Portrait of a Killer 30th Anniversary Poster
I don't know if you remember the "bravery" in "Guardians of the Galaxy".
The "blue-skinned" "cosmic criminal" played by Michael Luke has left a deep impression on us, and whenever the self-propelled arrow begins to float, someone will fall silently.
The "emotionless killer" is talking about him.
Courageous killer sword dart
In fact, as early as the 1980s, Michael Luke played a well-known killer in an independent movie, that is, "Portrait of a Killer".
The protagonist Henry played by Luke is based on the famous "serial killer king" in American history, Henry Lee Lucas.
Henry Lee Lucas in reality
The real-life Henry Lee Lucas, who claimed to have killed more than 600 people between mid-1975 and 1983, was erratic, mentally ill-fated, arrested several times, and his confessions were full of lies and fiction.
In the then imperfect judicial system of the United States, Lucas could not be truly confirmed how many people had been killed, and the truth was confused between the virtual and the real.
The 1986 American independent film Portrait of the Killer not only has the unique artistry of film noir, but also reshapes the portrait of Henry Lee Lucas with an extremely deep and calm vision.
Michael Luke plays the killer Henry
<h1>The killing intent that was released</h1>
Henry couldn't read a few words, didn't smile, and occasionally did odd jobs.
Otis is a "cellmate" and "roommate" of Henry, still on parole.
Becky is Otis's younger sister, who abandons her children and family because of the failure of her marriage and runs to Henry's residence to "take refuge".
In this way, Henry and Otis occasionally went to "hunt for prey", while Becky cooked for them outside of work.
Henry uses the method of stopping the car for help to find his prey
"Does it feel better?" Not bad! Very good. ”
Henry and Otis became partners, killing people neither for money nor for anything else, just to make themselves feel better.
At first, Otis would worry about some guilt and how to escape the hunt.
But Henry told him that as long as there was no routine, no habits, no rules, or even a clear purpose, no one would know.
"What makes their job easier is the 'fixed mode,' called 'habituation,' and you're safe to get away from that, plus you're constantly moving."
Henry taught Otis the art of killing
"Open your eyes, Otis, and look at the world, either you or them."
Life is in the world, either you die or I die, as if everyone is different, as if there is no difference.
The cold dead, no matter how high or low they were before they died, were the skin bags that were about to be abandoned by Henry after they lost their breath.
Henry used a special philosophy of life to offset the moral boundaries of the self, equating life and death, you and me, and the two demons wandered the world.
Henry influenced Otis with his philosophy of life
But the two ferocious beasts were doomed to be unable to travel together, let alone mix with women.
When Otis tries to rape Becky, an enraged Henry takes his life with a comb.
The relationship between the three finally breaks down, and Henry kills Otis
The end of the film subverts our imagination.
We thought the two would live a new life together, but Henry threw Becky into the wilderness and drove away alone.
<h1>Twisted life</h1>
Pressed by Becky, Henry tells his childhood in the film.
His mother was a prostitute, his father was a truck driver before he was amputated, and his brother was paralyzed by illness.
The three of them often sit around each other
"The reason I hate her is not because of what she does, but how she does it."
For as long as I can remember, Mom kept bringing strange men home, and she forced Henry to watch the "pick-up process" and beat him if she didn't.
In her mother's eyes, her father was a waste, Henry was a plaything, and all she had to do was humiliate them with her own actions.
She would let Henry go to school in a dress and be ridiculed.
So at the age of 14, Henry killed his mother after drinking again.
Henry tells Becky about his origins
But how to kill it, it seems that Henry said it differently every time.
He told Otis about using a bat, and when he faced Becky, he said first he used a knife, then he said he used a gun, and then he changed back to a knife.
Does he really not remember?
We know that memories can be forged, and if you make a "box" in your head to store the memory, and you have the ability to open it, then you can replace some of the things in the "box", and the things that were originally placed there are only remembered by yourself.
Henry often drove to observe his prey
Henry hated his mother to the bone, she deprived him of the ability to feel love and people normally, and Henry hoped to cut her to death.
Every time he thinks back and talks about it, it will trigger him to "take out the contents of this "box" and "look at it once", at this time he can tamper with his memory and change the plot of his own mother-killing.
No matter whether he really killed his mother, no matter how he killed her, no matter how he changed, he couldn't completely release the depression in his heart.
It's a cancer, a tumor called "primary harm."
Henry and Otis with the Stand Street Woman
Therefore, most of the people who died at Henry's hands were women.
Over and over again, he borrowed the shells of innocent people, reproducing his own impulses and curses of killing his mother.
<h1>Becky's Phantom</h1>
When Becky heard about Henry's life, she showed extra sympathy and concern.
"I feel like I know you as if we've known each other for a long time."
She also has a tragic background, and while talking to Henry, Becky confided in her experience of being sexually abused by her father as a child.
Becky also told Henry about his origins
"I never liked my father, when I was 13 years old, he came into my house to check on my development and I refused, he beat me and told me, 'I'm your father, I've provided for you, I have the right to do whatever I want'."
In this way, Becky acquiesced to her father's long-standing aggression, because if he did not comply, he would be beaten.
She tried to tell her mother, but she didn't want to hear it at all.
In order to escape her father and family, Becky married another bastard and had children.
Otis didn't have much respect for Becky
But in Otis's eyes, Becky is nothing more than a slut dancing in the club, and if given the chance, he will also use his hands and feet.
Because her mother knew about her father's sexual assault on Becky, Otis probably knew about it, so the impression of her was "casual."
The same is the fallen man of the end of the world, which is how similar to Henry's life, so she will say the words "see each other and hate late".
Becky offered to get close to Henry
Perhaps it was Becky's encounter that also caused Henry to feel a moment of compassion, and he began to show a gentlemanly side to Becky.
In order to protect Becky from harassment, he would openly be rude to Otis and force him to apologize to his sister.
They danced together, and Becky wanted Henry to come home with her.
Otis's offense to Becky makes the atmosphere awkward for the three of them
But in the end, Henry killed Becky.
Why?
When we finally see the human side of Henry, there is still a side of "love" that is still warm, and the side that may retire to the field.
Hope was shattered again.
Becky was just an illusion of happiness
I think that's what Henry is, a killer with no concerns and no purpose.
Except for himself, everyone else is a passer-by and can be erased.
Becky is just an "illusion of happiness", Henry has no ordinary people's emotions, and beauty is just a strange feeling that makes him uncomfortable, fleeting.
This moral contradiction and uncertainty erased Henry's empathy.
<h1>Purposefulness is not allowed</h1>
"It's a good guitar, I used to play it a lot, but now I'm neglecting to practice."
After saying this, Becky was "loaded" into her own blue suitcase.
Although we still haven't seen the process, it is clear that she was killed by Henry.
Henry never kills for anyone else, but he kills Otis for Becky, which disrupts his rhythm and makes the killing purposeful.
The blue suitcase at the end was originally Becky's suitcase
This seems to contradict his philosophy and reflects the director's intention to spread fear beyond the cinema.
You still can't figure out Henry's behavior, because he said that you have to go against routines and patterns.
How terrible would it be if such a person were wandering around?
Henry's sudden indifference heralded the arrival of the killing intent
Whether it was to kill witnesses, or because of the natural resistance of gender dogma to women, or the anxiety about Becky's attempt to build a family, Henry did not carry The "baggage" of Becky, but chose to "go light".
This is a very big test for the audience's concept and moral cognition.
<h1>Sexual attraction</h1>
Otis was basically a second-rate, leper.
But the difference is that he embodies an attachment to sex itself.
He is not picky about sexual fantasies or the object of harassment.
Otis always wanted to take advantage of Becky
Whether it's the coveting of his sister, the seduction of the buyer's brother while selling "tobacco", or the repeated viewing of a videotape of himself assaulting a housewife, Otis's bisexual tendencies are implied.
Otis grabbed his brother's thigh
Well, we can also reasonably guess why Otis was so surprised by Henry's rebuke when flirting with his sister, perhaps they usually have such a leg (the director confirmed that this scene was deleted).
Otis bumps into Becky and Henry's caresses, and although he can't stop it from happening, he tries to preemptively possess his sister under the premise of jealousy to calm his imbalanced mentality that he is about to lose Henry.
Otis sees Becky and Henry's relationship with a distinctly jealous feeling
<h1>Uneasy audiovisual</h1>
Otis and Henry filmed the crime scene with a stolen camera, and Otis repeatedly looked back, enjoyed, and chewed on his own behavior and posture at that time, all of which were the process of externalizing the conscious experience of "seeing", "storing", and "replaying" of the video to confirm the psychological activity of Henry and Otis.
Henry and Otis admire their own work
The camera is connected to the TV, and the visual signal is directly reflected on the TV screen, as if we were directly seeing the "image" of the "memory".
In the film, we do not often see Henry killing people, we often see the camera pushing and pulling or moving the mirror slowly and smoothly, showing a "portrait of the dead".
In some scenes, the restoration of events is done through the presentation of "video tapes" or "portraits of the dead", which is a narrative split from Henry's actions.
The hitchhiker's guitar, in the blink of an eye, became the "picked up" in Henry's mouth.
We have discovered Henry's murder through the details of the portrait of the deceased, Henry's car trailing, rearview mirror observation, burglar cleaning, hitchhiker, etc., but at the same time, due to the absence of the "observer", there is no direct evidence that he actually killed "those people".
In these scenes, we can hear a hidden noise coming from the background.
Under the premise of the Kulishov effect, the film applies a large number of audio-visual separation designs, visually we only see the result of the "killing event", and the process of the event is simulated by the unsynchronized, "collage-like noise" to simulate the imaginary space.
Portrait of the deceased
This "noise" is mixed with the sound effects of women's cries, men's shouts, fragmentation, hitting, arguing, gunshots, etc., to guide the audience's conception of the cause and effect of the event and the motivation of the characters.
Henry, on the other hand, is ruthless, insensitive, bored, unaware of the killing itself, does not show any emotions about sadness, anger, pity, and excitement, and makes people confused about where his "conscience" is.
The director uses a cryptic film language to hide the basic relevance of the action and expand the narrative space brought about by it.
It's hard to determine if Henry actually killed those people, what he was thinking, what he was going to do next, and why he was doing it.
This shooting method is undoubtedly clever, and it is also in line with the true and false behavior and strange personality of "Henry Lee Lucas himself".
<h1>Entertaining violence</h1>
Director McNaughton uses two scenes to illustrate the analogy of violence in visual entertainment.
One was a salesman selling television sets, and the other was a victim of a family of three.
Obedient salesman
The salesman was extremely contemptuous and sarcastic, and he looked down on the two customers who bought a TV for 50 yuan, thinking that they were very annoyed and better get out of the egg.
Henry and Otis smashed the TV on his head and plugged it on.
The end of the salesman
The audience will feel happy about the fat salesman's violent death, because this bridge section has made him a symbol of malice, while Henry and Otis have become anti-hero characters.
The violence here turns into entertainment.
In contrast to another massacre of a family of three, we watched it on videotape with Henry and Otis, and obviously they enjoyed it.
They were viewing the atrocity record as entertainment, but the audience was not.
Henry and Otis' slaughter of a family of three
But the two groups were equal, they were both innocent, both murdered.
Our reactions may not be the same.
Therefore, for violence, audiovisual works can be presented with different attitudes and forms, thus affecting the audience's judgment and psychological experience.
This is not a warning to many entertainment products to romanticize violence, but also to make the audience reflect on their own, we like and enjoy the whitewashed and entertaining violence, it is entirely possible to make the violence itself become no longer terrible.
Whatever form violence takes, it is terrible
<h1>Radical adult films</h1>
McNaughton's Portrait of a Killer was shot on a 16mm camera in 1985 at a cost of just $110,000.
Many of the actors are McNaughton's friends, and the props are also pieced together by everyone.
It was later premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, and due to the large controversy about the moral aspects of the film, it successfully attracted the attention of the MPAA and was rated "X-rated".
"X-rated" was used in most cases of the year to classify "color Q movies".
Directed by John McNaughton
But This "Portrait of the Killer" is clearly not a color Q film, and the MPAA believes that this film cannot be rated R no matter how it is edited.
Its problem is not simply that of images of violence, but of the moral impact and values it causes that are contrary to mainstream notions.
So McNaughton himself not only produced, directed, written, music and other roles, but also needed to consider how to "curve to save the country" and sell this movie.
So he quickly sent copies to several film critics, hoping to get more endorsements and positive reviews for the film.
This original poster was also once banned from publicity
In the end, Portrait of the Killer was rated "NC-17" along with Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Almodóvar's Tie Me, Tie Me Up.
This level is almost equivalent to the sentence of the movie "death penalty".
After several twists and turns, the film was released on a small scale and grossed $600,000.
The film's rating in North America is good because it confronts the subject of violence and serial killers, and does not use entertainment or "sugar" to hide itself, and the American Film Association has also included the film in the list of "AFI's Top 100 Heroes and Villains in a Hundred Years".
In reality, Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Tours are both partners and lovers
At the same time, the characters in this film: Henry, Otis, and Becky, are all based on the real experiences and related characters of Henry Lee Lucas, and the similarity in setting is basically 70%.
However, Becky is really Otis's niece, only 12 years old, and has a mild intellectual disability.
Henry is not as deeply ascetic as in the film, but as sexually impulsive as Otis, and more schizophrenic.
Reality is always harsher than movies.
Netflix also filmed a series that records Lucas's life, "Confessions Killer"
Portrait of the Killer is based on original characters and events, and a reasonable adaptation of the script and characters is very successful.
Michael Luke's performance, in particular, is even more oppressive, and it is said that he is acting on the set of this film, never talking to people, and spending a month in a state of extreme gloom and self-isolation.
Henry Lee Lucas in trial
The real-life Lucas once left a shocking defense in court:
"I like to kill people, it's very common, just like a lot of people like to go out for a walk, we just have different hobbies. If I have this need, I'll go out on the street and find someone..."
This kind of dehumanizing horror is truly chilling.
And what strips away humanity is often our most fragile and injurious childhood.
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