A one-two punch of two feature films from Scottish satirist Armando Iannucci, THE DEATH OF STALIN is an irreverent satire of the power struggle between the party leader Nikita Khrushchev (Buscemi) and the chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), Lavrentiy Beria (Beale) in the aftermath of Stalin’s demise in 1953, mustering an Anglophone ensemble to play Russians and retaining each player’s distinctive accent, TDoS is openly ahistorical and scramble a hodgepodge of historical events to show up USSR Communist party’s treacherous political intrigues and draconian executions, with mockery as its ballast, after all the film’s source is a French graphic novel rather than any orthodox biography.
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, on the other hand, is Iannucci’s revisionist take on the famous novel and its Victorian milieu, corralling a colorblind cast and enlivening the palette even when our hero is in his absolute rock-bottom, its uncharacteristic comical tone and striking brightness are anything but Dickensian.
Mordant wits and biting repartees are Iannucci’s forte, and in TDoS, they are aplenty, the whole Politburo is made up of the targets of ridicule and contempt: Tambor’s deputy chairman Georgy Malenkov is a tinpot dunderhead; Beria, a sadistic wheeler-dealer who are prone to hectoring; Khrushchev has that particular political acumen, and cunningly adept in conniving and conspiring; Palin’s Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov is a party maximalist, but barely has any say-so in the game. As for Stalin’s two heirs, Svetlana (Riseborough) is at the end of her tether, and the plastered Vasily (Friend), a lost cause liable to nonsensical babbling, they are not veritable successors of their father’s legacy.
The movie is irrefutably offensive to the people of USSR by omitting any humane traits of the erstwhile powers that be, portraying the whole polity of communism and collectivism as a laughing stock, it only betrays Iannucci and co.’s nationalistic mean-spiritedness of squeezing every inch of laughter out of harrowing events to entertain their core audience, and they can easily get off the hook by claiming artistic licenses, those events were factual what they have done is to coax them together to represent an occidental, pejorative outlook on Western democracy’s old adversary.
That said, Both Beale and Buscemi are fantastic thespians, their at-loggerheads political gamesmanship is immensely gratifying to watch, Beale acts like a savage porcupine, those quills are bristling with venom and cruelty whereas Buscemi has a weasel-like disarming facade, but he can be equally ruthless in a pinch. Also Issacs’ Marshal Georgy Zhukov enters the feeding frenzy late but he has that panache to impress, not least with his umpteen bedazzling decorations.
Iannucci shows his shortcoming in scenes of action, the Moscow massacre sequences are rather sloppily wrought, and his control of an ensemble piece isn’t exactly can be called fluid or artistic, especially when things pan out in a fanatic commotion, audience may feel being manhandled just to keep up with the ongoing mess.
Things are ameliorated in TPHoDC, for one thing, the fabulous period art production is a remedy for sore eyes, and young David’s (Patel) misadventure is often offset by the quirkiness of supporting characters, like Capaldi’s buoyant Mr. Micawber, or Laurie’s certifiable Mr. Dick. Everything is arranged in a fairy-tale fashion, like the dainty boat house or the liberating kite-flying expansiveness, tragedy is merely a plot devise, it crops up and vanishes in the next breath.
Patel has grown up to a more competent leading man stature, he can be credibly romantic and sensibly virtuous, his David holds on his own against a kaleidoscope of scene stealers, my preference is a delectably sinister Whishaw as Uriah Heep, whose slapping bouts with Swinton’s auntie Betsy is a humdinger of cartoonish delight.
David’s to-be-a-gentleman-cum-author rite of passage could be written off as a stiff and insular idée fixe, but Iannucci and Blackwell’s script updates it with a more universally appealing, like his irrational infatuation and final realization of who is a more suitable match of matrimony, the whimsical and ladylike Dora Spenlow (Clark, who also moonlights as David’s mother Clara), or Agnes Wickfield (Eleazar), the unassuming but courageous daughter of Mr. Wickfield (Wong), a tippled lawyer.
Collectively, TPHoDC reaches a much happier coda than the novel with David’s extended family grows and settles down with a big hearty smile, the “personal” in the title indicates Iannucci’s own predilection for finding a different color in existent materials, if TDoS is a tad off-color in its taste, TPHoDC, conversely, is a glowing tonic that re-introduces a timeworn classic.
referential entries: Iannucci’s IN THE LOOP (2009, 7.1/10); Garth Davis’ LION (2016, 7.1/10).
Title: The Death of Stalin
Year: 2017
Country: UK, France, Belgium, Canada, USA
Language: English
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Director: Armando Iannucci
Writers: Armando Iannucci, David Schneider, Ian Martin, Fabien Nury
based on the comic book by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
David随着社会身份的变化得到好几个名字，davy baby，trotwood，daisy，davidson，但没有一个人愿意呼唤他的真名，连他自己都吐槽说，我爱人们给我起名。本我和超我的抗争就在名字这得到了巨大的体现。n 小时候就喜欢和保姆一起，a face of wax和a face of durch cheese, 其中的厉害只能自行体会。多么生动而又真实啊。那些大象一样的活塞，红日一般的眼睛，谁又能无时无刻闪过这样的灵感并记录下来，藏在随身携带的古董盒子？那些声称自己是作家的人，多少能体会到这样的快乐和艰辛？
质朴无华的价值观——《大卫·科波菲尔的个人史》
今天聊聊电影《大卫·科波菲尔的个人史》。
片名The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019)，别名狄更斯之块肉余生记(台)。
《大卫·科波菲尔的个人史》改编自文学巨匠查尔斯·狄更斯的半自传作品《大卫·科波菲尔》。数十年间，《大卫·科波菲尔》多次被搬上大荧幕，2019年版的《大卫·科波菲尔的个人史》是最新一版改编作品。
小说《大卫·科波菲尔》是查尔斯·狄更斯在1849年-1850年创作的作品，将他自己少时经历写进书中。主人公大卫·科波菲尔在经历混乱颠簸的生活后，终于找到了属于自己的位置……
大卫·科波菲尔出生时是名遗腹子，在爸爸去世几个月后出生，由妈妈和女仆抚养长大。大卫几岁时，母亲再嫁，继父和继父的姐姐自视甚高，对小大卫极为苛刻。
后来母亲早逝，继父将大卫送去当童工，在这里大卫遇到了大量社会底层人士，也结交到了需要真性情的朋友。不堪精神和肉体双重折磨，大卫从工厂里逃走，投靠姨婆重新接受教育。
再往后，大卫遇到了形形色色的人，有爱人、有友人，也有心怀不轨的歹人。世事变迁莫测，在自己的不断努力和大家的帮助下，终于“善有善报、恶有恶报”，一群人快乐地生活在一起。
这也是最为“政治正确”的一版《大卫·科波菲尔》。
男主角大卫·科波菲尔是棕色人种，黑种人、黄种人数量众多，就差再安排几名LGBT人士。
影片俨然是世界人民大联欢，政治正确地令人发笑。但凡当时黄种人、黑种人能够一起开展工业革命，世界格局也不可能是现在的样子。
创作文学作品除了需要动人的文笔外，优秀的故事素材更为重要。因此我们也经常看到很多著名作家，都有着丰富的人生经历，毕竟要有生活经历才能写出深邃的文学作品。
作家经常需要采风就是这个道理，作家在体验人生百态的过程中也在不断的观察和思考。
查尔斯·狄更斯本人的读书求学经历、童工经历、寄人篱下经历、律所工作经历都成了他的创作素材。而且查尔斯·狄更斯还秉持最朴实的价值观，强调“善有善报、恶有恶报”，这些都通过他的作品表现出来。观众们也喜欢这种价值观正确充满正能量的作品。
每个人会遭遇不幸，但总会得到帮助，也总是能够自强不息，努力改变自身所处境地。大卫的经历正是如此，他快乐过也痛苦过，一个人的时候没有屈服于命运，而是不断寻找机会抗争；得到朋友们帮助的时候也没有得意忘形，而是努力回报；朋友们需要帮助的时候，他也没有袖手旁观，而是积极伸出援手.
大卫人生起伏，最终能够完成人生成功，很大程度是赶上了社会巨变的末班车。他成功抓住了工业革命末期的尾巴，让自己的人生取得了一个不错的结果。
在社会剧烈变动的时候，实现阶级跳跃更加容易。越是四平八稳的时候，阶级固化越是严重。
当然最根本的还是要本身有实力，做好成功的准备，在机遇来临的时候抓住它。能力、机遇、关系缺一不可。
大卫早早就以童工身份步入社会，早早见识了各种坏人的丑恶嘴脸。他愤然离开血汗工厂，投奔姨婆，这才有机会接受教育，才能进入律所实习。
但现在的情况却不同，在资本家和工贼不间断的鼓吹下，打工人被教育要安于现状，安心工作，不要整天胡思乱想。我都已经是工人了，还要整天被打。
今天可以明目张胆地鼓吹996，明天就可以大张旗鼓地宣传007，某米都敢公开喊出“屌丝者得天下”。现在打工人想的不是翻身做主人，而是以成为工贼为荣。
打工人的生活只是眼前的苟且而已，如果没有大卫的姨婆做退路就别想着复制大卫的经历。这也是《大卫·科波菲尔》受到欢迎的一个原因，至少在文学作品里还能看到最质朴的善恶轮回。
《大卫·科波菲尔》告诫人们做人道理，大卫姨婆对少年大卫反复告诫“永不卑贱，永不虚伪，永不残忍”。
“永远不要在任何事上卑劣卑贱，永远不要作假，永远不要残忍。免除这三种罪恶，我可以永远对你怀抱希望。”
这是做人最基本的底线，也是狄更斯希望的世界该有的样子。大卫的起伏人生充满作者的浪漫主义色彩，做个好人最终就会有好报。或许在狄更斯眼中世界并不完美，但每个人可以保持最起码的善良，善良的人会被作者安排一个好结局，不善良的人会被作者惩罚。如果观众也有这样朴实的价值观，可以多去书中寻找寻找。
浪漫主义的个人史，
质朴无华的价值观。
这里是硬核影迷集散地，欢迎关注：妙看影视
A one-two punch of two feature films from Scottish satirist Armando Iannucci, THE DEATH OF STALIN is an irreverent satire of the power struggle between the party leader Nikita Khrushchev (Buscemi) and the chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), Lavrentiy Beria (Beale) in the aftermath of Stalin’s demise in 1953, mustering an Anglophone ensemble to play Russians and retaining each player’s distinctive accent, TDoS is openly ahistorical and scramble a hodgepodge of historical events to show up USSR Communist party’s treacherous political intrigues and draconian executions, with mockery as its ballast, after all the film’s source is a French graphic novel rather than any orthodox biography.
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, on the other hand, is Iannucci’s revisionist take on the famous novel and its Victorian milieu, corralling a colorblind cast and enlivening the palette even when our hero is in his absolute rock-bottom, its uncharacteristic comical tone and striking brightness are anything but Dickensian.
Mordant wits and biting repartees are Iannucci’s forte, and in TDoS, they are aplenty, the whole Politburo is made up of the targets of ridicule and contempt: Tambor’s deputy chairman Georgy Malenkov is a tinpot dunderhead; Beria, a sadistic wheeler-dealer who are prone to hectoring; Khrushchev has that particular political acumen, and cunningly adept in conniving and conspiring; Palin’s Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov is a party maximalist, but barely has any say-so in the game. As for Stalin’s two heirs, Svetlana (Riseborough) is at the end of her tether, and the plastered Vasily (Friend), a lost cause liable to nonsensical babbling, they are not veritable successors of their father’s legacy.
The movie is irrefutably offensive to the people of USSR by omitting any humane traits of the erstwhile powers that be, portraying the whole polity of communism and collectivism as a laughing stock, it only betrays Iannucci and co.’s nationalistic mean-spiritedness of squeezing every inch of laughter out of harrowing events to entertain their core audience, and they can easily get off the hook by claiming artistic licenses, those events were factual what they have done is to coax them together to represent an occidental, pejorative outlook on Western democracy’s old adversary.
That said, Both Beale and Buscemi are fantastic thespians, their at-loggerheads political gamesmanship is immensely gratifying to watch, Beale acts like a savage porcupine, those quills are bristling with venom and cruelty whereas Buscemi has a weasel-like disarming facade, but he can be equally ruthless in a pinch. Also Issacs’ Marshal Georgy Zhukov enters the feeding frenzy late but he has that panache to impress, not least with his umpteen bedazzling decorations.
Iannucci shows his shortcoming in scenes of action, the Moscow massacre sequences are rather sloppily wrought, and his control of an ensemble piece isn’t exactly can be called fluid or artistic, especially when things pan out in a fanatic commotion, audience may feel being manhandled just to keep up with the ongoing mess.
Things are ameliorated in TPHoDC, for one thing, the fabulous period art production is a remedy for sore eyes, and young David’s (Patel) misadventure is often offset by the quirkiness of supporting characters, like Capaldi’s buoyant Mr. Micawber, or Laurie’s certifiable Mr. Dick. Everything is arranged in a fairy-tale fashion, like the dainty boat house or the liberating kite-flying expansiveness, tragedy is merely a plot devise, it crops up and vanishes in the next breath.
Patel has grown up to a more competent leading man stature, he can be credibly romantic and sensibly virtuous, his David holds on his own against a kaleidoscope of scene stealers, my preference is a delectably sinister Whishaw as Uriah Heep, whose slapping bouts with Swinton’s auntie Betsy is a humdinger of cartoonish delight.
David’s to-be-a-gentleman-cum-author rite of passage could be written off as a stiff and insular idée fixe, but Iannucci and Blackwell’s script updates it with a more universally appealing, like his irrational infatuation and final realization of who is a more suitable match of matrimony, the whimsical and ladylike Dora Spenlow (Clark, who also moonlights as David’s mother Clara), or Agnes Wickfield (Eleazar), the unassuming but courageous daughter of Mr. Wickfield (Wong), a tippled lawyer.
Collectively, TPHoDC reaches a much happier coda than the novel with David’s extended family grows and settles down with a big hearty smile, the “personal” in the title indicates Iannucci’s own predilection for finding a different color in existent materials, if TDoS is a tad off-color in its taste, TPHoDC, conversely, is a glowing tonic that re-introduces a timeworn classic.
referential entries: Iannucci’s IN THE LOOP (2009, 7.1/10); Garth Davis’ LION (2016, 7.1/10).
狄更斯的5段式工整小说改编电影，整体笑点很多，剧情紧凑
Part1 小时候被后爸欺负， 被扔到瓶子工厂上班
Part2 被一个骗子收留
Part3 被Aunt收留
Part4 爱上Dora
Part5 与真爱走到一起
PS：看的UK上映的生肉，以下是词汇整理
好看的striking
女高音soprano
一家之主 man of the house
记下来pur down
穷困up in the air
winter castle
a captive
David随着社会身份的变化得到好几个名字，davy baby，trotwood，daisy，davidson，但没有一个人愿意呼唤他的真名，连他自己都吐槽说，我爱人们给我起名。本我和超我的抗争就在名字这得到了巨大的体现。n 小时候就喜欢和保姆一起，a face of wax和a face of durch cheese, 其中的厉害只能自行体会。多么生动而又真实啊。那些大象一样的活塞，红日一般的眼睛，谁又能无时无刻闪过这样的灵感并记录下来，藏在随身携带的古董盒子？那些声称自己是作家的人，多少能体会到这样的快乐和艰辛？
里面错乱的人种关系，与其说是对市场的讨好，或是我不能呼吸的妥协，更像是对狄更斯原著的讽刺。
两个白人的后代是印度人，大卫科波菲尔更像是他妈和印度医生偷情生下的,完全毁坏了我的三观。nn温柔娴熟白皙的阿格尼斯，居然是老成沧桑的黑妇人，主要演员选角就像讨好所有人的一个大杂烩笑话。就像中国人看西游记里面的 唐僧是女人，孙悟空是欧洲人一样搞笑。
可爱美丽的朵拉看着大卫科波菲尔，一句话就结束了两个人的关系的剧改，更像是莫大的讽刺，爱的那么痴狂的大卫居然头也没回。整个电影，虎头蛇尾，草草收场。
剧中唯一的亮点，我觉得相反是那些不重要的配角，选角和演的很好。比如 姨婆 米考伯 甚至艾米与哈姆 以及女佣 都非常出色。朵拉 选角和演技也挺出色。