不該因?yàn)檫@是第一部由女性導(dǎo)演執(zhí)導(dǎo)的黑色電影，就認(rèn)為它價(jià)值連城。沒(méi)有比這更加“政治正確”的愚蠢了。評(píng)價(jià)一部電影，首先看的是電影本身的質(zhì)量，然后才是關(guān)注導(dǎo)演、演員等構(gòu)成一部電影必備的元素。難道不是嗎？

可以想象，如果這是一部男性導(dǎo)演的作品，甚至不太有可能流傳到今天。它被“吹捧”，更多因?yàn)楹笫栏郊拥摹芭畽?quán)主義”。如果艾達(dá)·盧皮諾在世時(shí)知道此點(diǎn)，她可能也會(huì)感到震驚。這說(shuō)明政治站位已經(jīng)荒謬到危害電影評(píng)論。

之所以這么講，是因?yàn)椤洞畋丬嚨娜恕返墓适潞?jiǎn)單到無(wú)趣。兩個(gè)普通男性因?yàn)榇钶d連環(huán)殺手而被推向死亡邊緣，電影一邊呈現(xiàn)三人坐車在公路上奔馳的畫面，一邊補(bǔ)述警察追捕罪犯的過(guò)程。最后警察追到了殺手，電影結(jié)束。

不僅文本不行，影像也不行。這樣一部電影到底有什么可看價(jià)值呢？反正我是看不出什么名堂。除了同樣是我給艾達(dá)·盧皮諾補(bǔ)綴的一束光環(huán)——在這部全員男性的電影里，確實(shí)存在某種程度上可以揭示男權(quán)社會(huì)本質(zhì)的佐證。

殺手僅僅通過(guò)一把槍，便讓兩個(gè)強(qiáng)壯的男人乖乖聽(tīng)命，這說(shuō)明了什么？這是否可以被認(rèn)為是男權(quán)社會(huì)制度不只是男性壓迫女性的事實(shí)，同樣也是有權(quán)力的男性壓迫無(wú)權(quán)力的男性的事實(shí)？看來(lái)，男權(quán)社會(huì)的本質(zhì)是“權(quán)”，而非“男”。

之所以一提到男權(quán)社會(huì)或父權(quán)制，便聯(lián)想到男性欺負(fù)女性的畫面，僅僅因?yàn)樵诂F(xiàn)實(shí)生活中，普遍存在的狀況是男性比女性更強(qiáng)。那么底層男性呢，他們受到的壓迫不會(huì)比女性少。還有處于上層的女性，同樣會(huì)壓迫下層女性。

這說(shuō)明了父權(quán)制是由權(quán)力關(guān)系建構(gòu)起來(lái)的，通過(guò)權(quán)力的大小將人分出金字塔式的層級(jí)，以此來(lái)維系社會(huì)的穩(wěn)定運(yùn)作。不過(guò)這是艾達(dá)·盧皮諾想在電影里表達(dá)的嗎？當(dāng)然不是。這是我為艾達(dá)·盧皮諾女權(quán)主義先驅(qū)標(biāo)簽找到的偽證。

Possibly the only female director working under the stricture of studio system of Hollywood’s Golden Age, actress-turned-moviemaker Ida Lupino has two pictures released in 1953 (soon her production company would close up shop and she would only direct one more picture in 1965), both grittily tackles the thorny, contentious maladies of American society at large.

THE BIGAMIST is a moral conundrum, San Franciscan couple Harry Graham (O’Brien) and Eve’s (Fontaine) conjugal harmony begins to crumble after they they find out Eve is infertile, turning her disappointment into business-driving entrepreneurship, Eve distances both emotionally and physically from Harry, who feels excruciatingly lonesome when on his business days in L.A, where he meets Phyllis Martin (Lupino), a waitress he finds rather sympathetic.

Collier Young’s script (yes, he is also the producer, Lupino’s ex-husband and Fontaine’s current hubby, talking about in-jokes and self-reference!) eminently portrays Phyllis as an independent-thinking, no-string-attached sweetheart that even a decent man like Harry cannot resist her blunt, unsentimental spell, “I don’t want anything from you.” is Phyllis’ opening remark. Therefore, in order to validate that Harry and Phyllis’ reluctant union (after Phyllis has a bun in the oven) is out of unalloyed mutual love, Eve has to take the short stick on account of her distancing maneuvers, sheer insouciance when Harry mentionsto her his first encounter with Phyllis on a Hollywood tour bus. Eventually, it is Eve’s belated decision to adopt a baby that puts Harry’s double life on a line, when a diligent adoption agent Mr. Jordan (Gwenn) is keen on getting to the bottom of it.

While the narrative gains on a typical melodrama, Lupino the director refrains from performative hyperbole and swelling music to elicit audience’s sensorial response, instead she adopts a matter-of-fact tenet to map onto the triad’s mental trajectories with admirable exactitude, with O’Brien strenuously carrying off Harry’s beset disquietude and Lupino herself, playing pitch-perfect notes of Phyllis’ fragile brave face. THE BIGAMIST is a searing drama but its intensity is not exterior but interior.

THE HITCH-HIKER, released 9 months before THE BIGAMIST, is a taut all-hombre film-noir based on the lurid true story of a psychopathic hitch-hiker on a killing spree, a polarized remove from Lupino’s woman-issue B pictures she has cranked out since 1949.

Two ordinary men Roy Collins and Gilbert Bowen (O’Brien and Lovejoy) are heading to a fishing trip in Mexico, but incur a hostage to fortune after picking up Emmett Myers (Talman), who, at the drop of a hat, points a pistol at them. Coerced to do Myers’ bidding, the two friends come in for psychological and physical torment while they traverse through the expansive, often barren terrain in the heart of the Baja California Peninsula (Lupino and her team make great play of extensive location shootings that renders the pair’s noir-ish nightmare melt under the sweltering sun).

Talman, with one “bum eye” whose eyelid cannot be closed on a chilling, odiously smug mug, makes for an excellent villain and unregenerately spouts Myers’ venomous affronts one after another, letting his baseness and slyness get the better of the hapless duo, who are the essential salt-of-the-earth type, driven to crack under mounting pressure (O’Brien’s Collins is the one who almost loses it and Lovejoy’s Bowne is more resilient, patient and astute).

If Lupino really enters into the spirit by building up the tension and confrontation, THE HITCH-HIKER’s finale somewhat sags when the inevitable comeuppance transpires patly, elicits a bathetic feeling, why the heck they couldn’t act sooner to end their protracted misery?

Showing her laudable proficiency in molding two disparate pictures, Lupino’s singular case only woefully reminds us gender is never an issue in movie business’ division of labor. Ergo today, collectively and unflaggingly we should welcome women and members of the minorities into all the tiers of the moviemaking edifice, just for the sake of putting it to rights, since the century-long accumulated debts are plain outrageous.

referential entries: Byron Haskin’s TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949, 6.7/10); Alfred Hitchcock’s SUSPICION (1941, 7.6/10).