Today is France's National Day. Recommend two films to learn about French freedom.
What is freedom? The three colors of the French flag are red, blue and white, and at the same time symbolize the basis of civilizational beliefs at the beginning of the history of modernism and modern capitalism: the three concepts of freedom, equality and fraternity. The French-Polish film master Kieslowski tried to transform these three ideas into images and made a series of films "Blue, White and Red Trilogy". Among them, "Blue" as a color in the French flag corresponds to freedom. Kieslowski says it is a fundamental belief about our civilization and a fundamental dilemma of our civilization. Professor Dai Jinhua once pointed out the philosophical qualities of this film in "52 Times Life - Dai Jinhua Master Film Lesson", she said: "In this film, we see how Kieslowski uses an anti-humanist tone to reproduce the proposition of humanism in a postmodern historical situation, or he uses a humanistic feeling to present us with a non-human and anti-human world. ”
The movie is a beautiful entrance full of summons. Through this portal we go to the world, to the Other. Today, I would like to share with you Huang Ailing's essay "French Freedom". Ms. Huang Ailing, a well-known film critic, has been fascinated by the world of light and shadow since she was a child, and later went to France, which knows how to appreciate passion, and was able to devote herself wholeheartedly. She especially loves French New Wave films and Hong Kong local films, and has a deep research on Japanese classic films and the works of the fifth generation of mainland directors. Her articles are not long, but have their own touch and style. As Dai Jinhua said: "Ai Ling's film criticism text is just like her people, simple and elegant, plain and mellow, eloquent, and long aftertaste." During the movie-watching and talking, she invested in the light and warmth of her life. ”
French freedom
—
Huang Ailing Wen
This article was originally published in "Dream Yu Says Dreams: Huang Ailing's Film Essay Collection"
Peking University, Publishers, 2019
Huang Ailing
Veteran film critic. From 1976 to 1985, he traveled to France to study film, and served as the head of the film department of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the program planner of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the research director of the Hong Kong Film Archive. During her work at the Film Archive, Wong Ailing combined a large amount of rich materials to compile more than ten monographs on Hong Kong film studies over the years and participated in the film restoration project. His book "Poet Director - Fei Mu" is recognized as the most important Fei Mu research book.
What is freedom? The French have their own set of sayings. In their daily lives, they always exert this French freedom to the fullest, even at the expense of violating the "political correctness" that Americans love to hang on the lips, but also to be justified. To give you an example: if you sit in a café in the Latin Quarter of Paris and talk to the Frenchman you don't know about the subject of "freedom", he can certainly talk to you for half a day; of course, you have to tolerate the second-hand smoke that he sprays on your face one after another, and the French absolutely uphold the freedom to smoke. The biggest surprise when I watched the works of "The French Chapter of the European Cinematic Theatre" was Marcel L' Herbier's Feu Mathias Pascal (1925) and Jacques de Baroncelli's La Femme et le Pantin (1928), which are all about freedom —the freedom of men and the freedom of women.
Marcel L' Herbier (1888–1979) was a French filmmaker known in the 1920s for a series of silent films as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner. His career as a director continued into the 1950s, where he made more than 40 films. Translated in Chinese as Marcel Lehrbière.
Jacques de Baroncelli (1881-1951) was awarded the highest honor of French citizenship, the Legion of Honor of France (cavalry class). Mainly directs plays. Translated into Chinese as Jacques Barangeni.
The Undead Basco is based on an Italian novel, and the story also takes place in Italy. Basco is a young man with a somewhat eccentric temperament, he meets his friend's sweetheart at the annual carnival, originally to confess his heart to the girl for his friend, but finally fell in love with himself. On the banks of the river, the smoke flowers, singing and dancing, are lively like our ancient Lantern Festival; the garden of the other side of the box is affectionate, silent than sound, but reminiscent of the back garden in the world of drama. Under the moon before the flower, the gongzi lady danced sweetly, and received the next dance scene, which was already the boudoir after the lover finally became a family. Unfortunately, this warm dream was soon poked by the snobbish mother-in-law; our popular dramas have many mother-in-law disputes, and the Western ethical network loves to make a fuss about the relationship between the mother-in-law and the son-in-law. The so-called house leaked in the night rain, his mother died, he returned home, his beloved daughter died of illness, a scene that could have been very sensational, but under The treatment of Rebby, but out of the deep and subtle. The actor Ivan Mosjoukine's rendition is very restrained, and the face in the large close-up does not cry hysterically, only to see him turn his suppressed grief into a bleak laugh, and then go to the bed, pick up his cold daughter, and walk out of the door; the white sheets wrapped around the small body are weakly dragged on the ground, like a white light across the dark room, looking like a Rembrandt painting.
Stills from The Undead Basco and Rembrandt's Simeon with the Infant Jesus in the Temple
Rembrandt (1606-1669) was one of the representative painters of European Baroque painting and a major figure in Dutch Golden Age painting in the 17th century, known as the greatest painter in Dutch history; among the greatest Dutchmen voted in 2004, he ranked ninth, second to Anne Frank in eighth. His era is known as the Dutch Golden Age, where the achievements of science, art, and commerce in the Netherlands reached their peak. He became famous at a young age, but half of his life was sloppy. The Chinese translation of the name Rembrandt.
The first half of this film has many interior scenes, focusing on psychological description, and when the film goes to the second half, the whole tone is different and becomes relaxed and playful. Because Basco could not stand his wife, he ran away from home and entered the casino, and if he had divine help, he would win every gamble. On the train to Rome, he happened to read a piece of news that said that he had committed suicide, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration - "Dead, isn't it freedom?" "Only to see a reborn Bass-Gogh, wandering around the great city of Rome all day long, small figures imprinted on the great staircase of geometric figures; he has no name, no past, but a new vitality, and everything can be started again, including love. Writing this, one can't help but think of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs: Bleu (1993); who hasn't thought "if I could do it again"? But there is no cheap thing in this world that does not pay a price, and Basco is freed, but loses his "identity" and becomes no one. At the end of the film, there are two Bassgao, who in the past mock him now, and finally he decides to go home and face reality. Back in the part of the hometown town, the streets and alleys of the years are superimposed with the buildings of ordinary people's homes, as if in a dream, which is the place where memories live. From the earliest Lumière Brothers to Louis Feuillade, Jean Vigo, Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, etc., the poetry of French cinema is based on the most mundane details of life.
Krzysztof Kieślowski (1941-1996) was an influential Polish film director and playwright known worldwide for his works Tricolor and The Ten Commandments. Kiyeslowski was a member of the Polish Association of Filmmakers and was vice-president from 1979 to 1981. He is also a member of the European Film Research Society. His whole life was spent in the contemplation and practice of film, and in his short life of fifty-five years, film did win him endless honors.
The Lumière Brothers, the older brothers Auguste Marie-Louis Nicolas Lumiere and younger brother Louis Jean Lumière, were french brothers, born into the largest family in Europe that made photographic light-sensitive panels, and were the inventors of cinema and the film projector. The brothers shot the film at 16 frames per second, the first film of this format, the March 1895 film "Factory Gates", which was held for commercial and scientific groups.
Louis Feuillade (1873–1925) was a film director and screenwriter who played a crucial role in the development and popularity of French cinema in the early twentieth century. His philosophy is that film as a new medium should be an entertainment tool that serves the general public, not just a marginal art form for a small elite. Translated into Chinese as Louis Ferrard.
Jean Vigo (1905-1934) was a French film director who had a considerable influence on the French New Wave movement of French cinema. Although Vigo only lived for 29 years in his lifetime, the total length of the film he directed in his lifetime did not exceed three and a half hours. However, he was one of the greatest directors of French cinema. Translated into Chinese as Jean Viggo.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) French poet, novelist, playwright, designer, screenwriter, artist and director. Cocteau's representative works are the novel "Terrible Children", the film "Poet's Blood", "Terrible Parents", "Beauty and the Beast" and "Orpheus". Translated into Chinese as Jean Cocto.
Jean Renoir (1894-1979). He is the second son of a famous French film director and Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and a representative of French cinematic naturalism. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director in 1945 for Southerner, and his works include One Day in the Country (1936), The Great Mirage (1937) and Rules of the Game (1939). The Chinese translation is Jean Renoir.
Robert Bresson (1901-1999). The French director, Ben a painter, turned to film in 1933. During World War II, he was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, where he met Bishop Brickberger, and after leaving the camp, he was entrusted by the bishop to shoot the feature film "Angel of Sin" set in the Bedani Convent, which established his film style with philosophical and Catholic ideas as the theme. Quote: Art is not a luxury, but a necessity. Translated into Chinese as Robert Bresson.
If "Undead Basco" is a man's rhapsody, "Fireworks Dancer" is a woman's version. The literal translation of "The Woman and the Puppet" is much clearer. The film begins with an oil painting of Goya in a Madrid museum, in which four women throw a bullfighter up and down with the four corners of a sheet in their hands, and end with the same painting. The story unfolds in the famous bullfighting town of Seville in Spain, and the heroine Congeti is a bit like Carmen, beautiful and wild, untethered, but obviously more scheming. She met the prodigal son Officio, Madio, who was inseparable from him, and was like a cat catching a mouse. The first time Matteo went to Congitti's house to find her, she offered to kiss him, and when he wanted to kiss her again, she refused: "I kiss you because I like you, but you can't kiss me without really loving me." "It's always her who takes the initiative. The French screen of the twenties was already very bold, especially in contrast to the Puritan United States, in which Madio spied Conchitti dancing naked for several men, and the absurd world of lust was photographed very brilliantly—a bull's head hung in the right foreground, and several men in the background were excited to see it, and the rich female body twisted behind the thin cloth curtain, occasionally reaching out her feet. At first glance, it is the relationship between female sex and hunting, but looking down, the status of hunters and being hunted is reversed. When Congitti first went to Mateo's house, she was a poor girl with a low status, and he was enjoying the boundless spring color in the mansion, while she stood outside the door, as if in two worlds; then, the relationship between the two reversed, and Matteo changed Congeti from Cinderella to a princess, and he was locked out of the gate, still unable to get her. Woman, your name is not weak! The French were especially fond of laissez-faire beautiful women, and it's no wonder that their films portrayed female characters as different as those in Zu & Cham and La Sirène du Mississipi (1969).
Goya (1746-1828) painter of the Spanish Romantic school. Goya was a court painter of the Spanish royal family, who stayed in Madrid during the Peninsular War, painted a portrait of Joseph Bonaparte, a coveter of the Spanish throne, and also recorded the war with paintings, that is, "The Disaster of War", which still has many differences in research.
This book is a classic masterpiece of the famous contemporary film critic and film critic Huang Ailing, and contains nearly 100 important film criticism articles created by the author since 2002.
Huang Ailing's film text is unique, short in length, elegant and moving, paying attention to personal feelings, not putting on theoretical shelves, and has strong readability. The author especially loves French New Wave films and Hong Kong local films, and has a profound study of Japanese classic films and the works of the fifth generation of mainland directors.
In the book, the film is not the object of text analysis, but a life with a distinct personality, flesh and blood. As Dai Jinhua said: "Ai Ling's film criticism text is just like her people, simple and elegant, plain and mellow, eloquent, and long aftertaste." During the movie-watching and talking, she invested in the light and warmth of her life. ”
Source: Huang Ailing Movable Type Culture