Ang Lee's best performance in Gemini Man may still be his best field: not only weaving a story of two "fathers" fighting, but also subtly and unmarkedly using the constant reference to the "father". The so-called "maternal superego" and "pathological narcissism" (see Žižek's "Squinting") are engraved in the film's text with postmodern symptoms such as "mother", drowning, and mirror images. However, the "post-human" theme and "new image" style that all movie fans have been eagerly looking forward to, and which should also be the most carefully polished in the film, have no bright spots.
Starting with "post-humanity", we can not only imagine future ethics (such as "The Moon"), but also reflect the postmodern simulacrum society (such as "Blade Runner"), or even use the theme to play, follow Zizek's 2018 current affairs commentary " Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-humanity takes the Habermas and Sloterdijk battle over biotech straight into the current mess of global politics; but unfortunately, Lee Ann chose the most "boring" and least deep one, "Clone", that's it.
As for the so-called "new image" that has been widely publicized, think about the series of scheduling in the speeding movie, switching back and forth between viewpoint shots, motion follow-up shots, and panoramic shots. Ang Lee probably wants to tell us that 120 frames are used to watch "action-" Image" (see Deleuze's "Motion-Image"), watch "cool films", and look for "presence". Such logic first reminds us of some clichés (if I remember correctly, a well-known film practitioner once said that when film technology develops to a certain point, "story" gives way to pure spectacle. For example The laughable "This is a Widescreen 3D Movie").
But if we put these old-fashioned remarks behind us, we will immediately find that there is no real difference between Li An and these old masters. Susan Hayward's list of genre traits in Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts' "action movies" entry, such as "male swagger", "wise-cracking one-liner" , "narrative incoherence", "spatial and temporal incoherence", "escapism" provided by the imaginative solution at the end all play out in turn in this film, so , Is "Gemini Killer" a "new film" or "old woman's new makeup" or "replay of old tunes"?
Many theorists have explicitly addressed the possibilities of new images, at least as far as I know, such as "interface effects" (see Žižek, "The Horror of Real Tears: Kieslowski's Film"), " Neuro-image” (see Patricia Pisters, The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen Culture), “tele-visual image” (see Rancière, Film Fables ”) and so on, and it is precisely in (and not limited to) the potential possibilities of the above-mentioned practices that the “image”, a postmodern specialty that has been repeatedly criticized, is now endowed with subversive and democratic power .
Deleuze once mentioned the use of cinema to reconstruct philosophy. Based on this , he excavated various forms of philosophical - images in his images , such as Griffith 's "organization " , Eisenstein 's " dialectics " , Orson Welles 's " past tense " "Nihilism" , Roborglier's "Point of the Present" ... Then, according to the author's point of view, Ang Lee's so-called "new image" may be understood as nothing more than a A post-human variation of organic-image, namely "cognitivism" and "pragmatism" - dismantling the human body's perceptual functions and spiritual systems through biological and psychological research, quantifying and fixing the points with the help of mise-en-scene and technological means Throwing in audio-visual stimuli, thereby creating a sense of "immersion" (interestingly, a large part of an article in solidarity with Ang Lee published by a movie review official account used cognitivist theory, which just proved the author's point).
So far, Ang Lee has finally echoed David Bordwell in the theoretical circle, and has become the spokesperson of the postmodern society obsessed with "visible" fetishes (reminiscent of Ang Lee's masterpiece "The Art of Cinema" for Bordwell. 's recommendation: "I know Bordwell very well, read his book, yes!"), excitedly took the film art to "mannerism" under "society of control" The point of no return with “the professional training of eyes” (see Deleuze’s Letter to Serge Daney)—far from the techno-utopia of countless artists and theorists.
What if Godard came to shoot a 120fps film? But at least now Godard will definitely not shoot, because shooting 120 frames now, with a high probability, is no different from committing to the cultural industry. After all, as Badiou pointedly points out, the obsession with technological innovation, "body" and "language" in film practice can only lead to complicity with capitalist progress.
There are remarks, "unconditional support for new technologies" and so on. Sorry, the rating is for the movie, not just for the technology.
There are also remarks, "We should be more tolerant, treat it as a promotional video of 120fps technology, or support it more". First of all, such remarks are tantamount to admitting the failure of "Gemini Man"; secondly, "Gemini Man" has such a dismal reputation at the box office, even if it is a "promotional film", it cannot be ranked. Isn't it strange that "promotion of 120 frames" does not depend on filmmakers' efforts to operate, but also depends on film critics ignoring their conscience to fan the flames?
What can be discussed is, if 120 frames have indeed become the backbone of the new image, will the status of this film change? The answer to this said, first of all, the premise of this question has to be left to the test of time. By then, it will not be too late to "set its circular argument retrospectively" (Zizek).
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