Italian neorealism began in 1942 with Visconti's "The Sinking", which depicts a case in a rather materialistic way, showing a unique authenticity in the film, Modernity and Contemporaneity. Since then, Rossellini's "Rome, the Undefended City" has become recognized as the pioneering work of Italian neorealism. From this, Italian filmmakers began to stand up to the aestheticist films and set off a worldwide The new wave of film, and established its unique film principles: use non-professional actors, use live action (against studio shooting), and shoot with long takes. Italian filmmakers once said passionately that we should carry the camera to the street. As we know, Fellini's early film work was an assistant to Rossellini, so he was more or less influenced by Italian neorealism, especially in his early films we can see many A scenographic writing about Italian historical reality.
But looking back at the history of world cinema, it is worth reflecting on the position of Italian neorealist cinema. If Neorealism takes the difficulties of the real world as the object of indictment of the story, and we hardly see the love of the protagonist for the real world in the film, then what is the protagonist's motive for survival? [1] If the characters in the film are constantly protesting the land in real life, then it is essentially a kind of suicide rooted in the local Italian narrative environment. Based on this, Fellini's inner realist films have completed a transformation of Italian neorealist films. His films did not analyze the Italian social environment from the perspective of social history, but created an embracing reality with an attitude of embracing reality. It is a metaphysical reality, and this reality also includes the reality in the depths of people's hearts. In the opinion of some left-wing realist film critics, Fellini's realism is a kind of injury to the Italian film realism tradition, and they think that Fellini betrays the spirit of neorealism. But Bazin has a different attitude towards this criticism. Bazin said that the attempt to expel Fellini from neorealism is absurd. Fellini's work is personal realism, just like Chekhov and the works of Dostoevsky. [2] And the "realist" film that only emphasizes critical society is a narrowing of neorealism. After this, Bazin turned Fellini's inner realism into "neorealism of the person", an aesthetic style not necessarily confined to social history.
Back to the film "The Great Road" itself, "The Great Road" is a movie based on the theme of the road, a feature film with the nature of a road movie, and the road movie itself is the most special kind of realism film, which combines space and time. The audience follows the characters in the play as if they are traveling in time and space. The characters constantly change the scene within a limited period of time, completing a style of scenery description. At the same time, we can find that the narrative system of "The Great Road" is extremely fragmented, that is to say, the relationship between what happened in the previous paragraph and the plot of the next paragraph is not strong, and because of this, Jesso in "The Great Road" The triangular relationship between Mina, Zambano, and Ilmato was not presented in a dramatic form. Instead of the usual melodrama for men and women, it became as innocent as a fairy tale. This is also Fellini. a kind of realism
In expressing the inner realism of the characters, Fellini adopted a method of virtual reality, virtualizing the place of Rome. In the film, the places where Zambano took Jesomina to perform are some desolate towns around Rome. If Jessomina hadn't asked the circus proprietress where she was, we might not have told the film. The desolate and barren lands of the Middle East are linked to the prosperous Rome. Here, Rome has become a symbolic existence, it is not a definite place of actual reference, it is the spiritual symbol in Fellini's heart. Therefore, we say that the appearance of "The Great Road" is of epoch-making significance, because its appearance represents the continuous recovery of the Italian economic environment after the end of World War II, and the film also began to turn from a ruthless criticism of social reality to a deep inner soul of people. of constant pursuit.
In movies, when it comes to goofy characters, we quickly think of clown performers like Chaplin, Keaton, Woody Allen, but Fellini's wife - "The Solitude Trilogy" Nor should we forget the performance of the great actress Juliette Massina. Her acting charm is enough to make every moviegoer fascinated by it. In "The Great Road", she created the image of a female fool with a pure and beautiful heart. The fool's view of life is always full of poetry, and she always opens herself up with a gesture that is almost divine, with tears in her eyes. her eyes, observing the extremely cruel and icy world in which she lived. As a Western proverb says: "A fool is the one who is closest to God." Jesomina's view of the world always contains a philosophical side. After she was repeatedly beaten by Zambano, she still has no idea what to do. Zambano showed his most sincere heart and said warm words to Zambano in his "fool" way. However, every time Zambano's answer is a chicken-and-duck talk, he responds to the most poetic words with the most realistic words. During a night break scene in the film, Jessomina said to Zambano, "Since we're staying together, even a stone will help. Think about these things." But Zambano's answer was It was: "What do I want? Stop talking nonsense. I'm tired and I'm going to bed." Then Jessomena said, "Zambano, do you like me?" And this time it was Zan who greeted Jessomena Barnes & Noble's sound of sleep. The confrontation between this poetic spirit and the real world is one of the tragic cores of the film, and it is also the inner motivation for the contradiction between Jesomina and Zambano. What Jesomina represents is a kind of divine innocence, a state of innocence at the very beginning of life, while what Zambano represents is a kind of rationality and practicality. For Zambano, nothing is more important than eating, sleeping, and earning money, and in him we can see an animalized life form. Here, this animalization does not refer to him alone, but also includes his attitude towards Jessome: "I can train him well, because I can train dogs too." In Zombano's view, perhaps Jessome Na's life is no more noble than a dog, and he has never put his female assistant on an equal footing with himself.
But when Jesomina confronts Zambano's: "Do you like me?" this question, we will find that she herself may not be able to give a clear answer. Because Jesomina's feelings for Zambano are more of a realization and pursuit of her own value. When commenting on Jesomina's role positioning, Dai Jinhua used "puppy" to describe Jessomina, saying that she has a puppy-like meekness, puppy-like loyalty and puppy-like sadness. This comment is quite appropriate for Jesomina, because Jesomina's feelings for Zambano are more a responsibility and a realization of self-worth than love. In a dialogue with the tightrope acrobat "The Fool" who appeared later, we can see Jesomina's self-worth more clearly. The fool said to Jessomena, "You have value, and your value is to be with him. If you don't want him, who will want him?" This is a very important statement, and it is based on this Jessome Na will choose to stay with Zambano because she is chasing her own self-worth, which is the inner reason for her puppy loyalty.
We can see that until the end of Jesomina's life, she chose to embrace her own life value. Her life, like the song she herself trumpeted, was contradictory and poignant. This horn was taught to her by the "fool", she would blow it again and again in different places, because she was so hard to forget the "fool", but it was contrary to the value of her life, so Jesomina is destined to be a wandering image who is constantly chasing her own soul.
In Fellini's films, the circus is always a central image in his films. In fact, it is not just Fellini, there are circus images in many master films of the 20th century. "The Great Road" depicts the circus life of three wandering entertainers. And in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal," we see medieval street entertainers, knights, and death. In Beratar's Whale Circus, we see a metaphor and retrospect of Hungarian history after the circus whale performance. But the circus is not a traditional image rooted in European history and culture. According to Mr. Dai Jinhua's evaluation of the circus, it is "a choice for 20th century artists to fall into existentialism". These artists used the circus as a symbol of the underworld and wandering, but also as a kind of folk, as a place of purity that was not polluted by the industrial civilization of modern society.
Therefore, "The Great Road" chose to set the identity of the protagonist as a wandering entertainer in the circus, which is also a response of Fellini to the confusion of human spirit after World War II. After the Second World War, the Italians had great trauma, and the circus was an enclave representing the folk, a place far from modern civilization. The Rome in the film is not the devastated Rome after World War II and its economy is in tatters, but a completely folk-like, poetic place like a ballad. From another point of view, the circus represents a kind of wandering, a choice to live in the moment. The wandering artists don’t care about what happens tomorrow, they only care about whether they make money today and live happily. This kind of life choice at the ideological level also constitutes an echo of the inner spirit of existentialism.
Fellini used the most restrained and calm shots to capture the most soulful images of Rome. There is still a lot we can analyze and explain about "The Great Road". Everyone has a different Fellini in their hearts and a different Jessomina. After "The Road", Fellini finally embarked on the road of his artistic life. He said goodbye to the traditional neo-realism, and since then a talented director has officially appeared in front of the audience.
references:
[1] Mao Jian. The narrowing of "The Road": Fellini and the New Reality [J]. Southern Literature Forum, 2010(02): 5-9.
[2][French] Andre Bazin: "What is Cinema?", pp. 272, 283, 360, translated by Cui Junyan, China Film Press, 1987 edition.
View more about La Strada reviews
