I remember that a film teacher once commented on Nolan's "Inception", "Nolan's greatness is self-evident by filming the dream to the seventh floor; and the lack of good screenwriters in the world is also the development of today's world culture. Break through the practical bottleneck encountered." Maybe so, otherwise the 2012 Oscar for Best Picture wouldn't have gone to a silent film. If you don't often see good movies, it's actually a good choice to dig out the movies you've seen before and study them carefully. Recently I made myself a list of movies I want to rewatch, just to get rid of the boredom. Topping this list is Once Upon a Time in America.
A 229-minute classic movie, this time I watched it twice in a row. The first time to relive its charm, the second time to dissect its finesse and omissions. And this time, I found so many details and problems.
1. Can one sentence change a person?
Dominic said to Noodles "Noodles, I slipped" before he died after being shot by Bugsy. After that, Noodles stabbed to death Bugsy and a policeman who came to stop him in a frantic manner, and Max, who was standing beside him, was stunned. This segment has been thoroughly analyzed by everyone, and I will not repeat it here. Then I was thinking about one thing, is this sentence really changing the Noodles? And to consider more broadly, can a person's life really be changed by one sentence?
Lin Biao once said: "Chairman Mao's words are of the highest level, the highest prestige, and the most powerful. Every sentence is the truth, and one sentence is worth ten thousand." Later, Liu Zhenyun extracted the sentence "One sentence is worth 10,000 sentences", and wrote "One sentence is worth 10,000 sentences" from the two parts of leaving Yanjin. Unlike Lin, what he wanted to express was only one person's thoughts. How hard it is to find someone to talk to. So from the perspective of the two of them: no matter how difficult it is, there will always be someone in a person's life who means a lot to him. His (her) words are so important to him, they can even change his life.
But their cries and descriptions also proved the unbelief of this sentence. The so-called truth has long been exposed by people sentence by sentence, and Wu Moses never found the person who spoke to him in his life.
In the notebook, I will record what some people have said, such as Tolstoy's "The only verifiable truth of human beings is that life is meaningless." The greatest luck in his life is that he discovered his mission in the middle of his life, when he was young and strong." I also remember the saying that my mother once taught me, "Fire must be hollow, and people must be solid." The boss encouraged me. "Life is like a lost building, three stones need to cheer up", and even the ridiculous words that the elder brother once mentioned seriously "If it is not a childhood sweetheart, it is actually the same as whoever gets married."
Some words may occupy a very important position in a person's heart, and even become the standard and reference for judging some things, but whether these words can really change a person, I don't believe, and this kind of belief is just like in Bei Dao's poems As mentioned, "I don't believe that the sky is blue, I don't believe that the echo of thunder, I don't believe that dreams are false, I don't believe that death is unrequited".
People always blame one thing, one person, or even one sentence for changing the course of their lives, but is it really that simple? Is this "one" really that heavy?
2. Can reading change your destiny?
When Noodles and Dominic came home, Dominic said to go to Noodles to play, but Noodles went to the toilet and said to Dominic: "My dad is always praying, my mom is always crying, and the lights are dark, what do I do home? , at least you can read books here (toilet)." And just when I thought Noodles was lying to my little brother, Noodles pulled a book out of the toilet window, Martin Eden by Jack London. Seeing this scene, another character quickly flashed in my mind - Liang Wendao. When Liang Wendao was studying in Taiwan, he also joined the local gang, and followed his eldest brother on the street with a knife. This once indulgent teenager has a hobby, that is, before "doing things" (little gangsters meet in a certain place to "fight" with a certain organization), he will always go to the nearest bookstore to read books, and wait until the time is almost up. Go with the knife. Later, he left Taiwan to study in Hong Kong, and the gang boss even talked to him. There is a classic saying: "Liang Wendao, it's easy for people like you to come out and hang out." Today's Liang Wendao is the godfather of Hong Kong culture, but Robert De Niro, who once starred in the godfather, became the second gang leader in the play, and experienced the intricacies of friendship, love, responsibility, etc. in his life. The unfinished Jack London book may also be the last book he ever read in his life, and the unfinished pages will be written by him in a zig-zag.
3. Is rape really that hateful?
I watched "Irrevocable" because of Monica Bellucci, and like many fans, the focus of watching was the scene where Bellucci was raped under the bridge. Such a visual impact seems to be due to curiosity at the time, and this curiosity is the same as when Zhang Ziyi's movies appeared naked. If you hate the so-called lewdness of men, women probably like "Hard Candy" very much. Compared with men, most of them feel heartbroken in the process of watching.
Rape also occurs in Once Upon a Time in America, twice to be exact. The first time was when the Noodles gang raped Carol (Carol was a bitch for a long time before and after, until we know she went to persuade Noodles for Max), and this time Rape is the voluntary consent of the raped person Carol from the perspective of the process. Legally speaking, it does not violate the wishes of the victim and does not constitute rape. Of course you know I'm not talking about this, but the latter rape, the rape of Deborah by the Noodles.
There are two times in the movie about Noodles having sex in the car. The first time was when Max prepared a prostitute for him after he was released from prison. He was 26 years old. The second time was the rape of Deborah. The driver who had sex for the first time was Max, so the whole process was full of joy and laughter; the driver of the second rape was a stranger. At the beginning, the driver was patient, and finally stopped the car and stopped this time. rape. The director's arrangement makes this rape more contrasting.
Deborah is the woman Noodles loves the most in his life, and Noodles is actually the man that Deborah loves the most in his life. Between brother and woman, Noodles chose brother, which is why Deborah said to Noodles: "Your mother is calling you". And after Noodles was beaten by Bugsy, Deborah hid behind the door when Noodles cried at the door of Deborah's house with tears in his eyes.
Deborah, who has been charming since childhood, did not choose Noodles because of her ambitious dream, and it is because of this irreconcilable contradiction that this rape happened. In fact, from a man's point of view, it is completely understandable for Noodles to give everything but not get it. The uncontrollable impulse is the devil, and it is also a natural vent.
Whenever I think about the choice of this kind of thing, I think of Gao Jialin of "Life", maybe Deborah also has such a shadow, that is to get rid of the shackles of self-to realize the dream of self-expectation-is it true or not, maybe not It should be used whether it is correct or not, but whether this choice in life is normal, so the answer to this question seems to never be found.
There is actually a lot to like about this movie. For example, the mirror of the train station. Noodles came back after 35 years from leaving, the slogan on the mirror changed from VISIT CONEY ISLAND to LOVE, everything else in the train station was changing, only the mirror stood there, he "witnessed" the changes of this era, and also "witnessed" Changes to Noodles. From leaving to returning, in the process, the movie also sounded The Beatles' "Yesterday".
When Noodles told Deborah that Max was calling him, Deborah said "Oh, it was him", so Deborah and Max knew each other before, and in the end Deborah became Max's mistress, which seemed to be justified.
"God bless America" is used at the beginning and end of the movie, and under the background of the music, the movie opens with two characters - Eve and Moe. Although Noodles' favorite woman is Deborah, it is Eve who has been guarding Noodles, and even gave her life for Noodles. Regarding Moe, what impressed me the most was the Jewish symbol of the King David star in the glass of his pub. Maybe this is the problem of the fusion of the Jewish nation and the United States in some people's understanding of the movie (but I don't understand it at this level).
35 years later, when Noodles visited his 'dead' brother at the cemetery, the words "your youngest and strongest will fall by the sword" were found on the cemetery. No matter how young and strong we were, we will inevitably turn into a pile of loess in the end; no matter if the past is like smoke or not, it will drift away with the wind.
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