Glancing with a documentary eye, John Huston’s FAT CITY opens withKris Kristofferson’s lugubrious HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT to accommodate to a downbeat tonality, and concomitantly fills the screen with montages of the story’s locale and denizens, a rundown California town calledStockton in the 50s, and then introduces Billy Tully (a cleft-lipped and hair-receding Keach), a divorced, childless peckerwood and former boxer on the brink of turning 30, doing odd jobs from hand to mouth, he aspires to return to the ring, but both physically and mentally he hasn’t been conditioned to reclaim his glory. Meantime, a young stud Ernie Munger (Bridges), recommended by Billy, starts his professional boxing days but is he really the“one in a million” material which Billy sees in him?

The script is penned by the author of its source novel,Leonard Gardner, which warrants fidelity to a large extent but also leans more on Billy than Ernie in the narrative. The boxing scenes, to the lights of a pugilism outsider, are less vicarious and impactful than its more famed cinematic cousins and sometimes one can discern they are playacting, both Keach and Bridges are not toned up in a pro’s shape, but that might be the case here, Billy is over the hill, and the allusive reason behind his hard-earned victory is more due to his opponent’s deteriorating health than his own prowess. As for Ernie, he loses both two matches presented on-screen and has a soft belly which both literally and metaphorically implies that he is a younger version of Billy, getting married out of onus rather than love, the road ahead of him looks glum, and it speaks volumes in the final close-up where the two boxers sitting sipping their coffee in concert but inside they are miles away from each other (Billy is a lush Ernie tries to avoid), without obvious effort of fumbling for words, that silent moment could be the only time they share before parting company for keeps, no matter how similar their trajectories will be, both Keach and Bridges (at a tender age of 23) are extraordinary players of conveying connotations and embodying nuances.

A boisterousSusan Tyrell snatches an Oscar nomination for her terrific turn as Oma, a barfly who strikes a romantic relationship with Billy, but she is a damaged goods through and through, married twice before, habitually drenched in the hard stuff, Billy might be merely a fling to her while her current lover is in the jug. The two-handers between them are coruscating with sheer communion (in the seedy bar where they engages themselves from small talk to wearing their affectionate hearts on their sleeves), or blistering intensity (in their equally mangy bedsit where Huston pulls off the most kitchen-sink spat in the American map),she is an attainable lure for a rough diamond like Billy, but she does him no good, and the vicious circle will never cease to repeat, time and again, because loneliness brings people together but it takes a helluva luck to be able to stick together.

In a word, FAT CITY is on the top rung of Huston’s corpus, a strangely disconsolate but whole-heartedly candid social critique of the stagnation and cul-de-sac facing by the have-nots, bestowed with a sublimely subdued texture with unobtrusive dexterity, but as a boxing drama, it still looks rough-hewn and conspicuously pulls its punches in terms of veracity.

referential points: John Huston’s THE DEAD (1987, 8.1/10), UNDER THE VOLCANO (1984, 5.2/10); Martin Scorsese’s RAGING BULL (1980, 8.1/10).

SARS的兄弟SARI來了，武漢封城，所有和武漢有過關聯(lián)的人都成了“敵人”，全國上下一級警備，我們都躲在家里避難，憋氣，等待。等待病毒像冬風一樣快一點刮過，生活恢復如常。電影院關閉了，頭條花了6.3億買下了新春賀歲檔“囧媽”的播映權，人們可以在頭條app免費看電影，可是我們家沒有一個人愿意看，寶貝們寧可看柯南，而我看了這部沒有營養(yǎng)的“Fat city”。

Fat city原來是美國黑人中流傳的一個俚語，be in fat city用來表示美好的生活，而本片反映的落魄拳擊手的頹廢的生活，它緊緊聯(lián)系著辛苦的工作，昔日的夢想，醺酒，無奈，生活在悲哀地重復，女人瘋狂叫喊，男人醉著承諾負責，經(jīng)紀人在你危難中送來一根稻草，又在你艱難成功中攫取你的財富。

Verry說，別看這么瘋狂的電影，看一些積極向上的吧，可是我覺得，正是我了解生活的苦難和無奈，才能一直堅持下來。二十年，第一次把全家福發(fā)上了微信，也是心中的第一次認可。困難總會過去的，只要我們夠堅持，夠強大。

新好萊塢運動電影，《憤怒的公?！芳啊度绱诉\動生涯》一樣，悄悄墜落，命中注定又不知不覺。康拉德霍爾的攝影是相當出色。

對于所謂“一種疏離”式的表達，安東尼奧尼的《過客》結(jié)尾便是最佳范例，同樣的，這種質(zhì)感也出現(xiàn)在了休斯頓《富城》的開頭，伴隨著“help me make it through the night”，天涯淪落人的基奇出場。此片結(jié)尾在他和布里吉斯在咖啡廳同向而坐的無言中，又以克里斯托弗森的“help me make it through the night”結(jié)束。

這并不是關于拳擊運動，而是關于70年代。新好萊塢那一時期的創(chuàng)作，總會用一個亞類型敘事包裹著70年代的意識形態(tài)，藝術家們的立場或是追懷或是批評或沉醉其中?！都{什維爾》是音樂片、《逍遙騎士》是公路片、《幫手》是西部片、《富城》是拳擊片、《曾今滄海難為水》、《受騙》、《黛絲米勒》是復古片…還有一眾源遠流長的戲仿黑白電影，他們一道，成為了70年代帶有類型片外殼的歷史浮世繪。

休斯頓并不有憤世嫉俗的幽默、或者保守派認定世風日下的憤慨，抑或是黃金時代好萊塢的視差所造成的詫異。如休斯頓和津尼曼者，默默融入歷史潮流，甘愿在格格不入中尋找支點，以發(fā)揮余熱…看看此片拳臺鏡頭，幾乎比馬克·羅布森這個專業(yè)戶還要精彩呢。