The plot sounds clichéd and boring, but in fact, the pace of the film has been relatively slow, with no intense action scenes. However, this rough-looking film full of vulgar personal heroism and warm family atmosphere is an uncompromising "man's film".
What is a "man movie"? Referring to the definition of the Western film industry, "men's films" in the general sense can be classified as "film noir", that is, "film noir". "Men's films" contain the common atmosphere and character settings of noir films, but on this basis, more prominent plots with obvious aggressive male elements such as gunfights, fights, speeding cars, etc. There are countless contemporary films that can be called "men's films", such as "Kill Bill", "Battle Royale", "Inglourious Basterds", etc. The sense of conflict and rhythm in the film is obviously highlighted or even exaggerated (sometimes deliberately presented as violent scenes). Similar films still retain the thinking and redefinition of the current world outlook and values of film noir while giving people a visual impact, and were once popular in Europe and the United States.
But the "men's film" mentioned in this article is different from the definition mentioned above. We might as well re-examine the concept of "man" through the film "Classic Car".
The film begins with the funeral of the protagonist Walter's wife, a manifestation of Walter's alienation from the community and the world. At the funeral, the grandchildren were still dressed and smiling, the sons discussed how to support their stubborn and irritable father, and the church pastor asked him to stand up for the church according to the will of Walter's deceased wife. Walter stared sternly at his grandchildren's disrespect, scoffed at his son's Japanese sedan, bluntly refused to go to church, and refused to call him by name (intimacy) from a zealous priest. After the funeral, another protagonist of the film, Walter's beloved Gran Torino classic car also appeared. Different from the old-fashioned classic cars in our impression, the Gran Torino Walter's car body and spokes are all polished under Walter's maintenance. Walter bluntly rebuffs the sassy granddaughter's cautious verbal inquiries for a vintage car. The funeral is over, family and friends are gone, and Walter is left alone.
Walter lives in a quintessentially American neighborhood with a detached two-story wooden house, garage, and well-manicured lawn. But now is not what it used to be. After the old neighbors slowly left, a large number of Chinese poured in, gradually turning this generation into a Chinese community. A veteran returning from the Korean War, Walter has a huge estrangement from his yellow-skinned neighbors who speak various dialects. Seeing that the Chinese neighbors abandoned the lawn and garden, let the outer walls of the house be damaged without repairing, and the Chinese gangs are rising day by day, Walter is full of undiluted contempt for these "swamp rats". But at this moment, he met Chinese girl Su and boy Tao.
By chance, Walter, who was used to fighting injustice, rescued Su from the black gang. The brave and smart Chinese girl impressed Walter deeply; at the same time, Tao, who was withdrawn, was coerced by the Chinese gang to steal. Walter's car failed, and Walter also noticed Tao, who was gardening and reading all day, and was not very gregarious.
Tao's unsuccessful theft was learned by the family, and he is now asking Tao to "atone for his sin" to Walter for a week without payment. The impatient Walter directed Tao to repair houses and paint the outer walls of the community, and gradually discovered the potential of the teenager, and began to carefully tune and take care of him secretly. In the end, in order to completely free Tao from the entanglement of the Chinese gang, Walter went to the gang's stronghold alone. The gang members mistakenly thought that Walter had a weapon and shot him to death. The police who heard the news smashed the stronghold and arrested all the gang members. In his will, Walter gave Tao his classic car.
Walter's debut scene, a church funeral, sums up his current state as a veteran: loneliness. His wife died, and he had a cold and blunt relationship with his relatives and neighbors, and at the same time he was thousands of miles away from strangers. In the words of his children and grandchildren, "still living in the 1950s", he cannot adapt to changes in the community, changes in the world, and cannot accept changes in people's world outlook and values. He denounced his son who didn't buy American products, angrily demanded the Chinese neighbors to leave his lawn, and after accidentally saving the coerced Chinese children, he stubbornly threw the neighbor's gifts into the trash can. Some of the conversation objects are their own old dogs. As a decorated veteran, a stubborn sense of honor makes him reluctant to live in a nursing home, while an almost paranoid sense of justice drives him to confront aggressive gangsters with a revolver and rifle on the street. When Walter raised his gun in front of the door at night, the rough lines on his face were almost savage under the thick shadows, and his eyes were straight-up terrifying and fierce. Lonely, paranoid, fearless, after a vigorous sacrifice, Eastwood has completed the first layer of the image of Walter's tough "man".
Different from traditional "men's films", the "men" in "Classic Cars" have deeper inner characteristics. Apart from the unresolved loneliness, Walter has a secret fear and an indescribable sense of fate towards the world in front of him, and these feelings are strongly reflected through the plot. Walter refused to confess, outspokenly refused to believe in God, and in fact, very few people in his life believed and understood him. He has very few friends, the lack of mutual understanding with his sons and even the frequent disputes made him more willing to live in his memory, the classic cars cleaned every day, the medals carefully preserved and the rifles when he joined the army. Garage, cold beer in the sunset, these things help him escape this rapidly changing society. His fear comes from not being able to adapt to change and accepting existing values. A very different world brings not all good things. The degeneration of the community and the breeding of gangs are powerless to change. Although he never gives up, he knows that he cannot bring everything back to the right track he hopes by his own strength. The seemingly tough Walter was actually seriously ill and had hemoptysis repeatedly. He who did not choose to seek medical treatment obviously saw the reality that his time was short. These all add to his sense of destiny, and are one of the driving forces that make him finally destroy the gang at the cost of death.
Of course, one cannot fail to mention the plot thread that runs through the entire film, Walter's Gran Torino. This Ford's 1972 car is solid and broad, full of American flavor. In Walter's hands, nearly 40 years later, this classic car is still as bright as new, and there is no exaggerated decoration later, and it is completely true to people. This Gran Torino is a reflection of Walter's mind. In the film, Walter never drove the car by himself, and he did not allow his family's concern, let alone the coveting of gangsters. But she lent the car to the Chinese boy for a date and left the car to him in her will. Walter is like this classic car. He was stubborn and ruthless on the outside. He didn't understand adaptation and change, and he didn't allow others to approach him, but his kindness from the heart pushed him to leave the garage and give himself to him completely. New owner steers. Under the seemingly contradictory behavior, Walter's thought process is also revealed. He has the ruthlessness of a man to cut through the mess, but the intractable emotional entanglement in his heart and the continuous struggle of ideas make the character of Walter more realistic. This is also the characteristic of the "men's film" defined in this article.
Speaking of which, do you think of a movie with another theme? ——Yellow sand desert, a wild town like the world, wide-brimmed hat, riding boots, revolver. The "Western", which was popular in the United States in the last century, was the representative of men's films in that era. The same is a lonely hero, but the Custer landscape in the sunset is replaced by a dilapidated construction site building, the town is replaced by a city, and the cowboy on horseback is replaced by the same confused and tough urban man.
To a certain extent, contemporary "men's films" can be seen as the urban version of "Westerns". Similar to Western Cowboys, Walter's economic status, social status, temperament, and especially his absolute pursuit of personal freedom give him a strong heroic spirit. As an important branch and extension of "film noir", contemporary "men's film" also has many technical and ideological characteristics of "film noir". For example, the face of the protagonist who is always hidden in the shadows before the conflict, the use of light and large darkness to create a very unstable composition and a depressing atmosphere, low-key low-angle lighting, high-light ratio lighting and extremely tough The style of photography, as well as the world-weariness, desperate paranoia, nihilism, doubts about human rationality, and a sense of fatalism that the protagonists often have. The protagonists in contemporary "men's films" are all cold and decisive, like Walter, V in V for Vendetta, McPhee in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or even Gotham's "Batman" . But under the cover of their outward appearance is their emotional entanglement and doubts about the values of the mainstream worldview. Therefore, men try to change, challenge, and try to save them from their hometown, save the fallen world and the contradictions in their own emotions. The protagonist in "Men's Film" is the regeneration of the western cowboy in the modern city. But in the face of different social backgrounds and social realities, men can't leave the town like western cowboys, and they don't want to choose to hide in their own little world like the movie stars in black detective films. This is also why they are more lonely, lonely, and more Man than cowboys and heroes.
Contemporary "men's films" as extensions of "film noir" and "westerns" have inherited much of the negative pessimism from that era. But real men never back down. The protagonist in the movie either sacrifices like Walter, leaving behind unfinished careers; or like Batman hides in the dark all his life and continues to fight endlessly against evil. This is a man's sorrow, but it is also a man's pride. As Hemingway said, "The world is a good place, and it's worth fighting for." That's probably what a man's film is really about.
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