to be or not to be, that is the question.《哈姆雷特》
The Blue Angel is Germany's first sound film, produced in 1930, based on the novel Dr. Junk by the famous German Director Josef von Sternberg by the famous German writer Hein Hilly Mann. This film from nearly 90 years ago, although it is black and white, has been interpreted by old foreign artists such as Emile Johnny and Marlene Dietrich.
The film depicts a somewhat pedantic old middle school professor Emmaras falling in love with Lola, a dancer who performs in the "Blue Angel" bar, and in order to marry her, he does not hesitate to give up his profession, and becomes a supporting role clown who performs magic juggling with the troupe, and finally dies in disgrace when both love and career are devastated.
Although it is a black-and-white film in the 30s of the last century, the characters in the film have a strong sense of life, and it is difficult to praise and disparage. Professor Emalas has both a good and upright side and a hypocritical and lovely side; Lola's feelings for the professor are sincere and at the same time shallow, and the wild and uninhibited contains the meaning of drunken dreams and cynicism.
Although the shooting time is long, every detail in the film is portrayed in great detail, and from beginning to end, the details echo the struggle between reason and desire. The film seems to be a love-hate entanglement between a pedantic old professor and a dancing girl, but in fact it represents the confrontation between reason and desire, and it can be said that the professor and Lola in the play are materialized reason and desire, respectively. Professors represent reason: old-fashioned, stoic, self-disciplined, and respected. Lola represents desire: sexy, passionate, seductive, but short-lived, uncontrollable.
The whole movie "to be or not to be, that is the question." (survival or destruction, is a question) is the whole sentence throughout the film, in the face of the temptation of desire and the ultimate failure, we choose to survive or destroy, or we choose to fight or give up.
1) Two classes that should not intersect are doomed to a tragic end
From the film, we can see that in German society in the mid-to-late 1920s, the class hierarchy was still strictly divided. The professor belongs to the middle and upper classes of society, can be respected by people everywhere, he went to the bar to catch the dancers performing students, in addition to everyone will see him will salute, honor a professor, in order to protect Lola, and force Lola to drink a conflict, the police came to see that he is a professor, the trial balance immediately favored the professor, drove away the drunkard. The social status of the professor is evident.
Relatively speaking, the dancers, singers or magicians in society at that time all lived in the lower class of society and belonged to the lower class. Especially in the combination of the small troupe and the circus in which Lola is in the film, the clown is at the lowest level of the troupe. Therefore, at the beginning of the film, it is explained that the status of the professor and Lola is very different, and it is not an exaggeration to say that one is heaven and one is earth in terms of social status.
In the context of such a disparity in status and identity, the professor and Lola are doomed to completely different values and methods of life, and the tragedy of the professor has been set from the beginning.
2, calm, old-fashioned life in the face of uninhibited "love", self-loss is the prelude to falling into the abyss of desire
The professor in the movie lives a stereotypical life, getting up on time every day, eating breakfast from the maid, putting on a dress and top hat, and arriving at class at 8 o'clock on time to give lessons to the students. Because the professor is old-fashioned and not popular with students, and has to face all kinds of teasing by students every day, perhaps his heart is full of tiredness and eagerness to change such a life.
As a teacher, he is qualified, strives to teach the children well in his own way, he is confident when teaching the children the pronunciation of Shasbya's Hamlet lines in school, and he is responsible for going to the bar to catch disobedient students.
However, when he meets the self-disciplined, old-fashioned, serious people he comes into contact with in his living environment, a mixture of charming, sexy, feminine, enchanting and beautiful Lola, it is like a light shooting into his peaceful life, making him feel the new hope of life, even if he knows that his union with Lola will make him lose the job that makes him proud, and even be abandoned by the upper class to which he now belongs, he will not hesitate to have this intoxication.
The first half of the film mainly tells the background of the professor and Lola's identity, the scene of the encounter, the professor's loss and choice, the whole atmosphere of the film is joyful, relaxed, pleasant, and even makes people admire the professor for his desperation and courage to pursue love. This is also how human nature feels at the beginning of encountering the seduction of desire, incomparably wonderful, and people are willing to fight for it, never considering whether the abyss they will face in front of them is endless.
In order to express his excitement at the wedding, the professor also cooperated with the magician's egg and learned a few chicken calls, but he did not know that the cheerful chicken cry at this time would also be his cry before death. After the peak of joy, the professor ushered in a change of fate under the sharp turn, and the pursuit of desire naturally had to pay a price.
After marrying Lola, the professor loses his job and has to act as a clown in order to live, becoming a performer who is inferior to a dancer and magician like Lola, which is a stark contrast to his previous life, and for the professor, it is a sinking of succumbing desires.
To highlight this stark contrast, the choreographer designed a show to have the troupe return to the professor's hometown to perform, and had the professor play the role of a clown to cooperate with the magician to endure those insulting performances, smash raw eggs into the clown's head, and force him to learn chicken barking like he did in marriage.
And the audience watched were the professor's former colleagues, students, the town once respected him, and honored him as "professor" all the people, and these people sat downstage because he was now laughing, coupled with Lola in front of him and hooked up with other men, all of which added up to the old professor to bear the unbearable weight of life, on the stage made a collapsed, beyond the normal chicken cry.
The last professor put on his wrinkled and worn-out dress, put on his top hat, which had lost its original shape, and with his last breath, stumbled back to his former school and fell on the podium he was proud of.
The pursuit of desire is exciting and exciting, but people often overlook that behind the glamorous, what needs to be faced may be dilapidated and unbearable. After irrational desires are satisfied, the next step that awaits us may be an endless abyss.
In this movie, in addition to the main line of confrontation between the professor and Lola's intellect and desire, in fact, this confrontation runs through every small detail in the movie.
Detail one: At the beginning of the movie, the professor's bird dies, and he holds the stiff bird carcass, feeling a little sad inside, which also implies that his life is like this little bird, without love, lifeless. At the same time, it also means that the professor's life is coming to an end, and he will usher in a different life, but the end will not escape death in the end.
The German word vogel (bird) is plural similar to vögeln, which refers to desire. Lola's house jumps happily, and Lola sings "Spring is coming, the birds are singing." The bird feathers on Lola's body on the poster represent desire and joy. This is in stark contrast to the dead bird of the Professor's house.
In the confrontation of this detail, the desire for "joy" prevailed, and the professor's sanity died.
Detail two: The clock appears 3 times in the movie, the first time, before the professor's life is disrupted, there are several decorative pigeons on the clock, which symbolize peace and order, that is, represent reason.
However, when Lola lures him to another world, the dove on the clock never appears again.
Here, the director uses the expression of the disappearance of the pigeon on the clock, implying that the professor's reason has disappeared, and desire has once again triumphed over reason.
Detail Three: Lola first met the professor with the spotlight of the stage, and the professor finally returned to school in humiliation and despair, using the light of the flashlight on him.
Lola's love at the beginning gave the professor a passion for life that he had never had, like a spotlight on the stage, bright and hot, let people enjoy it, and the spotlight love made the professor lose. In the end, the light of the flashlight shone on the professor, which was dim and cold, highlighting the professor's sadness.
Irrational desire is always to make people have a short-term pleasure, and then it may be ushered in by desolation, like a moth to a fire, thinking that what you are pursuing is light, but in fact death.
There is a very important character in the whole film- the clown appears 24 times, and the appearance of the clown is a hidden mystery, representing the desire of the heart. The Joker is not only a professor's role on stage; he has been the clown of life since the pursuit of Laura.
The clown in the movie opens and closes the door, walking from this room to another, suggesting that the person's psychological control mechanism suppresses and releases him. When he looked at the professor sitting high in the guest seat. The professor was intoxicated, so the clown never appeared again, which implied that the image of the professor representing the superego broke through the moral shackles of abstinence and gradually fell.
In our lives, He Zeng was not like this, once he pursued endless desires, he also turned himself into a clown like a professor, and he was naturally greeted by everyone's ridicule. Learning to control one's pursuit of irrational desires is a compulsory course in the path of life growth.
1) Desire is sometimes satisfied with only a momentary vanity, but it may cause us to lose something more precious
I don't know when it began, various shopping festivals seem to be incomparably huge offers to seduce us to buy and buy; shrinking clothes and dieting, at the expense of excess loans to pursue the so-called exquisite, becoming a "delicate poor", but also known as this is for the future better self.
In today's extremely simple way to get flowers and credit cards, it feels as if I am getting richer and richer, my quality of life is getting higher and higher, I want to buy more and more things, and my brand is becoming more and more high-end. But then suddenly, one day, when we were in desperate need of money, we saw negative numbers in our bank accounts, and we couldn't even remember when we spent it or where it was spent.
I once chatted with a friend and said that what I am most afraid of now is not getting fat, not having no beautiful clothes or bags, but my parents are sick and I have no money.
Liu Yan said a passage on the TV show, "My father was not in good health last month and spent his 70th birthday in the hospital. But I am happy and proud that I have the financial means to give him the best medical conditions. ”
Because she is Liu Yan, because she has been in the entertainment industry for so many years, when her father is sick, she can stand up and give her father a doctor, and she is qualified to say "give them everything".
Because, she can afford it.
But what about more elderly people? Don't dare to get sick, and don't dare to see a doctor. The body is uncomfortable, and I can only grit my teeth and stand firm.
A taxi driver in Hangzhou, who has been driving for more than 20 Chinese New Year's Eve and has been unwell for several years, has been dragging and refusing to go to the hospital.
Until the time of serious illness and hospitalization, advanced liver cancer has been diagnosed. I can't eat and have trouble breathing. The daughter saw that he could not breathe and wanted him to take in oxygen. But he beat his spirit and always said no. Later, when his illness became more and more serious, he confided the truth to his daughter: "I just hope that I will save you two more dollars to use." The daughter cried at that time: "But an hour of oxygen is only four dollars, in order to save this money, how uncomfortable you have to be." "The most heartfelt thing for children is that their parents are sick, but I don't have the money to treat them."
If we can't control our irrational desires, blindly overdraft the pursuit of material enjoyment, when our parents lie in the hospital, because they can't afford to cry at the hospital door, we will truly become the clowns of life.
2, learn to pursue the top desire, to achieve their own life
Gluttony, in order to satisfy the appetite, eat and drink every day, the harvest may be obese body and the diseases that come with it; like to brush vibrato, in order to satisfy the desire to hunt, a brush is a few hours, although very happy, but the loss is your baby's time and energy, killing the opportunity cost of your learning and progress; tired of the same boring marriage after marriage, seeking external stimulation, a careless wife and child dispersed, everything is empty.
It has been said that "lower desires (pleasures) can be attained through indulgence; higher desires (pleasures) can be attained through self-discipline; and top desires (pleasures) can be attained through suffering." "Deeply impressed.
I was once shocked by Han Xue's performance on "Sound Immersion" and turned to powder, and then watched "Women Have Something to Say" to know that she got up at 7:30 in the morning, went to bed at 24:00 at night, wrote a diary for an hour every night, read a book for an hour, and couldn't move. English is not good, self-study, no matter how late the end of the work, you have to study for three hours, a study is three years, which has "Sound Immersion" on the one-person with octagon. In order to stay in shape, she dieted and exercised, and one diet exercise was fifteen years. Such a Han Xue, not red is strange.
Han Xue knows how to give up the happiness of gluttony, give up the joy of playing games and brushing vibrato, rely on self-discipline to improve himself, and harvest the happiness of another desire to be satisfied, which is a healthy, growing happiness, but the pursuit process of this desire is painful and self-disciplined. I believe that the professor in the film also made such a painful effort before getting his teaching job to harvest his rich knowledge and superior position, but in the end he chose to give up.
Desire is beautiful, but to know how to discern, to use indulgence and covetous enjoyment to pursue the satisfaction of low-level desires, the final result is like a professor, falling into the endless abyss, and even using death to pay for his unrestrained pursuit of desire.
summary:
If the professor had never met Lola in his life, he might have spent his life in a life of self-restraint but dignity. And when he encounters Lola, a unique and perceptible object, he awakens the internal drive and at the same time loses the life he originally had. Someone blamed Lola, but Lola lived in her own world and had her own value, and there was nothing wrong with it, she was just like a frog who seduced the incarnation, waving to the professor, who chose to fall to the bottom
May each of us be able to control our desires, carry the weight forward, cut through the thorns, and move forward all the way, and not become a clown in life who is manipulated by desire.