1 ) 反種族歧視道阻且長
這是一部老電影。翻出來重溫,不僅僅是應(yīng)景。
近一個多月來,因黑人喬治·弗洛伊德被白人警察“鎖頸”虐殺,全美各地及西方世界的多國城市,爆發(fā)了波起云涌的"Black Lives Matter"抗議浪潮?;乜慈嗄昵暗碾娪埃仡櫳鲜兰o(jì)六十年代的民權(quán)運動,令人唏噓不已。根深蒂固的種族問題不可能一朝一夕間徹底解決。在美國,白人種族主義者還大有人在,只是在上世紀(jì)六十年代波瀾壯闊、可歌可泣的民權(quán)運動之后,由公開的叫囂和猖狂,潛伏進了心靈的暗角。川普的上臺,把那些深藏的種族主義魔鬼釋放了出來。不僅一些盎格魯白人深藏著種族主義的魔鬼,一些亞裔一些華人,盡管在盎格魯白人眼里也處在種族序列的低端,卻在歧視黑人上一樣的面目丑陋。
"I can’t breathe"——那么多年過去了,仍然有人因為自己的膚色而感到窒息。這是美國的恥辱,人類的悲哀。
另一部老片《炎熱的夜晚》 (1967) ,拍攝于民權(quán)運動正盛的年代。
上世紀(jì)六十年代,南方密西西比的一個小鎮(zhèn),北方來投資建廠的一位商人橫尸街頭,車站候車的黑人男士成為嫌疑人遭到逮捕……
種族題材的電影,獲當(dāng)年奧斯卡最佳影片獎?,F(xiàn)在來看,主題直露,正邪人物涇渭分明,當(dāng)屬好萊塢的主旋律套路。不過,反種族歧視的主題沒有過時。川普治下的美國,又重現(xiàn)了當(dāng)年南方的景象,憋屈了很久的盎格魯白人又可肆無忌憚地發(fā)泄對有色人種的輕蔑和仇恨。
進入二十一世紀(jì)后,種族題材的電影仍然熱度不減,總能在奧斯卡獎的提名榜單上見到,2019年第91屆奧斯卡獎最佳影片提名更有三部上榜,《綠皮書》最終摘取桂冠。這反映了作為自由派重鎮(zhèn)的好萊塢鮮明的反種族歧視的立場。
2020上映的新片《正義的慈悲》,由《少年收容所》導(dǎo)演德斯汀·克里頓執(zhí)導(dǎo),改編自美國偉大的民權(quán)律師布萊恩·史蒂文森同名非虛構(gòu)作品。1862年林肯簽署解放黑奴宣言(1863年1月1日生效),1865年4月南方邦聯(lián)投降,至6月19日(Juneteenth)得克薩斯州宣布解放黑奴,標(biāo)志美國奴隸制終結(jié)。但黑人的公民權(quán)并未得到保障,制度性(systematic)的種族歧視仍然廣泛存在。經(jīng)過整整一百年的不懈抗?fàn)帲貏e是1952年開始的民權(quán)運動,到1964年美國國會通過《民權(quán)法案》,第二年又通過了《投票權(quán)法案》,從制度上消除了對黑人的種族歧視。然而,制度性歧視消除了,主要植根于人內(nèi)心的系統(tǒng)性(systemic)歧視并未隨之消失。
反種族歧視道阻且長,還未有窮期。
2 ) 電影中的事實與虛構(gòu)(來自紐約時報)
It was a hot Sunday afternoon in June of 1964 when three young civil-rights workers - Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney - were arrested on a trumped-up speeding charge outside Philadelphia, Miss. They were held for eight hours, then released in the deepening darkness of rural Mississippi. By prearrangement, they were again stopped on a lonely road by the same Neshoba County deputy sheriff who had arrested them earlier, this time accompanied by a party of Ku Klux Klansmen. They were murdered in cold blood, transported to an earthen dam several miles away and buried with a bulldozer.
More than 150 F.B.I. agents ultimately descended on Neshoba County to investigate the disappearance of the civil-rights workers, two of them, Goodman and Schwerner, whites from New York, and the third, Chaney, a black who lived in Neshoba County.
It was 44 days before the investigators penetrated the racist veil of silence that enveloped the case and found the bodies. Goodman, horribly, had a ball of the Mississippi clay in which he was buried squeezed tightly in his hand, indicating that he had not been dead when the bulldozer sealed him into the makeshift grave.
Another three years passed before some of those responsible, Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and six others, including Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, were convicted of civil-rights violations and given prison terms of up to 10 years. None served more than five. There is no Federal murder statute covering such crimes, and no state charges against the men were ever brought in Mississippi.
Those are the facts - the ''true facts'' as some put it in these days of relative reality - on which the British director Alan Parker's film ''Mississippi Burning'' is based. It stars Gene Hackman as the Mississippi-sheriff-turned-F.B.I.-agent, whose own violent tactics ultimately break the case when orthodox methods fail, and Willem Dafoe as the young, by-the-book Justice Department official who finally but grudgingly acquiesces to Hackman's tactics. Locally, the film opens Friday at the Loews Tower East and at Loews 84th Street Six.
The facts of the case are shocking to the sensibilities as well as the emotions, and their depiction by Mr. Parker, known for ''Angel Heart'' and ''Midnight Express,'' leaves little to the imagination. But he does not shrink from inventing dramatic embellishments to capture - and shake - a wider audience.
''I'm trying to reach an entire generation who knows nothing of that historical event,'' Mr. Parker said in a telephone interview, ''to cause them to react to it viscerally, emotionally, because of the racism that's around them now. And that's enough of a reason, a justification, for the fictionalizing.''
The film's opening credits are overlaid on the roaring blaze of a burning church, the scene moving immediately to the lonely back road where the murder of the three young men is re-created with graphic realism. The names of the victims are never mentioned, and other names and details are changed, but the killing itself is eerily close to the reality that is starkly revealed in court records and F.B.I. documents - although the actual victims were led away before being killed.
To those familiar with that place and time, the brutal intimidation of the black people of Neshoba County, also a historic reality although compressed in time, is evocative. When Mr. Dafoe, as a dedicated but inept investigator, makes a public point of sitting in the black section of a restaurant and talking to a young black man, the black is later brutally beaten by Klansmen. Whether the actual event happened is moot; such beatings occurred. Churches and homes are torched in the film, and that, too, is very much the way much of it happened. From June of 1964 to January of '65, just six months, K.K.K. nightriders burned 31 black churches across Mississippi, according to F.B.I. records. So, Mr. Parker does not greatly exaggerate in a film that literally crackles with racial hate.
Onto the basic framework of fact, the screenwriter Chris Gerolmo and Mr. Parker graft considerable artistic fabrication, chiefly concerning the F.B.I.'s investigation of the case, and say it is essentially a ''work of fiction.''
Yet, much of the power of ''Mississippi Burning'' derives from the audience's knowledge that the essential horror it is witnessing onscreen really happened. Even the title of the movie is the actual F.B.I. code name for the investigation. Many details are drawn from life.
''You didn't leave me nothin' but a nigger,'' says James Chaney's killer in the film. ''But at least I killed me a nigger.'' That piece of dialogue comes directly from F.B.I. files, the confession of one of the participants.
There are any number of reasons for turning fact into fiction for the purposes of making a movie, not the least of them the legal difficulties involved in portraying numerous lives, many unsympathetically. But in this case, fiction enables Mr. Parker to have his factual cake, so to speak, while spooning it out richly slathered with fictional icing. Indeed, a legion of dark-suited F.B.I. men are shown nervously wading waist-deep into a fetid Mississippi swamp in search of the missing men's car, and Mr. Parker, who used various locations in Mississippi and Alabama, casts local people for some atmospherics, like on-the-street TV interviews.
For those who know such places, Mr. Parker, who is English, evokes the texture, the gritty, fly-specked Southernness, the brooding sense of small-town menace, the racial hatred, with considerable accuracy. Even much of the violence, the beatings, burnings and lynchings, are perhaps defensible because they are central to the reality. But there also seems to be violence for the sake of it, and Mr. Hackman's portrayal of an F.B.I. man, even in the purest of fictions, beggars Clint Eastwood.
Mr. Parker and Mr. Gerolmo defend the fiction on the ground that there were numerous suggestions - none ever proven - of F.B.I. excesses, but more importantly on the ground that it makes the story all the more emotionally affecting.
But the reality itself is powerful. Those who never ventured into the rural South in the 1960's might find much of it hard to believe - that backcountry lawmen belonged to the Klan, covered up killings and beatings, and were proud to tell you that N.A.A.C.P. stood for ''niggers, apes, alligators, coons and possums,'' as the fictional but all-too-real sheriff tells reporters in ''Mississippi Burning.''
Those of us who did cover the rural Deep South in those days heard that sort of thing, and worse, virtually every day; scarcely a week went by without a burning cross flickering somewhere against the soft velvet backdrop of the Southern sky.
It was a time when more than one Mississippi judge was said to wear a black robe by day and a white one by night, and while it might be an exaggeration to suggest that most white Mississippians supported the Klan, it is fair to say that few of them - with notable and courageous exceptions - had the temerity to speak against it.
For 44 days, F.B.I. agents searched for the bodies of those three missing men before finding them. But, gruesomely, they did find several others they weren't seeking, one a 14-year-old boy, never identified, wearing a CORE T-shirt and those of two black men, eventually found to have been the victims of Klan murder. (Those interested in similar details of the Schwerner-Goodman-Chaney murders should read a meticulously researched nonfiction book by Seth Cagin and Philip Dray, ''We Are Not Afraid,'' published by Macmillan and based on F.B.I. records and exhaustive interviews.) That was the way it was in Mississippi in those days, and painful as it is to relive it, ''Mississippi Burning'' serves to remind us with extraordinary force just how bad it was.
But Mr. Parker and Mr. Gerolmo heighten the reality. The real-life truth of the F.B.I.'s long investigation in Neshoba County was that it was neither very efficient, nor, in the end, particularly dramatic.
In the film, the key revelation in the case comes when Mr. Hackman, at once courtly and cynical, uses seduction as a means of obtaining information. The reality is less romantic. The actual ''seduction'' was a $30,000 F.B.I. payoff to a Klan informant.
Mr. Gerolmo said in a telephone interview that ''the fact that no one knew who Mr. X, the informant, was, left that as a dramatic possibility for me, in my Hollywood movie version of the story. That's why Mr. X became the wife of one of the conspirators. That's it - we're making up a story about the facts.''
The re-enactment of the unearthing of the bodies - filmed, with some discretion, from a distance in the humming heat of a Mississippi August - is wrenching, sickening. Yet that, too, is how it happened.
But it is more or less at this point in the film, which had so far been fairly faithful to the record, that Mr. Parker and his scriptwriter go for broke.
To find out who put the bodies in the dam, Mr. Hackman brings in a black bureau ''specialist'' (as an incidental fact, the F.B.I. had no black agents in those days) who, posing as a vengeful black Mississippian, kidnaps and threatens to castrate the bound-and-gagged Mayor if he doesn't reveal the names of the conspirators. To make his point, the kidnapper drops the terrified man's trousers and brandishes a razor blade. The black man describes the horrifying castration of a black youngster by Klansmen and says he intends to do the same to the Mayor unless he talks. He talks.
The razor-wielding ''agent'' is, however, a kind of twice-incarnated fiction. Mr. Gerolmo said he originally wrote the character as a Mafia hit man who forces a confession from one of the conspirators by putting a pistol in his mouth. That, he said, was based on ''a rumor'' circulated in Mississippi at that time, never corroborated.
''In the original screenplay, I wrote the story as I heard it, that there was a Mafioso who owed the F.B.I. a favor who was persuaded to come up and hold a gun in a conspirator's mouth until he told them what they needed to know. Then Alan [ Parker ] was inspired to change that in detail, but basically the spirit was the same.''
Mr. Parker said in interviews that he transformed the Mafia hit man to a black F.B.I. agent as ''almost a metaphor for what was happening in real life, the assertion of black anger, and black rights reasserting themselves.''
By the same token, he said the agent's description of the castration of a young black man was taken from a factual description of a real castration of a black man by a Klansman.
Mr. Parker said, moreover, that preview audiences found the scene the most powerful in the film.
In reality, according to Mr. Cagin, Mr. Dray and other researchers, the F.B.I. relentlessly dogged two shaky participants in the killings -one of whom made indiscreet comments to a friend, who passed them on to the F.B.I., who in turn threatened them with long jail sentences, paid them for information and ultimately arranged plea bargains for lesser sentences in exchange for their cooperation. It took nearly three years.
In the film, all this becomes clever but brutal F.B.I. dirty tricks, including a staged lynching of a Klan conspirator in which he is ''rescued'' at the last minute by other agents.
''When it came to me, the already fictionalized treatment of that script depended upon the F.B.I. not necessarily behaving in such a noble way,'' Mr. Parker said, adding, ''They did resort to rather underhanded methods.'' Castration threats? Staged lynchings? ''In the end,'' said Mr. Parker, ''I will stand by it, because in the end I think I would behave the same way.''
Mr. Parker handles the question cinematically with an exchange in which by-the-book Dafoe accuses get-results Hackman of dragging him into the gutter with the crude tactics. Hackman's response is that that is precisely where the Klan came from.
''It is a fiction,'' said Mr. Parker. ''It's a movie. There have been a lot of documentaries on the subject. They run on PBS and nobody watches them. I have to reach a big audience, so hopefully the film is accessible to reach millions of people in 50 different countries.
''It's fiction in the same way that 'Platoon' and 'Apocalypse Now' are fictions of the Vietnam War. But the important thing is the heart of the truth, the spirit,'' he said. ''I keep coming back to truth, but I defend the right to change it in order to reach an audience who knows nothing about the realities and certainly don't watch PBS documentaries.
''The proof in the end will be how it reaches an audience.'' SHORT MEMORIES
Although Neshoba County, Miss., was the actual setting for the grisly events of ''Mississippi Burning'' and the locus of one of the turning points of the civil-rights struggle of the 1960's, it is even today not a place where politicians like to remind voters of just how bad things were.
When Ronald Reagan took his 1980 campaign for the Presidency to the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., not many miles distant from the lonely dirt road where those civil-rights workers were killed, he made no mention of the racial murder and its attempted cover-up. Instead, he talked about ''state's rights,'' which many Southern blacks regard as shorthand for the purported right of a state like Mississippi to ignore desegregation laws.
In 1983, when the space hero John Glenn appeared at the fair, he pointedly omitted his usual detailed criticism of President Reagan for failing to enforce the civil-rights laws, and on television later hailed ''the old values, the old traditions that are epitomized by the fair.''
Michael Dukakis made a campaign appearance at the fair, a major political event, on Aug. 4, 1988, 24 years to the day after the bodies of the three young civil-rights workers were dug from the dirt dam where they had been buried. Mr. Dukakis did not even mention their names, telling his mostly white audience only that the anniversary was ''a special day.''
3 ) 用堅持燒毀社會的痼疾
美國基于民權(quán)運動背景的種族題材作品,總是在似曾相識的感覺中,表現(xiàn)出不同的特點。畢竟,那段歷史背景是相同的,對黑人的歧視,特別在美國南方依然嚴(yán)重,然而種族平等已是大勢所趨,同時這個轉(zhuǎn)型期的沖突卻在局部根據(jù)尖銳,而同時在白人中已經(jīng)涌出很多聲援黑人權(quán)益的人們,特別權(quán)力機構(gòu)的這類人群常常是這類題材作品中捍衛(wèi)黑人權(quán)力的精英?!读已箫L(fēng)暴》(又譯《密西西比在燃燒》)就是這類題材中又一部出色的作品,而它的出色之處在于,不光表現(xiàn)著一種振奮人心的正義力量或是勵志激情,更以一個事件,傳神的表現(xiàn)出整個時代中圍繞種族平等運動的各個角色的立場和準(zhǔn)則。
1964年6月21日,三K黨徒在美國密西西比州劫持一輛載有三名民權(quán)主義者的旅行車,三人中包括兩名維護黑人權(quán)益的白人社會活動者,事發(fā)后,三人下落不明,聯(lián)邦調(diào)查局派人前來保守小鎮(zhèn)調(diào)查,拉開了這部影片的序幕。這部影片的事件和小鎮(zhèn),實際上就是一個各方矛盾和利益交織的舞臺。先看聯(lián)邦調(diào)查局一方,艾倫?沃得和魯珀特?安德森是調(diào)查的主力,而兩人又有所區(qū)別,艾倫?沃得是個年輕的充滿原則性和理想主義的FBI調(diào)查人員,不達目的誓不罷休,堅決要將惡人懲治,但是卻又顯得手法不夠靈活,甚至魯莽。而魯珀特?安德森屬于老鳥,深深明白一個保守小鎮(zhèn)的人情世故,更懂得變通,同時也不會特別在意程序正義之類的東西。于是,查案中,我們看到兩人時常沖突,艾倫?沃得的急躁和冒進常常給當(dāng)?shù)睾谌撕驼{(diào)查涉及人員造成更深傷害,但是也正是他的決心,讓這個案子可以不斷推進,調(diào)動更多資源。而魯珀特?安德森的沉穩(wěn)更是對艾倫?沃得的有力補充,他更善于在民間獲取線索,并不時給予囂張的當(dāng)?shù)胤N族正義分子一些顏色看看,而一旦堅定信念,他更是可以采用多種手段去懲治兇手??梢哉f,他們代表著兩類人,一類帶著理想主義氣質(zhì),一類帶著現(xiàn)實主義色彩,但是卻都是價值觀上堅定的平權(quán)人士,在那個時代,正是靠著這些價值觀達成共識,方式上各有發(fā)揮,相互補充的人的共同努力,才推動者社會向平等的轉(zhuǎn)型。
而當(dāng)?shù)睾谌撕桶兹说臎_突也是典型的,而這又分兩個層面,一種是3K黨與當(dāng)?shù)睾谌顺錆M暴力的沖突,另一種是深入社會文化中的,白人與黑人間的相互不信任,當(dāng)?shù)匕兹嗣癖姴⒎嵌际潜┝Υ谌?,但是長期的文化熏陶下,他們起碼認(rèn)為與黑人是兩種應(yīng)該不相互干涉的文化,而當(dāng)?shù)睾谌艘苍谧约旱纳鐓^(qū)生活,并未做更多權(quán)利的要求。這種無形的隔閡使得社會顯得很穩(wěn)定,但是這是一種地基缺乏合理性和帶著危險的“穩(wěn)定”。于是,當(dāng)平權(quán)運動興起時,這種穩(wěn)定被打破,白人充滿危機感,黑人充滿被剝奪感,于是,一種吊詭的局面產(chǎn)生了,本欲讓社會更平等,各方人士更和平友好相處的平權(quán)運動,倒是在進行過程中,造成了社會的動蕩,黑人反倒受到了更激烈的攻擊,如同片中不斷被燒毀的黑人房屋,密西西比在燃燒,這團火又進一步激化著矛盾,制造著惡性循環(huán)。在此基礎(chǔ)上,另一種文化的矛盾也開始顯現(xiàn),那就是美國歷史悠久的南北矛盾,在密西西比人看來,正是北方那些以精英自居的人們,粗暴干涉南方本來各行其是的文化,造成了社會動蕩。而當(dāng)時的整個美國,也是這副景象,肯尼迪政府甚至要出動軍警,堅定的護送黑人走入以往只有白人可以進入的學(xué)校。這份動蕩也時刻考驗著艾倫?沃得和魯珀特?安德森的良心,當(dāng)他們試圖維護正義,卻發(fā)現(xiàn)激化矛盾,發(fā)現(xiàn)一個個黑人被毆打和殺害時,那份內(nèi)心的糾結(jié)是顯而易見的。而同時,燃燒的密西西比,也讓人們看清了3K黨徒的真相,讓當(dāng)?shù)厝藘?nèi)心的善良也被喚起,這是一種個人內(nèi)心的矛盾,就如片中那個3K黨徒警察的妻子,內(nèi)心折磨的痛苦中,終于說出真相,成為本案突破的關(guān)鍵,而她也付出了慘遭毆打的代價。然而,一個社會不需要缺乏正義的穩(wěn)定,更不需要讓一方忍受屈辱和不公的維穩(wěn),所以,哪怕付出一時代價,當(dāng)時的美國社會依然堅定的走向至少制度性的平等,在威廉?曼徹斯特的杰作《光榮與夢想》中,關(guān)于這段歷史有著激蕩的篇章,而這部影片正是從一個側(cè)面,一個事件,給觀眾帶來了那個時代全景式的感受,這正是本片難能可貴的地方。
本片的戲劇性與演員的精彩表演密不可分,吉恩?哈克曼扮演的魯珀特?安德森尤其出彩,老到沉穩(wěn),又不乏正氣凜然,幾段與囂張的3K黨徒對峙的戲份幾個眼神動作就令人嘆服,可以被列入表演教科書。威廉?達福幾乎演過電影中可能出現(xiàn)的任何角色,本片中的理想主義FBI調(diào)查員艾倫?沃得似乎與其棱角分明的外形不太符合,不過他的激情和稍稍的莽撞一下子就讓你看到了一個熱血探員的風(fēng)采。幾位3K黨徒和為虎作倀的當(dāng)?shù)毓倭哦佳莸暮軅魃?,傳神的讓你為他們遲遲沒有被懲處著急,真想抽丫兩下。當(dāng)然,后來這批黨徒大都受到了懲罰,魯珀特?安德森找來了自己人以獨特的方式折騰了他們,而他的朋友中的一位的扮演者令我眼前一亮,驚呼“豎鋸”,那張蒼白的臉太標(biāo)志性了,沒錯,就是托賓?貝爾,“電鋸”迷大可看看本片尾聲一節(jié),看“豎鋸”大叔如何以非常規(guī)手段助FBI一臂之力。
本片取材于1966年,密西西比州的民權(quán)激進分子弗農(nóng)?達默遇害事件,與影片結(jié)尾懲惡揚善的暢快不同,真實事件的發(fā)展要曲折很多。弗農(nóng)?達默慘案發(fā)生后,諸多證據(jù)暗中指向了3K黨黨魁“巫師皇帝”塞繆爾?鮑爾斯,但是由于缺乏足夠證據(jù),這位幕后策劃者長期逍遙法外,直到1997年,才有一名新的證人出現(xiàn),讓塞繆爾?鮑爾斯接受了正義的審判。
《烈血大風(fēng)暴》堪稱一部帶著些死磕慘烈味道的電影,明知過程將會崎嶇坎坷,甚至帶來更激烈的沖突,如艾倫?沃得這樣的人依然竭力推動。從影片中,我們看到,當(dāng)時最糾結(jié)的是黑人,他們中大部分已經(jīng)有了一種逆來順受的沉默,因為在一個種族歧視彌漫的地區(qū),一切反抗都只能帶來更嚴(yán)重的報復(fù)。于是,我們看到的是一群白人在為黑人是否該受到平等對待進行制度化的對抗,而黑人則受到非制度化的暴力攻擊,這是一種悲哀的現(xiàn)實,卻也只是一時的困境,他們終于忍無可忍,如影片中的場景一樣,以游行的隊伍表達自我的尊嚴(yán),當(dāng)這些人走上前臺,密西西比才不必再燃燒。因為,與艾倫?沃得和魯珀特?安德森們一道,他們已經(jīng)點燃正義與平等的火把,去喚起更多人從社會痼疾中覺醒。
http://hi.baidu.com/doglovecat/blog/item/96c3b951b74a1e0f377abe27.html 4 ) 群星薈萃,奧斯卡提名,豆瓣標(biāo)記卻不足兩千
本文首發(fā)于公眾號:七號影庫(Theater7)
一個地方罪惡的形成往往不是一時興起的,而是長年累月堆積而成的。
評分:7.77丨影庫榜:97
劇 情 簡 介
1964年密西西比州的一個小鎮(zhèn),三個民權(quán)主義少年神秘失蹤,F(xiàn)BI探長艾倫(威廉·達福飾)和搭檔魯珀特(吉恩·哈克曼飾)被派往調(diào)查。
他們得知,三個少年失蹤當(dāng)天還在當(dāng)?shù)鼐?,并在晚上十點被釋放,此后便沒了下落。
調(diào)查過程中,兩人發(fā)現(xiàn)小鎮(zhèn)里充滿謊言,工作遭遇了重重困難。
不僅如此,這里的種族主義十分嚴(yán)重,白人與黑人之間幾無交流。
小鎮(zhèn)里的白人很排外,面對FBI的問題什么都不肯說。
而黑人則因為害怕也是閉口不談,調(diào)查工作陷入僵局。
更過分的是,在一個晚上,兩人遭受到了襲擊。
雖然人沒事,但還是讓艾倫無法忍受,他決定抽調(diào)人手開始嚴(yán)查。
原來,鎮(zhèn)上有個叫3K黨的組織,非常排外,宣揚種族主義。
他們經(jīng)常對鎮(zhèn)上的黑人實施報復(fù)行動,只要不聽話就燒房子殺人,無惡不作。
艾倫相信,三個民權(quán)主義少年的失蹤大概率與3K黨有關(guān)。
在拜訪小鎮(zhèn)的副警長克林頓的時候,魯珀特意外發(fā)現(xiàn)他也是3K黨成員。
不過在問起案發(fā)當(dāng)日行蹤時,他聲稱一直和妻子在一起。
魯珀特從他妻子的眼神中察覺到不對勁,他判斷克林頓在撒謊。
于是,他準(zhǔn)備找個機會趁克林頓不在家的時候,單獨找他妻子談?wù)劇?/p>
交談的過程中,兩人對彼此都很有好感,不過他妻子依然沒有說出當(dāng)晚克林頓的去處。
與此同時,3K黨對黑人的暴行愈演愈烈,事情正在變得更糟。
終于,克林頓的妻子因看不慣丈夫所作所為,說出了真相……
影 片 淺 析
非常冷門的電影,在寫推文的時候豆瓣標(biāo)記不到2000,但就是這樣一部冷門的電影匯集了很多影視明星,尤其是一些著名犯罪懸疑片的主角都在里面。比如《電鋸驚魂》中飾演豎鋸的托賓·貝爾,《致命ID》中飾演兇手本體的普路特·泰勒·文斯,《三塊廣告牌》的女主弗蘭西斯·麥克多蒙德,《刺殺肯尼迪》飾演男主助手的邁克爾·魯克,主角吉恩·哈克曼之后還主演了《竊聽大陰謀》,對于我一個懸疑片迷來說,能看到這些演員在同一部電影中出現(xiàn)是多么神奇的事情。
影片中的故事根據(jù)真實歷史事件改編,其中涉及了美國種族主義的代表性組織:3K黨。3K黨由1866年南北戰(zhàn)爭中被擊敗的前南方聯(lián)邦軍隊的退伍老兵組成,是美國最悠久、最龐大的種族主義組織,經(jīng)常通過暴力來達成目的。
影片也將3K黨通過反派的形式呈現(xiàn)在了觀眾的眼前,他們殺人放火無惡不作,甚至連法律都無法約束他們,雖然最終男主魯珀特通過特殊的手段懲戒了他們,但是相比于犯下的惡,判決結(jié)果也未免太輕了一點。
一個小鎮(zhèn),罪惡連連,官匪勾結(jié),無法無天,這已經(jīng)不僅僅是種族歧視的問題了,我認(rèn)為更多的是“掃黑除惡”的問題。影片最能讓我聯(lián)想到的不是近期正在發(fā)生的種族歧視引起的美國暴亂事件,而是疫情前期幾乎每天都能上熱搜的香港問題,且目前還未完全解決。
有個情節(jié)我印象深刻,就是在克林頓的妻子告訴魯珀特真相的那晚,她在之前說的話,“仇恨并不是天生的,是教導(dǎo)的”,在影片中提到鎮(zhèn)上孩子接受的教育讓他們從小就對黑人有著深刻的仇恨,這就讓像3K黨這樣的組織有了持續(xù)發(fā)展的助力,所以教育的重要性不言而喻,一個人的思想是很難隨著時間的流逝產(chǎn)生變化的。
影片結(jié)尾那一段以暴制暴雖然看著酣暢淋漓,也為讓觀眾受虐的心得到些許的平復(fù),但這始終不是長久之計。要徹底改變一個地方的文化、習(xí)慣和信仰,只能從教育抓起,從根本上去解決問題,否則只會出現(xiàn)像電影中或是現(xiàn)實里發(fā)生的一樣,F(xiàn)BI(警察)抓一個,人家法官給你放一個,因為他們根本就是穿同一條褲子的。
以暴制暴始終不是最佳選擇,要真正解決問題還得從根本著手,這是需要所有人共同去努力的。
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專注分享最值得一看的懸疑片
作者:小九 審核:小七
5 ) Movie Discussion – Mississippi Burning
The movie Mississippi Burning talked about a story happened in 1964. Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members murdered three civil right workers. Two FBI investigators came to the town to investigate and try to find the missing people. However, the investigation work was not easy for the two FBI agents because almost all of the police officers in that town were related to a huge KKK organization. KKK was an anti-immigration, white nationalism, and white supremacy group that used violence and threats to maintain white people’s supremacy against black people and white republicans. In the movie, the young agent Alan and the more experienced agent Anderson were trying to find out what had happened to the missing people and get information from the people in the town.
As the investigation proceeded, Alan and Anderson realized that even the victims (black group) would not want to provide information because they were afraid they would get retaliated. The local people were not co-operative with the FBI either because they hated people from Washington for political issues. The movie disclosed several conflicts within that period of 1960s: discrimination between white and black, political conflicts between north and south, conflicts between equality and patriarchy, justice and injustice.
Although the society seemed stabilized as most white people in the south did not attack black people, white community and black community did not communicate with each other, and the relationships were still not harmonious during that period. At the very beginning of the movie, Alan and Anderson walked into a restaurant and sat in the “colored area” because the “white area” was full. This behavior was deemed to be socially unacceptable in that town. All the white people in the restaurant were staring at Alan, and even black people would not want to respond to Alan’s questions because they were used to the way how “white” and “black” never talk.
As the society was revolutionizing, more people realized the society must be changed. The relationship and civil rights must be changed. Some people were trying to promote the civil right movement. KKK members were actually opposing this movement, and this is why KKK would murder so many black people as well as the civil right workers. Ironically, the movement was meant to make black people have better lives, but it actually created tragedies.
Another big conflict reflected in the movie was the intense relationship between north and south. Ever since after the civil war, Mississippi people thought that the northern “well-educated people” interfered Mississippi’s culture and society, which made the society chaotic. The chaos challenged both Alan and Anderson. They tried to stand for what they always believed, which is justice, but they reality was that the conflict and fight were getting more severe. They questioned whether they were doing the right things or not, as they found more and more black people got retaliated or even murdered.
At the end of the movie, the police officer’s wife helped Anderson with providing evidence about what KKK did. She had always been feeling uncomfortable with knowing what her husband did, so she told the truth. She sacrificed herself for providing FBI agents with important information, and eventually the KKK member were prosecuted.
After watching the movie, I felt very sad about what happened in Mississippi in 1960s. The movie not only told us what was about the civil rights movements, but also why we needed this movement.
6 ) 密西西比在燃燒
《密西西比在燃燒》是一部拍攝于1988年講述美國60年代黑人人權(quán)問題的影片,根據(jù)真實的歷史事件改編。1964年在美國南部密西西比州的一個小鎮(zhèn),2個猶太男孩和一個黑人男孩失蹤了,他們都是某個人權(quán)組織的成員。兩個FBI探員來到小鎮(zhèn)負責(zé)調(diào)查此案。他們在這里看到的不是簡單的失蹤案或謀殺案,而是熊熊燃燒的仇恨的火焰。影片的第一個鏡頭時兩個飲水機,上面各自掛了牌子,一個寫著“白人”,一個寫著“有色人種”。在這個仍然實行種族隔離制度的小鎮(zhèn),從鎮(zhèn)長到警察到許多普通白人公民都有著對于黑人的極端的偏見甚至仇恨。這種仇恨從何處來呢?是什莫樣的仇恨能驅(qū)使人們?nèi)⑷朔呕饸思覉@而毫無愧疚與憐憫呢?同樣的仇恨使得二戰(zhàn)時上千萬的猶太人被屠殺。 影片似乎并沒有能很好地回答這個問題。這部影片的背景正是美國黑人民 權(quán) 運 動的高潮時期,美 國 國 會先 后 在 1 9 6 4 、 1 9 6 5 和 1 9 6 8 年 通 過 了 三 個 被 統(tǒng) 稱 為 “ 第 二 次 解 放 黑 奴 宣 言 ” 的 民 權(quán) 法 案 , 從 法 律 上 徹 底 結(jié) 束 了 種 族 隔 離 和 種 族 歧 視 制 度。片中的案件是一個真實的案例,并且被認(rèn)為是民權(quán)運動里程碑式的一個案例。不過電影并沒有想拍成一部紀(jì)錄片,尤其是后半部分,簡直就是一部情節(jié)有些老套的好萊塢式的伸張正義的電影。我不知道影片是否想諷刺FBI的辦事能力,片中那些FBI探員身著一式的深色西服,看上去傻乎乎的,而且招來200個FBI探員,居然毫無進展。最后還是Gene Hackman飾演的那個老探員招來自己以前當(dāng)警長時的手下,以爆制爆才最終把那些3K黨的殺人兇手搞定。該片的導(dǎo)演Alan Parker曾經(jīng)執(zhí)導(dǎo)過那部著名的英國電影《迷墻》Pink Floyd The Wall.
尋求正義的道路總是曲折難行,最可怕的也許不是被壓迫,而是習(xí)慣并認(rèn)同了被壓迫的狀態(tài)。本片在冷靜全景式的鏡頭下隱隱有種不屈的力量,一直在慢慢醞釀,配樂和不斷燃燒的黑人家園,給人以強烈的視覺沖擊力,進而帶動著情緒的不斷累積。作為故事推進的手段,既貼合劇情又情緒飽滿。
借小孩失蹤事件講述美國六十年代種族對立,前四分之三基本是很壓抑的狀態(tài),被燃燒的房屋,被吊起的黑人老爹,被毆打的科恩嫂,F(xiàn)BI在與三K黨地頭蛇的對弈中全面落敗,直到哈克曼發(fā)飆,后半個小時才復(fù)仇成功,但也算不上多痛快,和那段歷史一樣傷痛始終存在。哈克曼和達福一松一緊,按理應(yīng)該是適合的搭檔,但呈現(xiàn)效果一般,導(dǎo)演也沒致力于打造經(jīng)典拍檔上,這點比較遺憾。
豆瓣上居然才這么少人看過這部電影。攝影無愧得奧斯卡,雖然也有著白人拯救世界與情節(jié)過于戲劇化的時代印記,不過對一種充滿歷史感與社會學(xué)意味的對南方黑人境況的再現(xiàn)與悲劇渲染卻已超越后來許多描寫種族關(guān)系的影片,散發(fā)出強勁的政治感召力。
Hackman就是怒!McDormand當(dāng)年貌似美女
970M HDTV.MiniSD-TLF.艾倫·帕克 .mkv
片子很現(xiàn)實,同時又很戲劇,挺好看?!熬G魔”威廉·達福年輕的時候也很清秀,遠看像達蒙;科恩的老婆年輕時也很漂亮,可惜很快就變大媽了。還有不少熟面孔,《飛躍瘋?cè)嗽骸返男』镒?,《全金屬外殼》的教官,《土撥鼠日》的買保險的……
震撼Walk on by Faith
到了今天,ISIS的恐怖主義同樣把暴力和仇恨訴諸伊斯蘭國和古蘭經(jīng)。殺人的從來不是槍,而是拿槍的人。當(dāng)?shù)赖潞头删鶡o效用時,人類只能用暴力抵擋暴力。Alan Parker的影片在劇本打造上從來都是起承轉(zhuǎn)合的典范,觀眾的怒火與片中人同步升溫,合理的情節(jié)鋪墊輕易地獲得觀眾的共鳴,又一經(jīng)典類型片范本。
2001年的上海國際電影節(jié),Alan Parker的系列電影中,我翻譯的是這一部。比磚頭還要厚的臺本,我從頭到尾通讀了起碼兩遍。
原來有好多明星,還有科恩哥的老婆。
三K黨迫害黑人的歷史時期為背景。倆FBI探員設(shè)定一文一武,一個性情一個理智。吉恩·哈克曼和威廉達福演得都很好。電影整體氣氛都比較壓抑,但結(jié)尾轉(zhuǎn)變過快。正義來得越簡單輕松,也就越廉價,讓前面的鋪墊失去意義?!墩嫣健贰侗窇?yīng)該有參考這個片子。三星半
魯帕特十分同情皮爾妻子的遭遇,隨著時間的推移,皮爾的妻子漸漸對魯帕特產(chǎn)生了感情,這讓魯帕特和艾倫看到了案件的突破口
繼《天使之心》后,艾倫帕克短時間內(nèi)又拍了一部以種族隔離為大背景的戲,外來的力量闖入封閉的社群并試圖打破由來已久的傳統(tǒng),經(jīng)典故事的框架。由老油條哈克曼和菜鳥威廉達福組成的雙人組來到密西西比小鎮(zhèn)調(diào)查三位少年的失蹤案,后者堅持按規(guī)條辦事只懂堆積人馬自然是事倍功半,最后還是經(jīng)驗豐富的前者靠著「刑訊逼供」與「心理戰(zhàn)術(shù)」逐個擊破了參與屠戮行動的警民七人組。盡管種族歧視驅(qū)動著故事發(fā)展,但還是覺得對白人族群仇視黑人,盲目排外的渲染做得太滿了,黑人被3K黨所毆打屠戮的畫面配上富有感染力的圣歌固然很沖擊人心,但缺乏更深層的挖掘就讓故事只能浮于情緒積累的表面(也許意味深長的結(jié)尾還有些以點及面的發(fā)散思考)?!肛Q鋸」托賓貝爾演了個小探員(但發(fā)際線也未免太高了吧),我尋思你們都有「豎鋸」了還搞不定幾個3K黨?
小鎮(zhèn)上失蹤了三個孩子:黑人與猶太人(不是簡單的white boy);而生活在這樣純樸的小鎮(zhèn)上意味著嫁給你高中時代的sweet heart然后用余生來思考到底哪里出了錯。想想看,阿希禮和巴特勒船長也曾經(jīng)在這些人群中。這就是X所說的white devil,蘇珊娜所經(jīng)歷的密西西比之夏,斯蒂芬金幾乎所有的恐怖小說。
一部帶著些死磕慘烈味道的電影,明知過程將會崎嶇坎坷,甚至帶來更激烈的沖突。影片正是從一個側(cè)面,一個事件,給觀眾帶來了那個時代全景式的感受,喚起更多人從社會痼疾中覺醒
配樂可以給五星,其他的話就真的只能在三星左右了。這還可以借鑒一點,應(yīng)該是如何在學(xué)院派的激進之中,適當(dāng)批判到最后歌頌這個社會。這一點可以讓中國的導(dǎo)演們好好學(xué)學(xué)。重看減一星。味如嚼蠟的結(jié)構(gòu)?美式主旋律。在各種權(quán)力運動失敗后,美國自己右派媒體想到的偽反思路數(shù)真尼瑪惡心。
其實南北戰(zhàn)爭之后,表面上奴隸制廢除了,其實黑人并沒有享受到多少人權(quán),坐公交,去餐館,上學(xué)都白人分開的,到了20世紀(jì)60年代,在馬丁路德金的帶領(lǐng)下,黑人在追求自己權(quán)利的道路上取得重大進展,但是除了幾個極端州之外,密西西比就是其中之一。受害者的家人曾說,除非你能夠在法庭上給他們定罪,負責(zé)查清案情也是徒勞。美國的憲法所賦予的權(quán)利“人人生來平等”,是通過血淋淋的案件推動的。
好看,步步為營一氣呵成,白人至上主義者的暴虐殘忍和聯(lián)邦警探的霹靂手段,欲揚先抑,有如復(fù)仇片一樣爽快
黑人的靈歌總是聽起來特別空靈卻苦難....我理解種族主義者的態(tài)度和想法,我也相信平等民主和公民權(quán)利,只是凡事變成了狂熱狀態(tài),那么離結(jié)束也就不遠了。
9.0/10。FUCK!配樂帶勁,演員牛逼,節(jié)奏暴烈!導(dǎo)演手法雖較為老套卻像看得像搖滾樂一樣帶感。通篇無尿點!畫面之下盡顯更各種強烈沖突,處處都是高潮,處處都在爆發(fā)!仿佛整個密西西比此時就正在燃燒?。。。。。?!