Text: Overnight flowers
From Lu Yao to Yu Hua, from Wu Tianming's "Life" to Zhang Yimou's "Alive", the homeland and homeland have always been inseparable complexes in the culture of farming peoples, and Chinese's thinking about their own fate and land has not stopped. The origin and development of civilization and the growth and growth of life, the survival and reproduction of life, can not be separated from the endless power given by the land.
The strength of Chinese is a kind of simplicity and tenacity in the bones. The exchange of things for stars, the vicissitudes of the sea and the mulberry fields, the Chinese who have exhausted the waves of devastation, although they are bearish and heavy, they are not afraid to retreat. In the midst of changes in the world and the alternation of civilizations, how many people have devoted their lives to fighting with fate with their unremitting and indomitable will, and the countless souls who have struggled and forged ahead have written ordinary greatness.
Regarding the imagery of the land in Western culture, many people will think of Hao Scarlett and Tara Manor in the movie "Gone with the Wind". But on closer inspection, as a high-society aristocrat and from a traditional slave-owning family, Hao Sijia's "land complex" is different from the peasants' attachment to the land. Therefore, the film cannot think about the significance of land for laborers from the perspective of farmers.
The movie "Grapes of Wrath" is a civilian epic from the perspective of an ordinary American peasant family, telling the tragic life of a farmer after losing his land. The title of the film is a pun, which is not only a dreamlike vision of a rich California vineyard, but also a symbol of the toiling masses who have suffered from famine, been oppressed and oppressed, and struggled with suffering, and the film won the 13th Academy Award for Best Director and Best Supporting Actress.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by 20th-century American writer and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck. Many of John Steinbeck's works really touch on the plight of the poor, so they are socially critical, sharp in perspective, and whipped into it; what is even more commendable is that "Grapes of Rage" does not blindly stop at accusing suffering and complaining about injustice. Instead of indulging in simple anger catharsis and emotional release, it also reveals a kind of inner humor and open-mindedness - that is, the spiritual strength that material poverty and extreme suffering cannot defeat, the indelible will to survive, and the light of human nature shines brightly.
01
The story of "Grapes of Wrath" is set in the Great Depression of the United States in the late 1920s and 1930s, when rural farmers went bankrupt, urban workers lost their jobs, and displaced and helpless people at the bottom suffered unspeakable. At this time, Hollywood blockbusters weave dreams and create dreams for audiences to soothe their wounds, such as Disney's animation "Snow White" and MGM's song and dance film "The Wizard of Oz".
No matter when, realistic subjects will not be absent. The pain of life must be faced directly; examining oneself and thinking about reality is the courage needed to regain after the disillusionment of the ideal. Thus, the film "Grapes of Rage" was released in 1940, which is undoubtedly the right time, and John Ford, who won the Academy Award for Best Director four times (and is still the director's record holder), has always been able to embed the thickness of the text and the impact of the text in the expression of audiovisual language, although "Grapes of Rage" does not belong to the Western that he is best at.
John Steinbeck's writings are poetic, full of metaphorical meaning and philosophy of life. As a result, John Ford uses a lot of empty shots, large vistas, and static compositions in the film to reinforce a bystander's perspective. The changes of the times, the joys and sorrows of the family, and the ups and downs of fate are all placed in a more grand natural ecology. This kind of compassion of waiting and watching the changes is undoubtedly in line with the ecological concept of the original work Chinese and the harmony and harmony of nature.
In addition to grasping the tenacity and optimism of "all things are self-satisfied" in the peasant life from the overall style tone, the film is also clear in narrative. The continuous and sequential development of time and place avoids the interference of watching movies brought about by jumping story lines; at the same time, the grand narrative of personal fate into the changes of current events also allows more audiences to have a sense of substitution, so the film has an epic temperament.
Sharecropper families in Oklahoma, along Route 66, set out for the vineyards of their dreams in California.
Farm droughts, economic depressions, bank foreclosures, tenant migrations, and overwork became the suffering of the outside world that a family had to face. At the same time, they are in the midst of oppression, facing the death of their relatives and the gathering and dispersion of friends.
The tragedy of the family and the individual is that under the influence of the torrent of the times, they are forced to endure all this suffering, without the right to choose, without the power to resist.
The grief of losing one's homeland, the helplessness of relocating to the land, and the resentment of displacement seem to be insignificant under the crushing of the great wheel of the times. The irreversible process of industrial civilization and urbanization has bred hellish anomalies on earth: the greed, hypocrisy, arrogance and meanness of the capitalists, who override the will of the peasants and trample on the dignity of the laborers; the employers who skillfully exploit camps and use false propaganda to squeeze the blood and sweat of the workers unscrupulously.
The helplessness of small people, the persistence of ancestors, the confusion of idealistic youth, the thick tolerance of women, so all kinds of the world, in a calm, rational, restrained way, with sympathy and pity but not indulging in negative, pessimistic, angry emotions. Behind the seemingly depressed, depressed, and numb, it promotes an uplifting spirit - the mind and will tempered in suffering are the hard undertones in human nature that cannot be erased.
02
The typical protagonist image is indispensable in any popular literary, film and television work. Gao Garin, played by Zhou Lijing in the movie "Life", and Fugui, played by Ge You in "Alive", are all concentrated presentations of contradictions, typical condensation of personality, and refinement of the multi-faceted nature of human nature.
Like James Stewart in "Mr. Smith to Washington" in the same period, Joder, played by Henry Fonda in "Grapes of Rage", is a young figure with a rebellious and protesting spirit, with full idealism.
Imprisoned for killing people in self-defense, as the main labor force in the family, in the midst of endless oppression and the burden of life, he formed a rebellious character. His cynicism, intransigence, bravery and stubbornness, conscience and sense of justice are all manifestations of the spirit of resistance in a youth culture, and its essence is to call for an inner freedom, equality, and freedom from the oppression and bullying of the profiteers.
In "Grapes of Wrath", Jodd's mother, a glorious female protagonist, becomes the core force of the family in the story and the foothold of the core of the film's theme.
"Women are better adaptable than men, and men's lives are leap-and-drop: a child is born, or someone dies, it's a jump; gaining or losing a farm is also a jump. But a woman's life is like a stream, small streams keep flowing, but the water does not stop. ”
The mother's values and philosophy of life come from the natural land that gives birth to life; the spiritual power of the mother comes from the direct power that working women obtain from the natural labor life.
As a result, she possessed a "philosophy of land" that was not subject to modern industrial civilization.
Subject to the red tape of modern civilization, men swell and lose in the possession of money, control of power, and competition for discursive positions; depression and depression in the loss of land, loss of homeland, and relocation of land.
For the mother, fame, profit, and honor in the secular world cannot destroy her emotions and destroy her will, and the material gains and losses that men value, the acquisition and loss of the explicit level, are irrelevant to her.
Therefore, women's sexual proximity to nature, attachment to nature, and yearning for peace just form a criticism and reflection on the chronic diseases of the civilized world and the shortcomings of the mechanical age.
Jane Dawell, who plays the mother, has a simple appearance, a strong body, a thick demeanor, a resolute gaze that naturally flows inadvertently, an open-mindedness and optimism emanating from the inside out, a peaceful and calm and transparent attitude towards life, all of which are the most accurate interpretations of the role. As a result, she also won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 13th Academy Awards.
Through the performance, the original author's obscure "ecological view of nature" and "feminism" are presented to the audience in an intuitive and sensual way, and they are more imaginative.
Horizontal comparison can be found that under any cultural background, the image of the "mother earth" of the working class presents a similarity - the fusion of "divinity" and "motherhood", through reverence for the land, respect for the harmonious relationship between civilization and nature, to heal the wounds and scars of mechanical civilization.
The disabled painter Christie in the Irish film My Left Foot. Brown's mother, with tolerance and forbearance, confronts her father's alcoholic nature and selfishness, and uses her laboring body to create an eternal safe haven for her disabled son;
In the domestic movie "New Year", Cheng Mu, played by Zhao Lirong, faces the disintegration of the traditional family by modern moneyism, and the mother who is accessible, considerate and generous still maintains her children and unites the core bond of the family.
What is even more lamentable is that these glorious mother figures in the movie, they do not even have names, and the titles of wives and wives are preceded by the surnames of husbands, which is the identity code given to them by civilized society. The blurring of identity and the labeling of titles cannot obscure this maternal light. Therefore, the seemingly idealistic ending implies a maternal ductile and nurturing force - a trickle, which is weak in the industrial age, but the fine water is always flowing.
As a film from 80 years ago, the motif explored in "Grapes of Rage" is still thought-provoking. How does civilization and nature move from opposition to integration? How to get rid of the alienation of money to people? Under the game of will to survive and suffering, how will spiritual strength and philosophy of life be shaped? Both today's filmmakers and audiences need to constantly think about and put it into practice.