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Writing about how many worldly successes Brokeback Mountain has achieved is a waste of ink and ink, and the Oscar for Best Director is enough to make Ang Lee the most successful Asian-American director in Hollywood history.
What Akira Kurosawa, the "movie emperor" who was worshipped by Hollywood boys, did not do, Ang Lee did. Ang Lee was not even satisfied with this, and on the night of the Oscars, in the media group interview backstage, Ang Lee bluntly said that he was disappointed that the film did not win the best picture.
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee's external temperament has always given people a sense of elegant and humble existence, and in the entire Chinese world, he is the most accepted director by the public. However, the temperament of Ang Lee's works is actually not related to the traditional Oriental style of subtlety, introversion, moderation and detour. Whether it is image aesthetics or narrative laws, Ang Lee does not have an oriental temperament and a Chinese temperament.
There is nothing particularly mysterious about Ang Lee's acceptance of Hollywood, because he was trained in Hollywood. "Color, Ring" is the most classic case column.
"Color, Ring"
Xu Haofeng pointed out in his film review collection "Knives and Stars" that the biggest problem of "Color, Ring" is that the implicit ink in the original novel has been destroyed, "secretly becoming naked", and "complex feelings becoming cheap". The most vulgar part is to understand Wang Jiazhi's last-minute anti-water as the motivation of sex and rings.
As Xu Haofeng criticized, this is the typical Hollywood drama rule, and Hemingway's novels were corrupted by Hollywood movies, which is also the reason. Wang Jiazhi's final anti-water, in fact, it is difficult to find a substantial reason. Although this is the climax of the novel, there is no clear, visible, or arguable motive to deduce this result.
Ambiguous, subtle, and indescribable instantaneous emotional outbursts are what Zhang Ailing's style strives to pursue in the late period. Wang Jiazhi is in the moment, the moment of realization, the recognition of his own emotional identity, this moment of explosion, Ang Lee is difficult to understand. The extremely special emotional relationship between Wang Jiazhi and Mr. Han Traitor Yi is even more difficult to understand by Ang Lee, who has long been trained in the laws of Hollywood drama to become a mindset.
The difficulty of "Brokeback Mountain" is homosexuality, and the difficulty of gay movies is that the emotional measure and emotional expression are very different from heterosexual. Many well-known Chinese directors have made gay movies, but it is difficult to say that there are any particularly outstanding ones.
Wong Kar-wai's "Spring Break", a great success in Cannes, is a stepping stone to Wong Kar-wai's entry into the circle of top Western film festivals, but this film is the least emotional expression in Wong Kar-wai's works.
The imaginary, dreamy, non-possessive romantic impulses in "Chongqing Forest", and the ambiguous, complex and tortuous middle-aged depression in "Fancy Years" have disappeared. The film replaces it with a straight-forward love you love me. In fact, the symbols and identities of the times associated with 1997 have enhanced the appeal and attention of the film at international film festivals.
"Brokeback Mountain" is of course an extreme tear-jerking film, and this tear-jerking feeling even transcends gender, and heterosexual audiences will easily be moved by the film's emotional expression. Two people in love can't be together (Ennis's original words are "two men living together, it's impossible"), twenty years can only rely on a few times a year to meet, more days are suffering.
Jack eventually died, and Ennis vowed not to find anyone else in his life, and died alone. Orphaned, he was eventually abandoned by society as an orphan.
Gay-orphan, becomes the most important self-referential in the film. The place of Jack and Ennis's half-lifely love affair brokeback mountain, so it became a mournful, miserable, beautiful utopian image, it is a place of transformation, and its natural attributes refer to Ennis and Jack's twenty years of same-sex love without fabrication, it is a predestination, same-sex love and heterosexual love are the same, regardless of whether it is good or bad, it is natural.
The unforgettable heart under the repression is unforgettable, the love is you, the liver and brain, abandoning the wife and children, no complaints and no regrets.
This is where the film's tear-jerking lies.
Most viewers, even if they don't identify with homosexuality, can easily inspire empathy for oppressed love. One of the problems with the film is the axe-chiseled design of the tear points. This is not an afterthought to speculate on the psychology of the creator. Ang Lee mentioned this in an interview with The New York Times in 2010. After the film's first internal test screening, Ang Lee's old partner and the film's producer, Shams, was not very satisfied, "Too long, three tear points, two urine spots, I want four tear points, one urine point." 」
In fact, the tear points of the film are indeed very conspicuous. After Ennis and Jack first broke up on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis passed by the corner and burst into tears. This is the first tear point. Jack's golden words to Brokeback Mountain, "I wish I could quit you," were the second tear point. At the end, Ennis put the shirt that symbolized the moment of the couple's love affair into the cupboard, which was the third tear. Too clear, too much resonance of the tear point design intentions, whether hit or not, how to say is not a clever creative rule.
Even if you don't agree with the nitpicking problem of the design point being clever or not, some details of the film's plot design are debatable. Ennis and Jack broke up for the first time on Brokeback Hill, saw each other four years later, embraced and kissed, and happened to be bumped into by Ennis's wife Emma. This design is the level of TV soap opera level.
If we compare the implicit moderation of oriental aesthetics, Ozu and Hou Xiaoxian will definitely not deal with this kind of drama in this way. Taking a step back, major twists are accomplished by chance, which is also equal to Hollywood's rules of screenwriting.
What is even more debatable is that with Ennis's cautious, introverted personality and the principle of not daring to disobey the laws of the world, it is a bit inconsistent with the character's personality to meet Jack unscrupulously without considering his wife's feelings.
In fact, even in terms of tear-inducing effect, the overall image design of the two female characters is also unstable. Emma and Lulin's sense of existence is weak, the image is thin, and even has an unreal false taste. Emma's victim image weakens Ennis's sadness to a certain extent, Ennis can not love her, but does not mean that there can be no attachment, which is to ignore the complex side of human nature. Emma's later married supermarket husband is a blank sheet of paper. It's like a character who came out of a third-rate TV series.
Lullyn's emotional treatment of Jack is also too simple, even a little unclear. Ennis and Jack can easily abandon the other half of the real family because they have strong feelings for each other. This treatment is only reinforced for the sake of reinforcement. If the family relationship between the two people is a little more complicated, it will actually appear more complicated in terms of emotions.
To expand further, the overall plot design of the film is to strengthen the unsatisfactory life of Ennis and Jack after marriage. Even in order to show this, the clip point of the turkey was used, and the scene where Jack and his family ate turkey was edited together with the scene where Ennis and his family ate turkey. One is to show that Jack is not tolerant of his father-in-law, and in the eyes of his father-in-law's family, he is just a tool for breeding children.
The other is even more bizarre, Emma has divorced Ennis, but is able to eat with her children with her current husband and ex-husband. Emma suddenly erupted, poking ennis in the face with the pain of her sexuality, causing the consequences of displeasure.
The plot is rather grudging. Why did Emma, who had a stoic personality, suddenly explode? Logically, it seems very reluctant. The combination of the two compartments is only to strengthen the pain of Jack and Ennis's respective family lives. The biggest slot point, of course, jack's final death, is an old car accident, and it is accidental. This is just a tragedy, not a fatalistic tragedy. Of course, this is also a tried-and-true tear-jerking rule.
If the intentional design of the tear point is not mentioned, the homosexual love between Ennis and Jack in the film, instead of showing how extraordinary it is in the gay theme, has some intriguing treatment methods. Ang Lee seems to be deliberately reinforcing the universality of homosexuality, but at the same time it leaves some doubts.
The intent of jack and Ennis's image design is clear, emphasizing a dichotomy. Ennis is rough, introverted, rustic, and discreet (this is especially reinforced by the habitual movement of the mouth). Jack is delicate, outgoing, feminine, and full of free-spirited pursuit of emotions.
The film reinforces this even from the color of the costumes, Ennis is always a light costume, and Jack is always a dark costume. Ennis is conservative and has a clear chastity mentality. Jack is open, not seeking the only, but seeking the deepest love.
The initial sexual process of the two has a sense that Adam and Eve steal the forbidden fruit, so as to emphasize the legitimacy and divinity of same-sex love. In short, one yin and one yang, rigid and soft successively, it is inevitable to be confused: is this homosexual or heterosexual? What is particularly strange is that a film that seeks justice and fights for equal rights for homosexuals is very conservative about the performance of the male body.
The film's presentation of the male body is somewhat reminiscent of the male body, which is very different from the male body in the images of famous gay directors such as Visconti, Fassbinder, and Gus Van Sant.
It's not that heterosexual directors can't shoot the male body well, and the male body in Claire Denis' "Forbidden Love in the Army" has become a totemic symbol of male spiritual desire. The extraordinary spiritual pursuit in the film is gradually revealed through the movement of the male body in space. This is a very advanced way of expression.
Forbidden Love in the Army
On the one hand, "Brokeback Mountain" is afraid to show the male body, and on the other hand, it is unnecessarily exploitative to show the female body. Both heroines, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, are both nude in the film. Hathaway's nudity scene was unnecessary, and she later made it clear in an interview that the nude scene made her feel humiliated.
What is the psychological state of a gay film that is afraid to show the male body, but "takes care" of the lustful needs of heterosexual male audiences, showing women naked?
To put it bluntly, the male body image in "Brokeback Mountain" is actually a projection of a typical homophobic creator.
Excellent literary and artistic works are able to touch the unexpected but real cross-section of human nature, and the so-called human nature originally has this layer, such as the high-level love of good and evil in Xu Haofeng's summary of "Color, Ring". Because homosexual love is suppressed, it has a very special sense of proportion, and the treatment of the sense of proportion can show the creator's sharp, sensitive and accessible vision and mind.
Bai Xianyong's "Tree As It Is" is the best comrade narrative in the Chinese world, and it is good to have an excellent grasp of the sense of proportion. He does not make this repressed emotion that cannot be tolerated in mainstream society sad and lofty, give people sympathy and praise, but narrate the bits and pieces of emotion in a plain and indifferent tone, and what flows out is the most precious and calm life energy and emotional energy.
"Brokeback Mountain" is only a tear-jerking image of a knife and axe chisel, seeking cheap resonance from the public, while upholding a politically correct equal justice, which is far from being a classic masterpiece of gay movies.