今年1月20日是意大利著名導(dǎo)演費(fèi)里尼誕辰100周年。說來慚愧，雖然不時(shí)聽到朋友們叨叨費(fèi)里尼，我卻連他的一部電影都沒有看過。眼下這時(shí)候，只好趕緊找來他的一些片子看看，沒有“致敬”的意思，只是為了維護(hù)我這個(gè)偽影迷的面子。那么只有暫且讓德尼羅先在一邊歇會(huì)了。

我這里收集了他執(zhí)導(dǎo)的影片20部，順手挑了一部《白酋長》看。這是1952年上映的電影，黑白片。講的是一個(gè)再普通不過的事情。一對新婚夫婦到羅馬開始蜜月旅行，妻子旺達(dá)是個(gè)狂熱的追星族，一到羅馬就去找她的偶像“白酋長”，還陰錯(cuò)陽差的和他一起拍片。其實(shí)這位“白酋長”在現(xiàn)實(shí)中不過是一個(gè)浪蕩色鬼，和我們通?？吹降哪切┭菟嚱缛耸恳粯印Ｓ信劢z上趕著找上門來，他當(dāng)然不會(huì)放過。好在50年代人們的觀念還比較保守，再加上“白酋長”的胖老婆突然到了片場，使得“白酋長”策劃的一場陰謀未能得逞。這邊當(dāng)丈夫的伊凡失魂落魄的四處找他的老婆，情急之中還跑到警察局報(bào)案，回來還要用盡心思敷衍叔叔和姑姑，搞的他焦頭爛額。最后的結(jié)局還不錯(cuò)，遲到的夫婦隨著一眾親戚們走進(jìn)了教堂。

從影片中我們可以看到，明星崇拜早已有之，旺達(dá)只是其中之一。實(shí)際上，她所迷戀的并不是真實(shí)生活中的那個(gè)演員，而是他在影片中的演技，他所扮演的那個(gè)不死之身完美無缺的人物形象，以及他在影片中所經(jīng)歷的那些劈波斬浪所向無敵的奇跡。近年來，這股追星的狂熱又有了新的發(fā)展，那就是羨慕明星們所擁有的財(cái)富。追星族們都暗自下定決心：一旦當(dāng)上明星擁有了數(shù)不完的錢，一定要先買倆包子，吃一個(gè)扔一個(gè)！于是，這股風(fēng)潮彌漫在橫店街頭、電影學(xué)院門前和北太平莊的馬路牙子上。甚至對明星們?yōu)R到身上的泥點(diǎn)子也如醉如癡的迷戀。

那些明星們在銀幕上創(chuàng)造了許許多多完美的形象。我們應(yīng)該稱羨的是他們的演技以及為此付出的勞動(dòng)?？杉热皇茄輵?，他們就是在“演”，而并非表現(xiàn)的是戲下的自己。真實(shí)的娛樂圈就是一潭渾水，其中的爛人爛事可謂多矣。且不說譚鑫培就是個(gè)大煙鬼，就是我們平時(shí)印象中一貫正直傳統(tǒng)的摩根·弗里曼也早已是緋聞纏身。如陳道明那樣潔身自好的演員寥若晨星。更多的是近年來狗仔們紛紛揭示出那些出軌打架吸毒的明星們。《白酋長》中的這位就是一個(gè)很典型的例子。風(fēng)流瀟灑，善玩善騙。為了泡妞，可以把眾多演員和導(dǎo)演晾在一邊，駕上小船和旺達(dá)一起去浪漫。差點(diǎn)就得手了。

在今天的太平盛世里，早年的英雄崇拜早已蕩然無存，道德觀念也有了許多變化。信仰的缺失又使得人們找不到方向。生活節(jié)奏越來越快，人們懶得去思考。情感無處發(fā)泄無法寄托，于是有了追星。想起了一句話：“現(xiàn)在的人們沒有思考，只有選擇?！比缬捌械耐_(dá)，追星追到了極致。咱們這里也有那個(gè)為了華仔死去活來的女子。到最后都使自己陷入了尷尬的境地。依我看，追星實(shí)在不是個(gè)好差事，有這功夫，你即使不信什么主義，哪怕找個(gè)天主教伊斯蘭教佛教信一信也好啊，至少可以讓人們空虛的靈魂得到一些撫慰。

在經(jīng)歷了那一天的失落之后，旺達(dá)清醒了。她的丈夫伊凡很平庸?？善胀ㄓ衷鯓?？平庸又怎樣？在這個(gè)世界上，我們都是普通的人，過著普通的生活。如果你有才華有理想，你盡可以用這才華去追尋理想。如果你沒有，就這樣生活也不錯(cuò)。畢竟千百萬人都是這樣踏實(shí)的生活著。生活中最忌諱的就是志大才疏，整天活在虛無縹緲的幻想中，長此以往只會(huì)毀了生活，毀了自己。影片結(jié)尾，旺達(dá)挽著伊凡的手對他說：“你就是我的白酋長。”她確實(shí)明白了。

在戰(zhàn)后一段時(shí)期中，歐洲各國的電影界開始了一陣創(chuàng)新狂熱。法國有新浪潮，意大利則有了新現(xiàn)實(shí)主義。它的特點(diǎn)就是離開攝影棚，更看重實(shí)景拍攝，演員表演樸實(shí)自然。影片題材也采用生活中普遍存在的現(xiàn)象和事件，盡量讓觀眾看起來未加雕琢，并置身其中感同身受。我看過的有《羅馬十一點(diǎn)》、《警察與小偷》、《偷自行車的人》等。還有一部印象最深的，名字忘了。講的是一個(gè)失業(yè)者到處找工作，碰見不少怪事，也遇到了心愛的女子，可最后還是對生活失去了希望，從水塔上跳下自殺了。費(fèi)里尼自然也是新現(xiàn)實(shí)主義的代表之一。這部《白酋長》就一反好萊塢的風(fēng)格，不去追求驚險(xiǎn)刺激離奇怪誕，只是平鋪直敘了一個(gè)最簡單的故事。而觸動(dòng)觀眾的也許就是這樣一些生活瑣事。

影片的拍攝技巧稍顯生澀。但也有一些成為了日后的經(jīng)典。整體敘事比較拖沓，或許和50年代人們的思維習(xí)慣相一致吧。在影片中我們還感受到了意大利人的性格，和法國人的天性浪漫不同，意大利人更樂觀更隨意。并以這種散漫的態(tài)度生活著。

說點(diǎn)題外話。值此非常時(shí)期，我覺得朋友們還是少上街，少去超市搶購，少去看熱鬧，踏踏實(shí)實(shí)在家里呆著。何以解憂，唯有看電影。打開電腦，選一個(gè)好看的，也是一樁樂事啊。

本人評(píng)分：7.0。

Taxing as it might be for the audience to sympathize with Ivan Cavalli, when Wanda whispers to him at the end that she did not sin, and thus remains innocent, one is more or less prone to be touched by what seems to be a bitter-sweet reconciliation between a dreamy, starstruck young wife and a husband for whom the preservation of honor constitutes the singularly most important imperative: as Ivan smiles at Wanda's repentance and the camera zooms out, ending the movie with the couple running on the piazza to catch their appointment with the pope against the circusy music by Nino Rota, some might even be tempted to call it a happy ending.

Great movies attain their greatness not merely through brilliant technical details but also through a rare perspicuity that is sometimes mistaken for simplicity. Taken at face value, The White Sheik might just be a simple comedy: a couple travels to Rome for their honeymoon, whereupon the wife sneaks away to meet a Fumetti star, the White Sheik, and the husband left to cover up for her disappearance in front of his not so gullible family. When Wanda realizes, however, that the White Sheik in reality does not live up to his image, she recognizes one of the many faces of the "cruel fate," as she rightfully puts it, and commits suicide unsuccessfully, to later return to Ivan and their marriage. The first difficulty for a more discerning audience, nevertheless, lies in the hint of Flaubertine note in the story. Just Like Emma, Wanda is fed up with the philistines around her and is bedazzled by a dream that is largely a product of, as Vladimir Nabokov might put it, her poor taste as a philistine herself. And just like Emma, Wanda attempts at closing the gap between reality and dream by performing -- indeed acting out -- the latter. What can be "rosy" about this neorealistic, intensely farcical flick, however, is that the writers (Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Michelangelo Antonioni along with Fellini) never allowed Wanda to pass the point of no return, which makes possible her later reinitiation into the family (the uncle -- the patriarch, after sizing her up for a while, extends a warm embrace) as well as the movie's deceptively light-hearted tone.

In this way, Wanda, both in motivation and consequence, commits a lesser "crime" compared to Emma, and the way she is shielded from culpability -- as sanctioned by Ivan and the movie -- can be adequately attributed to her lack of ability to act/perform: she sneaks away only upon the White Sheik's invitation ("she doesn't know anyone in Rome," complains the unknowing Ivan), her little escapade prolonged only because the crew, without asking for consent, drives her to the countryside, 26 kilometers away from Rome, where they shoot the Fumetti. The movie never shows us how she gets a cameo on set, and when they sail out, the White Sheik's attempt at seducing her is sabotaged, not by her rejection, but by a timely swinging mast.

Innocent, impressionable, and immobile, Wanda is in many ways "coaxed" into a "crime" to which she herself is no less an accomplice but which only actualized unconsciously. The "crime" here is not so much her disloyalty to her husband (her runaway is more of a child's blunder than a woman's willful deceit) as the effect of her disappearance on the Cavalli's good name, a fact that Wanda and Ivan as petits-bourgeois are only too painfully aware of, in a particular locus where catholicism has its tight grip especially on the more provincial parts (where Ivan and Wanda comes from, as the movie implies) and minds. Upon reuniting with Wanda, Ivan mistakes her for having had sex with another man, but despite his agony, his imperative pervails when he apopletically demands her to put on the proper attire and go see the pope, as scheduled by his uncle, who, though having suspected that something fishy is going on, is still under the impression that Wanda is only sick in bed. The ruse, on Ivan's side, lives on, and Wanda quietly takes up a renewed role of accomplice in the cover up of her own "crime."

The dissolution of the "crime," a requisite for the farce to end, is then two-pronged: on one hand, through a miracle; on the other, through Wanda's passivity/innocence. Fellini does not intend this movie to carry much religious undertone, since the urgency of the couple's appointment with the pope derives from the fact that it is arranged by Ivan's uncle, who occupies a dubiously "important" office at Vatican, and not from the papacy itself. Such eagerness to oblige someone who lodges higher in the social stratum at the same time someone who assumes the role of the patriarch is, to be sure, both clearly presented and only worldly. The miracle we are talking about, nevertheless, is impossibly religious and hilarious. When Wanda attempts to commit suicide by the river, it turns out to be only ankle-deep, leaving Wanda baptized and, consequently, saved by an alerted passerby. This absolution arrives both as an aftermath and a herald to Wanda's innocence; the former, for Wanda has uphold her integrity by means of passivity; the latter, for the suicide allows Wanda to participate in the act of "redeeming" herself, and though her plan is botched, it nevertheless provides a pathway for her innocence to enter her consciousness: the will to repent can be, after all, a proverbial source of courage.

What gets even more interesting is how Fellini utilizes moments of deus ex machina to jack up the hilarity (as well as the folly) of circumstances. The first one is Wanda's foiled suicide. Here, we are witnessing a woman who spends most of her time on screen in paralysis finally acting on her own will (though ironically one leading to her own destruction) and spectacularly fails because of a deceptively deep river. The other, the mast that almost purposefully knocks on the White Sheik, provides a perfect situation in which Wanda's danger of being seduced dissipates on itself and hence, no decision is to be made and no morality jeopardized. Admittedly, what keeps a farce going is the constant frustration of plans and desires, whose consummation would invariably end the chase once and for all. It is in this way that we might object that these two instances were but exemplifications of the most fundamental comedy law. But the joke does not simply end there. In these two monumental moments, Wanda is metaphysically stranded on the island between paralysis and activity: when paralyzed, she is merely shoved around, in fact transacted hand to hand, by those who "have a plan;" and when she takes on her own plan, it is bluntly thwarted. Besieged both way, Wanda is trapped in a quandary not only relevant to the problematics of feminism but also to the problematics of modernity, where the efficacy of action as a myth, a strategy, and a performance is called to attention, if not already bankrupted.

Indeed, one laughs for many reasons when Wanda fails to drown. There's the classic irony of a person being denied of interacting with her circumstances meaningfully, and there's the affected, clumsy performance of suicide Brunella Bovo brilliantly adopts. The folly of innocence, when blended with the right amount of sentimentalism and poor taste, often leads to genuine and self-important emotional investment in actions that shrivel under the severity of intention. Almost as if she's too ill-at-ease with her newfound activity, at the same time too well informed of the burlesque, questinonably "exotic" and inexorably romantic adventure plot lines of the popular Fumetti, Wanda performs, with the tritest lines, her penitence when leaving a message for her husband, and, when she sees a painting of skull on the wall, is immediately inspired to stage her suicide, dictating instead of regrets her final words, in equally trite terms, to a concierge who appropriately couldn’t care less. To discuss the mawkish, indeed poor, theatricality of Wanda’s suicide is not, however, to discredit her genuine sorrow and her will to carry the deed out; it is precisely her seriousness, juxtaposed to the insignificance of her “crime,” that funds the hilarity of her failure, at the same time unsettling the audience with the disproportionate (self)punishment. Comical and sad at the same time, Wanda’s decision to die reveals not only the fact that she cannot act, but also the fact that she is trapped by clichés disseminated through popular culture that deprive her of any seriousness to be treated with.

Such insignificance of action, thoughts, and will, though the common language of comedy, nevertheless serves a wide array of purposes. For someone like Fellini, who’s invariably interested in the variety show, the circus, the farce, the spectacle, the outsider, and the weirdo, there is a wistful tenderness to the idea of performance (taken to its extreme forrm, freak shows). On the one hand, the clowns make themselves the punchline of the joke; on the other hand, there is the haunting mediocrity and dullness of, inevitably, life, that invades the space where laughters cannot penetrate. Whether one is consciously or unconsciously subscribing to a given script, whether one has an audience or not, one performs according to a larger order that more often than not strips one of idiosyncrasy, originality, and creation, contrary to how one might have appeared. There are many small ways we get to usurp such order, as Michel de Certeau rightfully points out, but the order remains the reference point, exerting the centripetal force that keeps one spinning on and on around something located outside of oneself. It is made clear to the audience that the urgency of Ivan's task of locating Wanda derives, at least partially, from the need to maintain a certain social order, the compliance with which creates a sense of security at the same time an illusion of dignity. Above all, one is also led to question Ivan's notion of love when his plan for the honeymoon precludes Wanda's participation. When Ivan is haplessly wandering in the metropolis, he is strained not as much by the prospect of losing his love as by the possibility of subverting, inadvertently, the social order upon which his family and his sense of self is founded, flourishes, and now going to flounder. When prompted, he shares the photos of Wanda with Calibria, identifying her as someone that is altogether an illusion of what Wanda appears to the rest of us: a straight A student and a beauty, which is, again, in line with his delusions about his partner from the very beginning, which is also the reason why he can never anticipate her leaving. He runs on and on, breathlessly, around a center point, like an obstinate pair of compasses, whose futility, both of action and love, is only predetermined by his circular trajectory that would never lead him anywhere.

Take the White Sheik, for another example. Alberto Sordi's excellent rendition of an haughty, debonair celebrity of a pulp production is inspired by an immemorial but stubborn idea of gallantry, complemented with equally trite speeches. Despite his suave mannerism, he remains just another Fellini's clown, who, by force of habit, continues to perform a character that is larger than life, whose later exposé again points to the precariousness of pretending what one isn't. But performance needs not be reduced to merely a lie. Fellini's sweetness is inherent in his treatment of performance as a dream as what dream in all truth is. It is spectacle fabricated and invented for us to behold and marvel at, an exit of life, which is easily blunted once our ability to fabricate and invent is dulled by the various orders we are initiated into. But it is also make-believe painstakingly created to pilfer the qualities of the reality: a dream would cease to be a dream if our attention is called to its nature as a fraud. To that extent, a dream also presents us with a paradox. Those who always wake up from it would find it more difficult to dream, and those who barely wakes up from it would no longer be able to distinguish the boundaries between fabrication and reality. The White Sheik and Wanda both belong to the latter, and there's almost a whiff of charming na?veté to it, particularly when one considers how dreams can also be fantastically offensive (the curious whiteness to the sheikdom, in addition to or as part of the fumetti's colonialist campaign to imagine the exotic, and the absolutely ridiculous story the White Sheik tells Wanda on the boat, which she believes).

In The White Sheik, the dream and the reality constantly intercut with each other, which primarily functions to create a rather successful comedic effect. But the juxtaposition is also tasked to unveil an important dilemma. When Wanda realizes the truth about dream, she wakes up and reenter her reality as Ivan's wife, but one is left speculating whether marriage with Ivan, with his conventional ideas of family and women, indeed a dull man, is where Wanda's happiness finally starts. But on the other hand, we understand, just like Wanda now understands, that for all their glitz and glamour, dreams are nothing but mirage, illusion, sleight of hand, who promise not happiness but transitory and blissful oblivion that fends off quotidian sorrow and ennui. Forced to retreat to a banal reality from a fantastical dream made of platitude,Wanda, at the end of the day, is left in a position that is difficult to congratulate. As the couple flees their troubles and marches towards their now secured future, the tragedies lurking in the corners finally start to seep into the light core of the comedy. But Wanda isn't the unhappy one, let us not kid ourselves. She lives on in a wonderously woven dream. It is only us who are left to deal with the burns and jests of a waking life.