白酋长

男人是理性动物，女人是感性动物。这句话我表示同意，又不太准确，补充一点，环境之于男性让其成为男人，感情之于女性让其成为女人，所以男人的变化出于他所看到的，女人的变化多是出于她所感受的。
这一次相比于前一部，可以多摄取一段，把中间也加入进来，故事就明白了，很简单的美好向往，然后破灭，然后也没说什么见识和成长，就只是说了破灭，如同消失的地平线，走过去那一段，也还是地平线而已，没什么值得好奇的。
看前面，给人的感觉是，女人不只是拿来疼的，拿来爱的，更不是拿来说教和安排的，她们也需要新奇需要刺激需要心里深处对于悸动的安慰，倘若没能体验到一点点，很容沦为天天牢骚的妇人，除非是对家庭有高度轮廓感的精神派女性可以拿捏，否则那顺服表象下不安的内心无不悄悄寻觅可以停靠的港湾。对于旺达这种年纪轻轻就出嫁的女子来说更是如此。
影片没有安排新婚两人的背景关系，只是从新郎口中得知他自己的一点身份象征，旺达更像是他这种身份的从属，可怕的是男人仍然生活在自己的世界里面，没有心情打探妻子的想法，就完全没有这种思路，他的成长环境告诉了我们，一旦这种人到了这个年纪还是如此循规蹈矩，还要想从他的生活里面挖掘出一点新意去填补婚姻的枯燥和教条，几乎是不太可能。
伊凡是教条的，不过也不是那么显笨，面子这东西不能当饭吃，不能创造幸福，可是男人就是喜欢啊，并且成为了很多很多男人思考和奋斗的动力，在亲戚面前如何撒谎掩盖落跑妻子的行为，伊凡可是没少动脑筋，当然也是奏效了的，一家子人没多大区别，对教义最好的消解就是抵挡回去，你看那个时候的伊凡是多么的可怜，除了等待之外，束手无策，白酋长若是真的气盖全场，为人正直，哪怕风流倜傥，我想旺达也会随之而去吧，伊凡还能做什么呢，如同地上喝完的可乐罐子，被路过的行人踩上几脚，绷冬一声，连最后的气儿都不剩下了。死脑瓜子嘛，活该如此。
世上不缺少好夫妻，缺少的是能创造好婚姻的好夫妻。从伊凡和旺达最后相伴走向教堂的谈话中也许能发现他们是可以的，哪怕是暂时的美好，也值得去尝试一番，这里更像是导演的臆想，那光打得都像是黄昏的画面了。泪流满面不是成长，是决绝，是强迫忘却后升腾的酣畅淋漓。亲戚在后面喊道，要加快步伐了，不过是在旋转的感伤情怀中多挥发几时，管他娘的，先跑去吧。
夜空下，两个妓女对生活倒是甘之如饴，反倒安慰起伊凡来。伊凡啊伊凡，你难道看不见这夜空的隧道，也会变得苍老，你难道不发觉这婚姻的拥抱，要做几番多年寒酸而隐忍的祷告。

Taxing as it might be for the audience to sympathize with Ivan Cavalli, when Wanda whispers to him at the end that she did not sin, and thus remains innocent, one is more or less prone to be touched by what seems to be a bitter-sweet reconciliation between a dreamy, starstruck young wife and a husband for whom the preservation of honor constitutes the singularly most important imperative: as Ivan smiles at Wanda's repentance and the camera zooms out, ending the movie with the couple running on the piazza to catch their appointment with the pope against the circusy music by Nino Rota, some might even be tempted to call it a happy ending.

Great movies attain their greatness not merely through brilliant technical details but also through a rare perspicuity that is sometimes mistaken for simplicity. Taken at face value, The White Sheik might just be a simple comedy: a couple travels to Rome for their honeymoon, whereupon the wife sneaks away to meet a Fumetti star, the White Sheik, and the husband left to cover up for her disappearance in front of his not so gullible family. When Wanda realizes, however, that the White Sheik in reality does not live up to his image, she recognizes one of the many faces of the "cruel fate," as she rightfully puts it, and commits suicide unsuccessfully, to later return to Ivan and their marriage. The first difficulty for a more discerning audience, nevertheless, lies in the hint of Flaubertine note in the story. Just Like Emma, Wanda is fed up with the philistines around her and is bedazzled by a dream that is largely a product of, as Vladimir Nabokov might put it, her poor taste as a philistine herself. And just like Emma, Wanda attempts at closing the gap between reality and dream by performing -- indeed acting out -- the latter. What can be "rosy" about this neorealistic, intensely farcical flick, however, is that the writers (Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Michelangelo Antonioni along with Fellini) never allowed Wanda to pass the point of no return, which makes possible her later reinitiation into the family (the uncle -- the patriarch, after sizing her up for a while, extends a warm embrace) as well as the movie's deceptively light-hearted tone.

In this way, Wanda, both in motivation and consequence, commits a lesser "crime" compared to Emma, and the way she is shielded from culpability -- as sanctioned by Ivan and the movie -- can be adequately attributed to her lack of ability to act/perform: she sneaks away only upon the White Sheik's invitation ("she doesn't know anyone in Rome," complains the unknowing Ivan), her little escapade prolonged only because the crew, without asking for consent, drives her to the countryside, 26 kilometers away from Rome, where they shoot the Fumetti. The movie never shows us how she gets a cameo on set, and when they sail out, the White Sheik's attempt at seducing her is sabotaged, not by her rejection, but by a timely swinging mast.

Innocent, impressionable, and immobile, Wanda is in many ways "coaxed" into a "crime" to which she herself is no less an accomplice but which only actualized unconsciously. The "crime" here is not so much her disloyalty to her husband (her runaway is more of a child's blunder than a woman's willful deceit) as the effect of her disappearance on the Cavalli's good name, a fact that Wanda and Ivan as petits-bourgeois are only too painfully aware of, in a particular locus where catholicism has its tight grip especially on the more provincial parts (where Ivan and Wanda comes from, as the movie implies) and minds. Upon reuniting with Wanda, Ivan mistakes her for having had sex with another man, but despite his agony, his imperative pervails when he apopletically demands her to put on the proper attire and go see the pope, as scheduled by his uncle, who, though having suspected that something fishy is going on, is still under the impression that Wanda is only sick in bed. The ruse, on Ivan's side, lives on, and Wanda quietly takes up a renewed role of accomplice in the cover up of her own "crime."

The dissolution of the "crime," a requisite for the farce to end, is then two-pronged: on one hand, through a miracle; on the other, through Wanda's passivity/innocence. Fellini does not intend this movie to carry much religious undertone, since the urgency of the couple's appointment with the pope derives from the fact that it is arranged by Ivan's uncle, who occupies a dubiously "important" office at Vatican, and not from the papacy itself. Such eagerness to oblige someone who lodges higher in the social stratum at the same time someone who assumes the role of the patriarch is, to be sure, both clearly presented and only worldly. The miracle we are talking about, nevertheless, is impossibly religious and hilarious. When Wanda attempts to commit suicide by the river, it turns out to be only ankle-deep, leaving Wanda baptized and, consequently, saved by an alerted passerby. This absolution arrives both as an aftermath and a herald to Wanda's innocence; the former, for Wanda has uphold her integrity by means of passivity; the latter, for the suicide allows Wanda to participate in the act of "redeeming" herself, and though her plan is botched, it nevertheless provides a pathway for her innocence to enter her consciousness: the will to repent can be, after all, a proverbial source of courage.

What gets even more interesting is how Fellini utilizes moments of deus ex machina to jack up the hilarity (as well as the folly) of circumstances. The first one is Wanda's foiled suicide. Here, we are witnessing a woman who spends most of her time on screen in paralysis finally acting on her own will (though ironically one leading to her own destruction) and spectacularly fails because of a deceptively deep river. The other, the mast that almost purposefully knocks on the White Sheik, provides a perfect situation in which Wanda's danger of being seduced dissipates on itself and hence, no decision is to be made and no morality jeopardized. Admittedly, what keeps a farce going is the constant frustration of plans and desires, whose consummation would invariably end the chase once and for all. It is in this way that we might object that these two instances were but exemplifications of the most fundamental comedy law. But the joke does not simply end there. In these two monumental moments, Wanda is metaphysically stranded on the island between paralysis and activity: when paralyzed, she is merely shoved around, in fact transacted hand to hand, by those who "have a plan;" and when she takes on her own plan, it is bluntly thwarted. Besieged both way, Wanda is trapped in a quandary not only relevant to the problematics of feminism but also to the problematics of modernity, where the efficacy of action as a myth, a strategy, and a performance is called to attention, if not already bankrupted.

Indeed, one laughs for many reasons when Wanda fails to drown. There's the classic irony of a person being denied of interacting with her circumstances meaningfully, and there's the affected, clumsy performance of suicide Brunella Bovo brilliantly adopts. The folly of innocence, when blended with the right amount of sentimentalism and poor taste, often leads to genuine and self-important emotional investment in actions that shrivel under the severity of intention. Almost as if she's too ill-at-ease with her newfound activity, at the same time too well informed of the burlesque, questinonably "exotic" and inexorably romantic adventure plot lines of the popular Fumetti, Wanda performs, with the tritest lines, her penitence when leaving a message for her husband, and, when she sees a painting of skull on the wall, is immediately inspired to stage her suicide, dictating instead of regrets her final words, in equally trite terms, to a concierge who appropriately couldn’t care less. To discuss the mawkish, indeed poor, theatricality of Wanda’s suicide is not, however, to discredit her genuine sorrow and her will to carry the deed out; it is precisely her seriousness, juxtaposed to the insignificance of her “crime,” that funds the hilarity of her failure, at the same time unsettling the audience with the disproportionate (self)punishment. Comical and sad at the same time, Wanda’s decision to die reveals not only the fact that she cannot act, but also the fact that she is trapped by clichés disseminated through popular culture that deprive her of any seriousness to be treated with.

Such insignificance of action, thoughts, and will, though the common language of comedy, nevertheless serves a wide array of purposes. For someone like Fellini, who’s invariably interested in the variety show, the circus, the farce, the spectacle, the outsider, and the weirdo, there is a wistful tenderness to the idea of performance (taken to its extreme forrm, freak shows). On the one hand, the clowns make themselves the punchline of the joke; on the other hand, there is the haunting mediocrity and dullness of, inevitably, life, that invades the space where laughters cannot penetrate. Whether one is consciously or unconsciously subscribing to a given script, whether one has an audience or not, one performs according to a larger order that more often than not strips one of idiosyncrasy, originality, and creation, contrary to how one might have appeared. There are many small ways we get to usurp such order, as Michel de Certeau rightfully points out, but the order remains the reference point, exerting the centripetal force that keeps one spinning on and on around something located outside of oneself. It is made clear to the audience that the urgency of Ivan's task of locating Wanda derives, at least partially, from the need to maintain a certain social order, the compliance with which creates a sense of security at the same time an illusion of dignity. Above all, one is also led to question Ivan's notion of love when his plan for the honeymoon precludes Wanda's participation. When Ivan is haplessly wandering in the metropolis, he is strained not as much by the prospect of losing his love as by the possibility of subverting, inadvertently, the social order upon which his family and his sense of self is founded, flourishes, and now going to flounder. When prompted, he shares the photos of Wanda with Calibria, identifying her as someone that is altogether an illusion of what Wanda appears to the rest of us: a straight A student and a beauty, which is, again, in line with his delusions about his partner from the very beginning, which is also the reason why he can never anticipate her leaving. He runs on and on, breathlessly, around a center point, like an obstinate pair of compasses, whose futility, both of action and love, is only predetermined by his circular trajectory that would never lead him anywhere.

Take the White Sheik, for another example. Alberto Sordi's excellent rendition of an haughty, debonair celebrity of a pulp production is inspired by an immemorial but stubborn idea of gallantry, complemented with equally trite speeches. Despite his suave mannerism, he remains just another Fellini's clown, who, by force of habit, continues to perform a character that is larger than life, whose later exposé again points to the precariousness of pretending what one isn't. But performance needs not be reduced to merely a lie. Fellini's sweetness is inherent in his treatment of performance as a dream as what dream in all truth is. It is spectacle fabricated and invented for us to behold and marvel at, an exit of life, which is easily blunted once our ability to fabricate and invent is dulled by the various orders we are initiated into. But it is also make-believe painstakingly created to pilfer the qualities of the reality: a dream would cease to be a dream if our attention is called to its nature as a fraud. To that extent, a dream also presents us with a paradox. Those who always wake up from it would find it more difficult to dream, and those who barely wakes up from it would no longer be able to distinguish the boundaries between fabrication and reality. The White Sheik and Wanda both belong to the latter, and there's almost a whiff of charming naïveté to it, particularly when one considers how dreams can also be fantastically offensive (the curious whiteness to the sheikdom, in addition to or as part of the fumetti's colonialist campaign to imagine the exotic, and the absolutely ridiculous story the White Sheik tells Wanda on the boat, which she believes).

In The White Sheik, the dream and the reality constantly intercut with each other, which primarily functions to create a rather successful comedic effect. But the juxtaposition is also tasked to unveil an important dilemma. When Wanda realizes the truth about dream, she wakes up and reenter her reality as Ivan's wife, but one is left speculating whether marriage with Ivan, with his conventional ideas of family and women, indeed a dull man, is where Wanda's happiness finally starts. But on the other hand, we understand, just like Wanda now understands, that for all their glitz and glamour, dreams are nothing but mirage, illusion, sleight of hand, who promise not happiness but transitory and blissful oblivion that fends off quotidian sorrow and ennui. Forced to retreat to a banal reality from a fantastical dream made of platitude,Wanda, at the end of the day, is left in a position that is difficult to congratulate. As the couple flees their troubles and marches towards their now secured future, the tragedies lurking in the corners finally start to seep into the light core of the comedy. But Wanda isn't the unhappy one, let us not kid ourselves. She lives on in a wonderously woven dream. It is only us who are left to deal with the burns and jests of a waking life.

费里尼初做导演的片子。故事圆润幽默，片子拍的也轻松滑稽，很多场面都有马戏团杂耍的味道。
不论多大牌的导演，初入行时的作品都会相对主流。我想在各个国家，电影审查都会存在，只是不同的范围、强度的区别。米国的50年代绝对不可能让你去拍一部有社会主义意识形态的电影，苏联时代不用说，意大利也是这样……相对环境宽松的大概是西欧电影吧。白酋长也主流，迷途的新婚小夫妇最后终于回归到圣母玛利亚的恩泽之下。
昨天和一个朋友聊起剧本，听了我的一句话描述后讲了一个刚刚的故事。他们报批一部电影，其中一个必须的情节是小偷偷了东西。这部片子最终获得了通过，但因为这段情节极尽周折。这段小偷偷东西的情节引起争议，情节不是描述警察抓获了小偷，也不是小偷费尽心机的得逞，只是需要这样个情节。于是审批遇到了麻烦：“我们是社会主义国家，我们没有小偷！”
这个朋友给我讲这个故事的意思是，我想选择的那样题材是不可能获得通过的……
这事其实对我来说心理层面的影响不如技术层面的影响大。既然想做这行，总是需要面对这种问题，只是环境恶劣和更恶劣的区别。抱怨骂街都没啥用处，除非你就此放弃。安塔、费里尼……所有所有在审查体制下的导演都要遵守这种规律。那么多苏联时代的电影成为经典，想做地下电影也要至少有完美的技术。

片子看完了，在赞叹费里尼天才手笔的同时，我们更为这对新婚夫妇感到悲哀。新娘怀着偶像梦来到罗马，新郎怀着名誉梦一起来到罗马。可新娘的失踪让新郎一度难堪，新娘的美梦也被现实无情的覆灭。通过影片，我们可以分析出新郎胆小、怕事和极度的荣誉感。由此可见他并不是一个好的结婚对象，甚至可以说与新娘属于同类人物。在影片结尾，新郎与新娘迈步走向圣彼得堡大教堂，新娘说你要相信我的清白，新郎说你也要相信我。那么疑问来了，新郎那一夜与卡比利亚同行的人（姑且成为A)一起消失在罗马的街道上。在新郎回到酒店时，新郎叔叔已经等待，那时间就是第二天的10点之后。那句“你也要相信我”，似乎是费里尼给观众开的玩笑，让我们猜测新郎夜晚到底去做了什么！我大胆假设，以男主的性格必然不会做出出轨的行为，而从第二天男主回到酒店失神的样子，可以断定男主可能被A带回家中并施以某种行为。而男主认为女主也是被迫的，所以才说出那句你也要相信我！！！

在玩笑之余，还是像这位伟大的导演致敬！

他，白酋长，你的偶像。他的脸孔很英俊，他的嘴巴很甜，他的目光很深情。啊，美丽的旺达，天真的旺达，他搂着你翩翩起舞的时候，你觉得像做了一场梦，你醉了，你的心，还有你的舞步。
因为是天真所以才如痴如醉？也不尽然，不天真了可能也会迷得死去活来。谁让他，银幕里的白酋长，风度翩翩，英勇无敌，是每个女人理想的白马王子，是紫霞仙子驾着五彩祥云来娶她的勇士。
这是女人的梦。费里尼，这个喜欢做梦，喜欢把梦变成现实（电影）的人，却要跟爱做梦的女人们开个玩笑，让她们醒过来，于是，就有了这部《白酋长》。
白酋长让旺达好快活，跟她跳舞，说情话赞美她，不顾别人反对泛舟海上，只得他和她。他打算动手动脚，纯洁的旺达醒过来，不肯，白酋长无限哀伤，讲了一个婚姻不幸的男人的故事，就是关于他自己，心爱的姑娘在新婚之夜被调换，他和一个讨厌的女人在一起过着不幸福的生活，多想有人来拯救……
上了岸，浪费了大家的时间，导演威胁要解雇他，要命的是他的强壮的老婆也来了，他一下子像个乖宝宝，腻在老婆胸前一派温柔，旺达急着说出刚听到的关于痛苦婚姻的话，以为在为白酋长出气，却被酋长挡到一边，说她胡说，老婆后来还打了旺达，白酋长才没管呢。
于是我们的旺达在一天之内，眼见着偶像鲜活，也眼见着偶像崩塌，感受着偶像的温柔热情，也感受到了偶像的虚伪无情，美梦变噩梦。这可怜的小女人，承受不了去跳河，还好没死成，但是无疑她上了人生中的重要一课。
旺达丈夫在街边失魂落魄的时候，卡比利亚和女伴的出现，是最令人感动的一场戏。卡比利亚是玛西娜演的，大眼睛，眼神灵动，她一出现画面就活了。她们坐到他身边，安慰他，旺达的丈夫诉着苦，她们要看照片，他就掏出钱夹，第一张是妻子13岁时的，还有好几张，他一一讲述，只见卡比利亚和女伴连连称赞，说她真美，丈夫讲得兴起，也笑逐颜开起来，好像是几个朋友在聊天，全忘记了自己的苦恼。后来卡比利亚请个路过的表演喷火的人给大家表演，火团每一次喷出，卡比利亚就像孩子似的惊呼一声，后来他们都走了，她还是饶有兴味的看着喷火。
饶有兴味的观看，是很好的一种姿态。就像卡比利亚做的那样。费里尼在遇到困难的时候，他有时候索性不管它，但结果可能恰好走上正轨，这令他惊奇也得意。这是他对付难题的一个秘诀。其实，白酋长不过是个观看的对象，旺达越界的举动只是毁了她自己的美好感觉，而白酋长还是白酋长，当然，你们还可以为他做梦，没关系，也不坏。

今年1月20日是意大利著名导演费里尼诞辰100周年。说来惭愧，虽然不时听到朋友们叨叨费里尼，我却连他的一部电影都没有看过。眼下这时候，只好赶紧找来他的一些片子看看，没有“致敬”的意思，只是为了维护我这个伪影迷的面子。那么只有暂且让德尼罗先在一边歇会了。

我这里收集了他执导的影片20部，顺手挑了一部《白酋长》看。这是1952年上映的电影，黑白片。讲的是一个再普通不过的事情。一对新婚夫妇到罗马开始蜜月旅行，妻子旺达是个狂热的追星族，一到罗马就去找她的偶像“白酋长”，还阴错阳差的和他一起拍片。其实这位“白酋长”在现实中不过是一个浪荡色鬼，和我们通常看到的那些演艺界人士一样。有女粉丝上赶着找上门来，他当然不会放过。好在50年代人们的观念还比较保守，再加上“白酋长”的胖老婆突然到了片场，使得“白酋长”策划的一场阴谋未能得逞。这边当丈夫的伊凡失魂落魄的四处找他的老婆，情急之中还跑到警察局报案，回来还要用尽心思敷衍叔叔和姑姑，搞的他焦头烂额。最后的结局还不错，迟到的夫妇随着一众亲戚们走进了教堂。

从影片中我们可以看到，明星崇拜早已有之，旺达只是其中之一。实际上，她所迷恋的并不是真实生活中的那个演员，而是他在影片中的演技，他所扮演的那个不死之身完美无缺的人物形象，以及他在影片中所经历的那些劈波斩浪所向无敌的奇迹。近年来，这股追星的狂热又有了新的发展，那就是羡慕明星们所拥有的财富。追星族们都暗自下定决心：一旦当上明星拥有了数不完的钱，一定要先买俩包子，吃一个扔一个！于是，这股风潮弥漫在横店街头、电影学院门前和北太平庄的马路牙子上。甚至对明星们溅到身上的泥点子也如醉如痴的迷恋。

那些明星们在银幕上创造了许许多多完美的形象。我们应该称羡的是他们的演技以及为此付出的劳动。可既然是演戏，他们就是在“演”，而并非表现的是戏下的自己。真实的娱乐圈就是一潭浑水，其中的烂人烂事可谓多矣。且不说谭鑫培就是个大烟鬼，就是我们平时印象中一贯正直传统的摩根·弗里曼也早已是绯闻缠身。如陈道明那样洁身自好的演员寥若晨星。更多的是近年来狗仔们纷纷揭示出那些出轨打架吸毒的明星们。《白酋长》中的这位就是一个很典型的例子。风流潇洒，善玩善骗。为了泡妞，可以把众多演员和导演晾在一边，驾上小船和旺达一起去浪漫。差点就得手了。

在今天的太平盛世里，早年的英雄崇拜早已荡然无存，道德观念也有了许多变化。信仰的缺失又使得人们找不到方向。生活节奏越来越快，人们懒得去思考。情感无处发泄无法寄托，于是有了追星。想起了一句话：“现在的人们没有思考，只有选择。”如影片中的旺达，追星追到了极致。咱们这里也有那个为了华仔死去活来的女子。到最后都使自己陷入了尴尬的境地。依我看，追星实在不是个好差事，有这功夫，你即使不信什么主义，哪怕找个天主教伊斯兰教佛教信一信也好啊，至少可以让人们空虚的灵魂得到一些抚慰。

在经历了那一天的失落之后，旺达清醒了。她的丈夫伊凡很平庸。可普通又怎样？平庸又怎样？在这个世界上，我们都是普通的人，过着普通的生活。如果你有才华有理想，你尽可以用这才华去追寻理想。如果你没有，就这样生活也不错。毕竟千百万人都是这样踏实的生活着。生活中最忌讳的就是志大才疏，整天活在虚无缥缈的幻想中，长此以往只会毁了生活，毁了自己。影片结尾，旺达挽着伊凡的手对他说：“你就是我的白酋长。”她确实明白了。

在战后一段时期中，欧洲各国的电影界开始了一阵创新狂热。法国有新浪潮，意大利则有了新现实主义。它的特点就是离开摄影棚，更看重实景拍摄，演员表演朴实自然。影片题材也采用生活中普遍存在的现象和事件，尽量让观众看起来未加雕琢，并置身其中感同身受。我看过的有《罗马十一点》、《警察与小偷》、《偷自行车的人》等。还有一部印象最深的，名字忘了。讲的是一个失业者到处找工作，碰见不少怪事，也遇到了心爱的女子，可最后还是对生活失去了希望，从水塔上跳下自杀了。费里尼自然也是新现实主义的代表之一。这部《白酋长》就一反好莱坞的风格，不去追求惊险刺激离奇怪诞，只是平铺直叙了一个最简单的故事。而触动观众的也许就是这样一些生活琐事。

影片的拍摄技巧稍显生涩。但也有一些成为了日后的经典。整体叙事比较拖沓，或许和50年代人们的思维习惯相一致吧。在影片中我们还感受到了意大利人的性格，和法国人的天性浪漫不同，意大利人更乐观更随意。并以这种散漫的态度生活着。

说点题外话。值此非常时期，我觉得朋友们还是少上街，少去超市抢购，少去看热闹，踏踏实实在家里呆着。何以解忧，唯有看电影。打开电脑，选一个好看的，也是一桩乐事啊。

本人评分：7.0。