[Author Tina, only write deep text]
What is the meaning of war? What are the beliefs we hold? What makes a hero? Some grand theme like this, if thrown to you, how would you answer it?
Ang Lee delivered a brilliant answer in "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle", and although the show was tragically waterlooed when it was released, it did not prevent it from becoming a classic.
<h1>1, no intention to be a hero, everything is the most instinctive choice</h1>
Adapted from the original Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, translated as The Long Halftime, a war satire novel, Billy Lynn's Halftime is a mildly anti-war film.
Unlike previous Heroic American films, in this film, there are no special effects and no thrilling explosion scenes in the war. The pictures of those wars unfold through the protagonist's memories, trembling after the first shooting; there is no fire after the bomb explodes, only the flying dust of the building collapsing; there is no brave and good war on the battlefield, and some are two people wrestling together after being attacked by the enemy...
In short, this movie does not have the showmanship of previous war films, and everything is really showing. It is precisely because of this that the display of the humanity of different characters in the film has been more realistic.
Billy joined the army, not because of any heroic dream, but because he beat his sister's negative boyfriend and had to make a choice in order to avoid punishment.
On the battlefield, he saw that the squad leader was attacked by the enemy, and out of the instinct to save his comrades, he rushed up and fought with the other side. At the first sign of trouble, people do not have time to weigh the pros and cons.
He fought the enemy with all his might, not out of national responsibility and heroic mission, but just a survival instinct, and when he killed the other party with a knife, he was terrified.
He had no intention of being a hero, he was just an ordinary soldier who did not have time to think and hesitate.
Although the squad leader's life was not saved in the end, the process of his desperate struggle with the enemy was accidentally recorded by a discarded camera, and after being transmitted back to the United States through the news, it was sought after and praised by the whole country.
In this way, he became a hero known to the whole country in the United States, and his class became a hero class, invited to a football game in Texas, and invited to participate in a performance at halftime with True Destiny.
At the press conference, the reporter asked Billy, "Why did you do that?" He replied, "I didn't think about anything else on the battlefield, I just did what I had to do." "
Man only reacts most instinctively in times of crisis, and all the blessings of meaning are later man-made actions.
<h1>2) People only see them as heroes, but they don't see them as patients</h1>
Ang Lee is not the kind of director who likes to tell big stories, but he has enough respect for each character, and he wants to express the subtle psychology and emotions of the characters, and he makes these emotions flow naturally like babbling water, without beautification and embellishment.
In the film, Billy and his comrades are invited to an up-to-earth performance at a Thanksgiving rugby match, which is Billy's most glorious and worst day, and the battlefield scene becomes a lingering wound in his memory.
In the process of performing, the fireworks and noisy sounds stimulated him all the time, constantly flashing back to the cruel pictures on the battlefield.
In psychology, there is a condition called "post-traumatic stress disorder", which is what we often call PTSD, the "Manual of Diagnosis and Statistics of Mental Disorders" published by the American Psychiatric Association, which is defined as follows:
"An individual experiences, witnesses, or encounters one or more actual deaths involving himself or herself or others, or is threatened with death, or is seriously injured, or is threatened with physical integrity, leading to intense fear, helplessness, or panic."
There are usually the following major symptoms: recurrent infestation of event-related memories, such as flashbacks, nightmares; persistent and vigorous avoidance, such as the traumatized person who tries to avoid or forget important parts of the trauma; and increased alertness, such as forgetting, excessive alertness, or irritability.
It is clear that the soldiers in the film have more or less post-traumatic stress disorder.
At home, the sound of his mother slapping the table when he is angry will scare Billy; the explosion of fireworks will make Billy afraid at the halftime fireworks show; he will be involuntarily alert when he sees someone with a gun; the fiery performance on the stage will make the scene of fierce battle on the battlefield constantly flash back...
Billy's comrades were also plagued by these symptoms, and they all had varying degrees of nervousness and irritability.
There was a lively performance on the stage, and the guidance given by the staff to the soldiers made the soldiers mistakenly think that it was a danger and almost fought with the staff;
The performance ends at the climax, the soldier is taken back to the dangerous battlefield by the fireworks show, losing the ability to test reality, the choreographer tells them to leave quickly, and his comrades immediately knock the choreographer to the ground.
While the group was watching the show, a man in the front row spoke sarcastically about many homosexuals in the troops, and one of Billy Lynn's comrades felt insulted and nearly strangled the man to death.
Military personnel with PTSD are not a minority in the United States, and according to official statistics, one in every three U.S. soldiers who return from military operations overseas is diagnosed with PTSD.
Some wounds, wounds on the outside, people pay attention to; but there are more wounds, wounds on the inside, its harm does not have to be small, the same need people's attention.
But the reality is that these people, with the aura of heroes and the scars of their hearts, continue to return to the battlefield that has scarred them, and continue to kill or be killed.
I think this is one of the core points that the director wants to express, he does not create heroes, he only shows the scarred and real people.
<h1>3) Do people really worship heroes? Maybe it's just exploitation</h1>
After reading the above, I already think it is cruel enough, right? No, more brutal in the back.
The soldier is wounded inside, but at least he has a "hero" aura on his head, right? Isn't that a balance and comfort? If it is only shown to this level, it is not Ang Lee, who wants to show you more cruel humanity.
Do people really worship heroes? This is the question raised by this film, and it is also answered in the eloquent story. People are just in Ye Gong good dragon, just using heroes, no one really cares about them.
It was not until the midfielder praised them on stage that the stage director urgently pulled them away and told them how to get on stage and how to move; after the performance, they were not guided to step down, and the group was like a tool that was called to come and go, like a chess piece on the stage. For the media, what they care about is the stage effect brought by the hero on stage, and the detonation of news topics.
The rugby player asked Billy, "What's it like to kill?" Billy replied, "No feelings. "How could there be no feeling?" You're killing people!" Lynn said, "It's like you're bumping into your opponent on the field, there's no special feeling, just thinking." "Without putting yourself in your shoes, it's hard to feel empathy.
People asked curiously about the war in order to satisfy their curiosity; others expressed disdain for the soldiers, not realizing that in the war this group of people could lose their lives at any time.
The chairman of the oil company wanted to use them to continue his oil project; the rugby boss wanted to make the soldier's story into a movie, but the honorarium fell from a hundred thousand dollars to five thousand five hundred dollars, repeatedly stressing that this was the "only" opening price.
The reason given is grandiose: "When you tell this story, it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to everyone, it belongs to the whole of America." Billy said, "We've made a sacrifice far more than that, you don't know us at all, and I'd rather leave this story worthless than let you misinterpret us for this little bit of money." "
Even, the most desperate thing is that seemingly beautiful love is actually just a disillusionment. When Billy asks "Are we okay with eloping?" The other party looked unacceptably dazed", "What do you mean?" "She's in love with the hero Billy, not the real Billy, and if Billy doesn't go back to the battlefield and continue to be a hero, such a love can't last."
But is this kind of love love love?
<h1>4, true love, do not care whether you fly high or not, only care about whether you are tired of flying</h1>
Fortunately, the role of Billy's sister Catherine is set in the film, so that people do not feel that reality is cruel enough to leave no room.
People on the outside only care about their interests and your value to them, but there are always people in life who really love you. True love doesn't care if you fly high or not, only whether you fly tired or not. It was like sister Catherine to younger brother Billy.
In the film, the sister tries everything to prevent her brother from returning to the battlefield, hoping from the bottom of her heart that her brother can be safe and safe. Of course, the younger brother had to go to the battlefield for her own sake, and the sister felt guilty, which was one of the reasons why she did this.
But Catherine's love for her brother also comes from the heart, she doesn't care if his brother is a hero admired by the whole country, she doesn't care if he has a halo on his head, she only hopes that his brother can escape danger and live safely.
In the film, Catherine is the only one in the family who really cares about her brother's comfort, and the rest of the family is immersed in Billy's sense of honor as a hero.
In psychotherapy, there is often a type of parent whose name is "love the child, plan for it far-reaching", project all their unfulfilled expectations and wishes onto the child, use a single evaluation system to evaluate the child, and force the child to achieve their expectations, but in the end it kills one child after another.
In the "Young You" released some time ago, wei Lai, an honor student, is an example, from childhood to adulthood, she has lived in the expectations of her parents, she has excellent grades, won countless awards, and her parents cannot accept any failure in her studies. So after losing the college entrance examination, my father did not speak to her for a year.
For an adolescent child, such cold violence can greatly dampen her self-esteem and self-confidence. In the trembling life of the family, she vented the grievances and anger suppressed in the subconscious to the school, to the innocent children, and she became the perpetrator of school violence. It has to be said that this is a failure of family education.
How to properly love children is a common issue for parents around the world. True love will definitely care about your emotions, care about your feelings, and those "love" full of oppression and oppression are only in the name of love.
In the film, Catherine's presence is the hope and comfort that Ang Lee gives us. There will always be emotions in this world that are worth cherishing, even in the hypocritical and ugly society, in the dark night when we can't see five fingers, those loves are like light, warm and illuminating us.
<h1>5. Returning to the battlefield is their fatalistic and inevitable choice</h1>
Catherine was bitter, and Billy did not hesitate, but in the end he chose to return to the battlefield.
Maybe it's a mission, but seeing the end of the movie, I think it's his inevitable choice. In that peaceful society, they are like a bunch of outliers, others call them heroes, but no one really knows and understands them, and they all more or less misinterpret them according to their own wishes.
Before going to war on the battlefield, the squad leader hugged everyone and sincerely said" "I love you", which is a sincere expression that I don't know if we can survive in the next moment. In the end, the squad leader was really sacrificed under the enemy gun.
Billy once asked the squad leader, "If you had a choice, would you still go to Iraq?" The squad leader's answer was categorical: "But we have no choice." "
Many soldiers who return from the battlefield cannot heal from traumatic stress disorder, and psychologists have found that the most fundamental reason is that they do not want to forget, they are not willing to betray those comrades who died in the war, if even they forget, then no one remembers those sacrifices.
These soldiers who return to the battlefield are also of this mentality to a large extent. On the battlefield there are brothers who fight together and understand each other, while a peaceful society is full of calculations and disguises.
What they need more than the pain of war is a sense of identity, belonging, and true love, which is Maslow's theory of needs, and in a calculating and peaceful society, it is difficult for them to find that sense of belonging that is understood.
When Billy got into the truck and prepared to return to the battlefield, the comrades said "I love you" to each other, and the moment was sour, and what was most lacking in the world was understanding and understanding.
Ang Lee is like a nagging family, telling a seemingly bland story, but when the whole story is watched, I feel invaded by a sense of grandeur.
There is a hint of fatalism in this seemingly inevitable choice, but it is actually a subjective choice. Fate, we want to control it, but we are controlled by it; we want to escape from it, but we are driven by it; this may be life.
This is not Ang Lee's first classic movie, and it is certainly not the last, I highly recommend that you brush up on Ang Lee's movies, which will definitely bring you thoughts and gains. You can use today's headline APP, search for "Ang Lee Movie", you can query all the information you want, hurry up and try it.
[Original article, piracy must be investigated.] The author is Tina, Master of Journalism from Zhejiang University, has many years of experience as a media journalist, brand public relations manager of a fortune 500 group, and a psychological counselor. If you like, welcome to like and pay attention to the psychology of @Tina, continue to output original good articles on psychology, and help you interpret life and see through the essence from a psychological perspective. 】