大市民

Make-believe posing and posturing is part and parcel of acting, professionals need years of practice to excel in it, for amateurs who tread the boards for the very first time (METROPOLITAN is a case in point), the result can be a toss-up and to a great extent contingent on its director’s aptitude to key their personal traits into the roles they are assigned to play, in that regard, Whit Stillman makes an exemplar specimen with his very first feature film, a less neurotic, more self-possessed leisure-class confab-fest a là Woody Allen.

Set in the present day of Manhattan’s debutante season circa Christmas time, a secluded group of Upper East State preppies, the so-called “Sally Fowler Rat Pack”, welcomes an initiate named Tom Townsend (Clements), a Princeton student who is a rung lower than the rest, among which Audrey Rouget (Farina) has been secretly carrying a torch for him, but Tom still hasn’t got over his popular ex-girlfriend Serena (Thompson), who is not included in the group though, and prioritizes the latter over Audrey during one outing, which causes some dissension among the rat pack, that aside, Tom is gradually eased into the group by a cynical Nick Smith (Eigeman), whose snarky remarks about a young titled baron Rick Von Sloneker (Kempe), do not strike the right chord with other members of the group, particularly Cynthia (Gillies), and he starts to lose his credit after fabulating a harrowing story to authenticate Rick’s womanizing vice. After giving some introspection of his own actions, and parsing his true feelings for Audrey, a guileless Tom dreads that he has obliquely driven her into the arms of Rick, as a last resort, accompanied by the philosophy-obsessed Charlie Black (Nichols), he drops by Rick’s beach house to rescue Audrey, only to find out that Audrey isn’t a clueless damsel-in-distress, thankfully, his heroic gesture seems to work in his favor at any rate.

Enfolded in a beguilingly vintage, subdued golden hue and jazz-infused incidental music, METROPOLITAN ages resplendently well with its sophisticated candor and stimulating burrowing into the mentation of a certain cross-section, which doesn’t necessarily pall into neither undue self-aggrandizement, self-absorption, nor self-lamentation (either ways has killed the mumblecore fad by now), each and every character is sedulously designed with a rounded representation like a real-life person with both charms and defects (although their ratio varies drastically from individual to individual), Audrey’s bashful nature cannot blot out a bracing mixed whiff of self-sufficiency and fragile sensibility (rubbed off from Jane Austen’s novels for sure), Tom has a boyish innocuousness that is very congenial, but his own wet-behind-the-ear, insular cognition of the vast world is troublesome for his age, and indeed, they do make a compatible and complementary couple.

Nichols flogs Charlie’s pedantic verbiage to death with both barrels, but also betrays his pedantic geekiness with an aroma of benign openness, but it is Eigeman, who stands out among the entire ensemble with a telegenic patina that is few and far between for a tenderfoot, who is able to telegraph that unpretentious feeling of being brutally honest, yet synchronically struts his character’s off-putting self-righteousness, a fascinating performance which leaves Nick sorely missed after his symbolic departure at the train station in the wee hours, therein the proto-bromance between Nick and Tom is acutely pointed and artfully downplayed at once by Stillman, who magnificently breaks his duck with an authorial signature, notwithstanding it is predominantly seen through an unbalanced lens of a boy’s club.

referential entries: Stillman’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (1996, 7.0/10); LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (2016, 7.2/10).

“我们的词汇那么贫乏了吗？ 需要法语才能表达我们的观点？” 引用电影中的台词，之所以用法语，是因为法语的使用绕不开阶层和品味。

大市民的品味是bourgeois，gossip girls是nouveau riche。谁能料到同样的描写曼哈顿的preppy，十几年变化那么大了。大市民一直讨论阶层的落寞，一定程度上是的，正如这些孩子说的，向下移动很容易，想想gossip girls表现的阶层，靠时装（主要是品牌）和炫耀性消费，的确阶层向下移动了。

整部电影主要是对话和简单的场景交替，是不是和简奥斯丁小说很一致。女主Audrey也有着奥斯丁小说人物般的个性和价值。Bourgeois的品味，比如爱好文学性的讨论和对哲学的思考，以架起一个haute bourgeoisie，的确在现在慢慢被取代，随着美国中产的萎缩，这个阶层也在被稀释。如果这个电影在30年后的今天拍，似乎没人能相信了，gossip girls需要的是快速的性爱和金钱带来的满足，但是一个人你和他聊哲学，文学然后发现你慢慢爱上他，会被说成是知识分子的意淫。所以我还是很偏爱这部电影，借用电影的话，“奥斯丁的价值在现在会被嬉笑。” “奥斯丁那时候也会嘲笑我们现在的价值呢。”

想想大学时光匆匆过了，是否还有人和你思考社会，哲学吗？

在“精神角落”谈论学术/文学性很强的话题没有什么不好；只是让你成为一颗钉不进去的弯曲的螺丝钉：很快地被成功人士拔掉。我回忆离开学校以后，有多久没有与人当面聊死亡话题了？（死亡本身以及，对正常聊天有死亡威胁的话题。）当豆瓣因为暂时关闭广播功能而被人纷纷缅怀的时候，我开始想这些有的没的：大学生活，早期豆瓣友邻（他们如何成为和老舅对谈的作家、编辑和文学翻译），还有时不时拿出来重看的“文学电影”。

如果有人能选几个具有代表性的豆瓣用户，跨越2-3年去“特稿”他们，也许能写出一篇我国文艺青年现状调查。或者某一个文艺青年的失落和发达。在滑入俗套和刻板印象之前，也许能说出一些闪光的真理，以对抗人生的平庸和平淡。因为重视精神世界的人和那些文化作品，代表着一个独立于正经社会的永恒的体系，里面有价值观，审美，华莱士的Infinite Jest和所有你能想到的（致敬史黛芳）。当我们步入27+的年岁里，在磨人的日常和日常的磨人里，这些东西，如果你足够幸运，就是你能掌握的、聊以自慰的最佳工具。

所以豆瓣广播是否运行并不重要了，重要的都已发生，都已过去，成为自慰的工具，对话截图和电光幻影。在冬天慢慢降临的时刻。在上海，当天气渐冷，如果你至少住在2号线龙阳路以内，你会不断地思念圣诞，和一切西洋的事物。冬天慢慢降临，《大市民》（Metropolitan）里女主角奥追说，在冬天如果大家都盛装走动，让她想起《战争与和平》。《大市民》是这样一部文学性入骨的电影。

我曾经写过它，还有它的导演Whit Stillman。最近在这些触动下，我又认真地看了一遍；怎么讲，感动得旋转。电影是真好看，因为是一帮初入社会的年轻人互相爱慕、憎恨、猜忌，又抱团取暖的爱情和友情故事，这样轻省的情节可看性很强。但是，如果你留心他们在聊些什么，沉重黢黑的想象和真相，引人落泪。我查了，导演在出这部影片的时候38岁了。

这群年轻人，包括喜欢简·奥斯汀的美丽女孩奥追，拥有金色睫毛的犬儒男孩汤姆，悲观俏皮让人想起《渺小一生》里任意一个角色的尼克，还有你的班级里一定会有的学霸查理。他们最喜欢做的事情便是聚在一起聊天争论，品评社科/文学作品及社会百态。所谈话题之严肃和深奥，让你觉得如果他们有性生活那简直不人道；但是他们有，玩得还很野。

汤姆不相信这个宇宙里有人喜欢简·奥斯汀的小说。奥追（右）喜欢。

（这张表情亏待了奥追，她是很美的像法国新浪潮影片的女神）奥追相信人间自有正义。

尼克（右）日常怼人

查理又说了一个论文句子。

尼克的绿帽子和“UHB一代“。影片所创造的经典概念“UHB”（念作啊布），Urban Haute Bourgeoisie，haute是高级的意思，类似雅痞吧；然而现在都不重要了。

他们坚信自己这一代注定要失败，仅仅只是出于想象，他们对未来不看好，迷恋仪式和象征的意义。就像劲歌金曲《达x一派对》中唱的，“前行还能前卫吗？念旧又是落伍吗”。 影片的结尾，其中两个男孩子和一个社会人士焦灼对谈，请他讲讲对是否注定失败的看法。看法最让人揪心。这位胖胖男子表示，失败是一定的，但没有什么注定一说，大部分是平庸和平淡无奇。想知道自己的生活状态是上扬还是低落，回忆一下如果有人问你“你是做什么的？”，你是否能愉快地作答。

如果你喜欢我的扯淡，请关注公众号“午夜零食”（midnightsnacks）