Recently revisited Johnny Depp's black-and-white film "The Stranger", the director is known as the artistic genius Jim Jarmusch, many fans are because of "The Stranger" and pay attention to Jim, it can be said that the film's global success is not accidental, it contains a lot of directors' interpretation of human nature and the world, he used his own unique perspective and music to create this work that laid his personal style.
"Divorced Stranger" is about William Blake, a young accountant played by Johnny Depp, who took a train from his hometown to a metal factory in a small western city to apply, only to go to the factory and was told that he was late, the post had been manned, William was ruthlessly driven out of the factory, penniless and homeless William met a woman who sold handmade paper flowers, after a one-night stand, the woman's fiancé killed the girl by mistake, William shot the woman's fiancé in order to protect himself, and it just so happened that this man was the young son of the metal factory owner. In order to avenge his son, the boss hired three killers to kill William, and a strange and thrilling escape road began.
Today I will talk about my personal understanding of this film.
<h1>Where man came from, the soul will return to the original place and face what has happened calmly</h1>
The English name of this film is dead man, as the name suggests, it is a dead man, in the poster, with a piece of human bones to spell out a dead man, coupled with William holding a gun on the boat, the eyes are empty and with a hint of vigilance, so what does the director mean by the dead man?
We can read it from some of the clips at the beginning of the film. William, dressed in a formal suit, wearing gold wire glasses and a small round hat, took the train from his parents to the west, and the camera constantly switched between the big close-ups on his personal face and the various people sitting across from him, at first it was some gentle people, as the scenery outside changed from forests, lakes, mountains to desolate land, and the passengers on the opposite side also became some rough, rude, and tough Western natives, and they could pick up their shotguns and shoot at the outside in the next second, just to kill the buffalo outside. William seemed extremely strange and timid about all this, but in order to make a living, he could only cling to his only suitcase, although he knew that his destination was a place with a bad reputation, and he had no choice.
There is a scene in the opening scene that has a role in the film. An old man on the opposite side of the passenger said to William, "When you're on the train and looking out the window, does it remind you of what it's like to be on board?" That night in the middle of the night, you lie on the boat looking at the sky, the water is flowing beside you, like the scenery, then you think, why are these scenes moving, but the ship is still? ”。 This passage is perfectly connected to the end of the film where William lies on a boat and gently floats into the endless sea, and the director uses the old man at the beginning to imply that everything William experiences in the future is already doomed.
<h1>The poetic friendship between the Indian nobody and William, he saved William, and it was he who exiled William to the Endless Sea</h1>
Why did Nobody save William? Indians have always had hatred for whites, I think because nobody's life was ostracized by Indians, although because he was abducted by whites to the white world when he was a child, even if he fled back to his original place, he still could not change the concept of the people who thought he was a foreigner, and in William he felt that William, like himself, was abandoned by his original local people and things, and when he learned that William's real name was William Blake, he said: "Then you should be a dead man." Because William Blake was the name of a poet nobody knew when he was sent to a school by a white man to study white culture, and the poet's poetry has always followed his growth and influenced his life, Nobody believes that William's appearance is a sign that the poet William is going to happen in order to present the allegory of his poetry.
"Someone was born to endure endless suffering"
When William endured a gunshot wound, nobody thought that people could exist without eating, so every time William was in a weak state, the camera would freeze on his facial features, close his eyes and wake up after a few seconds of black screen, repeating many times, making the audience have a kind of mystery, every time thinking that William was the same as a life whimper, and William's expression from the initial hunger to the last has a calm look, I can't know whether he really does not go to a bite to eat, but in the human world, there are too many people eating things, so the killer Cole The scene of Wilson cooking his companions and the murder of his parents can be used to interpret this poem from another angle.
There is also a scene that is more interesting, that is, after William shoots the twin police officers, the two fall to the left and the right, and William stands in the middle and looks at the dead person who fell in the middle of a pile of firewood on the left, as if falling in a holy aura, confirming another poem: "Some people are born in the brilliance, and some people are born in endless darkness."
<h1>There was once a British mind game, an experiment designed to explore the dark side of human nature, with the theme of challenging 72 minutes to kill</h1>
This mental game reminds me of the process of William being wanted in the film, jumping from a bonus of $500 to $2,000, and the wanted warrant killed 2 people to the final writing that William killed 6 people, including 3 who were not killed by William, that is, through william's wanted matter, all the people who died related to him were classified into his "crimes", which can also be said to be a manifestation of the "herd effect" in psychology.
William really went from a small accountant to a well-known cruel killer, and he didn't care anymore, except for nobody, only he thought william was his good friend, and anyone who appeared in front of him, whether it was a killer, a bandit, a policeman, was for the wanted bonus, whether he was alive or dead, his life was not as precious as a zebra.
In order to protect themselves, even if they kill people, they can find a reasonable reason to appease themselves, and if they are not determined, it is easy for others to say a word of support, which can easily lead to their own regrets, which reminds me of the many suicide chat groups that exist in the shadows. Some time ago, there were three girls in Thailand who committed suicide, and finally 2 died and 1 injured, and the one who survived said that she had planned suicide for 2 years, but ironically, why she survived was because she cried for help, and when the others around her had passed away, fear would slowly arise.
I think the director in this film, through the character of William to try to dig deep into whether people should always have a fear of death, people come naked to walk naked, this meaning can be felt from nobody watching William have the following hallucinations, he sees William as a white bone.
<h1>The wild nature of the totem and the carcass of the fawn are secretly foreshadowed to return to the soil and the soil to zero</h1>
In the film, William wears his gold wire glasses until one day when he passes out under the double attack of the pain of the wound and the attack of hunger, and wakes up to find that Nobody has taken his glasses, and when William asks him for it, Nobody says, "Maybe without it, you will see it more realistically." Without glasses more totem on the face of William like an open eye, see the enemy to kill, fast and accurate, put on the fur it can pass through the Indian jungle even without the company of nobody, it has unconsciously integrated into this primitive forest, from human to wild animals.
And when it found the fawn carcass, he touched the blood of the fawn, sniffed, licked, and used the fawn's blood to feel a unique blood totem on his face, the whole picture was strange and with a hint of silence, especially at the end he lay next to the fawn carcass curled up and closed his eyes, the camera was looking down, helpless and compassionate, in William's heart he felt that his fate was the same as this young deer.
<h1>The floating boat did not have the appearance of a miracle of life, and such an ending was in line with this departed guest</h1>
The Chinese translation of the film is "The Alien", I think the translation is quite appropriate, William from the moment he stepped into the West and was ruthlessly driven away, he was destined to have no foothold here, where should we go, when we have no people and things worth remembering, what kind of mentality and way should we live?
In this unusual year of 2020, being able to "live" is the biggest wish of this year, and how to live well is really worth my deep thinking.
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