《爱乐之城》上映以来票房一路高歌猛进,主创拿奖拿到手软,还获得14项奥斯卡提名,平了《泰坦尼克号》(Titanic)和《彗星美人》(All About Eve)创下的记录。
这部关于爱情、梦想和怀旧的电影在国内上映后也好评如潮,豆瓣评分8.6。
影迷的评论充满了情感,能看出对电影深深的爱:
但是这样温暖感人的电影却让国外人民吵开了锅!
《卫报》(The Guardian)写道:
Representatives of various marginalized communities – women, African Americans, and jazz lovers – emerged to take the film down a peg.
各类边缘人群的代表——女性、黑人、爵士乐爱好者——都出来发声了,把这部电影拉下了一个档次。
除了说电影本身不好看之外,我们来看看还有哪些不同角度的批评……
❶ 白人变成了爵士乐的拯救者。
MTV News的影评写道:
If you’re gonna make a film about an artist staying true to the roots of jazz against the odds and against modern reinventions of the genre, you’d think that artist would be black.
如果你想做一部电影关于一个艺术家冲破万难坚守爵士乐的本真,并抵抗各种现代元素对其的改造,你大概会认为这个艺术家应该是个黑人。
这种说法是考虑到了爵士乐本身的文化根源:
Jazz is a uniquely black American genre, and many of its most famous artists, such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, were heavily involved in the civil rights movement.
爵士乐是美国黑人特有的一种音乐类别,而且许多著名的爵士乐音乐家,如约翰·克特兰、查尔斯·明格斯都是黑人民权运动的积极参与者。
美国音乐人Rostam对此也颇为不满,他在推特上发帖说:
“Black people invented jazz but now we need a white man to come save/preserve it? Sorry this narrative doesn’t work for me in 2016.”
黑人发明了爵士乐,我们却需要一个白人来拯救维护它?抱歉现在是2016年了,这种故事无法说服我。
电影中唯一一个有点戏的黑人角色是John Legend扮演的Keith,而他却被描述成了爵士乐的“背叛者”。
The movie concludes with Gosling taking over the piano from a black musician: The erasure of black art is complete.
电影结尾,高司令取代一位黑人乐手,坐在钢琴旁:对黑人艺术的抹杀是彻头彻尾的。
❷ 除了爵士乐,整部电影都充斥着只有白人才享受的情怀。
Paste Magazine发表了一篇题为《<爱乐之城>无法承受之白》("The Unbearable Whitenessof La La Land")的解读,给人们一个很不一样的视角来审视这部电影。
文章认为这部电影反映了美国社会中存在的白人关于回到过去、逃避现实的“白人怀旧”(white nostalgia)情绪。
What Gosling’s Seb and Stone’s Mia share is a commitment to the past—a place where, supposedly, dreamers dream their dreams awake. But which dreamers dreaming what dreams? Why do white Americans (in politics and film) often so wistfully return to the era before federally mandated desegregation, voting and civil rights? (Would La La Land ever have been made with two leading actors of color? Obviously not.)
高司令饰演的塞巴和石头姐饰演的米娅所共有的是对过去的执念——一个假想中能让追梦者醒着做梦的地方。但问题是哪些追梦者做的什么梦?为什么美国白人(在政治中也是在电影中也是)无限渴望回到联邦废除种族隔离,黑人没有投票和公民权的时代?(《爱乐之城》可能让两个有色人种主演吗?显然不能。)
The film only functions as an ode to a lost era of white supremacy, and its viewers, consciously or unconsciously, participate in the delusion. The film’s politics of nostalgia and whiteness are inextricable.
这部电影仅仅是一篇对逝去的白人至上的年代的歌咏,并且,它的观众们,不管是有意识还是无意识的,都参与进了这种幻觉中。这部电影的政治表达和白人怀旧主义是分不开的。(翻译 张潇潇)
文章甚至联系到特朗普“让美国重新伟大起来”(make America great again)的政治宣传,认为这都是一脉相承的对美国过去的向往:
There lies a profound irony in liberal white folks heading to La La Land to repair after a political season overflowing with the nostalgia of white supremacy.
在经过了一个充斥着对“白人至上”的怀念的大选季后,大批自由派白人跑去看《爱乐之城》来疗愈心灵,就更显得格外讽刺。
作者知道有人会认为这种解读是上纲上线,他辩论道:
One suspects Chazelle and his defenders will say analysis of this sort over-interprets, goes too far, but this is a luxury, too, a privilege. “It’s only a movie” is the apologia of people who have never been victimized by culture.
沙泽勒和他的辩护者可能会说,这样的分析是过分解读,太上纲上线了,但这辩护本身也是一种奢侈的特权。“这只是一部电影”是从未被大众文化伤害过的人常用的辩解词。(翻译 张潇潇)
Buzzfeed则更加义愤填膺地批评电影中展现出的白人特权:
Whiteness is part of the point of La La Land as well — it is, after all, a privilege of whiteness to see yourself so easily in the stars of the studio golden age, as Mia does, and to imagine yourself among them or as carrying on in their tradition. It’s a privilege of whiteness to feel such an unabashed sense of ownership over a genre of music as fundamentally grounded in the black experience as jazz the way Sebastian does.
白人主义也是《爱乐之城》的一个重点。毕竟,只有拥有白人特权的人才会如此轻易地将自己梦想成电影黄金时代的明星,就像米娅那样,想象着自己跻身明星之列,延续着旧时明星的传统。同样,只有拥有白人特权的人才会对根植于黑人文化的爵士乐表现出如此厚颜无耻的拥有权,就像塞巴斯蒂安那样。
❸ 对女性角色的弱化反映出的性别政治问题。
不少评论认为电影对米娅这个人物的刻画很平面,她仅仅是自己人生故事的旁观者( a bystander in her own story)……
Morgan Leigh Davis在《洛杉矶书评》(LA Review of Books )中写道:
Sebastian’s drive and dedication are more textured than Mia’s, and it is his melody that recurs through the film to denote particularly important moments in their relationship.
电影对塞巴斯蒂安的努力和投入的描述比米娅更加有质感,在二人情感关系中的重要时刻,重复的也总是他的主旋律。
He is the author of their relationship: he comes to ask her out at work; he introduces her to jazz; he takes her to see Rebel Without a Cause for research (despite the fact that she is the actor and supposed cinephile).
他才是两人关系的作者:在她工作的时候,他约她出去;他把爵士乐介绍给她;为了学术研究,他带着她去看《无因的叛逆》(尽管事实上她是个演员,影迷是她才对)。
Davis还提到,这样以男性为主导的现象在导演达米恩·沙泽勒的电影中很常见。
In light of Chazelle’s earlier films, this is not surprising. He is particularly attached to scenes in which men teach women how to play musical instruments, explain music to them, or play music for them.
看看沙泽勒早年的电影你会发现,这并不令人感到惊讶。他特别喜欢此类场景,比如男人教女人演奏乐器,给她们讲解音乐,或是为她们演奏一曲。
《卫报》就表示,这样的场景和设定本来无可厚非,但是如果联系到奥斯卡最佳影片长久以来缺乏以女性为主的作品这一事实,那就是个值得思考的问题了。
As Sebastian watches a live jazz performance with Mia, he explains to her: “It’s conflict, it’s compromise, and it’s very, very exciting.” He might as well be teaching her about life, which is essentially what he does over the course of the film.
塞巴斯蒂安会在和米娅一起看现场爵士乐表演的时候,给她解释:“这是冲突,这是妥协,真是非常、非常振奋人心。”那他也可能会在生活上对她进行指点,而这也正是他在电影中主要做的事。
In a vacuum, this doesn’t hurt the film’s effectiveness, but when you consider the fact that no best picture winner has had a female protagonist since 2003 (Chicago), it’s easy to understand why the issue is getting this kind of attention.
不考虑现实,这样做当然不影响电影的效果。但是,当考虑到自2003年(《芝加哥》)之后,再无以女性主人公为主的电影获得奥斯卡最佳影片,那该电影能引发这样的关注也就可以理解了。
❹ 然后,同性恋群体也不高兴了……
因为电影里一个同性恋也没有……
《卫报》写道:
Notably, La La Land was also criticized for its lack of gay characters on the basis that, well, there are a lot of gay people in Los Angeles but none in the film. Whether you think this is fair or not, it’s going to continue to be an issue until Hollywood more generally solves its problem of inequality in gender, race and sexual identity.
值得一提的是,《爱乐之城》还因为缺少同性恋角色而被批评,因为洛杉矶有很多同性恋群体,但电影里却一个都没有。不管你觉得这种批评公正与否,这种争论都会继续存在,除非好莱坞能普遍解决电影中存在的性别、种族、性向的不平等问题。
以上这批评论,不管你是赞同还是反对,其实都多多少少也让我们看到了西方社会文化中存在的分歧和矛盾。
无论如何,流行文化的政治化解读,已经成为西方的文化氛围。《卫报》就反思道:
While it might seem odd that a movie as guileless and nostalgic as La La Land has provoked such ire, this is the pop cultural world we live in.
像《爱乐之城》这么诚实又怀旧的影片会引发如此强烈的愤怒,虽然好像有点奇怪,不过这就是我们现在身处的流行文化世界。
Every piece of art is now politicized and parsed for its problematic elements.
如今,每件艺术作品都被政治化了,各种有问题的元素会被细细剖解。
These complaints may take some of the joy out of a film intended only to entertain, but they also reveal vital perspectives that have been hidden for too long from our white-male dominated discourse.
对于一部只为愉悦大众而生的电影来说,这些抱怨可能会有些扫兴,不过这也揭露了长久以来隐藏在白人男性主导话语权背后的一些重要视角。
最后,看点轻松的吧!
关于《爱乐之城》的掐架太过火热,以至于电影的狂热粉丝和批判者都变成搞笑梗了……
美国著名搞笑综艺节目《周六夜现场》(Saturday Night Live)就专门做了一个小品,讽刺这一现象。小品讲的是一个觉得《爱乐之城》一般般的人被抓进了警局……全程爆笑!
不管你站哪一边,都来看看这个视频吧……
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