Text: Overnight flowers
"Driving for Miss Daisy" is a film that is both artistic and ornamental, and won four awards at the 62nd Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Makeup. The film shows the process of Miss Daisy and the driver Hawke from acquaintance to pity through the details of life, peaceful and gentle but without losing the strength of reflection.
Not only is it a desire to eliminate ethnic and cultural barriers and defend the dignity of vulnerable groups, the film focuses on exploring an unrelated identity label, cultural background, and the most innocent friendship between people based on inclusive love and understanding and trust. The exquisite pictures of the landscape and the warmth but not indiscriminate moderation and sense of proportion make the film free from vulgarity and rich in meaning.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > from the "Pulitzer" of the theater world to the "Oscar" of the film industry</h1>
Alfred Uri's original play won a Pulitzer Prize, while the film version, adapted by the playwright himself, won an Oscar and grossed more than $100 million worldwide. And this kind of small-cost family ethics film can beat "Dead Poetry Society", "Born on the Fourth of July" and other films to win the Oscar for best film, which is naturally inseparable from the cultural trend and the aesthetics of the times.
The rebellion and rage of the new Hollywood films of the 1970s— the reflection and critique of war, the pursuit of the spirit of freedom— plunged the audience into an emotion of anxiety and emptiness, and an emotional comfort was urgently needed; therefore, from the 80s to the mid-90s, a classic Hollywood feature film with the family as the core came into being. Most of them show the beautiful family ethics under the traditional value system: loyal love, warm and harmonious parent-child relationship, loyalty and friendship between people, and the "Rain Man" and "Forrest Gump" that we are familiar with are the products of this period, and they have also gained the love of a considerable number of audiences around the world.
From another point of view, films that eliminate ethnic barriers and reflect the improvement of the status of vulnerable groups are also happy to be seen by audiences. For example, after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, Sidney Portier became the first African-American film emperor in history with "Lily of the Wild" at the 36th Academy Awards the following year, and the most recent example was last year's "Green Book".
The reason why the relationship between the Oscar recognition film and the background of the times is briefly explained before telling the film is to give everyone a more comprehensive understanding of the cultural trends behind the film and the aesthetic characteristics of a specific era. In addition to the success of "Driving for Miss Daisy", in addition to meeting the values of the times, its own ornamentation is also the key, and here we will focus on exploring the rich connotation of the film from the aspects of the meaning of the text theme, the performance charm of the two protagonists, and the artistic characteristics of the director.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > a complete, plump and distinctive character</h1>
Miss Daisy is a typical light comedy character, she is verbally very disgusted with the driver Hawke, unwilling to use words to show her friendship, but in the day and night together gradually developed an attachment to him and a friendship beyond the master-servant relationship, so she is also quietly changing her miserly attitude and arrogant tone. On the surface, she is still cold, rigid, paranoid, and arrogant, but on the inside, she continues to become gentle and gentle, and this humorous contrast of "external cold and internal heat" makes the characters have a shy cuteness.
The film does not stop on the personality label, but digs deep into miss Daisy's identity as a Southern Jew. Living in The American Jewish cultural circle, she upholds Jewish cultural habits. In the eyes of outsiders, she is graceful, rich and bright, and is the object of envy. Through her few words, it can be seen that she had an embarrassing childhood, and the financial constraints in the process of growing up made her develop a thrifty and self-disciplined and even slightly shrewd and mean personality.
It is precisely because of the social status of the bottom of her childhood and the bitter life that she has developed a restrained, suspicious, and stubborn character, which does not seem to be friendly and warm, but Miss Daisy is conscientious of her status as a teacher, and she still remembers to take care of her students in her old age.
Using a cross-section to show a dynamic, complete three-dimensional character has a very high demand for the accuracy of the script and the profoundness of the actor's understanding of the role. The charm of Miss Daisy's role is that she is not perfect, she has her own cultural background, the limitations of vision and cognition brought about by the environment of birth, and her independence, self-improvement, persistence in the pursuit of her own personality, and stubbornness in not accepting defeat have a full sense of humanity and moving spiritual power.
From missing the opportunity to star in the film version of "Desire StreetCar" because she was not as famous as Vivien Leigh, who starred in "Gone with the Wind", to winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in "Driving for Miss Daisy" in her later years and being loved and recognized by mainstream audiences, Jessica Tandy showed the performance qualities of a professional actor.
There is no exaggerated mannerism, no excessive rendering, some are just the pure precipitation of an old actor who has gone through vicissitudes after seeing all kinds of things in the world, whether it is the fear of aging and loneliness, the persistence of longing for old age to do something, or the smile that returns to the truth like a child, her smile shows the charm of the role. Jessica Tandy continued the miracle of old age created by Catherine Hepburn in "Golden Pond" at the Oscars, winning the 62nd Oscar, and the age of 80 set the highest age record when the project was awarded.
The film's account of the driver Hawke's past is slightly less than Miss Daisy's, but it still shows a full personality trait. He is reasonable, kind, friendly and benevolent, but he retains the edges and corners of his character, gentle and not humble, peaceful and dignified. Particularly commendable is Morgan Freeman's expressiveness in detail, from the character's lines to the form. For example, the cunning bad smile, the language habit of double negation, the authentic Southern African accent, and the small movement of the crooked head not only accurately reflect the cultural background and growth environment of the characters, but also make the characters appear more vivid and vivid.
Morgan Freeman, who plays Hawke the driver, is one of the most recognizable African-American actors of our time, from "The Shawshank Redemption" to "Million Dollar Baby", and although the external identity labels of his characters are different, he can give the characters a unique personality charm in the most personal way. Under the temperament of "life mentor" and "friend of life" who is calm and sophisticated, tolerant and generous, there seems to be endless wisdom and philosophy of life.
The plot of the film is based on the wonderful interaction between the two actors. With his tolerant and humble attitude without losing dignity and pride, Hawke gradually made Daisy feel how bitter this "best friend" who had been accompanying him in his lonely old age was, and this resonated with her childhood experience to some extent, and they began to understand and appreciate each other.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > southern idyll of "moving scenery"</h1>
As the mainstream family ethics film in Hollywood, although it is not as avant-garde and cutting-edge as the award-winning films of the Cannes Film Festival in terms of audiovisual language, it shows a kind of plainness, maturity and refinement. The plot and drama of the film are weak, and the development of the story relies on the wonderful interaction and trivial life details of the two actors. In this case, how to make the development of the plot full of tension, Bruce Belsford made a good interpretation. While maintaining the characteristics of the stage play, the director represents the passage of time as a dark line through symbolic and iconic scenes and environmental changes (similar to the "moving steps and changing scenes" in travelogues).
First of all, the director emphasizes the highly ideographic nature of the narrative space, and uses the scheduling of the space to hint at the psychological state of the characters. The film focuses on the villa where Miss Daisy lives, and the southern townships are overgrown, lush and golden, with a kind of idyllic beauty and serenity. Just as New York is usually regarded as the spiritual city of elites and middle-class intellectuals (Woody Allen's "New Yorker" group portrait), the "City of Philharmonic" Los Angeles is a symbol of dreams, and the poetic, dreamy, and pure "landscape idyll" in the film is also a projection of desire to remove the false and the true, stir up the clear, and return to the heart. The scene props with a sense of age have a warm and quaint feeling under the static lens of soft light and fixed viewpoints.
Under the backlit composition of strong natural light, Miss Daisy is not only trapped in the enclosed space of the large villa, but also grows old and feels lonely, and she and the African-American nanny are naturally separated by the door frame in two different rooms. The significance of this composition is self-evident, because because of the difference in ethnic culture and class status, they are still unable to complete effective and in-depth inner communication even if they are in the same room.
The film uses the change of seasons and climate as a metaphor for life. In the first half, the plot of the story mostly takes place on sunny days in summer, warm daylight and lush plants, giving people a lot of life, while Miss Daisy and the driver Hawke are estranged and separated; in the second half, the film does not explicitly change the time (decades have passed), the season is changed to winter, rain and snow, emitting a sense of cold and cold, at this time, they have a kind of pity and understanding under the mutual tolerance, and accompany each other. The contrast between this scene and the state of mind is the portrayal of Miss Daisy's gradual release of estrangement and openness of her heart.
In addition, the changes in scenery (the closure of the interior and the openness of the wild), the use of mirrors (the expansion of space) all make the film lose the stage characteristics in a single scene, but the whole film shows the rich lens language of the film.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > class, ethnicity| inclusive love and pure trust between people</h1>
The film only points to the differences between different ethnic cultures and classes, and does not deliberately render these labels, but focuses on the acquaintance and companionship between two specific characters and unique souls. Miss Daisy goes from arrogance and prejudice to attachment and trust to the driver Hawke, and they are the nobles of each other's lives to each other. Therefore, the Hong Kong translation of "Shanshui Happy Encounter" is an excellent translation of the film's emotional core and light comedy tone, which is deeper than the direct overview of the plot of the Taiwanese translation of "Warm Pick-up".
Whether it is the "Green Book" that shows ethnic and class differences, or "Sister Peach" and "Untouchable", which explores the relationship between master and servant, or "Fallen Man", which explores the relationship between master and servant, or "Fallen Man" who differs in language and culture, these films of different languages and different eras all try to explore a kind of "complementarity and mutual integration" between people that transcends ethnicity, culture, language and class.
The moving thing about "Driving for Miss Daisy" is that the hero and heroine do not deliberately and bluntly seek a kind of "integration", but in the long "companionship" (company) has produced an attachment and trust, regardless of ethnicity, class and other external labels, is a kind of understanding and tolerance of each other, the purest friendship and trust between people.
The film reminds us to cherish every friendship in life, family affection, friendship, love, or any emotion that cannot be expressed in words; those life partners who disappear unexpectedly and inadvertently, those unique life experiences, are the incorruptible preciousness of our lives.
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