There have been many interpretations of the classic, but few can be deeply interpreted from multiple dimensions, and today I will interpret its charm and value from three perspectives. @I'm Ah Bow
Released on June 29, 1951, Ace of Inverted Buckles is a critically charged black drama film directed by Billy Wilder. Although the film is earlier, it is a template for many critical films. After 69 years, in addition to the fact that the film is black and white, this film will still not become obsolete if it is screened today, and director Wilder is also known as the Emperor of Prophecy by many people.
For director Billy Wilder, you may have seen a lot of his work. For example, "Lost Weekend", "Dragon and Phoenix", "Peach Apartment" and so on. Billy Wilder's films are sharply humorous, with a black satirical style, quick thinking and exquisite storytelling skills that make the audience think constantly, and his films are extremely personal. And "The Ace of the Upside Down" also continues his style, satirizing journalism to the extent that Hollywood can tolerate it.
"The Ace of the Upside Down" is a very exaggerated and absurd movie in general: a journalist who is unhappy in the workplace meets a grave robber trapped in a cave and wants to make big news. Sure enough, as soon as the front page of the news came out, the people of the whole country began to pay attention, and tourists came to see it, turning the rescue site into a prosperous carnival, and the weakness of human nature was hidden behind the story. Many people will feel depressed after watching this film, in fact, if you think about it, if people can be content, it is a good thing.
There is no shortage of such people in life, with inflated desires, always wanting more. Therefore, in this article, I will start from the three aspects of the director's "expression method, the true meaning of the film and the technique of analyzing and criticizing the film", and the last part I will share a few tips for understanding the criticism of the film in combination with the film plot of "The Ace of the Inverted Buckle".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, expression method: the film compresses time and space in 5 days, and the two clues inside and outside the cave are intertwined, expounding the direction of the film and sublimating the connotation of the film. </h1>
The director uses a frustrated and ambitious journalist as a starting point to lead the whole story. In the film, the dangerous bare mountains, the empty and desolate ground and the noisy and lively crowds later, the dark and deep caves.....
Each contrast makes the viewer think about the essence behind the film and see how the director intersperses two intersecting threads in 5 days:
(1) The time of 5 days will vividly show the life and death of a person, the mistakes and redemption of a person, and the insensitivity of a group of people.
There is no earth-shattering conspiracy in the film, the context is clear and clear, and it only takes 5 days to create a tragedy.
Chuck added the occult element of the Indian undead to "Leo's Cave", attracting tourists from all over the country. Leo struggles to survive in the cave and waits for rescue; tourists come outside to sing and dance for a carnival because Leo is trapped; Chuck goes from trying to delay the rescue time at the beginning, to trying to rescue but unable to do it, and finally redeeming himself.
The switching of the camera is closely related, and the plot is told clearly and sharply in 5 days, the despair of the people in the cave, and the mercenary figure of the outsiders, which are vividly displayed under the contrast.
Judging from the title of "Ace of the Upside Down", viewers can find the dark colors in the movie. Watching the entire film and analyzing the title, I feel that the director's performance method is extremely accurate. Five days ago, whether it was Chuck, the governor or the onlookers, everyone thought they were a merciful God. After Leo's death 5 days later, these people all showed their original form, and the ugliness of the heart, the weakness of human nature, and the essence of profit-seeking were at a glance.
The director condenses the time in 5 days, uses one death, two lives, and examines this society from a sharp perspective, and also profoundly satirizes this society.
(2) The people outside the cave hold the trump card of the people in the cave, and the film takes this as the main line, showing the cold state of the world, the prodigal son turning back, and the farce turning into tragedy, which is extremely critical.
Chuck holds Leo's trump card in his hand, in the name of making money, traps Leo's greedy and selfish wife, let her play a "sad wife" drama; in the name of obtaining votes to help re-elect, pulls the governor to his camp; and then takes advantage of the governor's momentum to threaten the contractor to extend the rescue time and maximize his own interests, at this time Leo is the trump card of everyone outside the cave.
A headline report by a reporter suddenly led to the development of tourism and journalism. The dead silence of a person in the cave, the carnival of a group of people outside the cave, and the absurd plot arrangement enhance the design sense of the film, and the irony is extremely heavy.
As the plot progresses, Chuck's state of mind changes. At first, he only used Leo to get headlines, and gradually became infected by his trust in getting along, and finally really regarded Leo as a friend. Trying to fulfill his wish, he forces Leo's wife to wear the fur he bought, endures severe pain to take the priest to the cave, and finally dies on the way to atonement.
At this point, the director set the ending as a big reversal, and the worst person finally became a good person, and the dawn of humanity flashed in the darkness. The unexpected and reasonable ending sublimates the theme and jumps out of the pattern of general criticism of film, and the director's real intention lies in this.
(3) The people in the cave are the trump cards of the people outside the cave, and they are also the clues of the story, with very few shots, but they guide the entire film.
Leo's "best friend" takes advantage of his desire to make a name for himself, and his wife, whom he remembers before his death, only wants to leave him and consume him. How funny is it that the trapped, dying person has love flashing in his heart? As an important clue throughout the play, his shots are extremely few, almost all close-ups, giving the audience a sense of oppression, as if a little bit of humanity flashes in the dark society that comes to the surface.
Watching the crowd outside the cave singing and dancing and cheering happily, the audience could not judge the passage of time at all, and from Leo's mouth, the audience could know the change of time. This is also the director's deliberate arrangement, borrowing Leo's mouth to say the change in time and the change in the number of people, showing the audience that the people outside the cave are not worried about how long Leo has been inside.
Leo's shots are few, but extremely important, advancing the timeline and enriching the plot in his very few shots.
In my opinion, 5 days witnessed a farce and tragedy, and the intertwining of two threads caused two irreparable lives. Such a clever expression method makes the viewer sigh at the same time, but also think about the practical significance behind it.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, theme implication: the death of people in the cave = criticism of human nature, the director criticizes the weakness of human nature and the expansion of desire. </h1>
Lao She said before writing "Four Generations Together" in 1940: I want to write the saddest tragedy, which is full of shameless laughter.
On the surface, the film is a story of unscrupulous journalists' conscience discovering and then redeeming themselves, but behind it is the weakness of human nature and the evil of inflated desires. The director uses the greed of the maker, the hypocrisy of the onlookers, and the selfishness of the promoters to illustrate the truth of human nature in this film.
(1) Maker: The maker of the news is also the maker of the protagonist's death, and although the final redemption is precious, he still needs to be responsible for two lives.
The director makes the journalist Chuck the protagonist, who makes the news, but also creates Leo's death, telling the audience that the news can kill people. The first time Chuck entered the cave, it was not because of kindness, but because of his own selfishness: to make big news. The news did sell well, but he was not satisfied, and he had even more terrible ideas.
He prolongs the rescue, causing Leo to contract pneumonia, and doctors say he only has 12 hours, at which point he wants to rescue Leo. But now it is no longer possible to use the way of wall rescue, which will cause the entire mountain to collapse. Chuck's greed, unscrupulousness, and profit-seeking led directly to Leo's death, and even if he later risked his life to repent and redeem, it would not help.
Suppose chuck gave up his desires and chose to rescue Leo when he tasted the sweetness for the first time, then there would be no subsequent two lives.
There are also such people in our lives, knowing that continuing to continue may be a bad result, but still refusing to give up the interests in hand, constantly chasing, the final outcome will only harm others and harm themselves. Sometimes it is the best ending to stop at the right time, to restrain desire, and not to be greedy.
(2) Promoters: Ambition and desire have swallowed up a life, and this group of people has returned to their original position after the lives of others have disappeared.
The trapped man's wife, after her husband was trapped, only wanted to use him to make more money; the governor embezzled and bribed, and originally wanted to dispose of Chuck, but under the lure of his interests, became an ally; the honest contractor, who originally did not agree to the way of drilling the well, but under the governor's obscenity, took a longer rescue method.
These people, although they did not directly cause Leo's death, were the promoters of his death. The trapped man's wife accompanied Chuck to perform the farce; the governor connived with Chuck to make the farce go; the contractor, although coerced, did not tell the truth, resulting in the loss of the best time for rescue. If a play only has a beginning and an ending, it is far from attractive enough, so it will produce a process, and it is these people who complete the process of this farce.
After Leo's death, his wife prepares to leave. The governor and the contractor still live their old lives. Leo's death had no effect on their lives, just a farce. But there will not be only this farce in the world, this farce will end, there will be other farces staged one after another, as the traffic goes away, which is what the director wants to tell us.
From the comparison between Leo's wife's initial interception of the bus and the final failure to stop the car, we can see the director's careful arrangement. Director Billy White makes good use of irony, silently contrasting in the echo of the beginning and the end, satirizing the human weaknesses that exist in real society.
(3) Onlookers: Treating the death of others as a carnival, there is hypocrisy behind the compassionate heart, and it is also necessary to pay for the death of the people in the cave.
Leo is trapped and, under the planning of the unscrupulous ambitionist Chuck, dominates the headlines and develops great value. When individual affairs turn into national events, the various characters appear driven by interests. The desires of the heart become crazy, the onlookers of the spectators become misplaced carnivals, and everyone in the whirlpool becomes an accomplice.
After learning of Leo's trapping, the previously empty and barren land became a natural parking lot; a special train named Leo roared with a whistle; and the passengers rushed to the rescue site like a swallow. Tents, Ferris wheels, carousels, rescue songs written for Leo... A carnival to rescue Leo is staged here.
The director uses a lot of long-range shots to show the turbulence of the crowd, the number of vehicles parked, and the close-up to show the joy on people's faces, and the camera flashes past the bare mountain that trapped Leo from time to time; in the film, Leo repeatedly complains that the sound of drilling is too loud, and the sound of drilling outside the hole is not heard at all.
Every shot, every picture is rich in pungent irony, and the joyful and grand overall picture depicts the ubiquitous evil buried under the noisy and prosperous beauty. These people, cloaked in compassion, nibbled at Leo's flesh and blood, and squeezed out a few tears with their mouths full of oil, which was extremely hypocritical. Everyone in the crowd should have paid for Leo's death.
There is a sentence in Lu Xun's "Medicine": "Wrap well, wrap well!" Eat it while it's hot. Such a person's blood buns, what tuberculosis are wrapped up! ”
These people eat flesh and blood steamed buns, but they still don't think it's exciting enough. Human inferiority is amplified one by one in this farce, and Leo's death is blamed on every selfish participant present. They have renounced the beauty of human nature and disregarded the lives of others for their own benefit.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, based on the critical color of the film, combined with my own experience of watching the film, talk about how to analyze a critical film with high quality. </h1>
Since its inception, critical films have been seen as an outlet for anger, and many people have high expectations for it. This work, written and directed by the talented director Billy Wilder, also did not disappoint the audience. Today, I will combine my own film watching experience and talk about how to analyze a critical film with high quality.
(1) Insight into the gradual changes in the character's heart, although it is a movie plot, but the character's heart is by no means a change without warning.
In "Ace of The Upside Down", the doctor says that Leo has 12 hours left, and Chuck wants to save him, but he can't save him because of realities. He looked into Leo's eager eyes and pondered the multiple choice between desire and human nature. At the same time, he saw that Leo's wife was also facing such a problem, but his wife had no cure. In order to avoid more such tragedies, he gave up his desires, chose human nature, and moved towards redemption. So he forces Leo's wife to put on a fur and take the priest to the cave to help Leo fulfill his last wish.
To put it simply, Chuck's transformation from an ambitionist to a victim in "Ace of Inverted Buckles" is because Leo's trust in him has caused him to gradually disintegrate, and it is not achieved overnight. Chuck's choice of self-redemption seems to be a very sudden decision, in fact, in the process of contact with Leo, Leo's trust and friendship with him have long been planted in Chuck's heart to give up the desire and choose human nature.
In a movie, the character's heart is by no means a change without warning, it must be some touch before the plot that leads to the change within him. If we don't pay attention to these details during the movie,000, we often miss an opportunity to connect the content and understand the content.
(2) The story of the characters chasing desire and self-redemption is only superficial, and when watching the movie, seven points of sensibility give the plot, and three points of reason look at the essence.
Many critical films seem to have the same ending, such as the black man in "Glorious Road" who played well to win the league championship, and "The Philadelphia Story" in which Andrew won the case. These are very similar to the ending in "Ace of The Upside Down", where there is a dawn in the darkness.
The plot in "The Ace of the Upside Down" is very attractive, but in addition to the wonderful plot, there are many ideas that the director wants to express.
In my opinion, in the movie "Upside Down Ace", "tell the truth" is actually the rational thinking that director Billy Wilder conveyed behind the passion. In today's rapid development of the Internet, in the face of endless news, how everyone speaks, how to speak, what kind of voice is worth thinking about.
If we want to enjoy a critical film with high quality, then it is best not to bring all our passions into the plot, but to leave a little reason for ourselves and think about the protagonist's mental journey and the comparison of the surrounding environment.
(3) Combined with the background of the film's era, with the help of the film's plot, the essence of the film's expression is analyzed.
The ruthlessness of the trapped wife in the film, Chuck's unscrupulous means, the hypocritical politics of the governor, and the indifference and selfishness of the surrounding crowd all have a huge relationship with the background of the times at that time.
At that time, liberalism was prevalent in the United States, market freedom, economic freedom, cultural freedom, and people's minds were also very free. Everyone becomes utilitarian for their own benefit, the whole society is in a kind of consumerism, everyone becomes the pursuit of the market, the indulgence of desires, utilitarianism prevails.
The essence of art is expression. If the reality is stable, the politics are innocent, and the people are harmonious, there will never be such a film noir. What kind of society will give birth to the corresponding art. When watching critical films, we need to use the background of the film's time to analyze the essence of the film and discover the reasons for the existence of this society.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > written at the end:</h1>
This is a work with a strong sense of irony and criticism, and it is a masterpiece worth savoring. Whether it is the exaggerated plot or the ugly face of the sentient beings, or the reversed ending, or the narrative technique of time and space compression, they all bring us a different viewing experience and thinking, which is the charm of this black film.
If you sit back and try to immerse yourself, you will find that what strikes you is not only the reality of the film, but more about the predictability of this society and the foresight of our time. I hope you can also have your own different feelings.