1032 Art Resonance

"Drunken Country Ballad", it's a very poetic name.

But in fact, this is a derivative interpretation of the Chinese translation. The original English title of the film is "About Llewyn-Davis (Inside-Llewyn-Davis)", as the Coen brothers said, the title of the film comes from Dave-Fan - An album of punk.

Compared with the original English name, Renly prefers the Chinese translation, with the sadness and casualness of a frustrated and homeless person.

The story of the film takes place in New York in the 1960s. The hero is called LeVine Davis. He is a little-known folk singer. He lives in poverty, is homeless, and does not even have a regular job. You can't live without the help of your friends. In spite of the predicament, the stubborn LeVine refuses to compromise in favor of popular liking, which makes his life more difficult, chasing a ballad dream path with no end in sight.

The film, directed by the Coen brothers, received mixed feedback after its official release.

Film critics ushered in a frenzy of praise, not only won a high rating of 93 points from the media comprehensive review, but also won three authoritative professional media such as "Film Review", "New York Times" and "Village Voice" in 2013. The title of the best film of the year also appears frequently on the annual top ten lists of other professional magazines.

Audiences generally don't buy it. They think this film is unspeakably brilliant, not only not as good as "Frozen", "No Country for Old Men" and other classics, even if it is compared to the Coen Brothers' last work "Thunder". Several grades, from box office to word-of-mouth, were mediocre, and even the IMDB rating was only 7.5 points.

Actually, this is not difficult to understand.

"Drunken Country Ballad" is not a typical American movie, but more like a European movie. The work does not tell a complete story: there is no cause, no result, or even no plot advancement, but in a reincarnation way, It tells about a state, a wave and an era.

The whole movie is just a slice of LeVine's life, telling the trivial things he went through in four or five days, showing his current state, and that's it.

The beginning and the end are almost the same scene, connected by Le Vern's live performance in the small bar. The lines and plot are almost exactly the same. There are not many changes, but the camera angle has changed a little; , even the core idea has not been sublimated and refined, which vividly interprets the profound meaning of "shooting is equal to not shooting".

More importantly, LeVine is a loser. This is not an inspirational story, nor a dreamer's story, but a story of a loser who is still a loser after going around. At the beginning of the story, there is no hope; at the end,

Still the same.

In Europe, such films are very common. They tell about a state of life, reflect the general environment of society, and leave room for philosophical speculation for the audience to savor slowly. However, in the United States, such art films are high and low, and it is really difficult to win the echo of the audience. . On the two pieces of land, the difference in artistic heritage and connotation can be seen from this.

Later Oscars also proved this. The Coen brothers, who have been nominated for best picture three times in four years with "No Country for Old Men", "Serious Man" and "Thunderbolt", have become academy darlings; "Drunken Country Ballad" "But it only received two nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Effects, not even Best Original Score and Best Original Song, and was completely ignored.

Of course, objectively speaking, compared to the social reality refracted by the Coen Brothers’ other works, this work does seem a little too pediatric; but as far as Renly is concerned, this is his favorite Coen. brother.

Greenwich Village in the 1960s has now become a legendary history. Countless music fans talked about it with relish, discussing every move that took place here, pushing history forward and setting footnotes in history; but in those days , but it was the arduous journey of an entire generation to find, dig, and strengthen oneself. There is no glamorous, no dream bubble, everything is cold and gloomy.

Under the call of the entire wave of the times, countless people threw themselves into the torrent of folk songs, as Ethan said just now, "It doesn't matter who you are, what matters is that you are part of this wave of folk songs"; but the problem That is, there may be only one successful person among a million people, and all the rest are struggling to live on the poverty line, with no future or hope in sight.

Everyone aspires to be Bob Dylan, but there is only one Bob Dylan.

So, everyone is faced with a choice, persevere, change, or give up? It is so now, and it was so before. Time flies, and the contradiction between dream and reality has never changed.

In the story of "Drunk Town Folk Ballad", there are several such characters. Justin Timberlake as Jim, Carey Mulligan as Jane, and Oscar-Isaac as LeVine.

All three are folk singers and friends, and they're all small characters who are ups and downs in the waves of the Greenwich Village era.

Jim is a kind-hearted man. After pursuing his dream to no avail, he chose to compromise and began to sing some conventional commercial songs, and also began to create some saliva songs in accordance with social trends. This is not the original appearance of the dream, but it allows him to gain a firm foothold in society and have a relatively stable life.

Jane is a woman who grew up in a hippie culture. She has an open attitude towards "sex" and has no burdens. For her, music is just a hobby. The choice - with Jim, life gradually stabilized.

And LeVine was the only one who was stubborn.

Jim chose to change, Jane chose to give up, and LeVine chose to persist. Different choices guide their destiny towards different paths.

Hidden in these three roles is the Coen brothers' reflection on dreams, art, and even the entire industry and the entire era; and among these three roles, the Coen brothers chose Le Verne as the protagonist, and all the All eyes are focused on this persevering loser, in the form of a ring structure, showing the state of being trapped between dream and reality, sad and lost.

This state, which the audience cannot understand and comprehend, is exactly what the Coen brothers hoped to express and present.

One is that the dreamers are trapped in an inexplicable lonely place where they cannot move forward or retreat, as if they were exiled, living in isolation and at a loss. They cannot see the future, but they are unwilling to give up. A passion, obsessive and foolish, rampaged through this lonely place, smashing the head and blood.

The second is the era of innocence that passed away. Those talented, young and impulsive artists are now gradually drowning in the torrent of the times when interests come first and entertainment to death. They lose themselves and silently give up their favorite careers; , Art-filled Greenwich Village, gradually submerged in Manhattan's high-rise buildings and traffic.

To most viewers, it seemed like a work that didn't need to be shot, no one cared about the stories of the losers, no one reminisced about the days of the ballad age, no one cared about the struggles of the dreamers, the things that the Coen brothers struggled to capture. This state, in the fast food culture and the Internet age, has become superficial and exaggerated, and no one cares or understands it.

But not so for Renly.

Levine Davis of "Drunken Country Ballads" is like the old Frank in the nameless bar.

Next to the cemetery where Heather Cross slept, in the nameless bar, the old Frank who murmured "Cleopatra" in a low voice, the old Frank who never got tired of even playing for free, the one who was in reality Old Frank who gave up his dream under pressure but persevered in his own way.

From any angle of social reality, old Frank, like Le Verne, is a loser, a complete loser, and may even become the object of their ridicule and ridicule, and may also become a negative teaching material for parents to educate their children; but In the dead of night and alone, the flame of the dream deep in the heart is still burning brightly, but it illuminates their lives.

It's a story about persistence, about dreams, about life, it's a story about George Slender and Heather Cross, and it's a story about Trudeau and Renly Hall.

This was true when I was trapped in a hospital bed in my last life; this was true when I came to New York alone to pursue my dream of being an actor; it was true when the album "Don Quixote" was created and produced; -The same is true when Kroos stops before the threshold of the dream coming true.

On the road of dreams, it is not difficult to give up. Everyone can choose to give up. Just let go of their hands, and the dream will fly to the sky like a hydrogen balloon and disappear in a blink of an eye. After the struggle of compromising and bowing your head, everything will become logical, and then self-comfort, most people above the society.

It is always easy to choose the Sunshine Avenue, choose the mainstream of society, and choose to go with the flow. It is always easy to hide in the vast sea of ​​people, no need to think, no need to fight, no need to struggle, just follow the thread of the predecessors and the waves, blind to the present OK, that's enough. Under the huge social machine, everyone gradually grinds away the edges and corners and becomes the same.

It takes courage and perseverance to choose to stick to oneself, choose to pursue freedom, and choose to keep edges and corners. Because they have no reference, they have to grope for themselves and find their own path, a unique path.

In the story of "The Ballad of Drunken Township," Renly can see his own shadow and his own story in Le Verne Davis.