Before talking about today's movie, Pigo will tell a story:
In 1888, the town of West Orange, New Jersey, was plagued by the disappearance of the local residents' pet cats and dogs.
The people were powerful, and the townspeople quickly found this "thief".
But to people's surprise, the culprit of the disappearance of these pet cats and dogs is the famous invention king Edison.
He found local students, hired them to catch these cats and dogs and pets, and bought them from them for 25 cents each.
People are surprised at how the famous scientific giant can become a cat and dog dealer, but they don't know the truth behind the cat and dog theft:
Westinghouse challenged Edison with alternating current, breaking the dominance of Edison's direct current.
Edison, who had set up a large laboratory in the town, did a series of disgraceful things in his life in order to win the AC and DC dispute.
The 2017 biopic "The Battle of Electricity" focuses on the "war" between Edison and George Westinghouse, two inventors of electric current, and restores the real-life events of the time.
It is reasonable to say that Hollywood is stable in making such a grand historical epic film, but after the release of this film, it encountered a word-of-mouth mystery.
01, the film's main creative lineup is not ordinary
It is true that in order to restore such a major event that has entered the annals of human history, it is necessary to have a certain strength.
What is valuable is that the film does have such capital and hardware conditions.
The director of the film, Alfonso Gomez-Lehon, is a famous Director of Hollywood, and his previous works "Me and Earl and the Girl Who Will Die" and the American drama series "American Horror Story" and "Glee" have received excellent reputation, and their directing ability can be seen.
On the cast, Edison is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
Perhaps people will be more familiar with the nickname "Curly Fu" than his name, and even if they are unfamiliar with these, as long as they are the actors of Doctor Strange, people will not be aware of it.
Even Edison's little assistant is played by "Spider-Man" Tom Holland.
The film's other protagonist, George Westinghouse, is played by Michael Shannon, who has starred in Pearl Harbor and Jedi X-Men, which have also received widespread acclaim.
Gathering three Hollywood superstars, such a luxurious lineup has attracted a large number of fans for the film, and the film has been highly anticipated before it is released.
The director even planned to take its own Ao, originally thought it would be a masterpiece of film history, but after the release, it lost both at the word-of-mouth box office.
02, the shame of Hollywood, half of the audience exited on the opening night
"Battle of electricity" officially met with the first audience in the special screening unit of the 42nd Toronto Film Festival, but the evaluation after the premiere was not ideal.
Some reporters even said bluntly on social media: "I was embarrassed by the entire cast of "Battle for Electricity" that held the world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, and almost half of them quit the scene." ”
The evaluation is a little euphemistic, but also just affirmed the performance of the actor, and the words turned around and denied the whole movie.
With the collapse of the 2017 film festival premiere, "Power War" was released in North America in October 2019, but unfortunately, the 2-year precipitation did not turn the reputation of this film.
In the end, this huge Hollywood movie only received 12.21 million US dollars at the box office, and the cost of 30 million US dollars was really adrift.
However, at the end of August 2020, "Battle for Electricity" relied on the super popularity of the starring "Roll Fu" and "Dutch Brother" in China, or confidently entered the Chinese market.
However, at that time, when "Eight Hundred" was screened, coupled with word-of-mouth feedback from foreign markets, the film only had a box office of 1.2 million yuan on the first day of landing in China, and a total box office of 5.16 million yuan after 7 days, and there have been few films since then.
On Douban, the film is only better than 12% of the biopics, 18% of the historical films, more than half of the audience scored 3 stars, and ended up with a Douban score of 6.6.
03, the film filmed the ugliness of Vanity Fair behind science
Although the global market box office hit the street, "Power War" still has something to be affirmed - the film is based on real history and shoots the vanity fair behind the science.
Simply put, "Battle for Electricity" is about a war between two current camps.
Since it is a war, there is competition, and there are gains and losses.
There are three things to compete for:
One is the popularity of electricity throughout the United States, and both people want to occupy as many cities as possible;
The second is the debate over whether the execution of a murderer by an electric chair is torture, and whether alternating current is dangerous to death;
The third is the competition for the qualification of electricity suppliers at the Chicago World's Fair.
The two who have these competitions have chosen different approaches for their own interests.
In the film, the director uses a lot of lens language to emphasize the antagonistic relationship between the two inventors, and the negative impact of this high degree of antagonism on the people around them, in order to express the tragedy of being born as an inventor.
They are no longer pure inventors, they have lost what they cherish, their original intentions, and even their own family members.
While showing Edison's identity as an inventor, the camera also presents the dark side of Edison's characteristics.
The aggressiveness of the conversation with the president seems to be blind, and the hostile expression of the Westinghouse dinner invitation to deliberately release pigeons to humiliate is also somewhat mean.
But all this can be explained by the fact that geniuses are all a bit eccentric, have proud capital, and do not involve anything principled, harmless.
But in the development of the plot, Edison's attitude towards invention before and after, as well as the huge change in the human level, people can't help but feel chills in their backs.
At first, he opposed the invention of murder, so he refused the offer of arms invention; but later, because of his hostility to the competitive spirit of his opponents, he accepted the sacrifice of his life: first to attack the dangers of alternating current and experiment with cats and dogs, and later to agree to the government's proposal of electrocution, resulting in the loss of life under his own invention.
All this shows that Edison violated his original intention in order to compete, as long as he can hit the opponent, he no longer adheres to the principles of the past, from the horse to the person, there is more and more no bottom line.
In the second half of the plot, the inventors lose their hearts in the pursuit of fame and fortune. As the war deepened, the hostility between the two grew darker.
Both the electrocution incident and the Westhouse employee casualty incident were mixed with "death", and Edison's recognition of the application of the invention to killing people distorted his original intention, and even developed to the point of borrowing "death" to attack the opponent's alternating current career; the Westinghouse camp caused an electrocution accident due to the pursuit of a decisive victory with Edison's Chicago.
In addition, this power science vanity fair is manifested not only in their attitude towards life, but also in their transformation from inventors to businessmen.
Edison's release of the phonograph shows that as an inventor he began to succumb to commerciality.
After Westinghouse was attacked by Edison for alternating current and his career was suppressed, the director used close-ups to show the psychological impact of the loss of competition on Westinghouse, and then used a stretch shot to show the gradual commercialization of Westinghouse under the pressure of competition.
Later, Edison accepted the acquisition of Siemens in order to win.
All this shows that the struggle between the two has made them lose their hearts more and more, more and more unlimited, and more and more extreme.
It is undeniable that "War on Electricity" is difficult to count as a standard work from a cinematic point of view, but the real history behind it is still worth looking back and pondering.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: 夣
© Original 丨 Article Copyright: Ppdianying
Please do not reprint in any form without authorization