In fact, I want to say that this film should be seriously underestimated.
Let me add something different!
The film follows the dramatic 3-month life of a young mother after her death. Nell was discovered by small-town doctor Jerry Lovell, and Paula Olson, a physician at City University Medical Center, quickly learned the news. Both were shocked and fascinated by the grown-up "wild child," while Nell curled up in horror and made an incomprehensible sound.
The performance of the film is based on the behavior of people with autism. Jerry and Paula later realized that Nell's language wasn't gibberish. The source of its language is the King James translation of the Bible, which her mother has read aloud to him for more than 20 years. However, her mother suffered a sudden stroke, and Neel learned a language that no one could understand. In the first half of the film, Paula thinks Nie Er is "autistic" and tries to take her to a mental hospital for observation. Jerry thinks Nell is frightened and tries to learn her language to understand her.
The film is pure fiction, but it makes for a compelling story in terms of portraying the impact of language.
We might as well understand from the following points, you can get a glimpse of the true meaning of this film:
1. Meaning: Humans act on people or things first and foremost based on the meanings they think of those people or things
In the film, we can see that this assumption materialized in the film as Jodie Foster's character elicits very different reactions from the different individuals she encounters:
The town sheriff believes that Neal is a lunatic and recommends putting her in a mental hospital.
The sheriff's longtime gloomy wife thinks Nell is a fun soul and plays happily with her
The chief psychiatrist at the medical center saw the case of the "wild child" as an opportunity to make history and insisted on taking her to the medical center as a research object.
A group of vulgar men in the billiards hall sees Nell as an accessible sex toy because she thinks she will imitate anything she sees without thinking
And the doctor who found her - Jerry not only thinks Neal is a normal person, but also tries to be her friend, Neal returns Jerry "guardian angel"
So which one is the real Nell? The answer doesn't make any difference. "Once people see a situation as a real situation, the result is real"
2. Language: Meaning arises from people's social interactions with each other. In other words, meaning does not exist in the thing itself, much less does it pre-exist in the state of nature. Meaning is negotiated through communication in the use of language.
In the movie, because there is no way to communicate with her more smoothly, various people label Neil as "weird", "weird" or "abnormal". Isn't this the epitome of a generalized image in our daily life, because there is no way to understand and penetrate a thing?
However, at Jerry's insistence, Nell was finally able to be understood. What does this imply to us? In daily life, are there some people or things that you seem to be out of line with the so-called normal, or is it because you do not have the time and energy to examine them carefully?
3. Thinking: the ability to play others. Our own human thought process can revise his previous interpretation of symbols. This is the so-called mind function.
Mental Action: Internal dialogue that arises from testing alternatives, rehearsing behavior, and anticipating other people's responses before giving responses.
In the first half of the movie, Jerry and Paula are at a loss as to why Neil has the ability to introspect. They knew that Neel interacted with her mother, but wondered where the social stimulation needed to learn a language came from communicating with a reclusive and reticent adult.
In a branch of semiotics, scholars postulate that it is impossible for a person to learn a language and form thinking with little or no human contact. However, through the review of the film, we know that Nell has a twin sister who was Nell's only companion when she was growing up. Before her sister could not die, Nell's excitement in life was plentiful.
After learning about Nell's past, Jerry and Paula understood why Neal had the ability to think. The process of human interaction stimulating cognition, once turned on, cannot be turned off again.
The biggest reason we have cognitive abilities is because we humans have the ability to role-play.
At an early age, children imitate their parents' behavior in role-playing, chat with imaginary friends, and derive constant pleasure from tricks of pretending to be others. As adults, we still place ourselves in the shoes of others and imitate their behavior, often unconsciously. This actually leads to a new definition, thinking is actually a dialogue between us and others on the spiritual level.
4. Self: We paint self-portraits by "playing others" - thinking about how we treat others. This mental image is the "mirror self," which is socially constructed.
Emerson: A mirror of his friend, a reflection of his fading appearance.
We are born without a sense of self. Self-awareness arises from the interaction of others, and I experience myself in contact with others; without interaction with others, I cannot shape myself—I cannot appear as a person. This is doomed to self-consciousness is constantly changing.
"Self" is a continuous process of combining "I" (I) and "I" (me).
Lord I : self all new, unpredictable and spontaneous unregulated part of the driving force. This is equivalent in the brain to the creativity of the right hemisphere. In the movie, Nell imitates the dance-like movements of the trees moving with the wind, which comes from the "master" part of the self. The same goes for Jerry's impromptu backing vocals (of course, if he had thought about it beforehand, he wouldn't have picked "Crazy" by American country singer Willie Nelson). When Paula gets angry at his unprofessionalism, he can only explain that sometimes people do things on a whim.
Guest Self: The objective self; the mirror image of the self seen when one plays the role of another, as shown in the picture below.
A turning point occurs shortly after the movie starts when Jerry is in her cabin with Nell, Nell runs to the mirror in the closet, reaches for the person in the mirror and says "May" and Jerry realizes that she means " guest me". Then, Nell turned around and hugged herself and said "Tay," which Jerry understood as "Lord I." In the next scene, the clinician watches Paula's tape and is amazed at Nell's ability to clearly distinguish between the objective self and the subjective self. He thus affirmed Nell's humanity and considered her sane. Therefore, she has a complete self.
5. Community: The socialization effect expected by others.
If Neel only had contact with her mother, her twin sister, and Jerry, the reflections of these three significant Others would shape her "guest self."
But once she leaves her remote mountain cabin and walks into a new group of people, in order to survive and grow in her new community, Neel needs to understand what people do, what their actions mean, and what they expect from her.
Here is another concept of semiotics - "generalizing others".
Generalized Others: A person's mixed images of his or her self based on community and responses.
When we want to figure out how to act in a social situation and how to evaluate that action, the process is generalizing others. We give meaning to ourselves and our actions from the standpoint of generalizing others.
After moving from the mountains to the city, Niall had to face a series of so-called civilized social mechanisms such as the health security system, the judicial system, and the economic system.
When we are born, there is no "guest self". This "guest and self" can only be formed through continuous symbolic interaction - family first, playmates second, and institutions like schools.
Once the generalized other develops, this imaginary sum of self becomes a dialogue partner with us in an ongoing spiritual dialogue. It is in this way that children participate in their own socialization process. In adjacent communities, children gradually learn the roles of others.
"Neal's Heart" repeatedly describes concepts in semiotics, but there is a dissonance at the end.
The final scene of the film, 5 years later, shows Nell reuniting with the people she first met. Jerry and Paula are married and have a daughter who reminds viewers of Nell as a child. The sheriff's wife, no longer depressed, credits Nell for her recovery. Nell is thrown into a vast world of lawyers, journalists, and salespeople who see her as an outlier and insist that she conform to social roles, yet she seems completely immune to the judgments and expectations of others.
Jodie Foster's character exudes an inner peace and contentment. But the community she perceives when she generalizes others has not changed. This is probably the real reason why everyone thinks the last scene is a failure of the whole film.
But doesn't this mean that the story is pure fiction?
My friends who read many film reviews say that this film is actually about religion. I wonder if you still think so after reading the obscure things above?
Of course, friends who understand what I say are welcome to pay attention to my private public account: Shi Jian , you probably know what I do, and you are entitled to communicate with others in the industry.
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