女煞葛洛莉

Cassavetes’s tenth feature, GLORIA is a Venice Golden Lion winner, an honor shared with Louis Malle’s THE ATLANTIC CITY (1980), its skeletal storyline anachronistically reminds of late comers such as Luc Besson’s LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL and Eric Zonca’s JULIA, Gena Rowlands plays an ex-moll Gloria Swenson (a nod to G. Swanson), who is press-ganged into protecting a young Puerto Rican tyke Phil Dawn (Adames), the 6-year-old son of her neighbors Jack and Jeri Dawn (Henry and Carmen), by the aftermath of the Dawn’s ruination at the hand of a mob clan.

The reluctant pairing of a recently bereft, peremptory kid and a childless, trigger-happy termagant takes a tough route in the purlieus of NYC (although it gives audience a wrong impression that a six-year-old can freely ride on a train or take a taxi in the land of freedom), and Cassavetes’s script has no tact in plot plausibility, police force is conspicuous by its own absence after their initial advent, and the ill-fated henchmen from gangster land don’t fare better either, often insipidly and frictionlessly overwhelmed by the outnumbered duo-on-the-lam. Ergo, the momentum is emphatically concatenated by Gloria and Phil’s consecutive hopping from one big yellow taxi to another, transiting from one transitory dwelling to another, concomitant with the bumpy ride of two strangers’ bonding process, to the point where great sacrifice is induced to end all the fracas.

Ms. Rowlands, as fabulous as ever, roundly commands our attention under her hubby’s close inspection, her Gloria, might be a far cry from a competent child rearer, but fo’ shizzle she knows how to handle ruthless yet code-of-honor adhering gangstas by exerting her feminine acuity and quick-on-the-draw second nature. It is a larger-than-life character, but Rowlands prevails with her inimitable flair and pizzazz that even the far-fetched happy ending cannot take the shine off her pervasive brilliance.

Moreover, the interplay between Gloria and Phil, beguilingly detracts from the mushy maternal bond default, also helped by an alternately rambunctious and biddable temperaments of a telegenic Adames (intentionally or not, it also implicitly reflects the sign of its times, how toxic masculinity takes its root at a boy’s young age), there is a rare balance of parity in the duo’s co-existence (which might surprise a prudish mind), far from being a trite exploitation of a childless woman’s effusing motherly love triggered by a cute, doe-eyed boy, in the end of the day, it is a goodhearted human being’s sense of justice and compassion that outflanks one’s primeval self-preserving rationale, and elevates Gloria into a very unlikely heroine.

Opening with Romare Bearden’s water colors, and dialing up Bill Conti’s soaring saxophone-heavy score, John Cassavetes’s GLORIA is as close as a genre practice among his output, while structural and narrative coherence may be in deficit, as far as watchability is concerned, it can still hold court thanks to a magnificent leading lady and Cassavetes’s unorthodox discernment and aesthetics.

referential entries: Luc Besson’s LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL (1994, 8.6/10); Erick Zonca’s JULIA (2008, 7.1/10); Cassavetes’s OPENING NIGHT (1977, 8.1/10).

这部由百老汇舞台剧大姐大吉娜.罗兰兹出演，拍摄于上个世纪八十年代，故事和《这个杀手不太冷》刚好反过来了，小男主是个不足八岁的孩子，大女主是个风韵犹存的踩着高跟鞋走路扭着屁股的半老徐娘，故事的背景依然是套路化，小男孩一家人被黑帮杀害，侥幸逃出来的小男孩被老女人救了，于是，两个一路躲避追杀。当然了会讲故事的导演并不满足于，讲一个俗套的故事，而是把有意思的点设定在——小男孩被这个老女人迷住了，一路上还想尽办法勾引这个体重都比他重六十磅的女人，人家在单人床上一个翻身就能把你这个玩尿泥的小不点弹下床。好玩的这个设定，其实是定义了男孩和男人的划分了，正如传说中的俗话，有些男的生下来就是男人，有些则不是。对于，影片里一开始呈现出的小男孩，也是肉眼可见的孩子，可是接下来一步步的发展，不得不让你感慨，小男孩是个男人。这也不得不让我们思考一个问题，有图真的是有真相嘛，真实世界的真相就算是导演设计的胶片纪录都在告诉我们，看这个世界通常意义上并非肉眼而要心眼。这部电影的可看点更加有趣在于平铺直叙的讲故事，在今天讲故事已经成了商品，如何讲好一个故事和如何生产出一个好产品一样一样值得琢磨。因为，今天的社会是个商品社会，眼里有点活那也是硬核技术 。被小病毒路过抚摸过的人儿们，没事干可以看看，毕竟闲着也是闲着，看部不错的影片也是利用闲暇时间历练技术，铸就工匠精神，储存混社会的正能量。

冬季的时光是特别适合学习的，泡上一杯热茶或者咖啡，腾腾的热气，穿一件居家的大毛衣，蜷着写写字，翻翻书，抑或看看电影。这时候的看电影一定比夏天来的专注。因为夏夜都很躁动，站到窗口透口气，一听声音就知道对面窗户没拉窗帘在嘿咻，难道希区柯克的《后窗》就是在这种情况下创作而出的么？ 电影《Gloria》1980年上映，那会儿还没有我呢，可即便那会儿有了你们谁，也很难看到这部影片。 14年后的1994年，吕克贝松模仿这个自己小时候最喜欢的影片故事结构写出了日后艺术商业得奖三好学生的《杀手莱昂》国内翻译的《这个杀手不太冷》，只是他把女大男小换成了男大女小，很《洛丽塔》。未看这部电影之前，一直觉得吕克的《杀手莱昂》简直神了，一般情况下，一部电影要么艺术成功，但商业一定很差；商业成功的片子呢，就更别提有什么艺术性了，所以能兼顾的两不误，最后还获奖确实是高手；后来看了此片，才发现天下文章绘画电影都是一大抄，可能说抄有点过了，是受到启发吧，因为王家卫《重庆森林》里面让林青霞戴上黄色波浪假发，搭配大墨镜，就是在向本片的女主角吉娜·罗兰兹 Gena Rowlands致敬。影片开始时，演小男孩妈咪的女演员其实长相身材俱佳，演技也控制得很到位，说实话，刚开始吉娜出场我并不感兴趣，当我知道小孩的妈咪也要被杀死时，就更可惜了，毕竟片中只有一个漂亮妞。而且很会演剧情片，是带着情感在表达。后来吉娜的表现让我改变了一些看法，因为她控制的很好，因为有时候很多演员最后失控了，太投入感情，而吉娜不是，她知道刚刚好就行，而且她带了一种黑暗的气质，如果再来点黑色眼影，简直眼神杀人。 编剧/导演：约翰·卡索维茨，以前是个演员，我看过他1964年的财色惊魂，没想到做导演这么棒。 挖电影祖坟是我近年来为了学习制定的计划，当DVD碟装满了两个最大号的宜家黑色塑箱以后，又开始多了几个2TB的硬盘，10几TB又有了。还在继续增多，就在思索，世界上怎么这么多电影？而我才看了那么区区一千多部。有的时候感觉很好，毕竟看到了很多人永远可能都不会知道的好影片，但有的时候也会失望，因为在这个看老电影的过程中看到曾经认为优秀的电影很多模仿痕迹，其实这也没有什么不对，但真的不敢再看20--40年代的老电影了。又怕发现50--80年代的是学习他们的。 要去写剧本了，可能我有一天也会陷入模仿痕迹严重的泥沼。无论如何，但愿我能看见像1994年那样的电影盛世，那一年《低俗小说》《杀手莱昂》《重庆森林》《霸王别姬》等等等等 百花齐放。希望今后，我也有幸，会是参与其中的一员。