It is hard to imagine that a teenage boy would have such a strong resistance to mainstream heroes. When Halloween comes, all children are dressed up as super heroes in the cartoons who save the planet from danger. Only Havery Pekar didn’t wear the red-turned underpants; or put on an unidentified black tablecloth on his back. Put on a pair of black briefs and declare that justice will eventually triumph over evil. When all the children were immersed in the heroism instilled by mainstream values, the neighbor asked him in a puzzled manner. He was obviously more confused than the neighbor in a normal dress, "What? I am your neighbor’s child! Havery Pekar! !". Even adults are subject to such old ideas, he was disappointed and cursed "Why is everyone so stupid?"
It is true that everyone is so stupid, and he can't escape it. Twenty years later, he is still walking on the streets of Cleveland, and his head has already peaked. The scene was switched to a clinic, and he was hoarse, but complained endlessly about the trivialities of life. Back in a messy home, he met his wife and left him. He is in his thirties and his life is still in a mess. I have to admit that he is what we often call the loser. The voice-over came to us slowly, he is now in a veterans hospital, doing file management to maintain his livelihood. If he develops according to the Hollywood-like plot, at the end of the film, he will be seen successfully living on people, once again icing on the cake for the American dream that has been rendered on the stage for decades, but reality is not the case. The black colleague Boat reciting aloud the American poetess Elinor Wylie of the early 20th century, advising everyone to avoid mediocrity and a firm choice of freedom, but thinks that this is a warning to men to stay away from women. This fantasy, only this later has a little bit of Chinese red ballet. Only a sure old man can catch a glimpse of it.
Time turned back to 1962 and returned to a junk stall. Here, because of a vinyl record of country jazz master Jay Mcshann, Pekar accidentally met perhaps the most important friend in his life. Later, the United States underground The originator of comics-Robert Crumb. This person is well-known for using paintbrushes to satirize American politics, but at that time he was still very famous. Later, he went to Los Angeles and founded the underground comic magazine "Zap Comix" in 1967. His own printing and sales gradually became famous. The film didn’t explain much to us what Pekar was doing at this time. I think he is just a file manager who lives in the hospital day after day. He crosses a few streets after get off work every day to the one full of people. Taobao in the junk stalls in China (the voice-over told us that this is actually meaningless, because it is difficult to have a chance to find the treasure, it is just to kill time). When I got home, I looked at the woman's dissatisfied face and sighed a few times, and fell asleep. This is life. Everyone has the same life, whether you are Superman or Batman, the repetitive and boring life is something you cannot refuse.
Back in 1975, when his wife left, he hoped that something would change. The first two paragraphs gave us his motivation to choose to change, and it was when he sorted out the death cases that he saw a string of short numbers from birth to death of a stranger, which made him pick up a pen and draw some pictures. But after a long time, I found that I couldn't even draw a straight line.
Later, a funny joke appeared. When Pekar was shopping in the supermarket, he was blocked by an old lady who cares about with the cashier. Another Pekar appeared in the image of a comic in his mind, asking him to surpass the current trivial life. He couldn't wait any longer, dropped the shopping cart, and left angrily. Back in an empty home, he worked hard, stayed up all night, and wrote a cartoon. He took this cartoon and showed it to Crumb, who was already very famous at the time, and said to Crumb, "I try to write some staff about real life. Staff that everyman is gonna deal with". The old-fashioned Crumb listened to him talking about Desica and his views on reality, while flipping through the book seemingly casually, and after a while, he offered to draw this thing into a real comic. It can be guessed that he might be able to live a good life from then on.
With the advent of the 1980s, the comic book titled "Glory America" has been released to the eighth volume, and the author of this book is the bald file management who is still working in the hospital at this time. Because of these small cartoons, he has already gained some fame. Colleagues and friends are searching for himself in his cartoons. At least he still provides the lifeless people with opportunities to examine themselves as bystanders. But this did not make him rich, like a professional cartoonist to support himself by creating, and he did not get the hearts of many girls like Crumb. An occasional reunion with a beautiful college girl classmate made him feel even more lonely and helpless. But he couldn't eliminate loneliness and loneliness in a way that believes in God like Toby the nerd.
At the same time, "in the second-smallest state in the United States with the endless plastic and nylon plantations manipulated by the chemical giants", a woman who also lived in the chaos was invited into his life. This woman named Joyce I opened a comics shop in my hometown with my friends and met Havery Pekar through the "Glory of America" comics. Halfway through the movie, they met and got married in a flash. People with the same disease do not have too much passion because of love, there is no lingering, no romance, mutual affection is just the dependence and inertia in life.
In order to make "Glory America" a good sales, Pekar accepted the entertainment interview latenight, which was a smashing American entertainment at the time. When he walked out of the waiting room, he immediately came in with a man dressed as a western cowboy holding a little crocodile. Look at him like this, we I can be sure that this is just an entertainment show and will not bring much change to Pekar's life, but more and more people know him, and those people call him an asshole with unique funny talents. It is conceivable that there was a lot of pressure from public opinion to be famous at that time, but now the reality show in the United States has a large number of viewers all over the world. While everyone scolds those people as stupid, they are also amused by those brave people who do not hesitate to lose their dignity. You have to lean forward and backward. At first, Pekar was just obedient. In the repeated shows, the host took him as a typical loser in the society and took him off, saying that he was like a portrait of a suspect that can be seen everywhere, or a person sleeping on the bus... …. However, Joyce's short leave and unfortunate illness made him feel depressed. He concentrated all his unsatisfactory feelings in another interview later and broke out.
He could not face the trouble of the disease alone, and even doubted his identity, "Am I the one who wrote myself in the comics? Or, I am just a character in that book. If I die, that person will still Continue to exist, or will it slowly disappear?" At this moment, his identity is no different from Superman and Batman. He is a character in a comic, but also different from the former. The character in the comic is the one who wrote himself into the comic. People. Only at this time is the movie completely serious for a while. After saying this, it was a quick clip of the fall, and he collapsed to the ground.
With the help of Joyce, he recorded the process of fighting against the disease and created another volume of "Glory America" in the form of comics. At the same time, they adopted Danielle, the daughter of the down-and-out painter Fred. Perhaps it was Joyce who saw her own shadow in her body that made Pekar, who had already undergone extraordinary surgery, reconsidered to form a true family of three. (Now Log in to Havery Pekar's website, you can also see Danielle's constantly updated personal diary).
One year later, the disease was cured. The picture jumped out of reality. In a pure white background, he talked about the weird name Havery Pekar in such an unremarkable city, and he was puzzled by the fact that many people own it. Everything returned to calm. The filming process of this movie also entered a new "Glory America" titled Our movie year. He was paid some money for it, but life continues. He is still the archives of the veterans hospital. manage.
The film was almost entirely shot with fixed cameras. Only a few shots showing Pekar's depressed mood were taken by hand. In order to highlight the theme, the whole film often uses depth-of-field photography, with a large area of blurred background, and the space is compressed to only the subject. To the point, we don't have to think about things other than those characters, just look at the bitter melon faces on the screen to get a deep peek.
The bald-headed Havery Pekar in the film always feels like a comedy full of complaints and nonsense. The real Havery Pekar is actually like this. The film confuses the truth with the film. The narration of Havery Pekar is basically said by the real Pekar. The film also allows the real Pekar to appear on the scene and ask him to state some of his views. The creation of American comics is average. The improper narrative tone played down the sorrow and anger of real life, and invisibly poured many positive elements into the film. Although the narrative style of the story is relatively traditional, it does not fit Pekar's personality, but the reality-first tone is similar to the artistic style he has always adhered to.
It’s worth mentioning that Toby, the stupid nerd in the film, wears thick black glasses and always chews on candies, hamburgers and other foods. He speaks like a robot, each of which is pronounced better than NBC. All grasped accurately. When Pekar became a frequent visitor to latenight, he also ascended to heaven. He filmed a Mtv that resembled the "Pink Flamingo" and watched him walk out of the caravan wearing giant glasses with eyes painted, using his mechanical words The nerd shouted loudly, I really thought that Mtv was a product of the popular Colt movie at the time. But Toby has never felt uncomfortable with what people think of him as weird. Even when filming this movie, the real Toby appeared in his unconcealed true colors, almost reaching the shocking effect of true and false.
The soundtrack of this film has completed a collection of jazz masters, which is really not easy.
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