《THE GLORIAS》，振奮人心，經(jīng)典，也有點落了俗套。但拋開這些宏大高昂的敘事基調，拋開慣常的名臺詞，有一段不起眼的、很輕很輕的對話，夾雜在那些溢出屏幕的宣言中，觸動了我。

Wilma競選酋長時，Gloria與她丈夫的對話。

因為女性競選，他們一起經(jīng)歷了許多生命的威脅，他贊美Wilma的勇敢。Gloria說，遇見你真是她的幸運。Wilma的丈夫立刻否認，說她才是他的幸運，然后講起了第一次date Wilma的場景。

現(xiàn)在看來，不過是拒絕討厭的電影與食物罷了，而在那個充斥著男性凝視的時代，在這種凝視更加嚴重的少數(shù)族裔中，足以是驚人的回答，足夠被劃為異類，乃至受到侮辱與中傷。

更何況，那時的Wilma，是喜歡這男人的。

她沒有任何理由說不，這百害而無一利。只是看個無關痛癢的電影，吃口熱狗這樣的小事，但即便如此，Wilma依然沒有選擇順從與討好。

女性的覺醒是從哪一刻開始的？

生育，勞動保障，教育問題，家庭暴力，就業(yè)……對令人窒息的現(xiàn)實，發(fā)出了振奮人心的口號，《THE GLORIAS》展現(xiàn)了女性在困境中自救、爭取權利、徹底覺醒的時刻。

和這些宏大的覺醒時刻放在一起看，Wilma丈夫這段對白的設計，并不薄弱，反而有別致之處。

大是大非前擁有能做決定的勇氣，擁有觸底反彈的力量，很了不起。

庸常生活中也能意識到自我的存在，尊重自己的聲音，也挺了不起的。

女性的覺醒到底是從哪一刻開始的呢？

可能只是從說出“討厭吃熱狗”的那一刻開始。

在競選演講的現(xiàn)場，一名男子質問Wilma，“How’d you get the name Mankiller？”

Wilma回答，“I earned it”

那位說出自己“討厭吃熱狗”的女士，不斷為更多的女性發(fā)聲。她贏得了這次競選，成為了有史以來第一位女酋長。

那位曾經(jīng)因為自以為是，而被“討厭吃熱狗”而嚇到的膽小男人，成為了敢于撥開權利迷霧的，清醒、勇敢的人。

分三天看完了，很讓人動容的片子。本片所采取的讓幼年、少年、青年和中年四個時期的Gloria Steinem對話的形式非常不錯。印象很深的是Gloria的父親病危，但是她知道一周之后才前去父親所在的醫(yī)院看望父親（可是父親早已經(jīng)去世）。后來Gloria自省的時候，對更年輕的自己說，擔心自己去了就像自己的母親一樣，就要放棄自己的生活和事業(yè)，一直照顧下去了……非常有感觸，也許在照護公共服務和模式尚未達到理想狀態(tài)（也就是說仍然大量仰賴女性的免費勞動）時，人（女性）為了自由只能做出勇敢的舍棄…… 看到最后，雖然多少有些覺得這部片子采取的形式稍微有些刻板，稍微有些說教，可是我太喜歡這種標準的講述民權人士/維--權律師大衛(wèi)迎戰(zhàn)歌莉婭英雄之路的電影了……同類的片子比如《黑水》（2019）、《成癮劑量》（2021）、《輟學生》（2022）和《黑錢》紀錄片（2018-2020）。 91/100

#格洛麗亞在路上# （The Glorias）（A-）這部人物傳記片說實話是比較長且偶爾會平淡，但非常值得一看。感謝之前布蘭切特的《#美國夫人#》（Mrs. America）讓不少人率先了解了那部劇中羅絲·伯恩出演的格洛麗亞·斯泰納姆（Gloria Steinem），這位70年代婦女-解放-運動的代表人物和知名女-權-運-動領袖，正好站在布蘭切特出演的Phyllis Schlafly的對立面，強調女性不需要通過結婚生子證明自己的價值，及支持墮-胎。

最有趣的是，看完這部她的傳記片，你就會注意到為何Mrs. America那部劇標題里用了Mrs, 強調Phyllis Schlafly已婚的身份，而Gloria則創(chuàng)辦了一本女性雜志起名《Ms》，標題正為了減弱婚姻對女性的影響，并通過她們的努力，最終讓美國從只接受Miss 和Mrs，到正式接受了Ms這個稱謂。

Mrs和Ms正是最好代表了這兩個人的立場和觀點的分歧：女性是否應該由婚姻來決定稱謂。

兩人對女性價值的爭論在本片中也有繼續(xù)體現(xiàn)，只是這次Phyllis Schlafly是以真人形象在電視新聞里出現(xiàn)，且并不多，但她所代表的“女性一定要結婚、生子、顧家”的觀點在整部電影里依然通過其他方式呈現(xiàn)。比如幾乎每個第一次見到 Gloria的人，都會問她：“你結婚了嗎？依然沒孩子嗎？” 依然是以這兩項在定義一個女人。而 Gloria則在本片中由四個不同年齡的女星出演，展示了人生不同階段她的成長和領悟。其中兩位成人演員是朱麗安·摩爾（Julianne Moore）和坎妹艾麗西亞·維坎德（ #Alicia Vikander# ）。兩人從氣質和形象上都與人物原型很符合，缺乏了羅絲·伯恩的有趣與妖嬈，但多了一份穩(wěn)重和嚴肅感。

Gloria本人其實依然健在，今年86歲，且在60多歲時還結婚了，因為她確實遇到了真愛，但一輩子沒有孩子。她原本是一名女記者，但工作中常常受到男上司的打-壓和限制，讓她的才華無法得到展示，也沒辦法為女性發(fā)聲，于是最終她決定辭掉工作，成為一名女-權運動者，并最終出書。其實在此之前她也因被上司性-騷然而辭職過。通過這部電影，你可以清楚看到，幾乎所有女性在職場上和生活上受到的壓力在她身上都有體現(xiàn)，特別是她生活的年代女性地位還不如今天，但她從未因此妥協(xié)或被占便宜，而是每次都昂首挺胸地回擊。

但Gloria與很多女-權主義者最大的不同就是，她是一個美女，而且有著不錯的時尚品味。即使她穿一身黑，是長袖、長褲，根本沒做任何不當舉動，依然有男性被她吸引，并說她是“性--感女神”。在這種情況下，很多媒體報道她，其實是為了她的顏值，而不是真的聽她說話。本片也展示了這點，曾讓她非常惱火。她盡力減少自己曝光機會，越穿越低調，但就算是同性，有時也會嫉妒她的外貌和成就。

不過Gloria依然做著很多鮮為人知的公益事業(yè)，比如在大學里采訪女學生，了解她們的處境，四處演講，或幫助少數(shù)-族-裔-女性團體，這些事真正讓她超越了外貌的限制，贏得了別人的尊重。

她所倡-導的除了同工同酬外，主要是協(xié)助女性獲得墮-胎合法權，強調女性有決定自己身體的權利。有一句臺詞她說：“并不是每個女生每天一醒來就想去墮--胎，這是最后沒辦法才做的，但我們應該有自主決定的權利?！?

影片中標題是復數(shù)，意思就是說Gloria代表的這類女性，在片中有很多，不止她一個，是這一群人推動了這場運動。而且正如Gloria說的，這是一場接力賽，必須繼續(xù)跑下去，遠遠沒有到終點。RBG的名字在片中也有被提到?；乜茨莻€時代，人們會更加珍惜今天，女性-平-權運動已經(jīng)獲得了初步成績，但確實還有很多路要走。而且在各地都并不同步，甚至隨時可能倒退。

影片有趣的一點是四個不同時期的Gloria會同時出現(xiàn)在一輛象征著生命的大巴上，偶爾彼此交談，看過去的理想和目標是否實現(xiàn)，想法有何改變。Gloria小時候理想也是找到真愛結婚，住大房子，生三個孩子和養(yǎng)一只狗；但后來她受過教育后，為了事業(yè)曾一度不想結婚，也不想要孩子，到了晚年卻因又遇到真愛結婚了?？梢姡耸菚兊?，隨著自己的境遇和年紀增長，沒有什么是一成不變的。

這部拍的絕對比《美國夫人》大快人心，畢竟始終她就是一個正面的人物，有很多激動人心、深受鼓舞的場面，即使她被男性看低或調侃，她的堅韌和犀利也始終讓人敬佩。但《美國夫人》則是相對壓抑，人們只能一直無法決定如何看待Phyllis Schlafly，對她的言論可能不同意，甚至厭惡，最終又會可憐她，結局讓人覺得傷感絕望。但兩個女人的故事真的都值得一看，才能更好地了解當時不同女性的處境。

正如RBG，Gloria的事跡可以鼓舞和啟發(fā)到很多女性，片中也有很多描述女性處境的內容容易獲得共鳴。本片圣丹斯電影節(jié)首映，目前在Amazon Prime可以看到

從當時社會的主流視角即“男性的凝視”(male gaze)看，美國1960、70年代女權運動的風云人物中，格洛麗亞·斯泰納姆（Gloria Steinem）容貌最出眾，因此最受關注。她定居曼哈頓以后周末經(jīng)常舉辦派對，照理說應該一票難求，但事實上紳士們都會猶豫，遠非趨之若鶩。大家都知道這么個傳說，每到午夜，她家的派對上都會挑出一位男性予以閹割。如果說生理閹割不太可能，智力上的閹割或許并不特別出人意料。各種重要議題的討論中，如果一群思考和辯論能力跟斯泰納姆相當?shù)呐约谢鹆室晃荒行?，他幾乎可以肯定將深陷于挫敗感而無法自拔。

由斯泰納姆回憶錄改編的電影《格洛麗亞在路上》(The Glorias)中，她自己的父親也會在女兒的才華與容貌之間猶疑。Gloria希望投身寫作，做記者、作家。父親回應說，如果你打字的十個手指不靈，你還有兩只長腿。在男性主導的新聞編輯室里，她得到的好評首先是漂亮，然后是“寫得像男記者”?？傮w來說，這部電影很難說是一部好作品，而更像是斯泰納姆80多年人生的精彩集錦，她的掙扎、低潮不多，即使有也是一眨眼就撐了過去，緊接著迎來下一個高光時刻。

電影中有包括Juliane Moore在內的四位演員分別扮演不同年代的斯泰納姆， 但在我看來最有趣的還是片尾活動家兼作家本人出場的時候。那是2017年1月21日即特朗普就職一天后，50萬人參加了華盛頓的“女性大游行”抗議活動。斯泰納姆發(fā)表了演講，場地離國會山很近，大致就在美洲印第安人博物館和我們辦公樓之間。她和我們辦公樓大致同齡，都出自羅斯福新政時期。

Two contemporary USA historical dramas make an opportune double bill, covering the sweeping scale of Land of Freedom’s entrenched racism, sexism, abortion rights, the Vietnam war, police brutality, white supremacy, Byzantine, institutional corruption and jurisdictional injustice. What both movies depict is only regretfully too close to home for today’s stateside audience, yet they are worthy of essential viewing on account of exactly the same reason.

THE TRAIL OF CHICAGO 7 is Sorkin’s sophomore directorial endeavor (he originally wrote the script in 2007, Steven Spielberg was the intending director, after a dozen years mired in preproduction hell, it is hight time that he chooses to take the rein himself), a sparks-flying courtroom drama about the notorious trial of a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters, indicted with conspiracy and intention of inciting riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The titular seven defendants are all white male, plus one black marked man Bobby Seale (Abdul-Mateen, a towering specimen of stout-hearted dignity and bottled-up rage), the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, whose lawyer is in absentia due to illness therefore is more vulnerably open to mistreatment at the hands of the uppity judge Julius Hoffman (Langella, back in the Oscar conversation with riveting bravura of bigotry and pretentiousness).

“There is no such thing as political trial, good to know!” Sorkin regales his dramatis personae with his usual, profuse ammunition of verbal lethality and exactitude, and among which he is also well-disposed to intersperse intermittent levity and irony. The whole enchilada is a show trial plain and simple, for those who are conversant with that particular time, the verdict is anything but uplifting, ergo, we are not expected to feel triumphant when the curtain is brought down (flashbacks of key events are tactfully interleaved to propel the legal procedure). Smartly, what Sorkin vigorously draws on is the intensely structured confrontation and disclosure in the courtroom, to knock audience dead in probing into the unsavory lowdown, or to get our blood pump in face of egregious misconduct and sheer venom from the authoritative figures (manipulating the jury pool, gagging and straitjacketing a defendant, swingeing police infiltration operation, the perverse obstruction of its thinly-veiled truth, etc.).

Meantime, the internal strife among the septet is another touch-paper, chiefly between Tom Hayden (Redmayne), who represents the law-abiding, non-violent mainstream democrat, and Abbie Hoffman (Cohen), the racial pinko, subcultural hippie. Their ideological discrepancy is rammed home smack to the felicity of Sorkin’s razor-edged wording, once it is gotten out of their chests, hostility can dissipate into mutual understanding, therefore, offering a chance to find middle ground of co-existence or cooperation, the ultimate solution to our world’s rampant partisanship.

Encompassing a large, almost sausage-party-exclusive ensemble, the film is an embarrassment of riches relative to sterling performers, besides the aforementioned Abdul-Mateen and Langella, a bodacious Cohen might get many Oscar-voters’ ballots for his uncharacteristic straight-acting that is not aimed to tickle our funny bone, though he gets snappy wisecracks once a while, his A. Hoffman (categorically no blood relation to the Judge J. Hoffman) is a stoned buffoon with enough lucidity and firm determination of his noble cause; whereas Redmayne’s personage is more self-righteous (but de facto the whole blood-letting donnybrook can be partially imputed to his spur-of-the-moment outrage) and he is terrific but overall the actor’s disarming and aw-shucks veneer is difficult to expunge; Gordon-Levitt makes a conscientious prosecution attorney, his internal wavering is palpable without obvious outlet, so is Caitlin FitzGerald’s undercover police officer (the deficiency of female presentation is a rub the film has to come in for in its campaign trail); Michael Keaton has a relaxed, even facetious cameo as the “star witness” whose motive is rather murky to decipher (it is quite surprising to see him and Redmayne in the same scene, he must bury the hatchet of losing his golden statuette to the latter in a tight battle); however, as Yours Truly sees it, if only one person among the cast can be fingered for an Oscar nomination, my vote goes to Rylance, as the defense attorney William Kunstler, who moderates a superbly calibrated performance attuning to an estimable law practitioner’s professionalism and disillusion, without losing touch of a dramatically hyped realism.

If Sorkin's democratic-convention-in-a-police-state hubbub and its aftermath is an event film, Julie Taymor’s THE GLORIAS (her first feature in almost a decade), befitting the now much maligned category of Oscar-bait biopic, is a river-long journey of the incredible story of Gloria Steinem (1934-), the trail-blazing feminist movement doyenne whom our world truly doesn’t deserve.

While Sorkin’s picture wins raves up the wazoo, Taymor’s labor of love receives cold response ever since its Sundance debut in earlier, Yours Truly is very intrigued to seek out why? Is it still the humbug of sexism in the works? I can smell of a ghost of that.

THE GLORIAS is almost an antithesis of CHICAGO 7 on the gender disparity, it is a women’s picture front and center, and Taymor’s gambit of convening all four actresses who play Gloria in different ages in the same scenario, a bus perpetually on the road (the thematics stem from Gloria’s autobiographic book the film is based on), is openly criticized by many critics, but it is indeed a nice, surreal conceit in conjuring up the introspective rumination which we often wish we could have, conversing with one’s younger self about feelings and regrets.

If THE GLORIAS adheres to the usual route of a traditional bio-pic narratively, it is mostly chronological, with occasional temporal jumps that could be applied more pertinently, one of its rewarding merits is that through four different performers, Taymor carves out a subtle but totally believable trajectory of Gloria’s maturation as an extraordinary woman: as a young girl (Armstrong), she is spirited, father-worshipping, happy to follow a peripatetic life espoused by her father Leo (Hutton); then as a teenager (Wilson), she becomes more withdrawn, though hipped on tap dance, taciturnly feels the pall of an absent father when she has to take care of her long-suffering, unbalanced mother Ruth (Graham), who has given up her career as a journalist to marriage and child-rearing.

The lion’s share of the film is divided between Gloria in his formative years (Vikander) and middle age (Moore), in Vikander’s chapter, Gloria’s pilgrimage in India opens a new horizon and finds her more universal rapport and scourge that preys on womanhood. Her early career path is riddled with chauvinistic impropriety and sexual harassment, but Vikander brings about an opaque impression that almost keeps her emotion at a remove (her ambiguous relationship with Leo never morphs into anything resounding).

Gloria’s remarkable self-possession is crystallized and consolidated through constant disappointments she receives from the stronger sex, it is a rather un-cinematic trait for a subject in question. Indeed, Taymor firmly keeps hyperbole in check as regards to Gloria’s characterization (it is more or less consistent with Rose Byrne’s undervalued portrayal in Dahvi Waller’s mini-series MRS AMERICA, about conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly), and instead, to foreground her rationality, intellect and penchant for stage-fright.

When it’s Moore’s turn, her Gloria is seasoned with more compassion and resolution in her vocation, coursing through the landmark moments of spearheading ERA movement, authoring and editorializing Ms. magazine, a lifelong friendship with Wilma Mankiller (Guerrero), the first woman to serve as Cherokee principal chief in 1985, together with diverting appearances of renowned activists like Bella Abzug (Midler, a class act), Flo Kennedy (a mordant Toussaint) and Dolores Huerta (Sanchez). Deferentially paying homage to Ms. Steinem and her achievement, it is noticeable that THE GLORIAS tries very hard to sustain a fidelity that is artistically at the expense of Taymor’s usual visual flourish (save for a crimson superimposition as a response to a male chauvinist question and an animated sequence of the cover of Ms. magazine’s first issue) and narrative selection.

The long and the short of it, both films serve as testimonies that a quest to achieve any sort of equality or progress has always been a protracted, treacherous battle. A fighter perchance can not savor the sweet taste of ultimate victory in their lifetime, but every concerted effort means half the battle, for USA citizens, they are also urgent adjurations to vote, as your life depends on it, au fond, the whole world depends on it too.

referential entries: Sorkin’s MOLLY’S GAME (2017, 7.0/10); Tom McCarthy’s SPOTLIGHT (2015, 8.3/10); Taymor’s ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007, 7.7/10).

雖然片子時間很長，但Glorias的四個年齡階段的穿插敘事還是很有趣，一輛長途車，一直在路上，就像她的人生，追隨他父親的節(jié)奏，一刻也沒有停息。四段人生的Glorias同框在黑白畫面里，仿佛也是與自我心靈的一段對話。

父親強調travel is the best education, and the only one. 確實有道理，但母親為了孩子上所好大學也還是要把房子賣了。旅行負責眼界和性格養(yǎng)成，好學校負責進入圈子和階級，所以，沒錢就別提教育了。幸運的Glorias通過獎學金可以深度走訪印度各個偏僻村莊，甚至是在放棄婚禮的前提下，回想爸爸從小帶著她到處靠賣古董和賭場旅行，兩人在大雨中跳舞，最后父親還是在電話里支持女兒先去印度再結婚，能做出這個決定其父功不可沒，印度的深度游也在青年的Glorias心中埋下了equal right的種子。

后半部分描寫Glorias各種維權和創(chuàng)辦雜志想對有些重復枯燥，但好在Julianne Moore看著很舒服，從年輕到老，由美麗變得有味道，另一個這樣的演員應該是Meryl Streep。

了解了Ms.一詞的由來，如果是英文老師以后可以把這個知識點在課堂上稍微延展發(fā)揮一下。