Chapter 8 The second part three colors: red (6~10)

Joanna Pleasant, a student at Barnard College, in her unpublished manuscript, linked the judge's house to the camera itself: A known angle." Both Judge and Kieslowski are reminding us that we need a deeper understanding of light, which not only makes us realize that we are watching a movie, but also prompts us to question what "light" really is. from where.The "brightness" here refers to both the literal sense and the denotative sense.Like Bertolucci's "The Drifter," in which Triantignan plays Marcello, a fascist killer living in 1930s Italy, makes things clear, which is one of the effects of light: we What can be seen depends on how it is illuminated, just like the professor in the film removes the shadow by opening the window, and vividly explains Marcello's so-called "cave myth" (Annotation: Cave from Plato's works) The myth says that in a cave, there are a group of people whose hands are tied behind their backs. They have always only faced the cave wall, and all they see are some shadows on the cave wall, but they have become accustomed to it. One day, one of them appeared Out of curiosity, he broke free from the rope and looked back. It turned out that there was another cave outside the cave. What he saw before was just a "shadow", and the shadow itself on the cave wall was colorful and full of life. He couldn't wait to go back and tell his companions, hoping to guide them He also went to Brave New World, but unexpectedly he was accused of bewitching people, and he even sacrificed his life for it). (Piot Soboczinski has said that Vittorio Storaro, the famous cinematographer who shot "The Drifter," was a big influence on his work, and it seems no coincidence.)

In both "Red" and "The Drifter", certain images and colors are consciously repeated, with the purpose of linking two different time periods together.In "Red," the judge's bitter past is drawn into August's chaotic present—even if we don't discover the connection until near the end of the film.As Janet Maslin wrote in her review of "Red": "Stories, like photographs, are developed only in the darkroom, stories are only in memory, and only when the whole thing is over are they revealed." Gain sharp definition."[3] Only on a second viewing will the viewer discover how red connects characters, scenes, and perhaps different time periods.When August took the puppy into the street, a red car nearly hit the puppy.When Valentina answered the phone from Michelle, the yogurt in her hand was printed with red cherries, and she also turned three red cherries when she played the slot machine in the coffee shop; The red coat is related, and it is also related to August's shirt.She told Michelle she missed him and slept in his jacket, the red of which served as the backdrop for her gum ad billboard.The red dog blood on her hand correlates with the red leash, the wall color of the veterinarian's office, the lights of her car at night, and the color of her bowling ball.Seats in bowling alleys are red, as are seats in theaters where fashion shows are held.The steamer tickets were red, the same red as the wrapping paper of the perry that the judge had given Valentina as a farewell present.

Why give red such an important status?At the beginning of the film, a flashing red light means "Stop": the phone cannot be connected because the line is busy.And red in traffic lights also means "stop", so we can associate red with prohibition.In fact, in the film, the judge has to stop listening to the neighbors, and Valentina has to stop putting up with her boyfriend's mischief.From this perspective, the end of the film can also resonate more when read: the still picture stops all the moving characters, and perhaps this also indicates that Kieslowski himself is about to stop directing. Work.

Jelena Jacobs had an interesting answer in Miramax's promotional material for the film's U.S. release, saying that Valentina and the judge were "blushing in their hearts because of the anger , blushing with shame and confusion".Red is the color of the pulsation of human blood. This pulsation is not necessarily related to violence or sex as in other films. It represents a rhythm, just like the rhythm of the telephone line that transmits the human spirit.Brown, born of red, is also the main color of the film in Sobochinski's eyes, and it is also part of the overall structure of the film.For example, the first shot of August's apartment has a brown oil painting of a ballerina.This idealized female dynamic beauty can be "humanized" later: Valentina's back in dance class completes the same pose.Similarly, the exaggerated red billboard behind Valentina presents her in profile to the left, the same way she appeared on television after the ship accident (something red or brown appears behind her as well); The draped gray coat foreshadows the gray blanket wrapped around her neck after her rescue.In Kieslowski's words: "Fate is preordained: her picture existed long before the catastrophe. Perhaps there is a destiny, a picture that has to repeat itself. It is more A Greek mythology rather than a religious concept." [4]

In Kieslowski's composition, the figure of the characters repeats itself: Valentina goes to the judge's house, she is reflected in two mirrors; on her second visit to his house, she is reflected again in his glass box.This visual layering is all the more memorable after the first fashion show, where we see a weary Valentina in her car: not only is the camera out of the windshield—it's reflected in the Light—and behind the hotel's revolving glass doors.This makes the audience think that someone is watching Valentina.Could it be that she has become the judge's target at this time?

That's when Valentina hit Rita while driving home.She was fiddled with the car radio, which was interrupted by distorted noise (Presner's theme song, which first appeared during the fashion show, is now reappearing from the storyline ).This distracted her, and she bumped into the puppy.Since the sound in this film is under the control of the judge, looking back, we can't help but feel that he seems to be the hidden creator of the car accident. His connection to music also exists in a subtle but playful way.He left money for Valentina to pay the veterinarian on a record jacket: When Valentina picks up the money, we see a man in a court wig on the cover, and "Meyer" typeface.Later, she listens to van den Budenmeyer on headphones in a record store, and behind her, August and Karin listen to the same record.Valentina wanted to buy the record, but August and the others had just bought the last one. The picture on the CD jacket is the same as the one on the record in Judge's house. (For viewers familiar with “The Ten Commandments, Nine,” this is the exact same piece of music that a young Ora sang before her heart surgery. And, as if that greeting wasn’t enough, Pressner A few tango notes from "White" are added as Valentina leaves the record store.)

It should come as no surprise that both Judge and August are fans of van den Budenmeyer's music. After all, the two have long shared things like wearing suspenders and owning dogs.Their correspondence is comical at times: Karin gives August a new pen, but the judge must write his confession letter in pencil because his pen is out of ink.This metaphor of incompetence can also be compared to the fact that his car battery is dead (he installed a new battery for the fashion show), he usually walks with a cane, and when Valentina refuses to drink tea, he deliberately puts the The water in the teapot is splashed on the ground and other details are connected together.In Stewart Clavance's insightful view: "What a blatant desire! But how obvious is the statement of impotence! How haughty, and at the same time, how hopeless he is!"[5] As a Judges can only indirectly monitor and control people who "peep" through their ears.

The judge feels so real throughout the film that we wonder if the August character has a real existence of his own, or is just a stand-in for the judge.According to Kieslowski, the two are mirror images of each other: The theme of "Red" is conditional... what would happen if Judge was born forty years later... how nice it would be if we could go back to twenty.How many better and smarter things will we do!But it was impossible, and that's why I made this movie—maybe our lives could have been better. [6] In fact, there is a compensating "seeing" in "Red": if Valentina sees six stones thrown into the judge's house by her neighbors, there are six heroes in the trilogy who end up shipwrecked. rescued. (Rita, who would have died, ended up giving birth to seven puppies, the total number of survivors.) [7] Valentina won money playing slot machines in the coffee shop, which was to compensate her for being in the newspaper. Seeing pictures of my drug-addicted brother.As August rushes to find Karin, images of three cherries on the slot machine are interspersed: we wonder what he's about to lose.The escapades he witnessed not only linked him to the judge, but also to the other two protagonists of the trilogy: in "Blue," Julie discovers that her husband has a mistress; , Dominique shows off his lover to Carlo when he calls.However, Julie finally gave Sandrina her residence and surname, while Dominique would rather choose a lonely prison life than lose him and his love. [8]

The last scenes of the three films all show the hard-won victory of the characters in the face of loneliness and despair.The window appears in all three shots: Julie stands behind it, Dominique looks out from behind bars, and the judge appears behind a shattered window (which was not originally in the script).The tears on his face show that he finally has the ability to cry again—like Julie and Carlo at the end of the other two films.Long before Kieslowski saves these characters from shipwreck, they have accomplished a redemption.A stylized detail ties the end of the trilogy to the beginning of The Ten Commandments, showing the unity of Kee's film universe.This detail is the still image of Valentina on the TV screen, which is reminiscent of the freeze-frame image of young Pavel in "The Ten Commandments, Part One" - the ghostly appearance of the victim from another accident.

From many memorable associations—including Shakespeare's The Tempest—we can surmise that the role of the judge is not only a double for August but also for Kieslowski himself.He once admitted in a private conversation in 1994: "I heard that my neighbors have been eavesdropping on my phone, of course, I also spy and eavesdrop on those people in the show-but not in real life." " The Tempest is Shakespeare's last work, and "Red" is the same for Kieslowski, and the heroes in both works are reflections of some aspects of the artist himself.Both Prospero and the judge are old men living in solitude, disappointed in humanity and full of resentment towards their surroundings.

Both have given up their hatred of humans due to the appearance of a young beautiful woman. [9] In Shakespeare's masterpiece, the girl is Miranda, Prospero's daughter, whom he causes to leave the island in order to make her fall in love with the boy he has chosen for her.In "Red", the judge gets emotional catharsis through Valentina, who can be regarded as his daughter in a sense, and the first dialogue between the two brings the establishment of this relationship. An emotional subtext—he doesn't seem to care about the dog's injury, she asks: "If I bumped into your daughter, would you still be so indifferent?" "I don't have a daughter, miss." The judge said coldly replied coldly.Since Valentina's father is always absent in the film, this dialogue is enough to hint at the roles they will play in each other's lives. Like Prospero, the judge also seems to have the ability to see the prophet, he can magically guess Valentina's thoughts, which also led Anthony Lane to associate it with "The New Yorker" in his review of the film. Together: "The judge is like a Hannibal who doesn't eat people, he grills Valentina as if she's at fault rather than himself; he speculates about her family problems—her brother is a drug addict— —predicting her future.”10 But if Shakespeare’s sorcerer really caused a storm, the shipwrecking weather disaster in Red cannot be directly traced to the mysterious and cynical judge.He must have watched TV to find out that his neighbor was shipwrecked.Kieslowski also sees Judge as "a director who got the trilogy started". For me, he is like playing chess, foreseeing the development of the chess game early... Does he really exist?Frankly, the only evidence...is the courthouse, the only place we've seen him with anyone else.He might just be a ghost, or, on a better hypothesis, he's just a possibility—the future, old August, the future August, assuming he doesn't go on a boat. special. [11] Kieslowski has said that "Red" is a film about the weather, and he wondered how appropriate it would be to describe it with "whether," the English equivalent of "weather": "Red" It's a movie about "whether".If the telephone is a tool in the judge's hands, then, when he finally calls Karin to ask about the weather, he may indeed "raise his wand" like a magician. (As an audience member at a Paris seminar in 1997 pointed out, erroneous weather forecasts linked "The Decalogue, One" with "Red.")