Just like many people know Kurosawa's "Ran" through Zhang Yimou's "Hero", when Ning Hao's "Crazy Stone" exploded from the dreary Chinese movie coffin in 2006, some people hoped to find this kind of audio-visual The source of the language, the eyes may be aimed at London's "ruffian" director - Guy Ritchie. Although Guy Ritchie at this time was criticized by a lot of media for his 2002 "Crazy Good Enemy" and 2005 "Revolver", but after all, "Crazy Stone" was born out of "Two Smoking Guns" , this amazing talent can not be underestimated.
"Information Blind Spots" Caused by the black humor
, people in reality can live a normal life because they can obtain enough information around them, and they will not feel that their lives will look different to outsiders. The room" to outsiders will appear to present a completely different experience from the characters in the "room". This "God's perspective" gives us not only the ability to experience the personal feelings of the protagonist of the story, but also to obtain information sources that the protagonist does not know. Symmetry, what we might call an "information blind spot", although this has existed in both dimensions since the birth of the "story", Guy Ritchie's film exploits this "information blind spot" to his Noir films, and became the support point of "black humor".
There is no doubt that Ritchie's use of complex audio-visual language, such as frequent close-ups, fast cuts, screen splits, slow motion and even stop-motion animation, does give his films a "fun" and absolutely "beautiful" look. However, the most impressive thing is the absurdity and black humor of "Two Smoking Guns". The reason why it is said to be "Two Smoking Guns" is that whether this film is for Richie's second film "Snatch" or Ning Hao's "Crazy" two films, it provides a A "how to make a movie" template.
The extreme dark humor in the film is reflected in the two shootouts in the climax. Whether it is a white gangster or a black drug dealer, both of them have become scapegoats for the four of Ed. When Ed arrived at his apartment, what was waiting for him was There was no doubt that he was shot twice, but he was presented with a pile of dead bodies; the same absurdity and banter were still in a shootout in Harry's office later. The two thieves were supposed to retrieve the gun and give it to him Harry, but accidentally exchanged fire with Harry and his subordinates, and then both lost, allowing Ed and his gang to take advantage.
The absurdity of the two shootouts is undoubtedly due to the "information blind spots" of the characters in the movie. They are either in the right place at the wrong time, or they are in the wrong place at the right time. , because the so-called "correct" is only given by the party directly connected with the character, but the "wrong" is because the other party that the character does not know exists. Such "information blind spots" do not appear often in real life. But Guy Ritchie nests numerous directly unrelated but related forces or characters into the same narrative system through a complex chain of relationships, presenting a "structural" humor rather than a role Its own "nonsense" behavioral humor, or "Chaplin-style" sarcasm, because everyone in "Two Smoking Smoking Guns" did nothing wrong in their little unit story, and some even did it shrewdly , but once the shrewdness of these small units is placed in the larger narrative system, it becomes comical and irritating.
The lack of a protagonist, a documentary narrative
If we compare Ritchie's second film, "Snatching and Robbery", we will find that in addition to the black humor caused by "information blind spots", there is another phenomenon that cannot be ignored. It is the lack of the protagonist's position in the play, and what is presented instead is a display of group portraits. In 1994, Quentin used this kind of character arrangement in his most famous work, Pulp Fiction, and the so-called protagonist began to be overridden. Of course, Quentin used the method of chapter narration. In the chapters, there are protagonists and supporting roles, but if you look back at the entire movie, you will find that both Willis and Uma Thurman are part of the group image in the larger narrative system.
And Guy Ritchie took this "lack of the protagonist" to the extreme in "Two Smoking Guns". Yes, this uncontrollability echoes the "anarchy" in Ritchie's films. Of course, there are two patrol officers at the beginning of the movie. Apart from that, the police basically can't touch all the characters in the movie. What's even more bizarre is that when a traffic policeman checks the card, he is directly knocked out by two gangs of robbers. Flavored street characters make up the action soul of Ritchie's film, and instead of narrating this chaotic event objectively and comprehensively, he cunningly hides in the brief moments of the event and peeks into everyone's actions with a camera, though everyone is Doing what he thinks is right, but with an irony on camera, Ritchie makes the audience a perceptive guest at the clown's performance.
In addition to satisfying the viewer's sense of intellectual superiority, Ritchie's two films are imbued with a secularized moral sympathy, albeit with a strong noir flavor, which in "Two Smoking Smoking Barrels" ends at the end The winner is Big Chris, a burly underworld thug with exceptionally strict manners and etiquette. Although Richie showed a clear sense of irony here, but at the end of the film, the money did go to his house, and the most valuable "two big smoking guns" used an open-ended suspense to make fun of the audience's eyes. The method was used to the end of "Snatching and Stealing". Although the last diamond fell into the hands of Turkey, Ivey was informed of the news as well. What will happen afterward? No one knows.
"London ruffian" Rich's cleverness and slickness and "Knoxville ruffian" Quentin's blood and roughness always make people feel that they are from the same school, but in fact, Rich's story line has a kind of technical control and design. Sense, this post-modern deconstruction style at the end of the century, applied to the London street society, is always full of nihility and absurdity. Like Danny Boyle, who was born in the same age and made his fortune in the late 1990s, "Two Shots of Smoke" The strength that Guns gives to later generations may not necessarily have the spirituality and presumptuousness of Trainspotting, but it tries to propose a paradigm for "how to make movies", and it can be imitated.
This article was first published on "Barcelona Films"
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