The ninety-year-old American director Eastwood is still highly enthusiastic about filmmaking, and his "Mule" and "Richard Jewell's Lament" (hereinafter referred to as "Lament") have also appeared on the Chinese screen. Based on true events, Lamentations tells the story of security guard Richard Jewell (hereinafter referred to as Jewell) in the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, from finding a bomb to save people and becoming a hero, to being suspected of being a criminal by the media and the FBI, and finally being exonerated with the help of lawyer friends.
Poster of Richard Jewell's Lament
In fact, any adaptation of a true event in a work can be considered a re-creation. In the film, the director's purposeful partial selection of material and the use of different narrative strategies just show the director's attitude towards the event and further transmit it to the audience. With the help of this real event, "Lamentations" ostensibly attacks the Media and government in the United States, but in fact uses individual civilians to continue to write the modern social epic of the mainstream ideology of the United States, and specifically expresses this hidden concept from the imaginary expression of institutional relations, the unity of procedural justice and substantive justice, and the achievement of the individualistic "American Dream".
Imaginary representations of institutional relations
Since the dawn of democracy and the rule of law in the eighteenth century, Western societies have developed a basic perception that "government is untrustworthy," and the Enlightenment thinker David Hume even mentioned that "it is a political axiom that everyone in the government is regarded as a villain, although this assumption may be false in fact." Therefore, under the influence of this cultural concept, Western film and television works often express distrust and even confrontation with the system, such as "Three Billboards", and when disasters come, they often pin their hopes on civilians or even dehumanized heroes, such as the heroes of the "Marvel" series, and the "stigmatization" of the system often becomes a common method in line with the psychological expectations of American audiences.
Stills from Richard Jewell's Lamentations
It is true that Jewell was suspected by the FBI in real history, but the film did not deal with black and white when it was specifically presented. In the movie "Lamentations", The Atlanta Gazette's female reporter Casey is the direct promoter of Jewell's transformation from hero to criminal, and she jointly pushes Jewell into the abyss through the erotic deal with FBI agents, but in fact, the details that are so secretive and dominant in the film's narrative cannot be directly obtained through history, and can only be shaped by the director's artistry. For the system represented by the media and the government, this is tantamount to a "stigmatization", and behind the "stigma" is to satisfy the imagination of the audience. Not only that, but there are a lot of similar details in the film, such as a large number of media reporters crowding the door of Jewell's house, causing the Jewelville family to be unable to enter and exit normally, Casey sneaking into Jewell's lawyer's car to obtain valuable information; and federal agents constantly inducing Jewell to produce criminal evidence during the investigation, and so on.
Without changing the basic facts, "Lamentations" gives the audience the illusion that the government and the media are complicit, through the choreography and shaping of the details of the behavior of the specific characters representing the system, which is precisely in line with the mainstream ideology of the United States in reality, because they subconsciously believe that "the government is untrustworthy."
The unification of procedural justice and substantive justice
Procedural justice, also known as "visible justice", is a value goal that exists through the legal process itself, not for the results it wants to produce; substantive justice refers to the results that require legal process to be just. In other words, to attain substantive justice, procedural justice must first be experienced. The unification of procedural justice and substantive justice is an important part of the US legal system and a concrete embodiment of its mainstream ideology.
In Lamentations, it seems that the system and Jewell as an individual are in a state of contradiction and confrontation, but in fact both always follow their respective procedural justices. As far as the representatives of the system were concerned, the media reporter Casey suspected Jewell of being a criminal and made a big report, not out of fabrication, but from federal agents, even after receiving the information, through the process of media release; on the other hand, the investigation of federal agents was also carried out in accordance with the relevant laws from taking Jewell away to his bail, to showing a search warrant to go to the door, taking the relevant items in different categories and returning them all. In the case of Jewell, he hired his own lawyer and guarded his legal rights in round after round of inducements, even excusing federal agents out of experience as a security guard. Whichever side you look at, you have your own procedural justice.
Procedural justice determines substantive justice, Jewell was the hero in the bombing rather than the criminal, the logic of "doubt never" finally let it completely clear the crime, of course, this is inseparable from the confirmation of the FBI, and the media's recognition of this result will convey substantive justice to more people, in this process we see that the procedural justice of the three (also opposing sides) and the substantive justice of the result have been unified, and further enhance the American audience's high recognition of U.S. law, but also its ideological identification.
The individualistic "American Dream" was achieved
"Americans see individualism not as a flaw but as a near-perfect character that represents creativity, pioneeringness, aggressiveness, and pride in not succumbing to authority. As a result, individualism often gives Americans a sense of pride as the unique and most appealing place of American civilization. (Tocqueville, "On American Democracy") The cult of individualism, the most pervasive of mainstream American ideology, permeates every aspect of American society, including, of course, film.
The protagonist, Jewell, is a very ordinary white male, with an obese, popular face, engaged in low-end work: he has worked as a waiter, a highway security guard, a school security guard, an Olympic venue security guard, etc., but he has always dreamed of becoming a full police officer, which is why he has many security experiences. This dream often allowed him to cross the line in the process of work (not counting law enforcement), such as forcibly dunking someone else's vehicle on the highway, forcibly breaking into a student dormitory at school to investigate alcoholism, showing a "counter-terrorism" attitude when finding an unidentified package at an Olympic venue, and so on. Some commentators have thought that Jewell is just an ordinary citizen, more vigilant, and did what he should do, but the logic behind it is that Jewell has a dream of becoming a regular police officer, and this dream often makes him demand himself with the thoughts and actions of a policeman.
The narrow sense of the "American Dream" refers to "as long as individuals are willing to struggle to succeed", which is mutually exclusive with individualism, and the achievement of the "American Dream" has become a return for individualism. At the end of the movie, Jewell's lawyer Watson came to him, and the shot that pushed the door open was That Jewell, who had been promoted to a police officer, completed his "American Dream", and the glorification of the mainstream ideology of the United States represented by individualism was nothing more straightforward than this, and there was no American audience that would not have the satisfaction of watching the film.
Whether it is the "ugly" manifestation of the system, the unity of procedural justice and substantive justice in the law, or the completion of the so-called "American Dream" by individualism, these are the external manifestations of the mainstream ideology in the United States. Through the portrayal of civilian heroes, "Lamentations" completes the input of this ideology in a hidden way, and then spreads to the audience through screen viewing. In fact, the vast majority of Hollywood movies follow this logic. (Zhang Yiwen)