after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature is precisely the dangerous tendency of his work to become mediocre. Ironically, his return to that vulgar hometown has actually led him to write outstanding works again, excellent and unique, born out of the ordinary and the vulgar.
The Louvre's most viewed work of the year, the Mona Lisa, is a household name, but not everyone appreciates her beauty. Her mysterious smile, ask yourself, do you really think she looks better than the selfies of girls in the circle of friends? For most people, she's just a well-known representation of sheer "black."
An outstanding example of the combination of business and art, Nolan's "Batman" trilogy has achieved great success at the box office and word of mouth, but it is worth pointing out that although this is a "grey area" movie, but it's still the pinnacle of comic book movies because of the "noir" part.
"The Last Night on Earth" is a "pure black" movie. Although it has such and other problems as a movie itself, some of which are even fatal, it has no attitude to please the audience at all, and cooperates with excellent publicity. Hair, standing and earning money. Those who engage in art have no money and can only be engaged in art. It is such a simple truth.
The public will deny a movie because it does not meet the threshold, and at the same time, they cannot point out the crux of the work. The standard of the public is very simple, whether they understand it, whether they like it, and that's it.
Therefore, creators and critics also have a natural mission, which is to tune the public's taste and guide the direction of art. If they blindly please, and consider the audience's preferences, masterpieces will never be born.
"Last Night on Earth", as advertised, is indeed a pure romance film suitable for watching with your lover on the last night of the year. There is no so-called deception, and I will be with my girlfriend if I have the chance To watch such a movie, the premise is that you have a girlfriend.
And the public's evaluation reflects that the movie did not meet the expectations of the love movie they wanted. Could it be that the public has some misunderstanding about love? Only war and love can make people in an irrational and out of control state.
In the era of general peace, war is far away, love has become the focus, and love bears the "mission" of manifesting freedom and individuality, which has naturally become an eternal theme in popular culture.
But it is not popular when love is spoken in a poetic tone, because this is a time when poetry is dead.
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