old south
MacDonald's choice to set the story in the southern state of Missouri was by no means random.
It can be said that when people choose to set the background of the story in the South, the story is required to be viewed in a special context.
The South is a land unlike any other in this country. There is no better place to interpret "lost" and "abandonment."
It had a proud past. Many of the founding fathers of the United States were born in the South - James Madison, the "father of the Constitution", Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the "Declaration of Independence", and George Washington, the father of the United States... It is no exaggeration to say that in the founding of the country In the early days, the history of the South was almost the official history of the United States.
But four years of civil war ended this superiority. After the Civil War, the defeated South became synonymous with "backwardness", "dumbness" and "discrimination". Some refer to it as a place abandoned by God, or even more as a land "chosen by God to be the opposite of sin, sloth, and poverty."
But it is worth mentioning that although the Civil War blocked the economic development of the South, in fact, the conservative and closed South itself was not caused by the war. They always do.
From a slightly pessimistic point of view, the physiocratic ideology and isolation from the outside world in the south did not give birth to simple folk customs, but xenophobia and racial discrimination; and its long history brought only conservative ideas. , and what Cash calls the "inherent ills" of the South—a strong resistance to new ideas.
Therefore, traditional family values, racial segregation and a strong religious atmosphere have taken root in the South for a long time. Only before the outbreak of the war, they were able to live in their "Southern mythology" by their natural romance, and the failure of the Civil War forced them to see clearly the backwardness and evil in these traditional ideas. The ethics and dogma that the South once faithfully embraced became rotten almost overnight.
All the values advocated by the new era led by industry run counter to the traditional thinking of the South, and the beliefs of the South have collapsed.
This unique history undoubtedly influenced the creative style of southern writers. The 1930s and 1960s were the peak of southern literature, and these 30 years were called the "Southern Renaissance" by later critics.
Southern Renaissance writers inherited the eternal theme of "nostalgia" in southern literature, but this nostalgia is mixed with guilt and loss that their predecessors did not have; racial discrimination, poverty and religion are often discussed in their works. ; their characters are often self-enclosed and fringe characters, with bizarre behavior and some physical deformities; the stories alternate between the real and the absurd, and they are full of violence.
It can be said that the bizarre world in the works of the Southern Renaissance, and the sense of loss mixed in it, are difficult for writers from other regions to copy, because this special history belongs only to the South. Thus, the Southern Renaissance made Southern literature a unique presence in American literature.
Therefore, the old South has become a special symbol and spiritual carrier in the future literary creation. When people tell a story that takes place in the American South, it's never just the story they want to tell. The special feelings carried by this land in the south are always inadvertently rubbed into their works more or less.
MacDonald apparently did too. If you have some understanding of southern literature, it should not be difficult for the audience to see the shadow of southern literature in the film. It can be said that "Three Billboards" is like a tribute to Southern literature by MacDonald.
"Three Billboards" and Southern Literature
external structure
The way "Three Billboards" tells its story is very much like a Southern novel.
When TS Eliot commented on the novels of O'Connor, the representative writer of southern literature, he said that the works of this "first-class" writer made him feel horrified, and his nerves were not strong enough to bear too much such disturbance." .
This shows the main style of southern literature in narrative. Southern fiction is never content with telling stories step by step. It often begins with a small incident that disrupts a peaceful life, then unexpectedly leads to exaggerated turns that catch the reader off guard, and the story ends in the grotesque.
"Three Billboards" obviously perfectly inherits this narrative routine of southern literature. The structure of the film's story is very delicately arranged, and the turning points are carefully arranged. If the director vomited blood was just a small shock to the audience, his suicide was an official turning point, after which the story went into a state of near out of control, with unexpected events popping up one by one, and the direction of the story becoming impossible. predict.
Many people will question that these turning points are too heavily manipulated. In such a film with a generally realistic style, these exaggerated turns always seem a bit deliberate. But rather than seeing this sense of manipulation as a malady, I prefer to see it as a narrative style—a style of Southern literature.
inner feelings
To discuss the inherent inheritance of "Three Billboards" to southern literature, we can start with the following common feelings in southern literature: contradiction, sense of abandonment and absence of justice.
First, there is that lingering sense of contradiction. Southern writers always feel that they are in a conflict between the past and the future. While questioning the traditional thinking of the old era, they resisted the "barbaric" industrial civilization of the new era, and miss the elegant old South in memory.
This paradox is evident in Dixon. Although he broke some old dogmas, he was still a loyal defender of that chaotic society: he verbally denied racism, but it was not difficult to see from his attitude towards the Mexican billboard workers and the new black chief. His contempt for minorities in his bones.
"Guilty, but still rebellious"—this description of Southern literature also applies to Dixon.
On the other hand, there is a sense of abandonment and the absence of justice. The post-Civil War decline of the South has made people who live in this religious atmosphere doubt God. The South should not end up like this. It seemed to them that the land had been abandoned by God, and its decay was the loss of justice.
Ebbing in the film is a land where justice is absent. Chief Willoughby has a wonderful family and is well-loved in the town. Such a near-perfect "good guy" suffers from cancer; a girl was raped and murdered on the road, and the murderer has not been caught after a year... What the hell is going on in this world? The phrase "How Come" is more of a question to God.
Now that this land has been abandoned by God, people can only find justice through their own means. So Mildred would set up three billboards and set fire to the police station in the middle of the night in spite of everyone's opposition; Dixon would ignore all police rules and regulations and throw Red out of the window after learning of the chief's death. The unofficial means of obtaining the suspect's DNA. These actions that are too impulsive in the eyes of others, in their view, are just their way of finding justice.
In this land abandoned by God, conventional means can no longer find justice, so they can only use exaggerated and incomprehensible means to achieve justice. As O'Connor said: For a person who is deaf, you have to shout to hear him; for a person who is close to blind, you have to draw the figure so big that he can see it clearly.
But they ultimately failed to find the justice they wanted. Although he didn't want to hurt anyone, Mildred's fire severely burned Dixon and nearly destroyed his daughter's case book; Dixon's desperate DNA proved inconsistent with the murderer. Justice ultimately failed to return to this land.
At the end of the film, the two bring their shotguns and embark on the road of revenge together, which can be seen as their last attempt to find justice. Whether justice can be found this time, no one knows.
O'Connor: Violence and Redemption
Perhaps the most striking thing about the film is the way it presents the elements of violence. This special display of violence can be seen as an inheritance of O'Connor's violent aesthetics.
Flannery O'Connor is a representative writer of the Southern Renaissance, known for his short stories. She is particularly fond of depictions of violence, and the violence in her work has been the focus of debate.
The reason why people are keen to discuss the violence in O'Connor's works is not only because of its frequent appearance in her works, but more importantly, probably because the violence in her works always has a special aesthetic.
The violence in O'Connor's writings is never just physical destruction. These violence often have a deeper function - triggering the redemption of the characters.
In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the old lady shows her love for the "misfit" before she dies, even though this person has just killed her children and grandchildren; "The Uprooted" Mrs. Shortley, before dying of a stroke, Realised she was no different from the Polish refugee she discriminated against; Joy saw a 'blue figure' on the lake after being stripped of her glasses and prosthetic leg in 'The Good Countryman' - many critics believe This is a hint of Christ walking on the sea... Violence always leads to redemption with its powerful destruction, and this is perhaps the core of O'Connor's aesthetic of violence.
This special aesthetic is naturally also perfectly reflected in "Three Billboards". The purpose of violence in the film is not for mere destruction, but is endowed with the function of redemption.
The fire at the police station is a good example. Dixon's rescue of the case from the fire can be seen as a redemption for himself in the violence created by Mildred: the letter from the late Commissioner reminded him of his original intention to "be a good cop", so in the violence , he did what a "good cop" would do.
Of course, this violent aesthetic is best captured in the scene where Dixon deliberately provoked a DNA sample from a suspect.
In the bar, Dixon's original intention to trigger this violence was not to simply vent his anger and cause damage, but to achieve his own redemption - to do what a good policeman would do. After the violence, Dixon found his lost police badge, as if to imply his redemption.
MacDonald was also very romantic when filming the violence. While Dixon was knocked to the ground and beaten to the ground, the bar music happily sang:
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went
Na, na, na, na, na...
It is worth mentioning that there are two translations of "drove old Dixie down" on the Internet, one is "driving along the old Dixie road", and the other is "the Confederate army was defeated". I personally think that the former only stays in the literal translation, and the latter's understanding is more accurate.
Dixie here, literally refers to the north-south dividing line - Dixie Road, but culturally, it refers to the "south". In this context, Dixie can refer to Dixon.
In this particular situation, the song sings both the downed South and downed Dixon.
Incorporating redemption into violence and singing it into a song, this particular violence aesthetic is different from the style of Quentin or John Woo, it belongs to O'Connor's violence aesthetic.
out of time
Although "Three Billboards" draws many elements of southern literature, I believe that no one will regard it as a "Southern work".
It actually runs counter to traditional Southern literature in many ways. For example, Mildred, the heroine of the film, has a tough image that is far from the delicate and fragile "Southern girl" in southern literature.
This is where MacDonald is brilliant. He knew that it would be a little out of place to put southern literature on the screen completely in today's society.
On the one hand, the South in the 21st century has recovered from the impact of the civil war, the once acute problems of race and poverty have been alleviated to some extent, and what Southern writers have experienced has become a thing of the past.
On the other hand, the nostalgia embodied in Southern literature is under attack. The time Southern writers miss—the plantation days when slavery was legal—is precisely the sore spot in America, a country that prides itself on equality and freedom. The nostalgia for that disgraceful history displayed by these writers no doubt stings the sensitive nerves of contemporary Americans.
Therefore, it is obviously not wise for "Three Billboards" to completely copy southern literature.
So in the film, the feelings in southern literature are extracted and placed on the characters, but the motivation of this feeling has been deleted. Mildred, Dixon and other characters can see the contradictions and sense of loss in southern novels, but the reason why they have such feelings is not because they sigh the decline of the South or miss the past, but more because they have nothing to do with the times and characters. for some personal reasons of my own.
This is why "Three Billboards" can borrow the sentiment of the 20th century South, but still make itself look like a 21st century movie.
Incorporating the feelings of old writers into characters and stories that conform to the mainstream aesthetics of modern times may be the best way to inherit southern literature today.
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