我有老花眼，你有故事嗎?

Talk | "French Dispatch Weekly" A feast for the lonely

Jul 29, 2022

Perhaps, everyone is a lonely stranger.

In 2021, after struggling with the epidemic for an unknown amount of time, director Wes Anderson completed the milestone of the tenth feature film. Any Oscars (there is no art director, I strongly suspect that the Oscar technical judges will give up their lives), but with excellent performance, it can be said to be the uncrowned king in 2021.

However, ignoring all the false names that might influence the perception of this film, what film is "Montique de France"?

From the most superficial place, we not only see Anderson's most fascinating visual style: the process, panning, almost no hand-held camera lens, as well as extremely delicate scene and art design, every scene is presented to us like a theater. in front of you. At the same time, we can also see that this is a film that pays homage to the magazine "The New Yorker" and French New Wave films. Pulling away all appearances, I would say that this is a lonely movie. The most direct evidence is that the frame of the movie is 4:3. Since the frame of the movie has been continuously stretched to 2.35:1, almost all frames are 4:3. Most of the movies are about loneliness (eg: assassin Nie Yinniang).

The individual chapters of the film are the work of a group of (lonely) writers (who are also, of course, contributors to The New Yorker) working together. In this city that Anderson jokingly calls Ennui (the French homonym is similar to boring), this group of strangers silently observes the earth-shattering or sesame and garlic skin events, and turns them into a few words on paper, perhaps unconsciously, No longer lonely illusion.

Behind the group of writers, there is a seemingly difficult but gentle editor-in-chief. He often says to writers, "Try to make your work look like it was written on purpose." And the movie, which is also the beginning of the magazine, also In other words, it is the editor-in-chief's obituary. Not only that, because the editor-in-chief said in his will that the French Dispatch would be dissolved after his death, this is also the obituary and the last issue of the French Dispatch Weekly.

First of all, it starts with the city overview of "bicycle writer" Sashalak. This short and concise "dirty travelogue", just like the title "city snapshot", not only quickly introduces Ennui, a city surrounded by mystery, At the same time, it also lays the groundwork for the next three chapters (the prison of the art column, the cafe of the political column, the gunshot of the food column).

Next, just like Neskafi's cooking, after the appetizers and side dishes, the main course is finally served. The first feature is the art and artist column, Berenson's "Concrete Masterpiece". Interestingly, in In the magazine’s structure, each long article is interpreted in a different way, and the concrete masterpiece is told in a speech by Berenson, just like the Grand Budapest Hotel, the story of the French Dispatch Weekly has been adapted, polished, Trimmed, and then into the eyes of the audience, the director seems to want to convey that all stories are subjective. In this story, the writer Berenson always commented on the works of the artist Rosenthal in an objective and neutral attitude, but he also revealed some details. Rosenthal once had a love affair. In the audio-visual language of the film, Berenson never took a frontal shot of the audience when he spoke. It seems that the author has always maintained a sense of distance from the audience. A way to remember this deceased artist...or a lover.

From this chapter, maybe we can get a glimpse of the director's intentions. This movie is a lonely portrayal. All the creators in the story are lonely. Although we can know a thing or two from their works, we can never interpret them. their hearts. However, perhaps creation is the way these "artists" fight against loneliness, just like Rosenthal and his Muse Simmons, the encounter between the two formed such a distinct "point" in the history of art, and then crossed over .

If the concrete masterpiece only gives us a glimpse of the director's intentions, then the following Clements' "On the Revision of a Manifesto" is a very obvious reminder, which is different from the author and the characters in the previous story. The relationship between Clements and the student movement leader Zifferini was directly revealed. Like the concrete masterpiece, On the Revision of a Manifesto is told in a different form: Clements' own diary, though titled "On the Revision of a Manifesto," is never late. Occurs once, and either it's just Juliet's angry look at the afterword, or it's interrupted by a sudden event every time someone misses it.

And the theme of "loneliness" has become more and more obvious. Although the relatives and friends around him are desperately pulling the red line for him, Clements always shows a cold look and shows no interest (although the tear gas seems to be the same as real tears. Mixed together), writing also regards neutrality as a criterion, but maybe it is Cifferini's slender body, tender writing, or in Cifferini's view, she is not a lonely person, she is being swayed by him Attracted, and the two also came together, and the climax of this chapter is the moment when Juliet pierces Clements' cold illusion and points directly to his lonely heart (perhaps referring to himself), Wes Anderson used a handheld camera for the first time to wander between two lonely women and a lonely boy. The director once again asked the question: "Life is lonely, isn't it?" "Sometimes."

Another point worth discussing in this chapter is that this "March Chess Revolution" refers to the May storm in Paris, the 1967 student movement in which protesters raised concerns about consumerism and consumerism. capitalist dissatisfaction (remember Juliet burning photos of pop singers in cafes?), and in the process filled with playful slogans and graffiti (T_shirt T_shirt Ziffellini and "Children" We are angry!”), although the leftists who initiated the strike gained momentum at the beginning, the rightists who finally supported the government successfully organized a rally of 1 million people to counter it, and the May storm seemed to be so abrupt soon after. To stop, maybe, in Weiss Anderson, it's not a battle of the left and the right, but the journey of a group of teenagers growing up, which is also the French New Wave film (post-new wave to be correct, which takes place mainly in the 1950s)

1960) director's theme, Jean-Louis Gaud in 1972's "All is Well" ( is the representative work of this period.

At the end, when we thought we could finally read the manifesto, it was just an essay by Cifferini, maybe his love letter to two women, and the director's mind was revealed, everyone was like a comet In the same way, following their own perfect arcs, flying beyond the galaxy in the vast universe, meeting others only for a short time in one's life, and then staggering by, but, as Clements said, Qifei Rini's trajectory was not perfect, and he ended up being an emotionless, mere symbol of the unified left.

The last long piece is my favorite chapter in the whole movie, Roebuck Wright's Detective Inspector's Private Kitchen, also mentioned in "City Snapshot", Ennui's dark and unfathomable secrets, Here Roebuck Wright is clearly referring to New Yorker writer James Baldwin, a well-known African-American gay writer whose masterpieces are "Giovanni's Room" and "If Beale Street Could Talk", the latter of which has been rewritten. Made into the film The Silence of Blue Beale Street. Like the previous two chapters, this article is not a mere article, but a TV interview with Roebuck Wright, no, perhaps it is more appropriate to say Roebuck Wright's monologue, in which he once said that he I can't forget any one sentence I have read and written. It seems that only words can accompany me in a lonely night.

In this chapter, as we get lost in the intricacies of the police station and into the darkest depths, we not only see that Roebuck Wright was once locked up in a house named Chicken for being gay ("wrong love" in his parlance) It was also the first time in the story that I saw the editor-in-chief who was willing to cut advertisements and do business at a loss for the writer, as if living in a fairy tale: "Try to let others see that you wrote this on purpose. "So, the author's loneliness was hidden in the words they wrote, the darkest ㄇㄧ.

And the most moving and perhaps the most liked part of the whole movie is the script that was almost deleted because it made Roebuck Wright sad, the bitterness hidden in the poison, like loneliness, and I was in Lonely in the crowd, maybe like Nescafe and Roebuck Wright, not brave, but still waiting for the thing we lost, called home, maybe, as Roebuck Wright said, It was waiting for us at a table somewhere in the city.

Perhaps, everyone is a lonely stranger.

Standing alone on the podium, is Belensee explaining art, or is he reminiscing about the once beautiful love? On the revision of a manifesto, is it to record a young man who died young, or to commemorate the boy who saw through Clements' loneliness? Is the police detective's private kitchen a portrait of a brave chef, or a portrait of Robarette's loneliness?

Yes, the era of print media is over, and French New Wave cinema has entered history, however, as Mustafa described Gustave in the Grand Budapest Hotel, we can say that Weiss Anderson still remains. "Extremely elegant, using his magic to maintain the illusion of beauty and splendor."