A performance that is both naturalized and deconstructed into "singing"

Liana 2022-04-20 09:02:47

Movies must be accustomed to expressing in silence. The life itself as a portrayal object is not damaged. The monologue performance as another track is stripped and needs to be finalized through post-processing; while musicals are accustomed to the unified appearance of the characters’ voices. , pushes the performance to the same stage dimension.

The fusion of musical theatre and film is bound to produce the distorted effect of a funk mirror, and this film deliberately seeks and amplifies that effect. Through the constant migration of inner-focusing perspectives, a sense of conflict is created with overlapping perspectives and simultaneous voices, opening up life infinitely, transforming it into a performance template to the best of its ability, and abstracting a form of life imitating art.

The musical has penetrated into the film's level of drama, life and viewing, the stage of comedians and opera singers, the chat and love between lovers, birth and childbirth, drunkenness and nightmares, news broadcasts and releases The meeting, the audience's praise and the reporter's condemnation, and even Annette's wooden puppets, are both naturalized and deconstructed into a "singing" performance.

However, after overcoming the discomfort of the sense of form, the film, in addition to providing a senseless horror similar to "The Doctor Who Became a Strange Doctor", has also become vulgar and hollow, presenting an odd and eccentric flat, weak vocals and lyrics. In the end, the characters were sacrificed and the plot was split.

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Extended Reading
  • Marilie 2022-04-23 07:05:12

    What Karax stabs is a small paradox in cinema, which is that cinema tries to immerse us (especially in Hollywood) but we cannot ignore the existence of the performance itself. For example, François and Edict Kawara have filmed disfigured faces in "Eyes Without Faces" and "The Face of Others", but disfigured characters still need to wear a mask or a mask even if they are alone at home. Bandage. Because the audience is sitting behind the camera. In the Hollywood days of "Hays Code", couples in the movies were separated by screens when they lay in bed. "Annette" amplifies the presence of this performance, so even bed sex requires singing. The essence of performance is a kind of imitation, and imitation produces comics, and the stage comedian is Henry (the Bergsonian comic) at its best. Making love itself has also become a mechanical imitation movement, and what is born is the mechanical device itself "Annette". Henry (Carax) slips into the cage of American cinematic narrative. This is the deepest compliment and the most unavoidable irony of American cinema.

  • Zelda 2022-03-12 08:01:02

    I thought about it countless times when I watched it, maybe this is the barrier of stage musicals and musicals in the form of films, and Karax wants to break it.

Annette quotes

  • [repeated line]

    Henry McHenry: There's so little I can do. There's so little I can do.

  • Annette in Prison: I will never sing again, shunning all lights at night. I will never sing again, smashing every lamp I see. I will never sing again, living in full darkness. I will never sing again, a vampire forever!