On Miss Birchfield’s terrace, our somber, reserved hero Sol Nazerman bitterly uttered his ‘long lost’ experience: ‘It’s been a long time since I felt ... fear. ... There have been memories that I have ... Well, I thought that I had pushed them far away from me, and they keep rushing in. And then there are words that I thought that I have kept myself from hearing and … now they flood my mind.’ Indeed, the fear that overwhelms Sol is generated from his memories. And memory introduces two key issues in this film, that is, how does one live with traumatic memories that he intentionally tried to ‘push away’ and in what ways can the art of filmmaking approach them.

As for the first question, one may answer with the role played by memory in Sol’s ‘dead’ life: in fact, this debilitated character, who keeps himself remote from everyone, solely has his dire memories as company. In the terrace conversation, he refuses Miss Birchfield’s sympathy of him ‘being alone’ with a sneer – for Sol, the problem is not loneliness (we may also recall her na?ve comparison between her loss of husband and Sol’s experience in the camp), but the memories that kept haunting him and depriving him of serenity. Despite Tessie’s father’s furious accusation of being a ‘walking dead’, Sol cannot, if we quote Rodriguez in a later scene in the film, ‘die when (he) want(s) it so badly’. Memory is a phantom lives in his body, dominating his pawnbroker life all the time. Thus, we may say that, although related to the old times, memory, per se, is not a series of events that happened in the past. It is what grabs you and parasitizes you as you walk down the journey of life.

So, how does one live with memories that they try to eliminate but keep flooding back? The answer is, he takes them as fragments that randomly interrupt his semi-conscious mind. And here comes the answer to our second question: Lumet’s splendid montage is the key to represent such kind of memory. Take the scene when the prostitute strips at the pawnshop for example. When she first mentions the name of Rodriguez, a picture of a Nazi officer is cut in twice, extremely briefly. And then a static picture of his wife cuts in, also very briefly. The pictures disappear so quickly that the audience almost cannot figure out what it really is – some may not even notice it. Then, as she strips with her suggestive line ‘Look’, we begin to catch the full picture of Sol’s dreadful memory of seeing his wife being forced into prostitution. And this is exactly how such kind of memories intrudes our real life. At first, it comes to you almost randomly and briefly, so brief that you might not even notice it. You only sense, something is there. And this tiny fragment works like a pebble drops into the deep lake of your mind. As it sinks, a dimple hundreds times bigger than the pebble itself expands in the surface - the brief fragments eventually recall a huge picture which overlays your current life. And the disturbing truth is, once the pebble drops, you can no longer protect your lake from forming the toxic dimple.

Apart from the brilliant montage that reveals the myth of how memories work, the usage of black and white pictures also contributes to enhance the effect of memories. On the one hand, as in Schindler’s List, the black and white in The Pawnbroker also works to express hopelessness, bitterness and solemnness. But unlike the much more reassuring colored candle used as a symbol of hope in Schindler’s List, The Pawnbroker’s usage of complete black and white places a much harsher reality: 20 years after the WW II, survivors cannot see any hope. This change, by the way, is also a very interesting topic concerning the possibilities of making art out of the Holocaust. On the other hand, if we see black and white as a widely used method in filmmaking to illustrate things happen in the past, we discover an intention to eliminate the boundary between the past and the present. The memories of old days before the Camp are colorless because they make the tragedy even tougher. Days in the Camp are reasonably black and white whereas the current life cannot be colorful because memories from the past are always there, depriving any possible colors. Also, while Lumet used sharp contrast of black and white to present different places and mental status, in most cases the two colors mixes into an undistinguishable grey, a color that best summarizes the state of Sol’s mind – indifferent, inescapable and desperate. Though one may argue that on seeing the death of Jesus, Sol starts to ‘sense the shame of his detachment’ (the flashbacks of faces before he slams his hand down on a paper spike can be an evidence), we have to be aware of the fact that Sol is actually going through another cycle of picking up horrible memories and carrying them downwards.

在現(xiàn)代生活里，追逐金錢(qián)成為唯一解脫。追逐金錢(qián)的過(guò)程，需要摘除同情與愛(ài)。當(dāng)冷酷無(wú)情開(kāi)始占據(jù)上風(fēng)，自我逐漸喪失，情感機(jī)能便也隨之破碎。喪失自我的本我，攫取金錢(qián)的面孔，與納粹又何異？這便是生活恐懼本源。

以為刻意麻木，便能甩開(kāi)恐懼，殊不知恐懼如影隨形，在生活的某個(gè)閃回空間里便會(huì)顯現(xiàn)?，F(xiàn)代城市生活，不過(guò)是另一輛通往集中營(yíng)的列車。你去感知，它便以痛苦的方式存在；你若不覺(jué)，你只是一具可以行走的死尸。

想以死亡來(lái)了結(jié)這一切么？生活怎會(huì)如此簡(jiǎn)單便如你愿？它會(huì)在你未料的某個(gè)時(shí)刻，植入給你更大的痛苦。諷刺地，是以你最想要的死亡的方式，但那個(gè)死亡卻是別人的。你需面對(duì)與擔(dān)當(dāng)?shù)模允锹槟蚩謶?。無(wú)所遁逃、無(wú)能為力。

這便是現(xiàn)代生活困境。

        鑒于確實(shí)沒(méi)有好好讀過(guò)書(shū)也沒(méi)有好好看過(guò)阿倫雷內(nèi)和羅布格里耶，因此只是看過(guò)之后閑扯幾句。
    一定是受豬影響所以才會(huì)想到都市與現(xiàn)代性上面。 開(kāi)篇和結(jié)尾的對(duì)比：戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)之前的田園牧歌，現(xiàn)代都市的"條條框框"。主人公消逝于混亂的街道人群。
    影片空間的選擇饒有趣味，閉塞，擁擠，到處都是網(wǎng)格。（與之對(duì)比的毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)的二戰(zhàn)監(jiān)獄的鐵絲網(wǎng)）
    閃回并不是電影中的新鮮手法，即便在60年代也如此。勾勒串起全篇的實(shí)際上是現(xiàn)實(shí)與記憶。但是不同于我印象中看過(guò)的其它影片，閃回并不是為了推進(jìn)現(xiàn)在的敘事，恰恰相反，閃回與現(xiàn)在并列。相似性的并列產(chǎn)生類比效果，回憶中試圖逃出集中營(yíng)在鐵絲網(wǎng)上掙扎的人與現(xiàn)在被毆打的年輕人；擁擠的地鐵與運(yùn)送猶太人的車廂；突然闖入的德國(guó)士兵與進(jìn)到典當(dāng)行搶劫的年輕人等等。有趣的是，有些地方的回憶饒富力量。比如Nazerman回憶在集中營(yíng)以頭撞碎玻璃的下一個(gè)鏡頭剪接的恰恰是現(xiàn)在的自己(如同我注視著我自己)。
    Nazerman這個(gè)家伙總讓我想起《對(duì)話》里面的Caul。一樣將自己關(guān)在一個(gè)密閉空間，躲藏在陰影處，沉默冷淡，藏著不為人知的秘密。Caul的創(chuàng)傷來(lái)自個(gè)體，而Nazerman來(lái)自歷史。因他是一個(gè)沒(méi)有信仰的人，戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)奪取了他愛(ài)的一切活在無(wú)以名狀的痛苦愧疚自責(zé)當(dāng)中－他沒(méi)有死，還娶了亡故朋友的妻子，他的生活圍繞著典當(dāng)行以及錢(qián)。戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)只是影片展開(kāi)的背景，而它的著力點(diǎn)似乎并不在揭露創(chuàng)傷，指責(zé)暴行——我的意思并不是它沒(méi)有，而是它不僅于此。我們?cè)谟捌锌吹降闹T多并列我認(rèn)為是指涉Nzazerman所活的現(xiàn)在——回憶只是為了對(duì)比現(xiàn)在，隱喻現(xiàn)在生活的逼仄冷漠恐懼以及與欲望相關(guān)的所有齷齪骯臟——現(xiàn)在是一場(chǎng)沒(méi)有硝煙的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。
    這場(chǎng)模糊了善惡的“戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)”以年輕人Jesus的死為故事的終結(jié)，這是一個(gè)絕望的結(jié)尾。Jesus接受了Nazerman“Money is all of things”的理念而決定打劫典當(dāng)行，在Nazerman告訴他你對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)什么也不是的情況下他還是為了Nazerman飲彈而亡。
    Nazerman最后用針刺自己的舉動(dòng)我以為是想獲得知覺(jué)——一直以來(lái)他都過(guò)著麻木不仁的生活。（集中營(yíng)里的猶太人即像是被割斷了所有知覺(jué)）。結(jié)尾出現(xiàn)的那些未曾歷經(jīng)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的人的臉看起來(lái)疲憊憂傷，Nazerman緩慢穿行人群離開(kāi)，消失在一個(gè)充滿規(guī)則，網(wǎng)格，條條框框的世界里。而開(kāi)篇以慢鏡頭表現(xiàn)的草地?fù)涞袷且粓?chǎng)久遠(yuǎn)的不會(huì)再度想起的夢(mèng)境。

     昨天看到昆德拉一句話“記憶并不是對(duì)遺忘的否定，記憶是遺忘的另一種形式”。豬在文章中提到的在retrieve和association正好可以解釋我前面提到的并列類比。
     額，似乎又在標(biāo)題黨了。其實(shí)是看片的時(shí)候想到太宰治的遺言。關(guān)于生命的不可抗力。我們都活在記憶與遺忘里。記得，忘記。被記得，被忘記。

    豬關(guān)于記憶的舊文http://icebluewonder.blogbus.com/logs/1278284.html