Mao Jian talked about the sexual encounters in the history of movies: where there is lightning, rice grows well

Editor: Look at the title, be sure to circle a playground person, no matter which of the three keywords in the title. Female readers and male readers may have their own belly, but they will eventually get lost in the text, which is the magic of Mao Jian. She shuttles through the history of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign films, such as recalling her own past, familiar; it seems that when she is ambivalent, she opens up the steadfastness and rationality of human nature; such as the theme of the article, director Ozu of the East gives Western Hollywood a solution to the routine of defending marriage - rooted in life, is a beautiful person, deconstructed and constructed!

After reading these 8,000 words in one go, do you want to know how Li Oufan evaluates Mao Jian? Look at the prologue! No? Immediately snapped up a copy of "Long Night Dreams: Mao Jian Watching Movies", Peking University Publishing House scattered ink fragrance: shipped on December 31. This is Mao Jian's column collection of "Harvest" magazine around 2017, but each 10,000-word article will let you enjoy the wisdom and epiphany of "the apes on both sides of the strait can't stop crying, and the light boat has passed through the Ten Thousand Heavy Mountains".

Peking University Publishing House published in 2019, Mao Jian's new book "Night Short Dream Long: Mao Jian Watching Movies"

Rice after lightning strikes

Cinderella's story has produced the most versions in the history of cinema, but almost all of them stop at the moment cinderella is happy, the moment when hot milk and ice milk are poured into the same cup. It's hard for them to really be the same kind of milk, like the panda son and duck daddy in Kung Fu Panda, although they have lived together for twenty years, but all the audience can see at a glance, hey, not biological.

However, there are exceptions.

Ozu Yasujiro's film "Autumn of the Hayakawa Family" actually contains a cinderella story. The widowed brewery owner, Wan Bingwei, enters old age, but the old lover who reunites by chance suddenly lights up his twilight years. He kept going to Kyoto to meet his old lover Sasaki without his daughter, and his daughter Fumiko was particularly unhappy when she found out, and she took the position of her mother and fiercely interrogated her father, causing Wanbei to run to her lover's house again.

On a summer afternoon, Sasaki knelt on the ground to wipe the floor, and her daughter Yuriko asked her mother, "Is this brewery owner really my father?" Mother said yes. Yuriko said, Then when I was a child, didn't you also let me call a man a father? The mother replied indifferently, didn't she? Yuriko asked, "Who is my real father?" Mother said what does it matter. Yuriko thought the same thing and said happily: As long as he buys me a mink shawl, he will be my father. Sounds like a snobbish line, but only a family member can be so direct, plus Yuriko laughs so brightly. At this time, Wanbing Guard shouted at the door: "I am coming, I am coming again!" ”

Wanbei came in, saw Sasaki wiping the floor, and immediately said, I will wipe it for you, and the old Cinderella Sasaki happily put the rag in the palm of his hand. Manbei should have been wiping the floor for the first time, and Yuriko reminded him that he would dirty his clothes before he thought of rolling up the hem. He wiped the floor hard, wiped the door and went into the house to wipe, wiped the floor and smeared the wall, he wiped while laughing, he found the feeling of home in his lover, he and his Cinderella could get along in the most homely way, the milk fused. This is the most comfortable and fireworks moment in the movie, and Ozu also duly presents him with music and an iconic lyricism: a lamp in the night.

Yasujiro Ozu's film "Autumn of the Hayakawa Family"

Who says extramarital love is bad! Let's talk about a wonderful affair today.

In the theme of the affair, the contribution of Japanese films is the most significant, the conscience of heaven and earth, and the Japanese director shows the affair as really beautiful. Take a look at Yoshio Naruse's "May His Wife Be Like a Rose" (1935).

Naruse and Ozu were contemporaries, and in that generation of directors, Naruse was probably the most honest and reticent. The staff said that working with Naruse was the most boring, such as after shooting one, everyone would look at the director's face, but Naruse just wouldn't give a face. Receiving neither praise nor advice, Hideko Koyama, a famous actress who has worked with Naruse for many years, said in an interview: "As soon as I arrived at director Naruse, I would be a little hypoxic, and I felt that I almost had to use an oxygen inhaler. Probably for this reason, Naruse is known in circles as a "melancholy man", and the couples in his works often have melancholy tendencies on one side.

The wife in "May the Wife Be Like a Rose" is a 100% literary middle-aged man, which ensures her melancholy tendencies. As a mother, she spends most of her time writing poetry and missing her husband who left her. In contrast, the daughter is a girl with both modern temperament and traditional virtues, both a modern and lively office girl and a housekeeper who can go down to the kitchen. In order to let the father attend her engagement, and for the mother, the daughter set off to the countryside to find her father.

The father lives in the countryside with a mistress who is a geisha-turned-geisha, and the daughter is determined to bring her father back to Tokyo. But what she did not expect was that her father and little wife already had a big son in the countryside, a son and a daughter, and the little wife also opened a small beauty shop; the bigger blow was that because her father was exploring the gold mining business, there was no income, and the little wife not only raised her own family, but also concealed that her father had been sending money to the city to help the big wife and mother. In the face of a powerful plot, the daughter had to ask her father's little wife to borrow her father for a few days, and the engagement ceremony was returned as soon as it passed.

The father followed his daughter to Tokyo. Enjoying the joy of both parents, the daughter had the idea of keeping her father. However, literature and art kill the old woman and the little bride, the big wife who can write poetry will not get along with her father, and she will not be like the little wife who asks for warmth and takes care of it inside and outside, and as soon as the ceremony is over, the father wants to go back to the countryside. The daughter, although she witnessed her mother's pain, also understood the essence of marriage.

This film was the first Japanese film to be commercially screened in the West, and Western critics regarded it as a masterpiece of "avant-garde Orientalism", and the Japanese local "Film Shunbao" also listed "May the King Be Like a Rose" as the first of the year. On the screen where the image of the mistress has always been stigmatized, Naruse kicks the legality of the marriage with a very convincing parallel shot. The film unfolds from the perspective of the eldest daughter, and her sympathy for her mother and the mood of "hating her" are ambiguous and subtle in front of her father's perfect little wife. However, it is interesting that Hayatoko Chiba, who plays her daughter, has a sunny and humorous temperament, which makes the film have a sunny and humorous temperament from beginning to end, and is not reduced to a tear-jerking drama by the resentment of the big wife and the dedication of the little wife, such as the big wife's grievance poem, which not only does not become a moral burden for the father, but is a kind of self-irony.

Stills from Japanese director Kio Naruse's may his wife be like a rose (1935).

I don't know if it was this sunny temperament that created the peak of a whole generation of Japanese directors at that time. Like Naruse's film themes, which deal with the feelings of men and women, belong to gender dramas, it is natural and normal to squander the hormones of actors and audiences, but Naruse is as successful as restraining himself in restraining the film. Tadao Sato's "InariMa" (1952), which Tadao Sato regarded as the "ultimate work of Naruse's art", if you summarize it, is simply the capacity of an 80-episode series, but the ups and downs of the day are restrained by the director in a calm sketch. The mother had bad luck, met four men and gave birth to four children, for the sake of the big family, she worked hard to make the young daughter Kiyoko from complaining to looking down, and finally she couldn't help asking her mother: "Are you so happy?" Mom's answer seemed to be heavy and light: "What happiness, you even ask such a profound question." ”

When the mother and daughter clashed really fiercely, Naruse pulled the camera and went outside the house to photograph the crying Kiyoko, and after a while, her mother also cried. However, the mother and daughter reached mutual understanding through crying, and Kiyoko calmed down and childishly told her mother not to cry. Mothers and children obey and do not cry. Then Kiyoko said that her mother could buy a yukata and sell the rest of the yukata cheaply...

Life is a shackle and a gift, Kiyoko hates her mother and loves her mother deeply, Kiyoko played by Hideko Takayama and the daughter played by Hayatoko Chiba have a sunny nature, they do not indulge in negative emotions, "where there is lightning, rice grows well," Directors such as Naruse and Ozu prefer to portray rice after lightning, rather than lightning. In this principle, the younger generation's very Westernized question about "happiness" is not willing to give an answer. His aesthetic and moral laws all come from life itself, and those who can take root in life are beautiful people. The mother in "Rice Wife" can still reconcile with life, that is, a good mother; the little wife in "May the King Be Like a Rose" can take root and live, and the little wife is better than the big wife.

As for Naruse himself, he married and divorced HayatoChiko Chiba, the star of "May the King Be Like a Rose". However, I don't know if everyone found out, the actress Hideko Takayama, who he later cooperated with for thirty years, is really similar to Hayoko Chiba, and Hideko Takayama is more beautiful.

Stills from Inari (1952), which Tadao Sato regards as "the ultimate work of Naruse's art"

I can't control myself

In the East, when thinking about marriage and affairs, there are also a group of masters in the West who are re-portraying family and extramarital affairs. British director David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) was one of the most elegant extramarital affairs. Lane presents the death-defying romance of an English extramarital affair in a restrained manner. Two middle-aged men and women with happy families met in the small restaurant at the train station, because they always went into the city on the same day, and the more they talked, the friendship that sprouted, and it became a habit to meet every Thursday, and slowly friendship became a longing, and the desire stirred hope, but he was about to go to South Africa to practice medicine, and before he left, he wanted to see her one last time to see if it was still possible.

In black and white movies, the train station swallows smoke like a grudge, and the final moment comes, and they sit again in the fateful train station restaurant. The woman said, I want to die. The man said, that's not okay, I want to be remembered by you. Desperate and romantic moments, real life intervenes. The small restaurant suddenly came in and the woman, an acquaintance, did not say a word and sat at a table with them, while gushing nonsense used up the most important minutes of each other's lives, and finally the train that the man was going to take entered the station, and they scrawled up.

The final scene of the film is when the woman sits on the couch at home in a daze as her husband walks over and hugs her and says a meaningful line: "Thank you for coming back." The film ends in the couple's mixed embrace.

Is this positive energy brought by third parties? Almost all the film masters of that generation explored this subject, Michelangelo Antonioni liked to empty interpersonal relationships for island desert exploration, so his films appeared particularly cold; Alfred Hitchcock liked to apply the popular film program for delusional treatment, his "extramarital affair" seemed good-looking, secret and divisive, and he was able to handle this subject matter both cold and good-looking. Count Luis Bu?uel.

Stills from British director David Lane's Meet and Hate Late (1945).

Buñuel is the most important director in Spain, a master filmmaker who grew up in avant-garde and surrealist circles, and the film Belle de jour (1967) is simply too good to look at and understand compared to his surrealist foundational work Un chien andalou (1928).

The French goddess Catherine Deneuve starred as the heroine of the film, Severina, playing a two-faced girl. As a rich and decent doctor's wife, she won respect and admiration for her coolness and virtue, but her husband Pierre's Elle could not resist her sexual fantasies, and by chance, she learned of an apartment-style brothel, where the beautiful hostess agreed to pick her up every day from 2 to 5 p.m., and named her "Daytime Beauty". Severina's aristocratic beauty keeps her guests, and she plays the role of a middle-class lady perfectly, but double life always comes with double punishment. Pierre's friends discover her secret, and at the same time, a young prostitute who loves her shoots Pierre.

Like "An Andalus Dog," Day beauty has been labeled Buñuel connoisseur since its inception, "a masterpiece of criticism of capitalism and the bourgeoisie," and "Daytime Beauty" in film history has always held this title to this day. However, "Day Beauty" should not be so simple and easy to summarize, after all, between "An Andalus Dog" and "Day Beauty", there is a gap of forty years.

At the beginning of the film, an open-top carriage drives towards the camera shot from the ground, the carriage has to walk for a long time, and finally approaching, we see the beautiful Severina and her handsome and affectionate husband. Such an idyllic opening is reminiscent of Austen's novel, but within two minutes, Buñuel slaps us. Mr. Darcy's husband suddenly attacked and sexually abused Severina, and he asked the servant to whip her and the servant to her. Then, at the moment when the servant was ready to act, the camera switched, and oh, it turned out, was a dream of Severina. Interestingly, this dream, at the end of the film, is echoed again.

Stills from Bunuel's most important Spanish director, Day Beauty (1967).

Pierre was seriously injured after being shot by a prostitute, blind in his eyes and in a wheelchair. At this time, Pierre's friend came to visit, and he told Severina that he would tell pierre the truth to the unsuspecting Pierre. Severina agreed. When her friend had left, Severina carefully returned to Pierre, she saw tear marks on Pierre's face, she called out to Pierre, her husband ignored her, she had to walk back to the sofa to continue her embroidery. However, her sad expression suddenly changed, and she heard the carriage bell. At the same time, the blind husband, who was originally a vegetative person, also took off his sunglasses, smiled and stood up from his wheelchair, and they drank happily together to plan a vacation.

At the end of the film, Severina pushes open the window, and the audience again sees the dreamy open-top carriage at the beginning of the film having to drive by. Only this time, like Severina, we watched the carriage coming from a bird's-eye view, in other words, the carriage that had looked down on us at the beginning was now finally looking down upon us. Everything, as if to mean, the sexual fantasy that crushed Severina for a long time was finally over. The daydream that begins with the carriage ends with a surreal carriage, so is the brothel, the prostitute, and the accident that happens in the middle of the movie also a dream?

It is said that Buñuel himself cannot say what the ending means, but the reading of the film, which is only a bourgeois criticism of "Day Beauty", obviously does not pay much attention to the structure of the entire film with horses as dreams, and the recurring daydream symbols in the film. The Buñuel-esque fantasy that took place in Daydreame is no longer as glamorous as the surreal dream in A Dog of Andalus, and the 67-year-old Buñuel now has a new understanding of carnal desire. In the words of Joseph Kessel, the original author of Day Beauty, "The theme of Day Beauty is not Severina's carnal perversion, but her super-carnal love for Pierre." ”

And the realization of this "super-carnal love" must be promoted by Severina's affair. To interject, the brothel in the movie is not so much a brothel as a place to offer an affair, "the money in it is only an excuse for the establishment of this brothel, far from the real motive", and we do not see Severina take money from the hostess once in the whole movie. In Severina's dream brothel, we never saw sweaty sports sex scenes, and while countless viewers admitted that we wanted Deneuve, who was at the peak of her beauty, to turn around and let us take a look, Buñuel vetoed our wish, and from beginning to end, we only saw the back of her naked body, and the real sexy thing only happened in Severina and the audience's mind, like the enigmatic box in the movie.

Once, Severina picked up a prostitute from the East. The man was tall and exotic, and he carried only a small box with him, but this box he showed only to Severina, as if it contained his sex key. Afterwards, he left satisfied with the box, leaving Severina lying on the wretched bed, and the brothel cleaner picked up the bloodstained towel on the ground and said to Severina, "Sometimes it's painful." But unexpectedly, Severina lifted her face from the bed and said with a comfortable face, "How do you know!" ”

What exactly is in this mysterious box? This slightly vulgar oriental prostitute opened it twice, but on both occasions, the audience could not see it, only heard a strange insect buzzing sound inside. There is almost no music throughout the film, only these surreal sounds, and the Oriental prostitute plays with Severina with a small bell in her hand, and the sound of the bell makes Severina happy like the bell of a carriage, as if at that moment, her wish was fulfilled like a little girl. Severina does not have many lines in the movie, her expression is not much, her high-cold beauty has a metallic feeling, the only line that shows her physical personality is, "I can't control myself", fortunately, the satisfaction brought by the brothel or the affair has inspired her life and improved her sexual indifference to her husband, all the way to the end her sexual fantasies were shared by friends in a tough way with her husband Pierre, the couple reached a harmony.

Poster for Buñuel's work An Andalus Dog (1929).

Pauline Kael, commenting on Buñuel's film Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972), said insightfully: "The film is almost serene. This serenity, which seems to me, begins to take shape in Daydreame, and there is a peculiar serenity in Severina, both at home and in the brothel, the last moment of "late capitalism" and the Mass moment of "late Buñuel." In the words of Jean-Claude Carriere, a co-screenwriter at Bunuel, "The first shot Buñuel shot was a razor. His last shot is of a woman's hand. It was as if he had repaired the damage he had done in the first place in the last moments of his life. So, is it fair to say that in Daydreame, the "affair" that brings a restorative function is both a Buñuel critique and his weakness, which, like his focus on Severina, is full of ambiguous admiration for her beauty, while at the same time giving her a strange stain and joy like that oriental box? Or, could it be said that Buñuel's "French Era," which opened with Daydreamer, reveals a new dimension? In addition to his consistent bourgeois critique, Buñuel is also committed to narrating the powerlessness of the man to himself, the embarrassing texture of marriage, and the comedy of an affair.

This, we go back to Yasujiro Ozu and ask him to judge.

The most gentle, the warmest and the warmest

Before summarizing his encounters, ask Yasujiro Ozu to watch a classic Hollywood drama, A Letter to Three Wives (1949).

Written and directed by accomplished Hollywood comedy mogul Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, the film won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Director and Screenplay. The film features a never-before-seen "goddess Eddie" as a narrative voiceover, and early in the morning, her three girlfriends receive a letter together that says: I eloped with the husband of one of you. The three girlfriends pretended to be calm, but their hearts were broken. The film is divided into three paragraphs, and the young women of Miaoling each review their marriage past, thinking that their husbands are so worshipping Eddie, and Eddie is so elegant and considerate, charming and kind, noble and generous, they all lose confidence in themselves, and they also realize the preciousness of their husbands, as well as the distance between themselves and the goddess.

Poster of the Classic Hollywood Drama "The History of the Three Wives" (1949).

As a comedy, the end of the film can be imagined. Interestingly, Eddie, who has never appeared, except for her voice, she is an invisible person on the screen, an imaginary enemy of the three young women, that is, this pre-publicized affair only happened in the minds of the three young women, which seems to be similar to the sexual fantasy structure of "Day Beauty".

Three young women, the first two are not very meaningful, one is a peasant girl married to a rich family, and the other is an anti-literary professional woman, all of which are incomparable with Eddie. Dramatic tension is focused on the third young woman. She came from the bottom, the family's house was on the side of the railway tracks, every time the train passed, the house and people had to shake together for a while, but she was determined to catch a golden turtle son-in-law, perseverance and cleverness, the big boss who was only ready to play with her finally bowed to her: "Well, I will marry you!" After marriage, of course, there are all kinds of discord, and the expression of the big boss is: "You just use me as a cash machine!" The burst girl didn't show weakness either: "You set up our marriage as a deal!" So, near the end, the big boss suddenly confessed: I was going to elope with Eddie, but I came back. In the face of the sudden truth, the outbreak girl chose to embrace love, she kissed the big boss, and their love officially set sail.

The three couples walk happily together again, the threat of marriage disappears, it seems that they will all learn from this true and false letter, but it seems that such an ending always makes us a little dissatisfied, because "The History of the Three Wives" and "Daytime Beauty" are completely different in essence, Severina's affair is a criticism and correction of the marriage, Severina is completely unpunished for cheating, and Buñuel even affirms the legitimacy and necessity of the affair. But the appearance and exit of the goddess Eddie both hints at the importance of the affair and denies the legitimacy of the affair, in other words, only by returning to the wife or husband can this movie become a comedy, if the big boss or any of the husbands choose to elope with Eddie and accept his affair, then Eddie must be a disaster, and the man will also be punished. Therefore, in the bones, "The History of the Three Wives" is still a hymn of marriage, in conservative Hollywood, the eternal goddess, only stay in the fantasy world that can not even see the shadow, in order to ensure the aesthetic and safety of the affair, if they come to the real world, Hollywood will call them "snake and scorpion girls".

Ozu Yasujiro has watched many Hollywood "snake and scorpion girls" stories, but under his lens, these girls have all become the gentlest and warmest women in the world.

I am often asked which of Ozu's favorite movies, I sometimes say "Late Spring" and sometimes "Tokyo Story", because after saying that, the other party will not ask why, these two movies are too famous. But come to think of it, the Ozu movies I've seen the most times are Floating Grass Story (1934) and Floating Grass (1959).

"Floating Grass Story" is black and white, and the remake of "Floating Grass" is color, and the two films are twenty-five years apart, which shows how much Ozu likes this subject. In Ozu's films, the story of floating grass is complicated: the village ushered in a wandering drama class, but unfortunately, there were only a few scenes of liveliness, leaving a scattered elderly audience. The owner of the class is good, running to the old lover's house in the village every day, he and the son of the lover are already adults, and there will be a great future, so that he has the idea of stopping wandering, although the son has not known that the man he calls his uncle is actually the biological father. This matter finally let the class owner's drama lover know, the current lover is very angry, she instigated the drama class girl to seduce the class owner's son. Soon, the son and the maid fell in love with each other, the son's life was deciphered, and the drama class could not be maintained and disbanded. Everything paved the way for the class owner to stay with the old lover.

There are no changes in the plot of the two "Floating Grass", the lines are basically the same, and the color of the color version may be the most beautiful in Ozu's films, but in hindsight it is more sad than the black and white version. In one scene, the lover of the drama class heard that the owner of the class was originally stranded in the old lover's house, and she immediately set off to get someone. On a rainy day, the class owner is enjoying a rare father-son game moment, and the old lover says that someone is looking for you below. The class owner went down to take a look and angrily dragged the spoiled current lover away. Heavy rain, the class owner stood under the eaves of this side, the drama class lover stood under the opposite eaves, her umbrella was brightly colored, her face was as beautiful as a peach blossom, she angrily counted the number of times that she helped the class owner through the difficulties, "Have you forgotten!" "The class owner played by Nakamura Yanjiro really played the solemnity and embarrassment of a jianghu drama, he walked around under the eaves, taking steps and scolding the bitch. Both of them handed knives to each other in a desperate way, plus heavy rain, changing other directors, how tragic this scene was, but Ozu injected a strange lyricism into the picture at this moment, and the feelings of this pair of drama lovers were also understood by us at that moment: Ah, it turned out that the class owner was not lusting after the beauty of the drama class lover, they experienced ups and downs together.

Poster of Yasujiro Ozu's floating grass (1959).

Ozu's "rain curtain" was later learned by many directors to express the inexplicable situation of the world, such as Tarkovsky's rain and Hou Xiaoxian's rain, both of which are rains in Ozu's emotional system, but Tarkovsky's rain is colder and Hou Xiaoxian's is warmer. And I see Ozu's rain as his attitude of affair: for life, rain is both an accident and a must, a destruction and a lyric, a cruelty and a warmth.

In the 59-year-old color remake, Ozu changed the background of the floating grass story from the original inland village to the seashore, and the whole film is filled with a full of water vapor, and the cloth signs of various small shops have been floating in the wind. Such a climate, for the class owner who is about to enter the downhill road of life, is really a sweet temptation, plus, the son has become an adult, the lover has been as full of hope as the old wife that he can stay forever this time, although, in the face of the sudden uncle becoming a father, the son can not accept it for the time being, but the temper of the young man is not a thing at all. However, at the end of the film, Ozu still lets the lonely class owner continue on the road, and the son who thinks through wants to chase him, so that his mother stops him, "Every time, he leaves like this," he has given himself to the main road, "floating grass" is the sex and life of the wandering drama.

The owner of the class, who had nothing, came to the evening waiting room, and he wanted to smoke a cigarette, but he couldn't feel a match. At this time, someone handed him a fire, which was his drama lover. The owner didn't want her fire, she insisted on giving, a match extinguished and she drew another one, and finally he wanted it. She sat down beside him, took his cigarette, and lit one for herself. Then she persevered and asked the class owner where to go next, and the class owner replied after emotional silence, going to Kuwana. The lover's face lit up and said I want to go with you. The class master acquiesced. The next time they were already on the nocturnal train, she poured him wine, and his face was content, and her face was even greater satisfaction. The people in the carriage were sleeping, and they were enjoying the incomparably warm night, and the orange-red lights outside the window of the car skimmed over the face of Kyo Machiko, who played the lover, and she was gentler and better than the night.

What a beautiful night, the train rumbles forward in the blue night, and the two orange-red headlights are simply a high-pitched lyric. However, at this time, what is the old lover who was left in place by the class owner doing? She is old, and her son has his own lover, but Ozu does not let us think about it anymore, and a "final" is played on the linen. Let us send all the blessings to the reconciled drama lovers, for them, duckweed wandering is the norm, stable life is the "affair", this, the old lover in the seaside village not only understands, but also understands. It's Ozu's understanding of love and women, who have never been married for life, and he lets the train take away a pair of lovers who seem to be more powerful and fight against life.

At this moment, the train really reached the peak of warmth, but in hindsight, I felt that sadness was better than warmth. Well, like Ozu, we stop here and never allow ourselves to sink in our sad emotions.

Next time, let's talk about the story that happened on the train.

(Original title: "Where There is lightning, rice grows well: An affair in the history of film")