A concubine and a bully

"Han soldiers have been slightly, ready for battle;" The king is exhausted. How can the concubine live? "

Thousands of years later, the same sword passed by, and the concubine was still like a gorgeous rainbow, shattered into pieces in front of the surprise of the overlord. "Don't mention the past, life has been stormy." Once you are persistent and dependent all your life, the story of Farewell My Concubine cannot escape its established fate. In Chen Kaige's films, overlord and concubine have two meanings. Cheng Dieyi is a concubine, and Juxian is also a concubine; Duan Xiaolou is the overlord, and so is the art of Peking Opera. In the emotional entanglement between Yu Ji and overlord, the film takes three hours to build a world of intense emotional agitation, a heartfelt generous elegy, and an eternal hero's life dilemma.

-Cheng Dieyi is a concubine.

Cheng Dieyi is the person that the director should pay attention to in this film. In my opinion, I prefer to think that his overlord is basically the Peking Opera art that he devoted his life to, and it is his life and cultural ideal that he has immersed in all his life.

At the beginning of the film, adzuki bean was chopped off by her mother's six fingers. Later, because she sang "Miss Fan" wrongly, her brother stabbed her with a cigarette pan and bled. These two scenes, together with the one humiliated by Zhang's father-in-law, are usually regarded as three castrations or mental or physical castrations that made adzuki become Cheng Dieyi, and various external violence caused havoc to the young hero. Adzuki bean gave in and was forced to realize the change of gender identity, thus writing this film of Cheng Dieyi.

In my opinion, in fact, the transformation of adzuki bean is not entirely due to various external violence. Adzuki bean is a stubborn adzuki bean, just like Cheng Dieyi is also a stubborn Cheng Dieyi. Under all kinds of seemingly violent oppression, adzuki bean's subjective will can not be ignored. Judging from the film, the master's repeated beatings, even the so-called "getting through the hall", did not play a real role in adzuki bean, which can be seen from the plot after adzuki bean and adzuki bean fled back in the film. Little bean didn't say a word, neither asking the master for forgiveness nor listening to the apprentice's advice, so she was so stubborn. In fact, his first real change was not that his six fingers were cut off, nor that his mouth was bleeding, but that he escaped from Xifu Ke Cheng and met the famous "Jiao" at that time. The little bean in the stands, staring blankly, was completely conquered by the famous actors on the stage, by the mighty overlord, by the art of Peking Opera, and by the dream of a gorgeous and tragic child. He chose Beijing opera instead of being forced to see it. It is this strong yearning and independent will that makes Adzuki return to the class himself. It can be said that from this time on, Xiao Douzi chose the road of Peking Opera for herself and walked firmly all her life.

After that, everything was almost as logical as expected: because of his handsome face and delicate skeleton, he became the only genius in the class. Now that we have decided, we must continue. When Shifu's stick was pounded in Doudou's mouth for a while, he finally saw clearly that there was only one way to go. As a result, Doudou, who sat on the plush chair in front of the camera, stood up gracefully, flowing and singing with a smile: "I am a Nv Jiao moth, not a human being." At this point, the transformation of adzuki bean's gender identity is completed.

Here, I want to insert a message that seems to be often ignored. As a young man seeking art in the film, we should not only pay attention to the change of his gender identity. In the teenage life of Little Douzi, the director told us two major events, besides transsexuality, which confirmed his belief of loyalty to life. These two events are equally important and play the most important role in understanding Cheng Dieyi.

The earliest inducement of little bean's devotion to life is humble life experience and brotherhood. The humble life experience aggravated Addou's helplessness, and the care of his senior brother just gave him a loving and protective home. Until later, when the master talked about Farewell My Concubine, he said that "one should realize oneself" and Yu Ji's "be loyal to one's life", which can be said to be an important lesson for Xiaodou, and completely defined and conceptualized the long-standing feelings between Xiaodou and his disciples. We saw the little bean in the film crying and slapping himself, and the principle of "single-minded" took root in his heart. The concepts of "from" art, "from" Peking Opera, and "from" being a teacher are best, most directly and simply interpreted in the word "from the end".

Let's go back to gender transformation. After singing "Miss Fan" correctly, Xiao Douzi has roughly determined his life trajectory as follows. In the next paragraph of Zhang Gonggong's speech, I think the director is not so much emphasizing the final transformation and establishment of gender identity, but rather showing us the beginning of a miserable life after Little Douzi became Cheng Dieyi. Zhang Gonggong represents the declining power of that era, and this declining power can still indulge in this new life, and the bitterness of life has begun. In that early morning, the little bean with oil paint on his face silently walked out of Zhang Fu, and his subsequent life course was basically shaped at that moment. "No matter how the concubine plays, she will die", which is the foreshadowing and footnote of Cheng Dieyi's life.

However, we can see that adzuki bean is still stubborn at this time. When he found Xiao Si, he ignored the master's saying that "one person has one life" and stubbornly took Xiao Si back. As if the infant is himself, as if silent adoption is the strongest resistance within his power, against a person's fate.

At this point in the film, the childhood and adolescent learning experience full of fierce struggles between the inner world and foreign countries has come to an end. There is a scene in the camera where the trained boys take a group photo as a souvenir, indicating that a stage has passed and a new stage is coming. As soon as the flash went off, Cheng Dieyi appeared.

It's really romantic. When Cheng Dieyi appeared, it gave people a sense of surprise. Little bean's dream when he was young has finally come true. The concubine of an absolute beauty, a stage full of applause, becomes an immortal beauty in the story as soon as the lights shine and the music rings. It can be said that Cheng Dieyi runs through his life. He belongs to Peking Opera and the ancient legend of Farewell My Concubine. It was this stubborn little bean, or Cheng Dieyi, who internalized the creed taught by his master most seriously and thoroughly. In this internalization, we can still get a glimpse of Cheng Dieyi or Adzuki bean's strong sense of autonomy in their own lives. At the same time, this internalization also made Cheng Dieyi's life completely embark on the eternal dilemma of lack of courage.

I quite agree with a short comment about Farewell My Concubine in the latest issue of Watching a Movie. Here, the hero's desperate predicament can be deduced from the cultural and personal historical predicament. Individuals without cultural affiliation are unconscious individuals, thin, confused and lacking in value, while individuals belonging to a certain culture cannot escape the life of the culture they depend on. Cheng Dieyi is an individual who has been transformed by culture and is the embodiment of Peking Opera in the world. His glory depends on the glory of Beijing opera culture, and his fate will surely decline with the decline of Beijing opera culture. To extend, all kinds of cultures in history kept devouring thin and ignorant individuals, showed their brilliance in these individuals, and then quickly decayed in the new culture, and their funerary objects were educated individuals. The more elite spokesmen of this culture, the faster it will rot with this culture. At the same time, the persistent strong will and the ever-changing and protracted history have also formed the dilemma of fighting in their own way. All kinds of external forces are exerted on the hero, making him break away from his beliefs and ideals, or die, bleeding profusely. To some extent, Cheng Dieyi's life is a personal sad song devoted to his lifelong cultural ideal. He is obsessed with art, but these two words make him prefer to be alone on the shore of time all his life, regardless of the change of dynasties and the disturbance of the world, which is the most persistent and detached marginal existence. This existence is only related to the mind, and this existence refuses to talk to time.

Therefore, it is Cheng Dieyi, not Duan Xiaolou, that has become the real hegemon.

There is a reason for Cheng Dieyi's conscious persistence. If this hazy consciousness comes from a humble poor child's yearning for a famous role, then as Cheng Dieyi, this persistence also comes from a humble player's conscious escape from the bleak real world.

In any case, absolutely beautiful, after all, players are players. He shines brilliantly on the stage. When he leaves the stage and takes off his makeup, he is still the humble life at the last level of society. Cheng Dieyi's memory of her mother and her life has never been erased. Although I miss my mother, I feel nostalgic in my heart. When I first entered the troupe, I can also see my mother's identity and my background: Little Bean burned the only memorable thing left by her mother-the cloak in front of all the other disciples. Even if this bitter memory is buried deep in his heart, it will pop up from time to time to remind him of the helpless sadness in this world. Chrysanthemum fairy as a third party's insertion, but still as a brothel woman. Although the film does not directly reveal the influence of this coincidence on Cheng Dieyi's mind, we can imagine that this subtle relationship must have played a role in his subconscious.

On the other hand, the "confidante" of the chaebol Yuan, the "distinguished guest" on the Japanese command post, the concubine under the flashlight of the Kuomintang army and the "Boss Cheng" pardoned by senior officials are just playthings in the hands of powerful people. One of Grandpa Yuan's actions in the film is really charming: when Grandpa Yuan came to support the peace for the first time, he personally went backstage after the play and gave them a heavy gift. When Grandpa Yuan came in, he put a costume on the armchair. He only stretched out two fingers and squeezed them gently, and the clothes slipped silently around him, just like their owner, who was as cheap as dust despite being bright and clean.

Except for his humble life, he has no way to express his feelings for his disciples. It seems that Cheng Dieyi is doomed to be unacceptable in this real world. It can be said that Duan Xiaolou's attachment, affection and love each account for a few minutes. This is the most natural emotion that has been interdependent for many years, and it is profound. It is unnecessary and impossible to talk about it.

Therefore, only in the play, only in the story of heroic beauty, Cheng Can Dieyi found her own existence and the role that matched her soul: concubine. Cheng Dieyi is stubborn, brave and fragile: he is fragile because he fell in love with his ideal, and he is afraid and unwilling to return to this bleak world and face his real life; He is stubborn and brave because he also has the courage to play this reality stubbornly.

If others don't play with him, he will continue to play, and if others don't let him play, he will continue to play. In and out of the play, there is only one death in and out of the play.

Cheng Dieyi's ideal of life, when realized in the most realistic hope, is actually embodied in singing a lifetime play with his disciples. "A year, a month, a day, an hour is not a lifetime." It happened that he was born in such a turbulent era, but his disciples were not "players who can't live without madness" like him, so he finally found sadly that "you all lied to me". After more than ten years of silence, Yu Ji finally drew her sword in front of the overlord, thanking him for his lifelong ideal. Judging from this form of suicide, I am more inclined to think that Cheng Dieyi did not fully accept the fate of "you all lied to me" until his death. As a person who has been transformed by culture, he cannot stop being imprisoned by this culture. Personally, I think that his despair when he committed suicide was not complete despair from beginning to end. Otherwise, he wouldn't have to commit suicide like Maggie, who has been wronged for many years in front of the overlord. He should feel more inappropriate and full of love. I totally believe that if there is an afterlife to do everything all over again, Cheng Dieyi will still be an idealized concubine, even though he knows that the road to his ideal is full of thorns and he will never live. From this perspective, this persistence is not entirely due to idealism, but the most thorough persistence.

The end of the film also emphasizes the symbolic significance of the overlord in the film. After Yu Ji and Ming Jian fell down one by one, the screen darkened, and subtitles showed the news that Huimin class went to Beijing for activities. At this time, the couple are gone, and everything has become a thing of the past, which makes people sad.

-Juxian is a concubine.

If Cheng Dieyi is a concubine lost in and out of the play, between dream and reality, then Juxian is a real secular woman and a metaphysical concubine. This present concubine is also persistent and "single-minded", but all she needs is a stable home, a reliable man and the happiness that most ordinary women want. Although I always think that her desire is utilitarian, and I doubt whether there is a love factor in her so-called "living", it seems that there is no need to carefully research these subjective ideas. In any case, what we see is the final result, and love or not seems less worth discussing; Or because the director neglected to shape Juxian in the film, which is not easy to discuss.

When Juxian went to see Farewell My Concubine shortly after jumping off a building, she decided to unload Duan Xiaolou. Sitting in the front row, eating melon seeds with a smile while watching the drama, when Duan Xiaolou sang the most brilliant sentence, he made up his mind and suddenly got up and walked out of the audience. Then I redeemed myself, and then I was worried about the cautious and calculating "cheating marriage". In the scene of cheating on marriage, I quite agree with a film friend that the remark made by the clown in the crowd was the comment that the director wanted to convey most: "This girl is really amazing!"

As a result, Juxian, who was familiar with the most deadly means of women, became Duan Xiaolou's "honest" wife, fulfilling Cheng Dieyi's dream that she could never accomplish in her life.

And this earthly concubine still can't escape her fate. It can be said that the reason that prompted Juxian to settle down with Duan Xiaolou largely came from his son's domineering. The spirit that dares to clap bricks in front of everyone and say that he has kissed the top girl full of flowers is the awe-inspiring overlord style in the play (again in the play! Concubine again! )。 The dilemma or paradox of Juxian's life lies in the contradiction between the domineering she fell in love with and the desire to live a stable life after marriage. It was she who personally obliterated Duan Xiaolou's domineering step by step, and gradually turned him into a tyrant of Chu who was afraid of "extinction", "dew" and "shooting". It was she who finally made Duan Xiaolou cruel and hoarse in front of the raging fire, shouting, "I don't love her! I draw a line with her! " . It was she who dug a path of death for herself and suddenly died.

-physiological concubine, still worried, only to give thanks.

-Duan Xiaolou is the overlord.

In the film, the man who is loved by a woman and a man at the same time, or by two women at the same time, deeply hurts these two closest relatives and directly leads to their desperate death.

Personally, Duan Xiaolou is not unaware of Cheng Dieyi's thoughts, nor is he unaware of Juxian's so-called deception of being driven out of the building, but this fake overlord seems to have no position in various choices. Maybe he is sexually "drunk" and satisfied with Juxian's proposal, or maybe he is afraid to accept his brother's feelings, or maybe he doesn't take an attitude towards his life path at all.

This man is sometimes in a trance when playing with his brother. In the background, Butterfly Clothes playfully pinched his waist, and the two stopped laughing. From the mirror, they are obviously the most perfect heroes and beauties.

In front of the girl full of flowers, this man also enjoys himself and likes to drink Huasan.

This man will suddenly say when his wife draws his eyebrows, and his brother says that this eyebrow has to stand up to taste.

This man will still hold Juxian and walk away in the expectation of his younger brother, leaving a sentence "I am a fake overlord, and you are a real concubine."

What kind of man is this? Maybe he had a fierce struggle inside under the indifferent appearance, maybe he just wanted to make everything go smoothly in the chaos, or maybe he separated family and love.

In any case, judging from this film, Duan Xiaolou is a person with vague role consciousness. He has two most persistent concubines, who are given roles in drama and reality respectively, and he himself is ambiguous and helpless between these two choices.

It is difficult for him to define his role in the jealousy and struggle between two "women"

Of course, on the whole, he loves reality more. He doesn't want to be the brother who is neither crazy nor alive. He wants the happiness of this world. He doesn't want to carry too many dreams. In real life, he is always kind to his wife.

-Peking Opera is the overlord.

I know little about Peking Opera, and I feel that I should take more classes in this field in the future. Therefore, we might as well expand the Peking Opera in the film and talk about it on a broader artistic or ideal level.

Friends who have seen this movie will definitely think that it is not a real gay movie, although it involves the feelings between two men, or more of a man's feelings for another man. However, Cheng Dieyi's feelings about immunity have many subtle features. First of all, family, then friendship, then escape from reality and eternal persistence in comfort, and most importantly, the habit of persistence in art.

Cheng Dieyi is a real player, a real player. He used all his body, mind and life to embrace the legend that filled the stage, and used all his blood and tears to write a song that should only be in the sky.

As far as the film itself is concerned, I can't explain why the master's teaching of "being true to one's heart" is so directly and firmly accepted by our little hero and runs through his life. What is this initial suitable motivation? Perhaps due to the limitations of the film itself, it is impossible to delve into it. -You're blushing! )

One of the main questions here is, is it necessary to eliminate gender in front of art? In the face of art, is it only beauty itself that is the most important?

I think the answer is yes.

From the perspective of Beijing opera alone, it doesn't make sense whether it's a man or a woman under heavy makeup. As long as it is looking forward to love, as long as it is absolutely beautiful, as long as it is beautiful, it is enough. As Die Yi said to Xiao Si, "Peking Opera is beautiful", there is no need to ask too many questions. In the face of art, the individual melts or even disappears, and the existence of the individual is insignificant. At the same time, in the film, Peking Opera provides a stage for everyone to escape from real life, not just Cheng Dieyi on the stage. Life has always been full of hardships and there are too many distractions in the world. I am intoxicated in this small world behind closed doors. No matter the standard-bearer sitting in the outside world, or the subjugated Japanese army, or what party or faction has been in Enemy at the Gates when speaking, they can't stand the moment of intoxication. In this special era, art has such an attractive role. Who wants to explore how art is carved by blood and tears, who wants to explore who is sacrificing what and what blood and tears are sacrificed behind art? Everything only talks about art, art is beautiful, and beauty is enough.

Two people, gender, dreams and beauty.

"In the secular world, men are dirty and women are dirty. The unique world view combines the essence of both and has endless joy." This line by Master Yuan is shocking and far-reaching. People often tell me that I get goose bumps the first time I listen to it. I didn't seem to feel any discomfort when I heard this line. I don't remember whether I like it or not, but what is certain is that I actually think this sentence expresses a lot of feelings, especially the first half, "Men are dirty and women are dirty."

Perhaps this has something to do with my recent attention to Leslie Cheung in Farewell My Concubine. At present, I find that my views on both sexes can be basically summarized as follows: homosexuality and heterosexuality don't matter, because they are as beautiful and as ugly; What really makes people uncomfortable is that people are divided into two sexes. Forgive me for being extreme! )

In fact, I felt this way a long time ago. The most important thing for a person is not the word man or woman, but just a word. Understanding and understanding of life and life is the most important thing to do in one's life and the most basic mission as an independent individual. If you don't have your own independent and complete personality and thoughts, you are not qualified to live in this world. Personal spiritual sufficiency and perfection are real perfection, real achievement and real life. And affection, friendship, love, happiness, happiness, pain, personnel, aggregation, twists and turns, all just met, all just a book stand in front of us. This book is closed from time to time when we are reading, and then there is a silhouette of a person sitting quietly and meditating.

This meditation is the text.

Earlier, I read Zhu Shoutong's "Gentleman's Manner of Crescent Poets", and one sentence resonated well-I don't remember whether he quoted Xu Zhimo's original words-to the effect that life is only a representation of life, and it is the least important one. At that time, it gave me a deep impact, because the potential things in my heart were suddenly hit the nail on the head, which was really explosive and caught off guard.

I like to expand this statement, whether male or female is just a representation. What really touches and exists is just a neutral person, who is hiding behind the skin of men or women or beauty and ugliness and should really speak. In fact, neutral beauty is the most touching beauty and the most lethal beauty, because it is related to the true beauty of life.

Cheng Dieyi can use this beauty to remind us again and again.

The director put a really beautiful man in front of us. Interestingly, this man's truly beautiful hue can make people forget the definition of male or female. (It seems very meaningful, too. The more beautiful, the more people forget their original gender. This man's neutral personality beauty makes all definitions of gender look pale and redundant, and makes all old definitions meaningless. People, beauty is beauty, whether male or female. We are all wandering souls hiding behind our appearances, and this wandering soul is neutral.

In this sense, Cheng Dieyi stood outside the arrangement of the creator, a kind of marginal neutral beauty, a kind of beauty that directly points to people's hearts and can best travel through time.

And what kind of beauty is this? From the most direct level, Cheng Dieyi's beauty corresponds to the footnotes of Master Yuan's eclecticism, which is the beauty of his temperament. There are all women's sensitivity, gentleness, intelligence, delicacy, fragility and even a little jealousy and selfishness born of love, and there are also men's fortitude, persistence, silence, introversion, tolerance and persistence. In all these beautiful things, even some mistakes he made are easily forgiven by others: he degenerated angrily like "throwing caution to the wind", and he tortured his years of smoking opium in the fog.

In addition, Cheng Dieyi's more essential beauty is the beauty of personality, her persistence in her beliefs and dreams, and her courage to practice these beliefs and dreams. In our age of lack of faith, dreams fall into utilitarian goals carelessly, and people who are lost in various colors dare not touch the most empty position in their hearts-have you found faith, have you ever had an ideal that can be called the ultimate ideal, or at least an ideal that you think should be a lifetime, and have you found the salvation of your soul?

Butterfly clothes are happy, just as all people who find faith and destination are happy; Butterfly clothes are beautiful, just like all souls that exist as independent lives, emitting eternal beauty.

Finally, I want to mention that in the middle and late period of the film, the director used the image of "goldfish" many times. It is said that goldfish was originally a kind of crucian carp, and it is this variation that created the unique beauty of goldfish. After Dieyi rescued Shige from the Japanese, he was immediately abandoned by Shige, and the images of goldfish and opium smoke appeared for the first time in the picture. Since then, goldfish have reappeared when they quit smoking. The director seems to be here like a goldfish metaphor for all the "variation" beauty of Cheng Dieyi, a kind of "morbid" beauty. (Of course, the two words used here are still neutral, because we have no reason to take it for granted that the norm is normal, and there is no reason to think that deviation is not a trend towards true beauty. ) This kind of beauty has a shocking effect. In fact, the really beautiful things, no matter how strong the appearance, still can't erase the inner fragility. After the chapters of "learning art" and "following art", the film * * * stepped onto the stage, thus opening the last chapter of "martyrdom". In this chapter, I think it can be roughly divided into several chapters. First, Cheng Dieyi's call to his mother is mainly manifested in the section of quitting smoking; Second, the cultural revolution was divided into chapters, in which friends, intimate friends and close relatives exposed each other; Finally, Yu Ji ended up committing suicide. In the first chapter, the director finally showed us Cheng Dieyi's inner fragility. "Mom, I'm cold", "The water is frozen", Dieyi muttered in dizziness. In an instant, all kinds of pains and sorrows he swallowed for many years appeared in front of us. I remember that in Li Bihua's original novels, there were details about the period of the Cultural Revolution. It is said that when revolutionary teenagers teach actors to read, they ask about butterfly clothes. He said that the word "love" is very similar to the word "accept". Li Bihua wrote at this time, in the heart of Butterfly Clothes, love is endless endurance. It hurts when I look at it.

At that time, Dieyi seemed to have returned to that winter many years ago and became that innocent child. In the film, Juxian, like her mother, was at a loss, but immediately picked up the butterfly's weak shoulder with all her love, just like caring for a most helpless baby with infinite love. At this strange moment, the two concubines finally made up. In fact, Juxian's true feelings at this time can be regarded as both the comfort of the external image of "mother" in fantasy to Dieyi's heart, and the overlap and intersection of the image of "concubine" and her sorrow for her life, a kind of self-pity and heartache, and other helplessness. So I think this short scene fully and skillfully reveals the final sadness of a hero in trouble.

Chen's novels and Chen's films

After watching Chen Kaige's movies, I naturally went to see Li Bihua's original novels. Can't say disappointment, but novels are not necessarily better than movies. In fact, I think the biggest difference between the film Farewell My Concubine and the novel is that the novel is more purely an ordinary romance novel, but the film gives you the most direct spiritual impact and thinking about life and humanity. In this sense, I really want to thank Chen Kaige for promoting and deepening the novel. "Bitches are heartless, and actors are heartless." Li Bihua told us from the beginning that what she wanted to tell was the human story of a bitch's deep affection and the player's righteousness. I agree with some netizens that Cheng Dieyi in the novel should be viewed from a purely female perspective. In fact, Cheng Dieyi's psychology in the novel is no different from that of a woman. You can completely equate his anger, jealousy, love and gentleness with that of a woman. In movies, the love story itself has been relegated to a secondary position, because it carries various factors related to history, art and ideals. It's like when I first watched Farewell My Concubine, I basically forgot the love story between Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou-we were both looking for something to meet our spiritual needs in the movie, and what I looked for and saw in these three hours was just the life story of a lonely Cheng Dieyi and a persistent concubine under siege.

Of course, it is undeniable that Li Bihua's novels can be used as footnotes for movies. After all, in some subtle inner activities, novels have more details.

Just like here, we can clearly see the anger and heartache of Dieyi's "throwing caution to the wind" on the night of Brother Shi's engagement. When I saw him cover his cloak in the background of a sleeping walk-on, it was "like covering himself, like covering the past"; Seeing him coming out of Fu Yuan shyly, the child he met by the roadside looked at him coldly and proudly, but he suddenly found that he was dead, and now he is just a ghost who grew up from then on. ......

It is a wonderful enjoyment to interpret the generosity of men in Chen Kaige with the delicate twists and turns of women in Li Bihua.