Many people will think that the content of this film is slightly simple and bland, but I can see the unique charm of the director by simplifying the plot and focusing more on the performances and emotions of the characters. @Schrödinger's
Under the Peony Is a film directed by Sophia Coppola and starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Ellie Fanning, and Angeli Rice. The story tells the story of a wounded Northern Army corporal, Mike Burnie, who accidentally enters a closed manor house for a Southern girls' boarding school during the American Civil War. His arrival also shattered the peaceful lives of the principal Martha, the teacher Edwina, and the five female students.
And Sophia Coppola also won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for this film. For this movie, many people say that compared with the original novel and the old version in 1971, the plot is simpler and much more bland. However, for a director like Sophia Coppola, who has a personal style and her strong strength, it is obvious that the analysis of the storyline itself cannot fully show the charm of her work.
Therefore, in this article, I will also talk about the charm of this film from the two levels of story and narrative adaptation, female theme expression, combined with the examples of Sophia Coppola's other works. At the end of the article, I will also talk specifically about how to better appreciate this kind of film with a strong personal style of director.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, story and narrative adaptation, cut out the complicated and simplified, focusing on women's lives and emotional states in enclosed spaces</h1>
Compared with the original work and the old version in 1971, director Sonnya Coppola has made a relatively large adaptation of the plot of the new version of "Under the Peony Flower" according to her creative intentions: deliberately diluting the background of the times, deleting secondary roles, simplifying the language of the camera, focusing on the living conditions of women in a closed environment and the emotional conflict with foreign men.
(1) In the story adaptation, the secondary character scenes are deleted to highlight the main contradictions of the characters.
In the older version of the film, the black maid at the school appeared as an important character, and she existed as a third type of character that distinguished her from all white women and foreign men in the manor. While enriching the historical background, it also makes the relationship between the characters in the closed environment more complicated.
Therefore, the director deliberately deleted the role of black slave girls in the new version of the film, removed the interaction between black women and the male protagonist Mike Bernie, and the related scenes on the exploration of racial issues.
On the other hand, the plot of the old version of the film about the Southern soldiers trying to harass the women in the school, and the near-conflict with Mike Bernie, who is disguised as Martha's cousin, has also been removed in the new version. In the new version of the film, the visiting Confederate Army never sees Mike Bernie, nor does it express a bad intention to several women, but only stands outside the door and watches from a distance, purely as a "tool man" far away from the center of the narrative and explaining the historical background.
By removing the part about the black slavery system and the human nature of the Civil War, the director shifted the focus of the story from the "big plot" that emphasized the historical background to the "small plot" focusing on the emotional relationship between men and women. At the same time, in the control of the lens language and narrative, it is also simplified as much as possible, and more through the performance of the actors to show the emotional changes of the dark tide.
(2) Simplify the scene and narrative, reduce external dramatic conflict, and focus on the character performance itself to show delicate emotions.
The old version of the film shows the projection of the desire of The Principal Martha, the teacher Edwina, and the student Alicia for Mike Bernie through voice-over, flashbacks, etc. in a more extroverted form. The new version of the film makes this emotional expression more subtle and introverted.
The director shot the entire process in natural light, abandoning the complex soundtrack and abandoning flashbacks and inner monologues. The overall atmosphere is created through the scheduling of the enclosed environmental space, and the emotional changes of the dark tide are reflected through the looks and actions of the characters.
Let's take a dinner scene in the movie. The scene is about Mike Bernie being invited to dinner by Martha after recovering from his injuries and becoming acquainted with the women around him. In this scene, the camera examines each woman from the perspective of Mike Burnie, who is sitting on the other end of the table, which contrasts sharply with the previous all-female dinner scene/ reflects the subtle changes in the overall atmosphere and character emotions after the male joins. Hints at Mike Bernie's subconscious after invading the female world in an attempt to seize male dominance.
And this subtle change in mood is also reflected in the secret competition between several women in order to compete for Mike Bernie's attention. Through the character's position relationship, dress, and even subtle movements and expression changes, Martha's dominance is revealed, as well as the antagonism between the teacher Edwina and the student Alicia due to the arrival of Mike Bernie.
In order to restore the real environment of the era when there was no electric light, the dinner scene in the movie used candlelight as a natural light source throughout the process, which heralded Mike Bernie's struggle for dominance of the manor under the atmosphere of ambiguity and dark tide, and the competition of several women for Mike Bernie was about to begin, paving the way for the subsequent male-female conflict plot.
And there are many such ingenious scene designs in the film. By simplifying the storyline and lens language, focusing the contradiction on the conflict between the emotional relationship between a group of women in a closed environment and the intruding men is the core theme that the director wants to express.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, the theme is expressed, focusing on the power structure between women and confrontation with men in enclosed spaces</h1>
In the old version of the film, the image shaping of female characters can be said to be more biased towards the objectification imagination of female characters from the traditional male perspective of that era.
Under the interpretation of Coppola's new era of women's perspective, the expression of women's emotions in the film is more subtle and introverted, and the image is richer and more three-dimensional, reflecting more female-led consciousness. This can be seen in the two parts of Mike Bernie's arrival that upset the original balance of the female world, and the final awakening of women to unite against Mike Burnie.
(1) The female world in enclosed spaces is destroyed by the arrival of men.
Against the backdrop of the war, the school, as an isolated enclosed space, was under the strict control of Principal Martha. And every woman in the school has her own tasks and jobs. Principal Martha is mainly responsible for management, and Edwina is mainly responsible for daily teaching and preparing food. Students are required to do their homework, farm cultivation, and safety patrols. As the ruler and the sole owner of the keys, Martha tried her best to maintain her authority and control over the school in a closed environment with systems and rules.
But Mike Bernie's arrival upset the original tranquility and balance of the enclosed space. Martha initially treated the northern soldier as an enemy, trying to maintain order by keeping him alone in a room and forbidding the rest of the girls to visit. But as Mike Burnie's injuries healed and he was able to move freely, and the girls became restless with the arrival of men, soon this old order was out of Martha's control.
Mike Bernie gradually dominated the enclosed space with male hormones, wandering among several women. The little girls Jane and Emily indulge in the center of his praise and are willing to do things for them, the rebellious Alicia tries to cater to the male protagonist and get rid of Martha's control, and Edvina hopes to use the male protagonist to take her out of this enclosed space, and even Martha is gradually lost under Mike Bernie's charm.
Excessive desire to get the male gaze, so that these women gradually lost themselves, actively gave up their subject status, and the suspicion and jealousy between each other gradually expanded. And for Mike Bernie, who was wandering among the flowers, he finally tasted the taste of playing with fire and self-immolation. As Mike Bernie and Alicia secretly have an affair and are discovered by Edwina, Edwina, who feels that she has been deceived, accidentally pushes Mike Burnie down the stairs in the dispute, which also heralds the reversal of the plot and the re-awakening of female consciousness.
(2) The consciousness of female dominance reawakens in the confrontation with men.
When Mike Burnie was critically injured by falling downstairs and endangering his life, Martha immediately amputated him. On the one hand, it is a metaphor for men to be "castrated", and on the other hand, it also indicates that women have regained the dominance of enclosed spaces.
When Mike Bernie woke up, he found himself amputated and let out a roar of pain. This is not only because of the grief of becoming a "wasted person", but also the sense of gap formed by losing male dominance and regaining personal freedom. He longed to get the stars and moons of the women again, as he had done before. But the imbalance of mentality made him completely on the opposite side of this group of women.
And when Mike Bernie gradually threatened the lives of these women, they realized that blindly relying on men was hopeless, and only their own strength had the strength to protect themselves. It can be said that in the process of attachment to confrontation with Mike Bernie, it is also the process of this group of women regaining unity and regaining the status of the subject.
In the end, when the women collectively poisoned Mike Burnie with poisonous mushrooms, no one came out to stop it, watching the unsuspecting Mike Burnie eat the mushroom and die in pain. Then the women joined forces to throw his body out the door, as if nothing had happened, and the man had never come. The enclosed school space has returned to its former calm.
Obviously, this is not a feminist film that simply calls revenge to men or confrontation with men, but a story that depicts women gradually recovering their lost selves in the process of confrontation with men.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, as a film lover, combined with my above analysis of "Under the Peony Flower", I will talk about several ways to better appreciate this kind of director's strong personal style films</h1>
(1) Analyze the theme and emotion of the film to be expressed from the narrative style and shooting method that the director is best at
Sophia Coppola is good at weak plot fragmentation stylized narrative, even if it is based on historical themes, it will still take a macro level that will dilute the historical background, and focus on the characters themselves.
Take his director's "Absolute Queen" as an example. Sophia Coppola deliberately downplayed the grand historical context between the historical biography sets. With Queen Mary's personal growth as the main line, with her usual fragmented narrative, she presents the life of Queen Mary's court - participating in balls, operas and various social events, enduring all kinds of red tape...
Just as in "Under the Peony Blossoms", the smoke of the Civil War only stays in the girls' daily chatter, and history exists only as a background. What the film really focuses on is the delicate emotions in the characters' hearts. No matter what the background of the story, showing the female consciousness that gradually awakens in confusion and contradiction, and the female image that constantly struggles in the awakening and struggle, is the director's unchanged core issue.
(2) Start from the director's growth and education experience to better feel the inner emotions he wants to express.
Sophia Coppola comes from a well-known Coppola film family. As a young woman, she tried to stay away from Hollywood, away from the aura of her family. But after trying many different jobs and careers, loneliness and loss stayed with her. In the end, I went around and found a sense of belonging by coming back to direct the film.
Whether it is "Lost in Tokyo", which projects his first married life, or "Somewhere" mixed with childhood and father's memories, or placed in a large historical background, it is actually "Absolute Beauty" and "Under the Peony Flower", which focus on women's delicate emotions, the loss and growth of young women are the core content of the commonality.
For this kind of director with a strong personal style, starting from his growth and creative experience can obviously help us better understand the inner emotions of the director. And these emotions hidden in the film are actually the presentation of the director's own hidden emotions in the depths of the heart.
(3) Analyze the director's creative intention from the degree of compatibility between the director's personal style and the mainstream values of the moment
In the case of this Adaptation of the Civil War era, for example, the dominant values of different eras and the director's personal style and emotional presentation have different interpretations of the same theme.
Just as the so-called "old bottle of new wine", how to interpret it more from the perspective of modern women in line with the background of the story era, and integrate her strong personal style, is the place where Sophia Coppola succeeds as a director. Through a closer understanding of the director himself, we can more clearly understand the creative intention behind it and the deep charm of the film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > summarize:</h1>
Taking "Under the Peony Blossom" as an example, I think that appreciating this kind of film with a strong personal style of directors is in addition to having some insight into the plot of the film itself. By going deeper into the story behind a film, understanding the director's creative intent and the emotions hidden behind it, it will help us think more about a film. At the end of the article, I also analyzed in detail how to better appreciate a film with a strong personal style of a director.