# Preface
Tolstoy wrote in his diary of October 3, 1910: "Music, especially music, can evoke people's desires and enable more people to experience and share." No art can express the true meaning of art more than music. "Music evokes memories. When a familiar melody sounds, the picture and story behind the song fall like snowflakes, and the thoughts are nothing. "The Pianist at Sea" is such a story. When the song "Playing Love" rings in your ears, do you think of the dark cabin where you lived in 1900, the broken vinyl record and the girl's holy, soft face?
The Pianist of the Sea / The Legend of 1900 is a drama film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Ross, Bill Nunn and Melanie Thierry, released in Italy on October 28, 1998. A pianist named 1900 never got off the ship in his life, and visitors come and go decorate his world with their own stories. There are band partners who bring joy and leisure, tourists visit the piano, there are jazz originators who challenge his piano skills, and there are lily-like girls who suddenly fall into their hearts... There was a wave of disembarking, but in the end, he chose to sink with the decommissioned old ship.
#1
jazz:
That magnificent Gilded Age
In 1900, the first month of the first year of the new century, the Virginian luxury cruise ship docked in New York Harbor carrying a bustling cheering crowd. After the hustle and bustle, an orphan is abandoned on a piano stand in a restaurant and discovered by Danny, a coal worker. He happily took in the child, which he named 1900. In 1900, at the age of eight, an unexpected sea storm killed Danny unexpectedly. Late one night, miraculously, the people on the boat were awakened by the beautiful sound of the piano, and followed the sound of the piano, which was actually played in front of the piano in 1900. Notes flow slowly under your hands and converge into a moving piece. A few years later, the adult 1900 became the pianist of the Virginian, making a name for herself among the comings and goings of travelers and attracting more and more people to take a look.
Every ship has the first person to discover Lady Liberty. Shouting "America" and excited about a goal that did not know the outcome, they crossed the ocean to begin a new round of livelihood. Inspired by the dream, the black oppressive crowd rushed to land like a river opening the floodgates, rushing to the bustling New York, like a moth anxiously pounced on the diamond-encrusted American dream.
On one voyage, The Originator of American Jazz, Jenny, heard of the fame of the Virginian in 1900 and got on board to compete with him. 1900 first played a song "Christmas Eve" as a sign of respect, and also did not think there was a need to play. Jenny heard what he thought was contempt and insult to him, and showed his ability to look after the family. 1900 lamented the magic of his skills, and wept from the sidelines. Then 1900 played exactly what he had just heard, and Jenny became angry and desperate to win, playing a magnificent jazz song. 1900 heard provocation and hostility, and was enraged by this music that had lost its heart, and also began to attack. It was the famous "Enduring Movement", whose rhythm was so fast and grotesque that it was enough to light a cigarette with a fiery silk. After the song was finished, the whole audience was silent, time seemed to stand still, and I don't know how long it took before thunderous applause broke out - how high the music achievements of the players in 1900 were. Finally, Jenny sighed to himself and left. It's a "duel" of dignity and oppression, and jazz becomes a dazzling place, a means of chasing money and power.
Jazz itself symbolizes the glitz and self-righteousness of that era, "Nothing is, that's jazz." The 1920s are also known as the Jazz Age. Early jazz evolved from the folk music of African and African Americans, and dance music such as labor songs, spiritual songs, gospel hymns, and gait dances were the soil for jazz; pipe bands, ragtime, and blues were the direct source of it. Jazz is characterized by its emotional rhythms and improvisations. As jazz followed the migration of African Americans into the Western and Northern United States, its influence expanded to become a unique form of music owned by the United States.
In the hustle and bustle of the twenties, jazz witnessed unprecedented economic development on both sides of the Atlantic after World War I. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby depicts money and the desires behind money in The United States in the 1920s, in which jazz bands became a rare element of ostentatious wealth.
"In his blue garden, men and women come and go like moths in the midst of laughter, champagne and stars... Every Friday, five boxes of oranges and lemons arrive from a new York fruit shop... A large number of people who arranged the feast came down from the city, bringing hundreds of feet of canvas tents and countless colored electric lights, enough to decorate Gatsby's huge garden like a Christmas tree... The band arrived before seven o'clock, not a small five-piece band, oboe, trombone, saxophone, violin, barone, piccolo, high and low brass drums, everything... The earth staggered away from the sun, the lights brighter, and the band was playing yellow cocktail party music, so the chorus-like vocals mentioned another tone. ”
(Fitzgerald, Translated by The Great Gatsby, Wu Ningkun et al.,
Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2011.5)
There are nine chapters in the book, and Gatsby's Party occupies one chapter, and the part about money is so high in the novel. Fitzgerald's creations shattered the dream of industrial America, puncturing a huge golden bubble, shattering those materials and temptations. "That distant, vain green light may no longer, or may remain forever, on the other shore." - The small era has inevitably arrived. "After the First World War, people's living conditions fell into nothingness, and the pursuit of material poverty and luxury could not comfort the panic of people's hearts. What Gatsby was after was a vain, floating "green light." The book is a true "jazz age" flavor – letting matter shine brightly and letting jazz bands play and sing in the clouds forever. And "The Pianist of the Sea" through the plot of the fighting piano, through the eyes of 1900, a glimpse of the magnificent shadow of the Jazz Age. This was both a musical challenge in his 1900s experience and an invitation from his time. This constitutes such an important context – when faced with the dilemma of disembarking or disembarking, he must wonder what life on land in the "Jazz Age" would mean? What is important to the 1900?
#2
Loneliness and sobriety:
Pure sea artist
The Virginian could carry two thousand passengers on a single voyage, and people of all stripes passed by the 1900s like uninterrupted flowing water. He would work with his bandmates in the concert hall of the first-class guests, watching the beautiful or exciting dance steps on the dance floor, and in the lounge of the regular cabin, he would create an auditory feast for the crowd and play the country minor tunes as they hummed. Crowded with people, the bustle of the journey is unparalleled. But when the ships arrived at the harbor, people rushed to the place of desire that shouted "America" in their mouths. The song finally dispersed, and in 1900 sat alone at the piano, rubbing shoulders with the vivid and pulsating world on the continent again and again.
Feeling lonely, he hid in the Virginian's communications room, pointed haphazardly at the address book with the phone, name, address, and other information, and then dialed the number that was pointed out—"You may not know me, but I think we can talk." He hoped for someone to talk to, to have people stop being passers-by in his life, to experience attachment and love. However, he never got off the ship, and never set foot on land. To this world, he does not exist. He has no homeland, no homeland, no family, his only relatives have left as early as childhood, and he has never officially "existed" in human society.
However, because of this loneliness, 1900 has the ability to see through the human heart keenly. He watched the passengers coming and going on the ship, discerned the secrets of the human heart from their outside, and played a touching music. His music expresses human nature.
Looking at the tourists flocking to New York on the other side, he understood that people who had experienced the First World War, driven by the pain and poverty of the war, longed for the "rich and oily" country of the United States and longed to start a new life there. People abandon the original world to pursue a new world; the dance party on the boat and the carnival are all celebrations before arriving at the destination. He has fought against American jazz masters, and from Jenny's eyes, he sees that utilitarian jazz can bring maximum money and power, hatred, competition, jealousy and unwillingness. He witnessed all the hustle and bustle and desires of the world on a limited journey that seated two thousand people.
"People on land like to find the roots and waste a good time. Winter worries about the late arrival of summer, and summer worries about the impending arrival of winter. So they keep wandering around, looking for a place that is out of reach, full of summer in all seasons – I'm not envious. When his friend Max asked him why he didn't get off the ship—to surprise the world and earn himself a future," 1900 replied to him.
There was a moment when he was closest to the land. Standing on the gangway where the ship took over the land, wearing the camel coat that his friend had given him, and with the desire to go to the girl he loved and settle down, he made up his mind to live on land. But as he looked at the endless streams of tall buildings, the crisscrossing streets, and the countless choices they meant, he suddenly understood what the way of life he wanted was—the keys had a beginning and an end, and the music that could be created on those keys was infinite; and the city on the continent was the thousands of keys in front of him. Tens of thousands! It was impossible to grasp, he could not continue his music on the inexhaustible keys, this was not the life he wanted. "I don't see the end of the land".
The land that could not see the horizon meant a completely different way of living than at sea, and that he would have to make many undesirable choices for the material rush and for the sake of settling down on land, just like the passengers he had seen. This could drain his energy and jeopardize the dreams he had about music at sea.
Going to land does not mean a house and a home, a fireplace and a turkey, a red wine for hospitality and a top hat taken off by a friend, nor does it mean a beautiful country that was once fascinated by music — "the women are fragrant in hair and full of sunshine everywhere, but full of tigers", "go to the center of London, the gardens of Paris, wait for the sunset on the Bridge of Nefort, see the train in the wilderness, the snow-covered mountains, count the pillars in the world's largest church, and face the crucified Jesus." ”
To go to land means to deal with desires, to fight with material things, and what a pure man 1900 is! What a pure sea artist! He is the child of the sea, he rejects the land, he rejects the great and empty whirlpool.
#3
The farewell to reality of the space-time trilogy
It is often said that literature can leave a mark of life on the reader. It has the magic of condensing human emotional experience and wisdom into brilliant beads, one by one, before us, so that our humanity is constantly struggling back and forth between the unbearable and magnificent reality. Film, as one of the ways of artistic expression, also has such power.
For 1900, the life in front of him clearly had many choices. The man who played the accordion said, "One day I went to a town I had never been to, I climbed a hill, and then I saw the most beautiful thing in my life— the sea. I had never seen or heard a sound, like I had been struck by lightning. The sound of the sea is like a cry, that big and strong cry, non-stop, as if to say, you pig brain, life is so vast (immense), can you understand - immense . I am why I suddenly changed my life and started fresh. ”
A few years later, also on this ship, he met the man's daughter—and it was because of this little daughter that the man plucked up the courage to decide to live a different life and start over. "Why don't you come to us?" We stayed at 27 Mot Street. My dad opened a fish shop. The girl he fell in love with was named Paduan.
He was suddenly moved. One day, while he was eating at the restaurant, he suddenly told Max that he had decided to get off the ship. "I want to listen to the sound of the sea, to listen to the land, to understand the breadth and infinity of life, to feel the motivation and passion to continue living." On a boat, the sea will never tell me anything. But if I go to land and live for a few years, I will be normal, like everyone else. Maybe one day I'll go to the shore and look up at the sea, see what it looks like, and listen to the roar of the sea. ”
Max said: "I always want you to get off the ship, play for the audience on land, and then marry a good wife, start a family, have children and grandchildren, and hope that you can have those who are not so broad in life (immense), but they are worth the effort." 」 ”
"Will you come and see me, Max, to my home on land?"
"Of course. When I go to see you, you're going to introduce me to the mother of your child and inviting me to sunday dinner with you. I'll bring some dessert and a bottle of wine, and then you'll tell me you don't need to be so polite. When you introduce me to your boat-like house, your wife is roasting turkey for everyone, and then we're all sitting at the table, and I'll praise her cooking, and she'll tell me you'll always mention things about me to her. "You know, I'm going to send you my camel coat." Wear it when you get off the boat, it's definitely very handsome. ”
The issues explored in art have always been related to the fate of human beings. Russell once said: "The toil, piety, inspiration, and the brilliant light of all human talents in all ages are destined to disappear in the great destruction of the solar system, and the temple of human achievement will be buried in the ruins of the destruction of the universe." "The values that human beings realize throughout their lives are ultimately annihilated in the world along with death. The steamship Virginian completed its mission, and the collapse of the explosives and the subsequent silence of the seabed was its ultimate fate. 1900 rejected the kindness of his friend Max, "I will never be able to get off this ship, but the best thing is that I can choose how to end my life." ”
1900 saw many possibilities for continuing to live, but he still chose to refuse to get involved in the vortex of land that meant "infinity". He was soberly aware that what he had to master was the 88 keys of the piano, on which he could create infinite music; and the endless streets of the land were something he could not grasp, and he could not create pure movement in that situation. "Desire is endless." When he realized where the world's innumerable possibilities lay, he still affirmed the way he existed at sea—he did it out of "will."
In the Analects "Zilu, Zeng Hao, Ran You, GongXihua Attendant", Confucius asked the students about their aspirations, (Zeng) pointed out: "Twilight spring, spring clothes are completed, five or six crowns, six or seven boys, bathing in Yi, the wind is dancing, and the song returns." The Master sighed, "I and Dianye!" "Others are determined to govern the country and make the people brave and know the etiquette; they are determined to be rich and make the people happy; they are determined to sacrifice in the temple, and all things are returned to their place." People have their own aspirations, and there is no such thing as favoring one over the other.
In 1900, in the face of the end of his personal life, he was still willing to stick to his musical kingdom and accept the death of nature. He took Noah's Ark, bid farewell to reality, and reconciled and lived in harmony with the tiny individual and the infinite time and space. This is the nobility of humanity regaining its place on the cosmic scale.
"Only I've been facing the snow and wind
The face is getting cooler every year.
Time has stained the mountain I know
The strength was suddenly frustrated
How should I allocate the last days
Finish my myth
Put the holy white
Ascend above all the clouds. ”
(Wang Xiaoni, excerpt from "I See the Great Snowstorm")
Text | Yuan Yang
Review | Ten complete big supplement duck
Figure | From the network
Edit | Cai Jiayue
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