Barry Lyndon - Man and Universe

In ‘Barry Lyndon’, Stanley Kubrick has employed a number of unique techniques and motifs to express the epic story in a visual way, rather than through a ‘humanistic’ and sentimental narrative. These strategies can facilitate the audience to understand the messages Kubrick has intended to convey behind the story.

Because Kubrick has not placed emphasis on a clear or straight-forward storyline in ‘Barry Lyndon’, some viewers could not easily understand the story and would swiftly jump to the conclusion that the film was boring and cold. I think a fairer description is to say the audience members are alienated by the film, and it is not necessarily a bad thing as it may first seem. In an interview regarding his unrealized ‘Napoleon’, Kubrick has explained why he often made films either about the past or the future. He felt that when the audience was experiencing an era unfamiliar to them, they would be alienated and therefore would have to take a more detached perspective when engaging with the story. This was exactly what Kubrick requested from the audience. True, it is okay to be sentimental and tells others, ‘I understand your situation.’, but do we really understand? If we are to understand and look for deeper reasons, can we trust our subjective mind and jump to conclusions easily? Kubrick wanted the audience to take a clinical detachment and to served as observers when watching his films. Only when the audience could detach and take an external and objective view, they could start to appreciate how the characters in the film interacted with their environments and how or why the environments would influence them in a particular way. If we are to look for identifications from the characters, we will just be as entrapped as them, and will never be able to look through the surface to reach a deeper understanding. This was especially true for ‘Barry Lyndon’ – as Kubrick wanted to express his view on big questions regarding human nature.

  

The naturalistic style

The techniques Kubrick employed have contributed to a naturalistic style in ‘Barry Lyndon’. The approach he has employed was also unconventional and represented a technological breakthrough for film-making, which ironically it was employed to make a film about the past. Kubrick and his cinematographer John Alcott have clearly stated the motivations behind this – they wanted to film 'in the way we see things'. What they were driving at was to achieve a realistic and naturalistic feel to the film, and they have been experimenting since they were attempting to make ‘Napoleon’. Concretely, that meant they wanted to make the film using natural and available lighting, without the use of any additional lighting to achieve the effect. What was even more daunting was their intentions to shoot some interior scenes with either available lighting from the outside (sunlight or moonlight depending on the scene), or the illumination of candlelight alone – without any additional electrical light sources. Through their tests, Kubrick and Alcott have concluded that the movie cameras available at their times were not sufficient to capture these scenes satisfactorily. Later, Kubrick heard that there were a number of rare Zeiss camera lenses, which were used by NASA to film the dark side of the moon in the space mission. Gratifyingly, Kubrick got hold of one of these lenses and modified it to fit onto the movie camera. It was the only lenses at the time that could shoot candlelight in an interior scene without the extra help of electrical additional lighting. Now, while Kubrick has achieved his aim, the lens was not without problem. Because of its very short focal length, it displayed zero depth of field in the scenes. In other to maintain focus, Kubrick had to stage and position the scenes very carefully to achieve the desired effects, and in some cases had to deliberate the movement. A further advantage from this was that it gave a very static impression to the scenes, which was what Kubrick has intended when he made the film.

With the technology allowing him to realize his style, Kubrick has committed to portray his 18^th century as realistic possible, in an objective and detached manner. Yet, we need to understand that he was not trying to make the audience identifying with the characters, like many sentimental movies out there. A simple example – when someone is sad, you may say ‘oh, I understand you, I share the sadness with you.’ But do you really understand, and do you really share it? It is a sentimental answer to try to show that person that you care about him. Except that you can hack into the person’s mind and share that particular sadness, I feel it is a misuse of the word ‘understand’. You can be compassionate with someone, but you can only objectively appreciate or understand the situation. What Kubrick was driving at was something similar. The characters in ‘Barry Lyndon’ behaved like they were the people in the 18^th century, and Kubrick did not frame this characters to be similar to the modern audience, so that the viewers could identify with them. Kubrick was portraying in an authentic manner how a person, in a given setting in the 18^th century, would have behaved.  Certain audience, wishing to look for character identifications when they watched ‘Barry Lyndon’, could not find anything common between themselves and the characters starred by the movie stars like Ryan O’Neal and others, were alienated and therefore hated the film. For Kubrick, the only thing common was the psychology, or the timeless nature that drove these characters and the audience alike. That was why Kubrick desperately dispatched some many unique techniques to invite a clinical detachment from his audience. What he wanted from the audience was for them to engage with the ideas rather than seeking some sentimental feelings from the characters or the story. From this, Kubrick has committed a rigorous realism to ‘Barry Lyndon’, just like when he was working on other films like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

How could Kubrick achieve such a sense of realism? Well, the production team has researched on the materials regarding that particular era, and in particular, Kubrick has inspected a number of paintings from the 18^th century, in order to portray in a pictorial manner the interactions in that age. The end result was that the whole film looked like a moving painting, for which Kubrick’s 18^th century was portrayed in a meticulous and authentic manner. Because the way the 18^th century worked was extremely different from the modern age the audience was in, it has led to an alienating effect and the viewers had to take an observer’s stance, and to literally viewed the story from a distance. I suppose it was the attitude for Kubrick when one viewed history – one could only approach history in an objective and intellectual manner, rather than through a subjective, ‘I know how you feel’-type attitude. Only through such an appreciation can we find some meanings or inspirations when we are engaging with the past.

The zoom

The anthropological distance was significantly enhanced by Kubrick’s bold use of the reverse zoom, and Barry Lyndon could be considered as the ultimate film of this technique, because Kubrick has done this so many times in the film, almost as if it was a personal ritual. The reverse zoom in the various thematic scenes seemed to take a common approach. It often started from the close up of a human figure, or a depiction of human action (such as a pair of hands working on something), and then the reverse zoom started to pull back until an almost panoramic view was seen, with the human figure now being very small in the surrounding environment. While Kubrick employed this because he wanted to invite objectivity and clinical detachment from the viewers, I believe he had a more philosophical reason to do this, and the ideas were very similar to what he was trying to say in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

What Kubrick was presenting here is a realistic position of human’s position in the universe. When we look at things in life with a human-centered perspective, we tend to see ourselves as the protagonists of the various narratives, and the various often aspects are secondary or subservient to us. Kubrick, like some other philosophers, believed that the universe is indifferent to our passions, and therefore in ‘Barry Lyndon’, he was presenting an impersonal view on human nature, custom, and various mechanisms that governed the characters in their world. Of course, the impersonal and dispassionate could be cold for some sentimental viewers, yet Kubrick’s intention was always to inspire awe rather than sentiment or short-term sensations in those entertaining films. Indeed, this perspective could facilitate the audience to a calmer and more contemplative mood, and to observe and think about how nature, and more important to the film, man-made systems and rituals could affect the lives of these characters.

Kubrick’s characters were often entrapped by their surroundings. They found themselves powerful to the nature and universe, or in many cases, the systems they have created to control themselves and make themselves ‘civilized’. The image of a small human figure in a vast environment is a motif often used to illustrate this point, as in the films of Welles, Herzog, Antonioni, Inarritu and many others. Kubrick’s reverse zoom has enhanced this to an almost cosmic perspective. Humans are imprisoned in their surroundings, and as I will discuss in the next article, the tragic fact they can not understand or have the imagination to counteract or escape from the surroundings will likely lead them to submit to the stronghold of these systems and lead to dehumanization.

The narration

Kubrick’s films often have some forms of narrations, and it is also the case for ‘Barry Lyndon’. It is important to point out that the narrative approach in the film and the novel it is based on are very different, and these have led to impacts on the audience’s perception of the film or novel. In Thackeray’s original work, it employed a first-person narrative, where Barry was an unreliable narrator. He was boasting, telling lies, and deliberately giving out inaccurate information to impress the audience that he was a great guy. This reflected that the novel was based on a more humanistic perspective, where Barry could be quite immoral or ruthless when he tried to get what he wanted. And, he was also attempted to take control on things around him. In the film, however, the narrative style became a third-person narrative, and the story was given by an omniscient narrator. Yet, as pointed out by many others, the narrator was not a 100%-impartial observer. While he tended to take a detached tone in his observations, he often passed satirical or cynical comments, and there were things that he did not know or failed to comprehend, suggested he was not hardcore omniscient. What were even more curious was that the narrator’s comments often provided dissonance to the images portrayed on the screen, quite similar to Orson Welles’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ in some cases. Of course, certain audience could jump to the conclusion that he was an unreliable narrator if they believed wholeheartedly in photographic reality.   

What I suppose Kubrick was trying to do was to provide a satirical challenge on the notion of representation. If the narrator was really omniscient and provided accurate and objective information regarding the story, then these information merely filled up the holes in the plot, complementing the images which did not provide on the screens. In this case, it would be like Kubrick’s ‘The Killing’, where the narrator provided the information for the audience to make sense of complex and non-linear storyline in the film. In ‘Barry Lyndon’, the narrator’s observations often posed challenges to the audience when they attempted to interpret the narratives in the film. If the audience, or more relevant, the characters in the film, could have access to these information, they would have a drastically different interpretation or understanding of their situation, and there would take a very different course of action. The tragedy of the characters was that they were merely components in the story, and they could not easily detach from their worlds and lead to a greater appreciation of the issues they were facing. If we, the members of the audience, are being sentimental when we watch ‘Barry Lyndon’, there we are no different from the characters which were confused and disillusioned by the world they were situated in.

In some case, the narrator also challenged the notion of objective representation of history, and the humanist view championed by many warm and feel-good films. While these comments were witty and facetious in some cases, they could be disturbing because that only suggested how insignificant and unimportant an individual was in the face of history. In the skirmish which Barry had to fight against the French troops in the Seven Years War, the narrator informed us that this incident was not even recorded in any history books, even if thousands of soldiers died in the most absurd way in this insignificant battle. When Lord Charles Lyndon, being a powerful and rich aristocrat, was confronting death in the most hideously painful way, the narrator told us that all he has got was a small obituary in a book, and no one else would remember him. Kubrick went as far to mute the voice of the narrator when he was reading out the obituary, suggesting how uninteresting this character was. Just like the Japanese film ‘Harakiri’ and ‘Samurai Assassins’, the so-called objective history could be distorted or might be false – because they were written by the winners and the powerful, and the other more personal stories were seen as unimportant and were left out. Yet what Kubrick was trying to reiterate here was that the indifferent universe is very fair – no matter what sort of social status or abilities you have, a mortal will eventually die and it is of no importance to the universe. With the human-centered ego and hubris, this is a pretty sad comment, yet only when we can detach from our subjectivity and the surroundings, we can understand and find out the meanings of the things that take place around us, leading to the possibilities of real changes.  

(To be continued.)

by Ed Law

29/4/2017

Film Analysis

Frenzy

This time, I talk about another brilliant film from the Master of Suspense -  ‘Frenzy’ (1972)!

‘Frenzy’ was a late Hitchcock film, and it was a British one, because the setting was in London and it featured Covent Garden and the River Thames. A reason why ‘Frenzy’ is important for Hitchcock’s filmography is because the film served as a surrogate for an unrealized film in the 1960s, known as ‘Kaleidoscope’.  By watching some of the available footages available on the internet, one can easily feel that this unfinished project would have been the Master of Suspense’s most ambitious work, and it would be extremely controversial for the mainstream audience in the 1960s, as it contained explicit nudity and a controversial theme – the film was intended to tell the story from the psychopathic killer’s point of view. From the footages, one would note the heightened mise-en-scene and the atmospheric use of the red color, which would remind us of Michelangelo Antonioni’s style, especially from ‘The Red Desert’. Hitchcock was highly impressed by Antonioni’s work, and the heightened use of color could serve to enhance the perversity regarding the crime from the killer. While all of these were only speculations, one should be convinced that if ‘Kaleidoscope’ was really made, it was likely that it would be a brilliant milestone, and would completely change the way we looked at Hitchcock and his films. Like Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ is a window to his unrealized project ‘Napoleon’, Hitchcock’s ‘Frenzy’ can thus be seen as a substitute and it provides important clues on how Hitchcock would have approached ‘Kaleidoscope’ if he really had the chance.

Something horrendous has happened on the River Thames. A naked female corpse, with a neck tie tightened on her neck, was discovered when the corpse was washed ashore. Blaney, the protagonist, was believed to be the main suspect due to circumstantial evidence. Yet, the Master of Suspense has made no attempt to hide the fact that this was not the case – the real killer, known as the necktie killer, was actually the fruit merchant Rusk, Blaney’s friend. Rusk has already murdered Blaney’s ex-wife when a forced advance on her has failed, leading to her rape and murder by strangulation. Then, the next victim was Babs, Blaney’s girl friend, and she perished tragically in one of the most iconic sequences of the film, which took place in an apartment in the Covent Garden. While Blaney defended his innocence, all the fabricated evidence seemed to point towards him as the culprit and he was jailed. Soon, Oxford, the police inspector responsible for the case, started to have intuitions that Blaney might not be the killer after all. Could Blaney escape, and would Rusk be eventually captured?

‘Frenzy’, while preserving the suspenseful mood of many other Hitchcock films, was far darker in tone than the other major Hitchcock work. The film dealt with the psychology of a perverse rapist and murderer, and the viewpoint of the film was set in an objective manner so that the audience would not be over-identified with the bad guy. One could easily sense the risk these issue could have on the reception on the film, because in Hitchcock’s original treatment of the unrealized ‘Kaleidoscope’, the film would present a subjective viewpoint for that of the charismatic killer, and many audience in the 1960s were still not open-minded enough to explore the story in such a forced perspective, as least in a cinematic way. Indeed, another British filmmaker, Michael Powell, has made a film called ‘Peeping Tom’ in the early 1960s, was exactly viewed from the perverse killer’s point-of-view, as he always used a camera to capture the final facial expressions of his victims because he killed them. While this film eventually became a cult classic, it was unacceptable by many of the audience and the receptions were very bad initially. When Hitchcock might have abandoned the more daring approach in ‘Frenzy’, the initial receptions regarding the film were polarized. While some positive reviewers were happy to see that the Master of Suspense was coming back in full force, others saw the film as dark and cold, and the violence scenes were mean and rather perverse.

Like ‘Rope’, and many of his other films, Hitchcock did not shape ‘Frenzy’ as a ‘whodunit’ film. The killer, Rusk, was revealed very early, and for his portrayal, Hitchcock did not make him mysterious or his identity as a secret in anyway. What the Master of Suspense were driving at was to let his audience to experience the perverse psychology of the necktie killer and how he used his deceptive antics to interact with his surroundings, charming and luring the female victims into his net. Blaney and Rusk could be considered as doubles – a motif often used in many crime or suspense films. The dramatic weights have put on the two characters were unbiased, therefore one could see he was placing similar importance on both characters. While Hitchcock has not risked to alienate the audience by placing a subjective perspective on the killer, just like in ‘Peeping Tom’, the viewpoint was objective when we saw Rusk matching wits with the police and the other characters. Indeed, Blaney has gone as far to attempt to destroy his double, when he was pretty certain Rusk was behind all these murders, though he was tricked by Rusk and could only succeed in a later attempt.

Black humor, a strategy Hitchcock often employed alongside with his signature suspense, was very effective for the tone of ‘Frenzy’. Rusk was responsible for much of this black humor, and if this ‘comic relief’ was not administered, those scenes could be far more perverse and disturbing. The scene when Rusk was desperately fishing out a decorative pin of Babs from the potato truck when he believed that the pin would confirm him as the murderer, and when he had to literally snap the dead body’s fingers one by one to remove the pin, with the sound effects, were both perverse and darkly comedic at the same time. Even inspector Oxford’s wife provided some curious comic relief. Believing herself as a talented chef, she cooked up really unappetizing, or even disgusting, dishes for Oxford, and that seemed to complement the perverse and weird atmosphere throughout the film. Perhaps her random intuitions would be far more contributive than the food she was feeding Oxford with!

Film critics have identified a memorable sequence in ‘Frenzy’, which has been championed by the great philosopher Deleuze and have been featured in many textbooks of film. This iconic sequence was a well executed long take, which was facilitated by a planned and almost mechanical camera movement. The extended tracking shot chronicled Babs being lured by Rusk, and followed him to his apartment for some apparent romantic overtures. They took a lengthy stroll through the streets and eventually entered his apartment after travelling up a staircase in a dimly lit setting. After the door was closed, the camera, almost in a mechanical manner, traveled back down the stairs in a backward tracking shot, and finally to the exterior of the apartment building. It looked as if the camera was retreating, like an imaginary person, from some scary thing that was going to happen. Indeed, it was exactly what Hitchcock has put in words in the shooting script:

‘THE CAMERA, as if saying goodbye to Babs, retreats down the stairs and out through the front door.’

This memorable sequence has already been analyzed in many textbooks or film courses, and I would like to provide my viewpoints here.  From the way the sequence was executed, I feel that Hitchcock was trying to establish a symmetric or circular relationship. The first half of the sequence involved the flirtation of Rusk towards Babs, who would be his next victim. Hitchcock neatly divided the whole scenario into two halves, and the two components were dialectal to each other in terms of characteristics. The streets were brightly lit and lively with human activities, while the apartment staircases were darkly lit, cold and empty.  For the direction of the camera, the first half was often forward and was focusing on the two characters’ faces, while the second half was a rather unusual backward tracking movement.  Hitchcock was wise not to show the fate of Babs, somehow as a testament of the tragic inevitability of death when she has stepped into the killer’s web. He was indeed a lady charmer and lady killer! For the movement of the camera throughout the whole sequence, it almost looked as if it was travelling in a circular path. The circle came together at the end, albeit with pretty deadly conclusion. Picture that when the neck tie killer strangled his victim, he had to use the tie to form a circle around the victim’s neck, right?

I can see a further analogy regarding this wonderful tracking shot. Through the camera’s mechanical movement, the whole process appeared like a roller-coaster ride. When the victim was lured and escorted up to the top floor when the apartment was situated, an empty carriage moved down. And soon, the killer would take another victim into this murderous thrill ride, and led to her demise – because the obsession from Rusk’s perverse psychology would never end. The circular movement symbolized the painful cycle that the murder rampage would happen again and again, until someone could put a final stop on it.

Are you wearing your tie?

by Ed Law

22/4/2017

Film Analysis

Rope

I have a strong admiration for Alfred Hitchcock. Though he may not be my favorite filmmaker of all time, I can totally appreciate his genius and the influence he has contributed to modern cinema. I have decided to talk about 2 Hitchcock films I really like for this week and next week. This time, I will talk about the James Stewart classic – ‘Rope’ (1948)!

‘Rope’ has always been seen as a very special Hitchcock film, because it was one of the Master of Suspense’s most daring and experimental films. This Hitchcock classic has generated more attention recently due to the emergence of ‘Birdman’ (2014), because both films have a common technical style – both films ‘appear’ to be shot in one continuous take, meaning that there are no obvious edits at all in the films (though, the situation in ‘Rope’ was not as simple as that). ‘Rope’ came as a time when Hitchcock was actively exploring the potential of the long take, and the film and his subsequent film, ‘Under Capricorn’, are both celebrated of having very precise and expressive long takes. This feat provided great challenges for the Master of Suspense, because fewer edits meant that the whole shot has to be designed in a very precise manner – the composition, the movement, the performance and staging – everything has to be made as the Master wanted. I will point out that the ‘long take’ style was not merely a technical gimmick – the technique gave meaning to the story as a whole. And, ‘Rope’ is also worth pursuing because it demonstrates how Hitchcock generated suspense through what the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze called a relation-image / mental-image, and another strategy which I would call ‘Knowing more than James Stewart’. Indeed, ‘Rope’ is a beautiful Technicolor film – though it was made in 1948, the quality is still high for today’s standard.

2 college kids, through a mis-interpretation of Nietzsche’s idea of ‘Over-man’, decided that they were superior to another of their classmate, and so they strangled him with a rope. Believing that their intelligence has led him to commit a ‘perfect crime’, they invited a bunch of guests (including the victim’s father) to a dinner party, when the dead body was hidden. They wanted to see if anyone could discover this crime. They have also invited a special guest – the housemaster-turned-publisher Rupert (James Stewart), and their intention was even more perverse – they wanted to offer this crime as a gift to Rupert because it was him who taught them the idea of ‘over-man’ and the perfect crime. When the party went on, guests started to get suspicious of the victim who never turned up. Rupert, with a logical detective mind, decided to take the situation to his own hands. Time was running out – would Rupert discover the truth?

When we talk about Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’, it is all about the impressive ‘one continuous shot’ approach. Technically, it was not possible for a feature film, because it was limited by the length of the film (about 10 minutes), and more realistically, when the projectionist in a cinema had to change a reel (about 20 minutes). Therefore, in Hitchcock’s case, we can assert that for a movie of about 80 minutes, it is technically impossible to shoot a single continuous shot with film. But, Hitchcock could make the movie appear as if it was shot in one continuous shot, as he could use some clever, unobvious obstructions or a very sharp cut (which was at the time the projectionist had to change the film reel) to transit into another sequence. It worked very well because movie audience were often very aware of cuts in a film. Indeed, editing often helps the audience to understand, for example, the spatial relationships between two characters, and how a few series of actions are happening or influencing each other through time. To be honest, for audience who are not film buffs, they will not be aware of the fact that films like ‘Rope’ and ‘Birdman’ appear to be shot in a continuous take, and even if one looks very carefully to see where the cuts in ‘Rope’ are, I doubt whether they can easily find out except someone has told him before – because our attention spans are not able to do that, and also we are so conditioned to cinematic editing that we will let these ingenious cuts to escape our senses.

Why did Hitchcock make ‘Rope’ as if it was a single, continuous shot? Well, the first thing was that Hitchcock loved to use symbolism in many of his films. The rope, not only as the two college boys’ weapon of choice, also uncannily resembled the structure of the story. We can analogize a short piece of string as the content on one roll of film (i.e. one sequence), and these 8 or 9 pieces of strings are then tied up by knots – which are the sharp cuts or obstructions that serve to cover up technical limitations and link up the whole film.

What this continuous take approach has achieved was that the story was understood to take place in a real-time manner, which was rather rare for most films (once again, I have to point out that the film did not totally happen in real time, for example, the dinner party took place in about 20 minutes, which is quite impossible for the real world). When ‘Rope’ was unfolded in real-time, it made the audience far more conscious of the passing of time, and it reflected the desperation of James Stewart’s character to solve the puzzle, because, the two bad guys might end up walking away free. The real-time format and the claustrophobic apartment setting made the atmosphere very tense and suspenseful, as all scores have to be settled in here, within a short time. I can also think of another relation between the rope and Nietzsche’s ideas. Man on the tight-rope, and James Stewart’s character was walking on a pretty tight one!

This then brings us to Hitchcock’s mechanics of suspense. ‘Rope’ is a film that illustrates how Hitchcock has designed the story and generated a suspenseful atmosphere for the audience. His style has been studied by many subsequent film theories, and Deleuze has provided some original and insightful views regarding Hitchcock’s approach. Classifying Hitchcock’s style as a ‘relation-image’ or ‘mental-image’, Deleuze believed that Hitchcock’s style worked because he always introduced a thirdness element in his many films. While Deleuze’s views were very elaborate, an important thesis was that Hitchcock’s films always invited the participation of a third party – the audience – as part of the plot. Not only the audience members were seen as observers or voyeurs, they were often active because they could see the relations behind the different elements in the film more than the characters did. I believe it was an important point because it very much illustrated how Hitchcock could successfully generate suspense in his various films. For this I would elaborate under the heading ‘Knowing more than James Stewart’.

Hitchcock’s audience often knows more than the protagonists of his films. In a number of iconic cases, it has something to do with James Stewart, who has appeared in a number of Hitchcock’s most famous films. This is interesting because, rather coincidentally, there were similar situations for his anti-heroic characters in a number of Anthony Mann’s Western films, which were mostly made in the 1950s. While Anthony Mann used his Cinemascope compositions to allow the audience to see and know much more than Stewart’s characters, Hitchcock allowed his audience to map out the relations and notice the important clues way before James Stewart’s characters could have, or never would have. This approach was deliberate, because such a dissonance between the audience and the character’s viewpoints not only made the protagonist far more tragic due to his failures of noticing the clues, it also generated suspense as a result. Hitchcock let the audience know the important details. In the first shot of ‘Rope’, we already know who were responsible for the murder. In the most famous case, ‘Vertigo’, we know long before Stewart’s character the ultimate truth; yet it still did not prevent a dark ending. Too often, it was these extra insights that would have saved the protagonist from these misfortunes and sad fate. Thus, the audience was more active than some passive observers. While Hitchcock encouraged us to identify with the moral protagonist of the story, we had an additional connection to the plot, by understanding more about the cause-and-effect than the protagonist. Through this, the audience will develop sympathy towards these characters’ absurd fate.

Through this approach, Hitchcock shifted the focus of the audience’s attention regarding the plot. In many films, the directors intend to synchronize the perceptions of the audience and the character, meaning that the audience will experience the same situation as the same time as the character, leading to a surprising sensation from the audience. There is nothing wrong with this approach, yet Hitchcock’s approach was more innovative because it could serve further purposes. If the story is a murder mystery, than the audience’s focus will be on the ‘Who did it?’ and they will concentrate on the clues – like the protagonist – to find out who was responsible for the murder. In Hitchcock’s case, because he has allowed the audience to notice the extra information, the audience would divert the focus to why the character committed the crime, and hopefully shed lights on the psychological motivations behind it. In some cases, Hitchcock could also allow explorations on other themes such as obsession, guilt or psychoanalytical concepts. True, the ‘whodunit’ format can provide thrill for the audience, yet by adopting his approach, Hitchcock could engage his audience to think intensely about his films, and to acquire insights from these brilliant works.

  

One last comment regarding the theme of ‘Rope’. This film came out in 1948, for which the world has just be woken up from the nightmare known as ‘World War II’. The film captured a relevant point because the two murderers distorted the teachings of Nietzsche, which was what Hitler and Nazism were driving at what they attempted to rationalize their racist beliefs. It is really sad to see that some immoral persons will often resort to mis-interpretation or distortion of the meanings of good-natured teachings throughout history, in order to justify their ends. One can easily see how disappointed was Rupert when he found that his efforts to educate young students would lead to such a horrific crime. And, full of hubris and over self-confidence, the two young boys thought they were above the law and could get away due to their intelligence. Yet, it was these very qualifies that would lead to their destructions. ‘Rope’, a movie from almost 70 years ago, can just be as much a cautionary tale for today’s audience.

by Ed Law

16/4/2017

Film Analysis

龍虎風雲 (下) - 雙雄.宿命.仁義

宿命

我在前文提及到導演梅維爾(Jean-Pierre Melville) 。其實他的作品經常會探索宿命 的課題, 而這當然亦有影響到吳宇森和杜琪峰等導演的電影風格。而在'龍虎風雲'裏, 宿命的力量,令到多位主要角色墮進不能自控的悲劇!

高秋所處於的局面,其實受制於宿命的力量。當觀眾聽到肥媽演繹的主題曲'要爭取快樂',聽到不斷地重覆'得ge得ge得ge... '都是'嘥氣'時,會否感到無奈?高秋和上司劉幫辦都同樣處於困難的局面。其實,劉幫辨盡心盡力,只是為 了破案,將歹徒繩之於法。在片中觀眾亦看到他十分維護高秋,甚至視他為兒子。可惜,劉幫辦的擒兇策略得不到劉江所飾演的警司的完全信任。警司較為信服張耀揚飾演的年輕探員的看法,而張的角色亦處處對高秋和劉幫辦作出質疑和針對,兩方根本無法為破案的最終目標達成共識。劉幫辦年紀漸老,他為此感到壯志未酬和時不與我,亦為間接導致另一位臥底探員身亡而深深內疚。這個情境的悲劇,就是當劉幫辦希望對其忠誠的高秋去伸張正義時,其實只會令高秋更為墮入道德矛盾的漩渦,促成其自身的毀滅。

那高秋有選擇的可能性嗎?片中不斷地強調他的身不由己-當他入局以後,就難以再抽身而去。這就如我從前談過的梅維爾電影'紅圈'(Le Cercle Rouge)一樣。所謂的紅圈,其實是一個無形的邊界。當幾位職業大盗踏進了紅圈後,宿命便會把他們捆綁在一 起,而他們相互便對團隊有了責任。高秋沒有放棄,或許就是源自他對劉幫辦的敬重,感到必須對他付出。

而宿命對高秋開的另一個玩笑,就是他與大盗虎哥之間的友情。兩個男人難得志同道合,而且虎哥亦勇於維護高秋,即使賊幫首領肯定高秋就是叛徒,虎哥仍要拼死相助,拔搶指嚇首領,一時間三槍齊發,成為了一個經典的Mexican Standoff!這幕當然也啟發了'落水狗'(Reservoir Dogs’,該片亦有對此經典場面作出致敬。不過雙雄惺惺相識,往往都是悲劇收場。想想吳宇森的'喋血雙雄',杜琪峰的'真心英雄',以至古龍先生筆下的葉孤城和西門吹雪-這些角色往往孤獨,除了因為有過人才華外,另外就是因為俗世没有很多人了解他們。雙雄,往往是世界上唯一相互了解的人,可惜命運往往註定是兩個只能活一個。這些悲劇英雄都被逼着去參與這場零和遊戲,儘管他們的對手,可能就是他們在世上唯一的良朋知己!

仁義

在梅,吳,杜三導的電影裏,宿命和男性情義的主題,往往是環環相扣的。在'龍虎風雲'的最後部份,高秋臨死一刻告訴虎哥,他其實是臥底的真相。從實利的角度來看,高秋這樣做其實是十分愚蠢,因為虎哥一定會因此將其殺掉。假若他不告訴虎哥真相,或者還會有一線生機。正如Quentin Tarantino在談'落水狗'裏最後相似的一幕時,明言如果觀眾不明白為何臥底Mr. Orange要向大盗Mr. White承認他是叛徒時,那就代表觀眾不明白電影背後的意義。這,就是男性情義的浪漫!就如我從前提過'仁義'(jingi)的概念一樣,亦如英文裏的'matter of honor' 。虎哥在片中一直維護高秋,即使高秋的忠誠受到質疑時,他依然信任高秋。這種信任,是建基於友情多於對客觀事實的掌握。所以當虎哥捨身相救時,高秋重視情義(就如他那句'我對朋友不義啊! '),怎能不說出真相?其實,在三槍互指那一幕,縱然他們全都是法律所標籤的惡棍,每一個人拔槍的動機都有其理據所在。首領的動機,是因為他要鏟除一名叛徒,為身亡的手足報仇;虎哥的動機,是要保護高秋;而另一名手足的動機,是基於對首領的忠誠。所以諷 刺地說,他們每一個人的行動都是基於一'義'字!縱然大多數的觀眾在現實生活都不 會遇到這樣極端的情況,不過我想林導演是想從藝術上表現這個理想,期盼世界上多 一個重情重義的人!

片中的最後一幕,何其諷刺。高秋和幾名大賊伏屍在破屋中,鏡頭重叠了他之前在中環街頭輕鬆起舞一幕。在播放肥媽主唱的'要爭取快樂'的同時,鏡頭又再重叠了一個玻璃碎裂的影像。這仿如暗示高秋只有在夢碎一刻,死亡之時,才能真正得到解脱。就如以前一齣亞倫狄倫電影一樣,要在死亡之時才能面露解脱的微笑,儼如'含笑半步釘'。或許,爭取快樂的結果往往只是嘥氣;不過,懂得寬容地面對宿命,或是生命的變幻,可能就是開啟歡愉之門的鑰匙!

The End

by Ed Law

10/4/2017

以戲服人 Film Analysis

龍虎風雲 (上)

我在‘以戲服人’裏甚少介紹香港電影。不過,在香港電影的黃金年代,確是出現過不少傑出的作品。今次介紹一部我十分喜歡的經典電影 – ‘龍虎風雲’(1987)!

‘龍虎風雲’是林嶺東導演最著名的作品。由沈西城先生聯合編劇, 新藝城及金公主電影公司製作, 周潤發飾演臥底探員高秋。 縱然這已是三十年前的影片, 不過大家會見到很多熟悉的面孔:周潤發, 李修賢, 張耀揚, 吳家麗, 肥媽, 黃光亮, 徐錦江, 還有‘講呢啲’劉江先生等! 他們多年來都投放了不少精力為觀眾帶來難忘的演出。林導演強烈冷峻的風格, 令‘龍虎風雲’跳脱出傳統警匪片的框架, 他的執導與發哥精湛的演技亦使他倆勇奪當年的金像獎! ‘龍虎風雲’影響了不少後來的電影, 亦使雙雄式電影成為了一個受歡迎的題材。 美國導演昆頓塔倫天奴(Quentin Tarantino)的成名作‘落水狗’ (Reservoir Dogs)亦深受此片影響。 另一部受此片啟發的電影,當然就是‘無間道’,而劉偉強先生更是‘龍虎風雲’的攝影指導!

故事講述臥底探員高秋(周潤發飾演)受上司劉幫辦(孫越飾)所託, 要去深入虎哥(李修賢飾)的賊幫, 從而在他們下一次進行搶劫時, 將賊幫一舉就擒。可惜, 高秋的工作得不到其他人的諒解, 包括他的女友(吳家麗飾) 。 高秋除了要每步戒慎恐懼外, 亦要逃避張耀揚飾演的探員的監視及追捕。再者, 高秋和虎哥兩人的友情愈見深厚, 亦令高秋為除暴安良而出賣朋友感到心痛。 賊幫首領確認搶劫行動的細節, 警方收到線報後經已磨拳擦掌。 最終搶劫金行行動會否成功, 眾人的下場又會是怎樣? (註: 下文含有劇透) 林嶺東導演創作了高秋這個角色, 除了刻劃臥底工作的矛盾及其所處於的兩難局面外, 亦想表現在現實世界中, 情義兩難全的諷刺和無奈。

‘龍虎風雲’的故事除了十分出色外, 林導演在營造氣氛方面亦都是極其超卓的。風格方面, 導演明顯受到法國電影大師梅維爾(Jean-Pierre Melville)的啟發。 所以縱使‘龍虎風雲’依然包含了警匪片具有的元素, 它的風格和氣氛比較接近法國或者是歐洲電影多於美國的傳統犯罪片。戲中搶劫和男性情義的題材, 亦會令人想起梅維爾的‘紅圈’(Le Cercle Rouge)或者美國電影‘Rififi’。 林導演運用了各種電影技巧, 去襯托臥底探員既是矛盾又是誠惶誠恐的內心世界。 電影運用了冷色調, 而且不少場景都是在夜間發生 ,令觀眾容易感到都市緊張壓迫的氣氛。有趣的是, 電影有意無意地展示不少商標的廣告, 我想創作人希望藉此突顯城市的題材, 或者有些評論會視此舉為後現代思潮的消費主義! 觀眾或許會注意到, 大多數的情節都是發生在九龍的。有評論指背後的原因, 是因為九龍的街道編排遠比港島的街道複雜。 而且電影的動態場面偏向較多, 這會讓觀眾感覺置身於一個都市迷宮中, 尤其令不熟悉九龍或外國的觀眾有一種迷失的感受。 這亦渲染到臥底高秋在情義兩難, 複雜人事關係裏面的身不由己, 難以從迷惑中抽身而去。的確, 片中不少的場景, 如墳墓,停屍間,葬禮,不斷的惡夢, 亦似在提示高秋, 死亡可能很快便來臨。其中一幕, 高秋幫賊黨在保齡球場完成任務後, 在他悄悄離開時, 鏡頭對他面上緊張驚惶的神情作了一個特寫。隨着一個輕微的慢鏡頭和背景保齡球場的雜聲, 導演成功地渲染出高秋心內的惶恐。配樂方面, Jazz的風格, 除了能配合都市生活的主題外, 亦為人帶來一種沉寂無奈之感。在動作場面中, 音樂節奏變得緊湊, 與前者有着鮮明之對比。在我看來, 以上的安排, 以及夜晚景色的情節和部份夢境的場面, 產生了一種如夢似幻的感覺, 從而亦增加了電影的魅力。 

不過談到‘龍虎風雲’,怎可不讚賞發哥的演出? 發哥演技精湛, 他能夠勝任不同風格的角色, 無論是詼諧或是嚴肅的往往都能揮灑自如。臥底高秋是一個特别的角色, 因為他不同於警匪犯罪片中的英雄或是大罪犯, 必須流露出一種較為深沉的情態。發哥在揣摩高秋這個角色時, 其實拿捏得十分精準。他成功地表現出內心的矛盾, 縱然角色也有憤怒的時刻, 他在此片的演出控制得含蓄, 不像他在‘英雄本色’或是‘監獄風雲’裏的演法。他抑制的演技風格, 令觀眾感受到他有種有苦說不出的悲哀, 令大家更加能夠體會高秋所處的困惑。其實發哥這種冷峻的演戲風格, 令我覺得頗像亞倫狄龍在梅維爾電影(例如‘獨行殺手’)裏的風格。觀眾要了解高秋的內心世界, 必須要從其表情和行動着手, 不一定能從其言語可以觀之。發哥對角色準確的掌握,或者就是他在當年憑此片勇奪金像影帝的原因!

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by Ed Law

2/4/2017

以戲服人  Film Analysis