荣归1978

Hal Ashby’s anti-war manifesto COMING HOME has a killer opening and ending - an improv conversation from real-life paraplegic Vietnam War vets, among whom, Luke Martin (Voight) remains silent, paying due respect to other’s authenticated voice; and for the ending, Ashby goes understatedly poetic, juxtaposing three protagonists’ respective actions and topping the movie off with a radical sucker-punch, sometimes death can be aligned with such beauty, especially against the nature force which hits like a juggernaut -, which leaves everything in between wobbling between a stern censure of war’s atrocity and futility, and a felicitous meet-cute between an able-bodied woman and a disabled man.

Hitting the home run of being nominated for 8 Oscars, including the Big Five and all four acting categories (eventually won 3), COMING HOME is a seminal cinema agitprop that jumps on the bandwagon of Vietnam War’s disillusioned sequela, and rams home its lucid message with poignancy, compassion and persuasion, if less artfully, as the plain truth speaks volumes itself.

Jane Fonda plays an ordinary military wife Sally Hyde, when her Captain husband Bob (Dern) is deployed to Vietnam in 1968, she finds vocation in volunteer work at a nearby veterans hospital, where she meets her former high school classmate Luke, now paraplegic and seething with grievance. The two strikes up a friendship that is profuse of romantic tingles, what will it take for Sally to two-time her husband? A cocktail of her compassion (pity sex is something we can all bank on), Luke’s winning charm, Bob’s prejudice and gung-ho spirit, plus a deep-seated void needs to fulfilled (the earth finally moved thanks to Luke, sans priapic penetration, a revolutionary moment of addressing female orgasm in American cinema), Sally’s transmogrification takes shape both physically (hairdo, an eyesore to today’s aesthetics) and mentally (her view of the war alters organically by the horrific aftermath she experiences firsthand in the hospital), albeit at the cost of her morality, which Ashby deems of much less import than the imperative to “stop war and make love”, in fact, Sally and Luke’s union represents a quintessential American dream which is consummated belatedly, between a school jockey and a cheerleader.

By cramming the movie with a rich soundtrack of iconic hits (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Tim Buckley, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Simon and Garfunkel, you name it!), COMING HOME incubates an unsetting discrepancy with its drab palette and bleak reality (a suicide is witnessed with not enough emergency but apathy), and really has its finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Narratively, Ashby doesn’t mince words about his true cause, thus subtlety is wanting in expressing the obvious.

For the two Oscar-winning performances, both Fonda and Voight should owe their victory as much to serendipity as their own aptitude, an Oscar No. 2 is quite a feather in Fonda’s cup, only Sally is entrenched with a rather uninspiring character arc, her ordinariness is too much in the forefront, although Fonda delivers an all-around effort to extricate Sally from her conservative shell, still, her inscape is sadly, without much complexity to be astonished about (Jessica Lang has done a finer job in Tony Richardson’s posthumous BLUE SKY 1994); Voight, apart from his touching peroration near the end, carries off with a hefty tang that we never know where his damage lies, whether he recovers or not, there is a perceivable sadness in his slightly stiff smile, the scar is appalling, keep smiling, man.

The unknown Penelope Milford reaps an Oscar nomination as Sally’s gal pal Vi Munson, which she earns with one scene by unleashing Vi’s bottled-up devastation at her brother’s demise. Last but definitely not the least, a terrific Bruce Dern, though losing out his Oscar to Christopher Walken in THE DEER HUNTER (1978), is actually, mesmerizing in eking out Bob’s pent-up disintegration with superlative assurance and explosiveness, which essentially elevates the coda to the stratosphere of its much-needed impressiveness, for what it is worth, Hal Ashby’s COMING HOME ultimately rises above its own political agenda and finds humanity in its core, for that reason alone, it deserves a place of its own.

referential entries: Ashby’s HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971, 7.4/10), THE LAST DETAIL (1973, 8.1/10), BEING THERE (1979, 8.3/10); Tony Richardson’s BLUE SKY (1994, 6.1/10).

刚看这部剧得时候，我在上大学，那时候大部分得时间都在追韩剧，但是这部剧却让我花了好几个深夜，一点一点的看完了，我不懂离家的滋味，我只知道自己出生在中国大陆，但是却也被剧中被迫分开的兄弟二人感动到，那个年代多少这样的悲欢离合呀，还好两孩人大都明事理，即使有人走了歪路，也能被拉回来，当然大哥、二哥的婚姻悲剧，也许是豪门注定的，幸好他们的家庭迎来了一个敢于打破常规的人，幸好结局不是没有机会改变，幸好我们的祖国越来越繁荣昌盛！

和《猎鹿人》同台竞技，两者平分蛋糕，最佳男女主给了《荣归》，简方达能赢了梅姨，只能说简方达资源好，演技没看出来，这部太乏味了，只能说运气不好碰上了《猎鹿人》。安吉丽娜朱莉他爸的表演还可以，但也没到从德尼罗手上拿过最佳男主的程度，这片子和《莎温情史》的恶心有得一拼。/《荣归》coming home美国导演hal Ashby哈尔·阿什比＆最佳男主Jon voight沃特＆最佳女主Jane fonda简方达。/电影开场一群退伍军人打着台球谈论越战时打台球，房间里每个人都直言不讳，并不像关于战争的典型电影而有一种纪录片的风格，随后布鲁斯·邓恩Bruce Dern扮演的海德上尉Captain Hyde在陆军基地周围慢跑，滚石乐队唱着“你不知道发生了什么，你已经离开太久了，你不能回来认为你仍然是我的” 。海德为他的第1次履职做着准备，这时是1968 年越共以极快攻势袭击了城市＆军事基地＆美国驻西贡大使馆（1950年在艾森豪威尔领导下，美国卷入了越南的局势，越南在法国殖民政权垮台后被划分为越共北方＆非共产主义南方，在肯尼迪的领导下，第1批美国顾问1963 年飞抵南越，协助南越军队vs对抗北方越共，在林登·约翰逊的领导下，1965年战争升级，美国士兵第1次部署到前线，春节以双方伤亡为一年的开始。最初美国人被乐观＆过度自信＆理想主义所驱使，美国干预的背后是多米诺骨牌理论：如果越南被北方越共占领，整个亚洲会被共产主义占领，盟友会对美国失去信心，自 30 年代以来，绥靖政治不是许多人的选择，强硬行动才是唯一方法，否则就是在帮助独裁者，不幸的是，约翰逊严重误判了敌人，高估了自己的实力，美国人几乎没有成功的机会，只有少数人注意到这点，直到 1975 年美国人才离开越南），海德上尉也受到乐观＆过度自信的驱使，他怀着成为战争英雄的雄心前往越南，他甚至可能成为少校，在他的告别派对上一位同事说“从上头传来的消息，查理在这次春节的进攻里开枪打死了一团，这只是一个时间问题—— 海德说我为这样的机会等了很久”。海德＆他的妻子sally莎莉（简·方达因此获得奥斯卡女配）分别后，以为镜头会和海德一起去越南，但镜头跟随莎莉＆海德下属的女朋友vi维，开始了一段友谊改变了Sally 的生活，《荣归》最初的剧本是2个女人追求个人自由的女性故事，但简方达是越战老兵罗恩·科维奇的朋友，在剧本中加入了他的故事，但最终电影还是带有原创剧本明显的女权主义的痕迹，他1889 年的自传是奥利弗.斯通的越战电影《七月四日》诞生的基础。在退伍军人事务部医院，痛苦的人试图从战争中挣扎着恢复过来，和被国家抛弃的感觉作斗争，中产阶级＆高中橄榄球队的啦啦队长＆一生都在盼望着成为某某人的妻子的sally到退伍军人医院做志愿者，莎莉＆卢克坠入爱河，抚慰了卢克因战争的愤怒＆敏感，他曾经梦想成为一个战争英雄并付诸行动，但随着幻想破灭，他对发生在他身上的事情很愤怒，比如肉体上的残缺；比如他在医院没有得到很好的治疗，感觉被国家遗弃的孤独感，在寻寻觅觅有归属感的身份；比如他对战争的恐怖感到不安煎熬折磨的复杂性，当他和自己和解、和平共处时，才能正视战争后遗症的伤口，找回自己的生活，并赋予生活新意义，并最终在结尾说出了自己对战争的看法——卢克告诉高中孩子，我们都被自己的国家欺骗了，当嬉皮士站在街角举起和平标志，青少年被征召入伍，职业军人奔赴越南，美国告诉人民美国在越南做正确的事，但没有人真正确定那里到底发生了什么。这更像是一段布道，就像卓别林在《大独裁者》结尾的演讲，卢克承认他一到越南就改变了看法，和海德不同的是，卢克马上意识到战争是一个巨大的谎言，国家通过它来利用美国年轻男性的希望＆梦想，卢克直面承认他在为错误的一方而战，海德很想反驳抨击卢克，但他不能因为卢克代表了他曾经梦想成为的神圣的战争英雄。电影把越战描述为“存在的噩梦”，只有当美国真正承担起责任，承认自己错了，意识到自己＆自己搏斗时才可以开始疗伤，才能以后避免同样错误，在 1980 年代几部越战电影中也找得到同样的主题，比如奥利弗·斯通 Oliver Stone的越战3部曲《野战排》《出生于 7 月 4 日》《天堂与地狱之间》早近10年，他本人就是一名越战老兵。这是一部不仅从越战创伤中归来的电影（这也是电影的缺点1，电影塞了太多的主题，看起来有点脱节，缺点2应该更深挖掘海德的角色会更有层次感）；关于探索战争后遗症ptsd，战争对士兵的影响＆以及战争对那些没去越战的人的影响，他们在这些影响后的挣扎；在混乱绝望中的爱情故事批判了现代社会框架内男性＆女性的性别角色：每个人都在社会极限内尽力证明，男人被描绘成有力量，必须证明自己，必须成为最好最强大的人，即使因此摧毁重塑了自己，莎莉的治愈＆理解＆母性创造了希望＆创造了团结，莎莉对卢克的爱不是肉体上的更多是精神上的，尽管她＆卢克有关系但她丝毫没有怀疑她的婚姻。当海德从越南回来因为他的英雄主义无法忍受坡腿开枪自杀，她＆卢克分手去帮助她破碎的丈夫，提前归来的海德已经不再是离开前那个自信热情的军官，他现在走路跛行，像卢克一样支离破碎，当他了解了离开期间发生的事情，有那么一刻似乎要杀死莎莉＆卢克，这时卢克拆除海德的“步枪”＆“刺刀”，帮助海德＆sally两人和解。/电影的配乐：披头士乐队、滚石乐队、布法罗斯普林菲尔德、西蒙和加芬克尔、艾瑞莎富兰克林、蒂姆巴克利、鲍勃迪伦＆The Chambers Brothers钱伯斯兄弟＆荒原狼＆calvin harris ＆Janis Joplin＆Jefferson Airplane ＆Jimi Hendrix。 /在80年代这个10年中，电影越来越只看娱乐＆票房，简方达也抛开政治立场出售健身视频，沃特的政治倾向也戏剧性转向右翼，电影也见证了好莱坞该死的时代。