This is a film that many people have seen and even known, premiered in 2018, won the 91st Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay and other major film awards, douban score as high as 8.8 points. What made him win so many praises along the way?
The film is set in the United States in 1962, a hundred years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery. But by this time, Martin Luther King Jr. had not yet given a lecture on "I Have a Dream," and whites still occupied a large number of estates in the United States, and blacks, though no longer slaves, were still mostly engaged in hired labor such as picking cotton. Although there has been a black civil rights movement, black discrimination is still very serious in the United States, especially in the southern states, there is still a very serious system of discrimination such as racial segregation, in some states in the south, black people can only take the bus in black areas, can only go to some hotels that allow black people to enter, and even black people appear at certain times and places is a crime.
The title of the film, The Green Book, is actually a pamphlet written by The Black Postman Victor Hugo, in which he sorts out the hotels and restaurants in the United States that blacks could stay and eat in at that time, lest they be killed by mistakenly breaking into places they should not have been, which is both a black travel manual and a black life-saving book.
And it is in this context that the two protagonists of this film meet. One was to tony, a rugged low-level white American bodyguard, and the other was the elegant elite black pianist Don.
Impoverished Tony desperately needed a job due to the collapse of the nightclub where Tony had worked, and at the introduction of a friend, Tony worked for a black man, the noble music doctor Don, as his chauffeur and bodyguard. Tony was a rugged white American, and like most white people at the time, he was full of discrimination against blacks, and after seeing his friends in the gorgeous and luxurious room and in the exaggerated king's chair that the Doctor was a black man, he simply refused to hire the Doctor, but due to financial pressure, considering his wife and children, he still accepted the well-paid job and escorted the Doctor to tour the South.
Don was an elegant black musician, living in the North, he received a good education from an early age, as a black man, he studied for a doctorate in music under his own efforts, became a famous musician, played piano for the upper class, and with a lot of wealth and fame, he decided to tour the South. The tour went all the way south, and the further south he went, the more discrimination against black people became, and he needed the protection of white bodyguards and drivers, and Tony was the best candidate. In this way, they embarked on a southern tour.
The film is full of many vivid, interesting, and profound conflicts and contrasts. The ideas and emotions conveyed by the film are also drawn in the exchange and change of these contrasts and conflicts.
The first is the bottom white and elite black people, which is undoubtedly a big shock in the context of the time. Tony, an arrogant white man, actually works for a black man, and Tony himself is very unkind to Don, and Don's education from childhood has enabled him to maintain a correct posture and perfect etiquette at all times, which is in stark contrast to Tony, who loves gambling and fighting and petty theft. Unaccustomed to his elegant manners, he thinks that the black man is acting in a melancholy manner, and after leaving, Tony will secretly eat the sandwich that his wife made for Don. But after seeing Don play, Tony slowly changed his attitude, saying that Don was a genius and respected Don in his heart.
The contrast is also interesting to mention the details in the movie. In the car, tony, a white man, while holding the steering wheel, nibbled on fried chicken, a popular delicacy that symbolized black people at the time, (at that time there was a stereotype that black people loved fried chicken), while Don, a black man, because of his education, told him that high society people only used knives and forks and wore napkins at the table to eat, and never ate greasy fried chicken.
The most impressive contrast is undoubtedly when the two men's car malfunctions in the countryside, and when Tang gets out of the car to breathe, he sees the scene of the black compatriots working in the manor. Don, dressed in a suit and leather shoes, stood next to Tony, who was repairing the car, and looked at the black peasants dressed in rags and wiping hot sweat, and these black farmers, young and old, could not help but temporarily stop the heavy work at hand when they saw Tang, and looked at Tang curiously and doubtfully. There were no lines in this passage, only the eyes of the two sides, even if there were no lines, no one moved their mouths, but the eyes of the black peasants were full of curiosity and doubt, as if to say, why the black man could not work by himself, why he could dress decently. The impact of this picture is very strong.
Tony has fully respected Don along the way, and as the tour gets further south, he feels that Don is being treated more and more unfairly as a black person, and he is becoming more and more upset with Don. Tony went from a man who looked down on black people to a person who held grievances for black people.
Under the increasingly serious discrimination, Tang's mentality is also more and more collapsed. In cities that were moving farther south, he was not allowed to wear suits, eat with whites, sleep in hotels, or even drive half an hour to the bathroom because he was not allowed to go to the white bathroom. Yet even in black hotels and restaurants, he was unpopular because of his suit and leather shoes and graceful posture, and even he was gay.
The discrimination caused by his skin color and sexual orientation almost overwhelmed him. After he was rescued by Tony, he roared at Tony's accusations and questions: "I'm not like a black person, nor like a white person, not even like a person, so you tell me, what am I?" ”
"What am I?" I think this sentence just points out the theme of the movie. The film not only expresses accusations of racial discrimination and the pursuit of equality, but also expresses an appeal for freedom. A freedom of definition. What determines me? complexion? Sexual orientation? Or is it what I'm wearing? What food do I eat? What exactly defines us is himself, and the only person who can really define a person is himself.
In the film, Don begins to eat fried chicken as he makes friends with Tony, and begins to play not only white classical music that symbolizes elegance, but also rock music that symbolizes black people. I think this is also an expression of freedom, Don was liberated from the gorgeous cage of white etiquette, and after suffering many discrimination, he realized that learning white etiquette and rejecting all black things, even higher than almost all people's education, wealth and reputation, did not save him from racial discrimination, but to change society by himself, so that white people can see the talents of blacks, fundamentally realize freedom from thinking, and reverse prejudice is the right way.
It is worth mentioning that Tony once asked Don's friend why Don wanted to come to the south, knowing that a black man going south is like entering a tiger's den. Don's friend replied solemnly that He could have earned three times more than that in New York, living in the castle with his wealth and spending his life carefree. So why did Tang tour south, because he wanted to promote the idea of equal rights, and he knew that even if he was rich, he was not free and was not treated fairly. He wanted to pursue his freedom, to pursue the freedom of the Negro. As his friend put it, "Genius is not enough, only courage can change hearts".
The film is gentle, it is gentle, like an undulating but melodious, sonorous and soothing concerto, even if it is the worst treatment, Don has not used a little violence, and accuses Tony of using violence, violence can not solve the problem. Freedom and equality require forbearance and effort in thought and action.
The film ends in a warm Christmas Eve atmosphere with Don and Tony and Tony's family and friends, and racial discrimination in the United States has improved greatly after the civil rights movement. I believe that one day, the two protagonists, and all the people in the world, will be able to get enough equality and freedom not to be defined by others, after being asked "What am I?" Whenever, they can proudly shout "I am who I am, free and unique me."
Text/Tang Jiaqian
Editor/Xiao Yang
The pictures in this article are from the internet