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Nicholas Barber
BBC Culture
September 5, 2021
After the movie "Long Dreams in the Night" was released 75 years ago, audiences have been puzzled by its plot. Although its plot has been criticized as "mysterious" and "confusing," it can also be an advantage, Nicholas Barber wrote, he believes that we should accept vague plots.
There is no doubt that this classic film set in Los Angeles by director Howard Hawks is one of the most entertaining films in all of the United States. This is due to its sharp dialogue, violent action, repressive atmosphere, coupled with the volcanic eruption of sex between the stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. But on the other hand, the plot of the movie is clouded and foggy, and it is difficult to understand. When "Night Dreams Are Many" came out in 1946, Bosley Crowther of the "New York Times" described it as "a net that completely traps people...contains so many mysteries and cunning conspiracies. As for the audience, the mind becomes completely confused after watching."
Decades later, Wikipedia commented on the film, saying that the audience "cannot sort out the logic", but it was loved by "star chasers" only because "they think that Bogart and Bekaul co-starring together is more important than telling a good movie story." . Star chasers love it when they love it.
In fact, the plot logic is not impossible to sort out, but if you don't have a pen or notepad and don't press the pause button, sorting out the plot is also very difficult. Not only do you have to remember those beautiful librarians, shopkeepers, waiters, and taxi drivers who greet the playful private detective hero Philip Marlowe (Bogart) in the movie, but you also have to distinguish between the many male murderers And the victims: Harry Jones, Joe Brody, Eddie Mars, Carol Lundgren, Rush Kanino, Owen Taylor and Sean Reagan. Do you really want to complain? Do you have a problem when you see the "confused mind" in the movie? Or is this sometimes one of the important reasons why it attracts the audience?
Warren Buckland is the author of Narrative and Narration: Analyzing Cinematic Storytelling and an expert in film plot analysis. He told the BBC Culture column that the special thing about "Long Dreams in the Night" is that "it maintains a limited narrative: it only shows what one person sees and hears-in this film it is Marlowe. Because the important plot is in At the beginning of the film, Marlowe knows very little about this, which means that the audience also knows very little. This is frustrating but normal."
There are other reasons why this movie is a headache. The original author Raymond Chandler (Raymond Chandler) put together two previously published short stories and wrote his first novel with Marlowe as the protagonist. This may be why it seems to have two separate stories. , And occasionally overlapping main lines. Then the screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman worked hard to adjust the story. The most famous anecdote about this work is that no one knows whether a character in the play committed suicide or was murdered, and if it was a murder, who was the murderer. Hawkes telegraphed Chandler to inquire, and Chandler called back saying that he didn't know either.
Most importantly, Marlowe exposes various scandals in the play, and these scandals must be dealt with before they can pass film censorship: gay relationships and pornography need to be presented in the most obscure way. Most of the film needs to be re-shot and processed to take full advantage of the popularity of Bogart and Bakauer, who have just become famous for their other thriller "To Have and Have Not" (To Have and Have Not).
Producer Jack Warner ordered a new location, and the dialogue between the two stars was more subtle. In order to leave room for reverie, Hawkes cut out the clips that proved Marlowe's discovery, as well as the brilliant clips of Martha Vickers who played Marlowe's sister. Lest she overshadow the limelight of the heroine Bekaul. So... an already obscure novel becomes more chaotic because of these messy reasons. All in all, it is surprising that the film can be coherent.
Follow clues
But if there is no good story in "Night Long Dreams", it would be wrong. Although the plot may be troublesome, the labyrinth structure is not a flaw, and the inner drama of Bogart and Bakauer is enough to hold up the drama. Your head must keep up with Marlowe's rhythm, which is the main reason why this movie is so attractive.
Not only can you watch the plot, but you can also become a detective yourself. "Long Dreams in the Night" keeps you awake. "It boils down to input and output," Buckland said. "The more you invest, the more fun you have in watching movies. If a movie has a simple plot, then your fun is very single. For brain-burning movies, you must invest and analyze, and your rewards will be full."
Shane Carruth's Primer is a brain-burning movie that tells a zero-budget time travel story, and it actually forces you to draw diagrams and flowcharts. Or Richard Kelly's debut work "Donnie Darko" (Donnie Darko) has attracted a group of fanatical fans through the midnight show and DVD viewing, because the audience can enjoy the interdimensional mystery plot. Even the Coen brothers' tribute to "Night Long Dreams", "The Big Lebowski" (The Big Lebowski), belongs to this genre.
Action movies with simple plots can be exciting, but brain-burning movies will not tell you the answers to all questions, and will allow you to keep thinking, talking, and carefully reading discussion articles on the Internet. Crucially, they are also movies that you watch over and over again.
"This type of movie is characterized by ambiguous, impossible mysteries, and sometimes even just some blank plots, but they will pull you back again and again, and I hope you will think twice and solve the mystery." Rodney Ascher, director of Glitch in The Matrix) and other documentaries, told the BBC Culture column, “The films that tie up every loose plot are sensually satisfying in the short term, but you After the auditorium’s lights are on, it’s no longer memorable."
Years after seeing it for the first time, some of us are still trying to decipher the last shot of Michael Haneke's disturbing Hidden Camera (Hidden/Caché). David Lynch’s career was established by filming "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Road". The winner won the best film of the 21st century selected by the BBC Culture column.
"I like mystery," David Lynch said in an interview. "I like the field that I don't understand, because mystery makes me feel more than familiarity. Once you start explaining and let 20 people understand it, it doesn't have any magic anymore."
Stanley Kubrick is well versed in the technique of creating mysterious plots. If you have watched "2001: A Space Odyssey" (2001: A Space Odyssey) and then you are confused, that's right. Kubrick wanted this effect. Buckland said, "Arthur C Clarke (the co-author of the film) wrote a full voice-over to explain everything, and when Kubrick cut it out at the last minute, Clarke was a little angry."
As for Kubrick’s horror film "The Shining" adapted from a novel by Stephen King, whether the ghost in the Overlook Hotel was imagined by Jack (Jack Nicholson) or he Danny (Danny Lloyd), his psychic son, was conjured by the hotel itself, and it is inconclusive. But this mystery is what makes "The Shining" so fascinating: Asher directed a complete documentary "Room No. 237," in which several fans expressed insights about Kubrick's intentions.
Asher said, we know that Kubrick deliberately let us guess. "The last photo of "The Shining" is a black and white photo of Jack attending a party 60 years ago. This seems to be to unravel the mystery of this movie, just like the scene of "The Rose of Citizen Kane". But by no means, in fact, this created more problems, and we had more problems after that moment. "
It's Stephen King himself who doesn't like to play mystery. He has always been dissatisfied with Kubrick's films, so he wrote his own TV miniseries "The Shining", which was broadcast in 1997. The plot of this version is easier to understand, but apart from Stephen King, not many people think this is progress.
On the film review site The Dissolve, Tasha Robinson criticized the mini-series for "vigorous and over-explained superficial meaning", which "started with a clumsy exhibition scene, showing Stephen King Symbolism, and accurately explained the ending of the story." The same thing happened in "Night Long Dreams": also in 1997, the unedited version was finally released, and the complete scene was explained to the audience through Marlowe's detectives. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun critic Roger Ebert said that such a film lacks "shock power": "The editing of the film company is exactly the right thing." Some mysteries are best left. Don't untie it.
On the other hand, we like to feel that someone can solve these mysteries, even if we cannot. If a confusing movie is just a bad self-indulgent film, the audience can easily lose patience. Some critics believe that Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" is of this kind. However, if there seems to be a wise and logical explanation beyond our imagination, we will be amazed.
"Freud's concept of mystery can explain the difference between bad movies and mysterious movies," Buckland said. "Unbelievable means coldness and abnormality. When we watch a David Lynch movie, we feel surprised, but we can still feel the meaning of the film."
Most importantly, perhaps we recognize the countless events in life that we don’t know much about ourselves. When a movie is clean, it may look fake. In Lynch's words, "Life is not like this, so this movie looks completely boring."
But when a movie has problems and contradictions, it coincides with our own experience. No matter how fantastic it is, it is still real to some extent; but some movies with clearer plots are not.
It may be a bit too much to say that "Long Dreams in the Night" is naturalistic, but when we encounter red herrings along with the ups and downs of the plot, glimpse the truth, sometimes misjudge, and sometimes feel right, we will feel that this is what the crime investigation really looks like. , Because life is the same.
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