Distance from Swedish director Ingmar. Nearly fifty years after Borgman's classic drama "Marriage Scene", we have "Marriage Scene" adapted by HBO that belongs to this era.
Dual protagonist Jessica. Questin and Oscar. Isaac's performance is superb, and the opponent scene is extremely wonderful; the plot is roughly based on the original work, but the character setting is cleverly changed, the lines and details are adjusted, and the dramatic tension between the affair and love is strengthened, the violent emotions of the dispute and confrontation, and the overall rhythm is more compact.
Although this weakens the philosophical, subtle psychological exploration and self-transformation caused by the large number of dialogues in the original work, it can also be seen that the new version and the original work reflect the thinking and values of love, self and marriage in the era, and we can glimpse the changes and changes of the times.
The broadcast of Borgman's series that year caused a wide audience to echo, and the divorce rate in Sweden even increased significantly in the following year. However, rather than the astonishing influence of the realism and reflection on marriage in the play, 1973's "Marriage Scene" echoes the existential, humanistic and feminist movements of the twentieth century.
Borgman points out the power structure in marriage in the name of love, debunks the superficial decency and whitewash of the middle class, asks us to look directly at people and the world as it is, without filters, and encourages us to take off our masks and see the sincere and original self under the masks– but also recognize its difficulties and always question the so-called truth and true self.
In the original, Borgman and the two lead actors Liv. Uman, Elam. Josephson, with a frank and in-depth dialogue, presents fantasies about marriage and the communication gap between people.
At the beginning of the series, John and Marianne, who have been married for ten years and have two daughters, after taking a few seemingly happy family portraits, are interviewed by women's magazines to talk about their happy marriage. In the process, John, as a professor, is confident and comfortable, and Marianne frequently looks at her husband uncertainly - in fact, Marianne is also a lawyer, but it is clear that the family is the focus of her life, and when she stays by her husband's side, she pays more attention to John's self-esteem and feelings than herself.
However, when John temporarily left the table, Marianne suddenly faced the question of what love is and what happiness is, and the tone gradually became firm from hesitation, and the reply contained wisdom and insight as a divorce lawyer:
"No one ever told me what love is." "Happiness is contentment, nothing else, the hope that the state of the moment will continue." 」 "Kindness, goodwill, humor, friendship, patience, and reasonable expectations are enough, and love is less necessary." 」
Is the most important thing in marriage is love? Is passion indispensable or absent in love?
Marianne would give a negative answer, John would. This has become one of the many fundamental contradictions between them, so that no matter how much the couple tries to communicate frankly, they will eventually talk to themselves and say their own words, it is difficult to understand each other's spiritual feelings, and the superficial consensus will only temporarily ease the dispute. Thus, even though Marianne centered on John and gave her all her heart that she could give, almost indistinguishable from love, John could not bear to live without passion and vitality and evolved into derailment.
However, there must be deep-rooted differences and contradictions between people, if so, how can communication be possible? How is understanding possible? Can you not understand a person and claim to love the other person?
Besides, this may not have been the main cause of John's infidelity.
He spoke in magazine interviews about liking the old couches and lamps in his home, which brought an illusion of security; and the sense of piety and community created by Baja's Passion for Matthew, even without faith. He also likes to interact with his family, like a re-enactment of childhood, a kind of protection illusion - John sees through it, we really like and need the peace of mind and belonging that "home" brings, but at the same time, the construction of the "middle-class beautiful family" by the whole society is like the magazine article that romanticizes their marriage to almost the opposite of the content interviewed, hypocritical and ridiculous, and does not touch a trace of reality.
The truth is that he is extremely tired of the orderly and trivial repetition of daily life, tired of considering the eyes and feelings of everyone around him in everything; he feels limited everywhere, but he can only constantly escape and deceive himself. The truth is that life is so bitter and empty that it hurts in his chest, and he needs to make himself truly feel the burning desire to "live", to light up the bleak mediocrity of a lifetime of nothingness, to burn out all clichés.
So, on the occasion of confessing to the infidelity, John repeatedly told Marianne:
"Don't ask again what you're doing wrong. It's not your fault, it's not mine, we don't feel guilty. ”
But how is that possible? Later, he panicked with guilt and guilt, and it didn't take long for him and his new lover to fall into a look of disgust and cliché. Marianne, on the other hand, after John left home overnight, slowly shifted the focus of her life back to herself, and she looked back on her growing experience and saw clearly that what she thought was gentle and selfless was actually cowardice; she asked herself who I was and what I wanted to do, unmasked what she had been wearing for a long time, and was determined to start a new life with a more sincere and original self.
John said that we wear masks from birth, and no one can find the so-called sincere and original self. Marianne didn't agree, but it didn't matter, now they were separated for many years and had become the object of each other's secret love--what is love, do we really love? There is no return to the original innocence and panic, but in the middle of the world, somewhere in the world, in a dark and cramped room, they wrap their hands around each other and hug each other, and at this moment, loneliness spreads, and so does love.
Connecting the questions of whether we are wearing a mask and whether there is some more sincere and original self under the mask, we come to the first shot of the new version of "Marriage Scene" in 2021.
We followed the actor Jessica. Justin's back, all the way through the messy and hurried crew scene, until she sat still at the opening position and watched her make a crisp sound on the note board ("Action!"). Instantly, the perfect avatar was Mira: female, married, Ava's mother, forty years old, in the tech industry, as the company's vice president of product management—when she went downstairs and sat down next to Jonathan, in an interview with a graduate student on "How the Evolving Gender Framework Affects Monogamous Marriage," she answered when asked how she defined herself.
Gender, ethnicity/ethnicity, occupation, age, and the "identity image" quickly outlined through categories and tags are the ways we are most accustomed to introducing ourselves, seeing ourselves, and interacting with others and society today. This brief opening from "Jessica" to "Mira" that is not found in the original Borgman's work, Haja. Director Li Wei claims to be to make it easier for the audience to bring themselves into themselves and make the couples in the story more universal, but in my eyes, this seems to have become a metaphor for modern society:
In the face of people with different relationships, in various situations, we switch between identities and images, and the most important thing is that we can't get out of it at any moment, and take away one and replace it with another.
This means that the "self" can never exclude the eyes and imagination of society or others, and we are always on display, and the same is true of the moments of solitude. These identities are not masks that can be put on or removed; these identities are "me", real and not false, and there is no more sincere original self than this.
But if what makes people feel alienated or depressed in marriage is not because of the mask and nothing to take down, why do we still feel lonely or suffocated? How do we develop the possibility of freedom, the possibility of love?
In the new version of the album, Mira is a strong woman in the workplace, highly paid and traveling a lot, so Jonathan, who works in academia, is mainly responsible for taking care of her daughter and housework, which happens to be in contrast to the traditional family gender role represented by John and Marianne. The modern marriage relationship represented by Mira and Jonathan, both sides are equal and independent individuals, mutual respect, each doing their duty, seems to function very smoothly, but Mira is still in it but still gradually desperate to the point of breathing, heading for an affair.
Jonathan is rational and repressive, and Mira is sensual and emotional, from accidental pregnancy to taking away the child, enough to see the couple's problem: they have the ability to make decisions together through a meticulous analysis of pros and cons, but they can't consider and take on each other's emotional needs.
This echoes The View of Marriage proposed by Jonathan in a graduate interview:
"Marriage is a way, not an end in itself. We all had great personal development in marriage, were able to focus on the careers we loved, and were able to raise our daughters and build a family together."
Although Jonathan dismisses the use of business terms such as "success" and "effort" to describe marriage, believing that this is the (negative) influence of Western capitalism and consumer culture, even if it is seen, his views on marriage still do not think the same way.
It can also be said that no one's marriage can escape the way the society in which it operates and thinks.
At that time, John and Marianne naturally stepped into the expectations of themselves, their families and even the whole society for a happy middle-class family. Today, the marriage fairy tale has been shattered, and the individualism under the commercial market has not wavered at all, and even become increasingly consolidated, so that people's willingness to marry and have children has generally decreased, the divorce rate has increased year by year, and the society's emphasis and expectations on marriage have not been the same.
Therefore, the marriage of Mira and Jonathan is more like a win-win situation that examines the overall interests of individuals: their female protagonist and male protagonist are not motivated by gender power, but only a division of labor model that can achieve the highest efficiency and effectiveness.
So, despite being in love, their relationship is closer to their workplace team mates than to those who are emotionally connected. Until Mira derailed, the two suddenly realized how many emotional emotions had been suppressed over the years, and for a while, all the love and hate grievances poured out, all the things that should be said and should not be said, there was no boundary, almost hysterical, fiercely hurt, and then deeply regretted, until everything was irreparable.
Behind the romantic marriage, use a cheating to uncover the truth of love.
No one has ever taught us marriage, no one has taught us how to love, and the scene of "Marriage Scene" accompanies us through it painfully. Although I may not be able to learn it after teaching, I always have to wait until I understand something with a wounded face and tears on my face, and then I understand how pity the past is, and the future, it is impossible to love like before.
After a long time, the long road of healing is still not over, but if one night, we can still lie side by side in the attic where we have drawn a beautiful blueprint in our hearts, laughing and watching the "home" that does not belong to us is sparkling with others, maybe I will let you know, you will let me know, I love you as before.