Text: Overnight flowers
As Tennessee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "StreetCar Desire" has had a profound influence in both film and theater. The 1951 film version of the same name, directed by Ilya Kazan and starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, also won several Oscar awards. Even more noteworthy is the film's inspiration for later generations.
The film provokes some serious explorations: the demise of the Southern plantation civilization, the tragic nature of the Southern woman Blanche.
At the same time, as a cultural phenomenon, it has also aroused public discussion: Vivien Leigh's crazy demon crazy performance, Marlon Brando's rebellious and unruly image, and the spiritual confusion of literary and artistic young women.
The classic of the phenomenon-level drama lies precisely in its profound embodiment of the changes of the times, human insights, and cultural reflections.
Contemporary actress imitates Kate Blanchett's words about "Desire Pick-up": "Talking about this play on a metaphorical level, it deals with the essence of poetic death, being crushed. The flame of inspiration that Blanche represents, the fragile and fleeting poetry, has been completely extinguished. And now, when the audience watches the play, they think about what we have lost, and what we have lost is what cannot be touched and is fleeting. ”
01
"They told me to take a street car called Desire, then turn to a street called Cemetery, go through six intersections and get off at Elysian Field." - Blanche
A large number of symbols and metaphors are a major feature of Tennessee's theatrical works, whether it is "Desire StreetCar" or the subsequent "Cat on the Hot Tin Roof", behind the basic motifs of family, gender, love, desire, violence, death, rebirth, etc., are allegories about the transformation of human civilization and the reconstruction of the spiritual world.
For "Desire Streetcar", this profound allegory is reflected in: when the industrial civilization of the north irreversibly bans the plantation culture in the south, the material desires of modern capital society gradually devour the souls of the people with the trend of destruction and decay, when the poetry is disillusioned and the ideals disappear, where will those who cannot integrate into modern life go?
The film does not completely write an elegy of the southern manor civilization from the perspective of the declining aristocracy in the south, but is committed to restoring the social group portraits of different class backgrounds, in the modern industrialization environment, driven by primitive and direct desires, how to face the desires bred by material civilization, adhere to their own spiritual world, and reconcile their own way of survival?
In addition to the changes in civilization contained in Blanche's "Desire", "Cemetery", and "Paradise" in the opening scene (burying the classical and giving birth to the modern materialistic society), the funeral flower and the broken mirror are still hints of death and destruction.
02
Blanche, played by Vivien Leigh, as a declining southern aristocrat, is intoxicated with alcohol and paralyzed himself all day long. Eager to be loved and cherished, she spends her days fantasizing about the elegant, romantic old South Manor, using lies to cover up the harsh reality, and is in a state of neuroticism on the verge of collapse.
Marlon Brando plays Stanley, a low-level man in industrial civilization. On the one hand, he is rough, fierce, rough and fierce, in Blanche's eyes, he is more like a beast living in the Stone Age; on the other hand, he exalts his primitive wildness and vitality, full of aggression and possessiveness. He saw Blanche as a mannerist and hated her hypocrisy.
Stanley and Blanche form a very subtle contrast and care, they seem to be in absolute opposition, but their personalities are complementary. Compared with Stanley's roughness and arbitrariness, greed for materials and money, Blanche is a higher pursuit of the spiritual level of civilized people; compared with Blanche's vanity and disguise, the weakness and intoxication of self-deception in the illusion of nothingness, Stanley shows the most direct simplicity and the tenacity of real survival.
Marlon Brando, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for "The Docks" and "The Godfather", has a double meaning: the benchmark of the Method Actor and the rebellious and maverick popular idol. Because of this, the contrast between him and Vivien Leigh is both a conflict of the characters themselves and a collision and exchange of two different types of performance styles.
For example, in the confrontation between the two, Vivien Leigh tends to use external movements and expressions to express the emotional state of the character, while Marlon Brando takes improvisational movements: chewing gum and casually scratching her shoulders with her hands. Tight and loose, well-designed and careless, the charm of the two performance methods complements the character tension of the characters themselves.
03
How did Blanche, under the persecution and domestication of society, step by step, go to destruction?
Blanche's tragedy first carries the imprint of the times: in the change of civilization, the gap between ideals and reality makes it difficult for idealists under traditional southern etiquette to integrate into modern industrial society, implying a historical inevitability. Born in a family of manor owners, Blanche is well educated, and her values, hobbies, and way of thinking are all shaped by the southern aristocratic cultural form.
As an English teacher, she always talks about literature - writer Hawthorne, poet Whitman, novelist Ellen Poe, she loves poetry, music, art, and has an idealized pursuit of poetic and romantic experiences on the spiritual level, which is why her heart always has a perfectionist expectation for the world, which is undoubtedly incompatible with the triviality and blandness of the real world.
This ultimate poetic and idealistic color was overshadowed by death and destruction after her first poet husband swallowed himself up. In the face of extreme fear and loneliness, she can only fill the inner nothingness through love, and find emotional belonging and spiritual foothold. In the accusations of the secular world and the judgment of traditional ethics and morality, she has long been infamous.
Secondly, Blanche's tragedy stems from her sensitive and fragile character, which has the limitations of class and the chronic disease of thinking, and behind her idealistic and poetic aesthetic, there is a deep-rooted weakness: she is good at using disguises and lies to maintain her vanity and superiority as a declining nobleman, and lacks the ability to survive and make a living in real society.
She lives herself in the dreamy countryside woven by the southern aristocracy, paralyzing herself in the ideal harbor whitewashed by traditional middle-class values, unable to face the harsh reality and the current embarrassing situation. Therefore, when Stanley collects her past deeds and "incriminating evidence" and tears up her elaborately decorated and woven lies, she gradually loses the courage to survive.
04
Another important factor that cannot be ignored in Blanche's tragedy is that whether it is the aristocratic society of the southern plantation era or the working class in modern industrial civilization, the weak position of women in the conflict between the sexes is also an important reason for Blanche's tragedy. The subtle game, confrontation, mutual exclusion and mutual integration between the two sexes are potential emotional conflicts in the film. Therefore, the film also reflects women's call for autonomy, equality, independence, and freedom in vulnerable situations.
In the traditional manor society, women are more dependent on men to obtain living space and material life, which is manifested in Blanche through decorating herself, carefully dressing, maintaining her appearance, while cultivating herself, practicing aristocratic etiquette and middle-class mood, standardizing and restraining herself to achieve a so-called elegant manner, in order to capture the love and admiration of aristocratic and rich gentry men, in addition, she can not use other ways to realize her own value. Therefore, Shaohua's deceased Blanche would care so much about the fact that red face is easy to grow old.
The weakness of a woman's economic status exacerbates her uneasiness and vulnerability, which is why Blanche constantly gains attention, admiration and respect by decorating herself to gain inner recognition. In the end, Blanche could not get rid of this weak and passive situation.
When Mickey's pursuit of her gives her long-lost dignity, she even abandons her pride to get rid of the embarrassment of reality, even though she knows in her heart that Mickey cannot truly empathize with her inner world and spiritual pursuits. Thus, when Mitch is "accused" of Stanley's moral words and deeds in the past, he cannot accept that Blanche, whom he has always regarded as a treasure, has an incomprehensible past. The rupture of this relationship eventually crushed Blanche's mental will on the verge of collapse, prompting her to go to the abyss of pain and despair and gradually destroy.
Stella is another important female character in the film, similar to Blanche's origins, education, and class, but she chose a completely different path. To a large extent, Stella represents those pragmatists, who do not choose to continue to live in their own fantasy past like Blanche to continue self-exile and self-indulgence, they abandon the arrogance and arrogance brought about by their good birth, they give up the elegance and nobility cultivated by aristocratic education, and they integrate into the real world by forgetting the past for the sake of the material life in front of them.
Stella in the film, worldly but not too utilitarian, pursues material enjoyment but understands her sister's spiritual dilemma, she often plays the role of a mediator in the contradiction between her husband Stanley and her sister Blanche, which is both accessible and inclusive, which is another kind of female role charm. But in her marriage relationship with her husband, her weak position still cannot be improved, And Stanley's constant violent aggression and attempts to obtain forgiveness through childlike cries to call his wife home have finally aroused Stella's disgust and rebellion in the practice of repeated cycles.
Unlike Blanche, who is subjected to male moral criticism and spiritual oppression, Stella's solid position in the family gives her a great deal of say in confronting Stanley. At the end of the film, in the face of Stanley's violence and brutality, Stella carries the child and escapes from the family again, and the film ends abruptly. Can women's struggles and rebellions achieve a sense of equality and mutual respect?
05
For a long time, mainstream commentators have tended to sympathize with Blanche's suffering, emphasizing her helplessness in the changing times, the weakness and passivity in the situation of the gender game, but the limitations of Blanche's own thinking and the vanity and mannerism in the process of pursuing the spiritual world are also worth vigilance and consideration.
What is the poetry and idealism of modern people?
The beauty of poetry and idealism as a spiritual pursuit lies precisely in giving people precious and imaginative beauty that is difficult to capture in the secular world, rather than a self-escape that is opposed to the real world. Perhaps, for idealists, there is no need for Blanche-style escape and fantasy, no need to indulge in endless dreams, and at the same time pursue ideals and poetry in their hearts, they must cultivate the courage to face the harsh reality, the ability and determination to deal with practical problems.