屋顶上的猫

Damn the Hays Code, Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer-winning play is bowdlerized on its way from Broadway to the silver screen, where all its homosexual reference is tactlessly papered over. That said, riding on the strength of its top-line ensemble cast, Richard Brook’s exquisite film adaptation still dazzles and hurtles upon a Southern family’s trouble waters.

The crises of the Pollitt family, an affluent rags-to-riches Mississippi empire of cotton plantation built by the patriarch Harvey aka. Big Daddy (Ives, reprises his role from the stage), are multifarious: his youngest son Brick (Newman), a former athlete who abuses himself with alcohol and despondency in the wake of the suicide of his best friend Skipper, and doesn’t want to have any physical intimacy with his sultry wife Maggie (Taylor); then their is the ominous dread of Big Daddy’s doom, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and has less than one year to live, but Dr. Baugh (Gates) fabricates a lie to appease him and his wife Ida aka. Big Mamma (Anderson), only the cat will finally get out of the bag, and its theme of dual courage (for Brick to face life and for Big Daddy, death) plays out with elemental emotional upheaval on the eve of Big Daddy’s 65-year-old birthday, which occupies 99% of the time-frame and takes place entirely in their sumptuous family manor.

The nexus here is the raison d’être behind Brick’s indifferent attitude and self-abandoning intemperance that puts himself against everyone else, since homosexuality is off the table, Brooks and James Poe’s script has to scrape the bottom of the barrel and leaves it mostly to the rage of being (presumably) two-timed, when that proves to be not the case, the barrier causes Brick’s connubial inaction naturally vanishes, ergo, that inconsolable guilt and grieve derived from losing a loved one in Williams’ original play is pitifully deadened to conceive a perfectly heteronormative ending, with a dated, self-congratulatory whiff of natalism (especially grating after hammering home what kerfuffle a band of bratty, insolent kids can engender).

Doused in booze and whose mobility is impeded by a crutch, Newman is magnificent and passionately engaged from A to Z and rightfully receives his first Oscar nomination for a very difficult and complex role. Underneath his Adonis appearance, Newman unleashes Brick’s harrowing obduracy to the hilt, he is self-centered enough to submerge himself entirely in his existential cynicism and doesn’t give a damn about the whole world after what he suffers, not even his father’s death knell, but deep down, he is merely a love-wanting child borne out of a poor rich boy’s misery and destructively waging war on the mendacity of the world, a tour de force loaded with fiery explosion.

An Oscar-nominated Taylor, adorned only by two pieces of finery and a pearl choker, also utterly takes our breath away with her ineffable beauty, a refined southern belle locution and superbly lived-in performance, whenever she and Newman are on screen together, they are the perfect specimen of what divine human gorgeousness looks like, for that reason alone, the film should be included in any film buff’s must-see list. Her Maggie is a valiant fighter, a can-doer, a go-getter, and her heart-stopping allure is fiendishly counterpoised by her super-fertile sister-in-law Mae (a plain-looking Sherwood), the wife of Brick’s elder brother Cooper (Carson, walking a fine line between grasping and subservient), fanatically battling a losing game to earn affection from Big Daddy with all her pesky tailed assets, Williams’ misogynistic partiality is quite revealing.

Performance extraordinaire suffuses the rest of the ensemble, in the co-leading role, Burl Ives’ larger-than-life bravura as Big Daddy is equally impressive, delivering Williams’ florid texts with resounding decibel, and brings about incredible gravitas and compassion in the third act when reconciliation shapes up during a barnstorming tête-à-tête between a befogging father and his prodigal son. Then there is the ever-forbidding Anderson, refuses to give Big Mamma a simple caricatural veneer, and finds her disparaged yet supportive wife a strong purchase in the catharsis-inducing chamber drama that is worthy of Williams’ name, regardless of the compromises inflicted by an odious force majeure.

referential entries: Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966, 8.2/10); Martin Ritt’s THE LONG, HOT SUMMER (1958, 6.3/10); Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959, 7.4/10).

一、艺术性

1、坚持：次子坚持逃避，次子妻子坚持挽回，父亲坚持了解次子，母亲坚持爱父亲，长子坚持做乖宝宝要遗产，长子妻子坚持生小孩以赢得父亲喜爱

2、丰富

1）次子逃避、怀疑误会妻子

2）妻子挽回和解释，一直失败。妻子和长子的财产争夺

3）父亲想了解次子，次子一直逃避，多次攻防，才打破逃避的外壳，说出真相

4）父亲的死亡倒计时的真相隐瞒，父亲大病后人生态度的转变，揭露后父亲人生态度的再次转变。

5）爷爷的穷和爱，父亲的钱和缺爱，次子的不要钱要爱

6）母亲的忍受

7）长子的尽力、听话、和不被喜欢

8）长子妻子的尽力和不被喜欢

3、演技和美貌

父亲、次子、次子妻子把爱、脆弱、坚持、绝望，都演绎很好。

二、内核

1、人生意义：父亲努力工作到65岁，以为自己大病可能死后，不再沉迷工作。要快乐、享受。平衡点更好。巴菲特说的的很好，人生不是一直工作，把所有的sex留到60岁再做最幸福。父亲忍受母亲，想清楚人生意义后，不爽可以离婚的。母亲忍受父亲，如果这是她愿意的，没什么可抱怨的。

2、逃避：次子和男性朋友史吉普同性恋，史吉普一次比赛大败。史吉普和次子电话，很害怕，需要次子帮助和安慰。次子心情不好，无力帮他。史吉普自杀，次子为他的死自责。

3、面对：父亲说的很对，史吉普的死是他自己的责任，次子自怨自艾并没有帮到史吉普，也没有帮到自己。人生很残酷，但仍要面对，逃避只会让事情更糟，一直喝酒也不解决问题。最后父亲疼痛来了，还坚持不打药，宁愿要同时拥有痛苦和敏锐的感知，而不是麻木。每个人尺度不同

爱和钱：次子缺爱，认为父亲的钱给不了次子幸福。虽然爷爷很穷，但给了父亲爱。平衡点更好，钱和时间。

沟通：次子妻子开头试图通过各种方式来沟通，都失败。最后还是父亲一次次强逼次子开启对话，了解酗酒原因，才能解决问题。