Now there is a situation where you can find friends who talk to you about movies, but you can't find a confidant who talks to you about old movies.
What is an old movie? In my opinion, the movies that were pushed back in the 80s are called old movies, and now many people no longer watch old movies or even black-and-white movies, first, they feel bored, and second, they think the stories of that era are too rigid and conservative.
"Aster Grass", is a movie in 1987, I looked for six years to find this movie, because for fans, if you spend money to buy Blu-ray and DVD, it will lose a lot of time, especially in the era of developed networks, looking for resources on the Internet has become a common thing, but this movie is even difficult to find on the Internet, in the first time of finding, I was excited to watch it all night, the film is two and a half hours long, from sleepiness to surprise walking, it is not difficult to feel that people have no interest in this kind of movie, It can still be classified as a crystallization of the New Hollywood movement, but not as thunderous as "The Graduate", "Midnight Cowboy", "Taxi Driver", but jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, what are you worried about? Letting go of doubts is your best interpretation of this film.
The number of people watching this movie on Douban is only 219 people, which is pitifully less than any movie now.
The director of "Aster Grass" is called Hector Banbak, who died in recent years. He doesn't have many works, and what can be remembered is called "The Kiss of the Spider Woman" and one is called "Aster Grass". But what is special about "Aster Grass" is that it has two main actors. Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, the combined record of these two people have been nominated for a total of 31 Oscars, and are likely to rise, respectively, the highest in the history of male and female actors. It was their second collaboration, the first time in Heartfire, directed by Michael Nichols.
Set on the eve of Halloween in 1938, the social state of the United States in the early 20th century was the pursuit and disillusionment of the black American dream, a depression after the economic and political crisis in the United States, and a series of social changes before the outbreak of World War II. The camera opens in an ordinary street full of garbage, the cold and windy winter morning, and in the distance, a homeless man covered only with newspaper wakes up, his clothes are not miserable, his appearance is not too pitiful, but he is also a tramp, drinking all day, always saying some cynic words.
Francis, like many street nomads, has no job, eats and drinks everywhere, and sleeps on the haystack at night without landing. It seems that this is a character portrayed in the script, but it seriously represents a major trend in the middle-aged people in the United States after the economic crisis at that time. That day in the tavern, a woman appeared, wearing a scruffy hat, sickly walked in, saying that she was looking for Francis, this woman was called Helen, played by Meryl Streep, the two of them were wandering lovers for many years, although not together all day, but when they were concerned about each other, they would always come together, Helen is a female singer who has passed, and the film does not show an image of her past, but focuses on the present moment.
Francis and Helen said that she was his soul mate, and Helen was deeply in love with the man, and that day in the tavern she sang a song "He is me pal" to Francis. This kind of stage drama style film is often reluctant to please the audience, but in order to make people more effectively show the helplessness, poverty, struggle and humility of the wanderer, in portraying the heart of the character, it is also combined with reality, such as Francis grew up on the street of New York, where people he is familiar with, he was also a young man with dreams, he and his companions marched on the streets to fight police violence, but he accidentally killed his companions, and his inner shadow began to work when he was most helpless. People said that ghosts in his heart often appeared, so the ghosts in his heart wrapped around him, accused him, and scolded him.
Helen is the same, she often said that she was very popular when she was young, and that night when she sang in the tavern, her soul instantly returned to her most confident moment, winning the full house, but what is the reality? No one wants to hear a dirty-toothed, scruffy woman showing off her talents, and reality has once again made her lose the joy of being a human being.
The picture of the film is dark yellow, with a slightly retro and old color, which has nothing to do with the movie year, and the photography deliberately pulls the audience back to the ordinary American life of that era, so you can see the taverns only caring for themselves, and the fashionable guests are dismissive of the tramps. The homeless, on the other hand, can only care for their own kind, pray for them, and give them their last help.
The streets were barren, and so were the hearts of Francis and Helen, who tried to start over, but often weakly. Francis places Helen in a homeless man's broken car, fearing that she will freeze to death, but he can only live on the street. Before that, the two had planned to live with their old friend Jack,but Jack only wanted to have an intimate relationship with Helen, and Helen didn't want to be humiliated, she scolded Jack's lover because she didn't want to give Francis a sandwich, "When you were alone, It was Francis who gave you food and drink, and you didn't even want to give him a sandwich." "People always have a little ability and ignore how the past path was taken, and forget the help given to them by the people of the past, which is a kind of human indifference. The price of Helen's one-night wrecked caravan was bought to comfort her master, who went to church to pray that day, and luck did not leave her, she picked up a sum of money, and in gratitude she choked up and said thank you to God.
Francis, the drunkard decided to go to work, and the employer who collected the waste dragged the carriage to the homes of various rich people to collect the waste, and the first stop was rejected by Francis, who said that he grew up here, the family knew him, and he let the employer move alone, and then he moved alone. The employer ridiculed him as a face-loving beggar, and Francis began to fight against the demons of the heart, the women and men with whom he had intersected in his youth, the people he had seen die in front of him, becoming the only companions in his real life, and although he was afraid, he felt that they had really existed. It's a fragile part of human nature, afraid to reminisce about the past, but having to face it. Francis may be weak, but he has a compassionate heart that does not want to see the tramp die, and he also has his own principles, does not want to be bullied, and is willing to sacrifice to give the best to his loved ones. The character of Francis is tragic, but its tragedy is caused by social unrest, which is the director's layered emotions.
Later in the story, we finally know that Francis has always had a family, he regretted leaving home because of alcoholism and fell to his children when he was young, his wife and two children have not been able to see him again, the money he earned after working work bought a turkey, plucked up the courage to walk into the door of the house that has not been in for more than twenty years, the daughter can not forgive him, but the wife has long been tolerant of this matter, in fact, Francis himself knows that his wife has not blamed him, Because she never told anyone that he killed her son.
He changed into his old clothes and confessed to his wife, and his daughter later forgave him, but he did not stay here, believing that his body and mind had already belonged to a tramp, that he was accustomed to living a life of floating around every day, or that he did not forgive himself at all in his heart. That night he went to the homeless concentration camp, where he and his friend with cancer were ready to sleep, and in the middle of the night the police raided, and his cancer friend died, and he ran to find Helen, who was in a hotel, redeemed her musical instrument, and recovered all her belongings with Francis, but she died by her bedside because she could no longer afford to live. Francis cried and kissed her goodbye, and once again got on the train, ready to leave New York, and on the train he had another fantasy, and his wife brewed tea and waited for him to drink it, but he knew that all the hallucinations were about to disappear with the last night sky of New York, and he looked at the stars with tears, once again hopeless to reality.
Director Heccote Babbank is an Argentine director, famous for "Spider Woman's Kiss", "Aster Grass" is his first contact with realism, but this film attracted Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, two empress-level figures, who gave textbook performances in this film, showing the wanderer's helplessness and tragic life for the world, with Zhang Youchi, who was both nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor and Actress that year.
Although acting is an important weight of the film, the most important thing is that the director makes a good comparison of the fate of the small characters in the film, including the complex alternations of the past and the present, and at the same time excavates the surface of society and the inner display of the characters, which can make the audience feel empathy. A lot of times people are talking about what kind of movies are good movies. Because people who study film know that the film industry is very taboo to say that a movie is good or not? For the standard of a movie, it is always ambiguous, some people like, some people hate, but from this standard measurement, "Aster Grass" is completely qualified to become a classic, it is dirty, but it does not lose warmth; it is realistic, but it does not lose its ideal; it is cruel, but it does not lose care. If you ask me what a good movie is? I will say it simply, touching people's hearts, simple and direct.
Francis and Helen are the portrayal of the fate of the little people of that era, but they also carried ideals and hopes, on the contrary, now, this society is the same, everyone is wandering around, unable to find the center of gravity, how good this era is, how bad it is, this will always be the contradiction of society. But I don't want to be too harsh and think that this society is bad, because you have never looked at it squarely, but in Francis, I see that an ordinary person, his life, never loses the wonderful.
Love and responsibility, this is the proposition of the times, but I do not want to say.
How difficult is it to be a year old and a withered glory, and to be true to yourself? The day you feel close is also your first day as an ordinary person.