天涯何处觅知音

如题。电影主要描述了两个家庭。男主的家庭是暴发户，父亲整天像打鸡血一样亢奋，一心把儿子送进耶鲁大学，然后再培养成家族企业接班人。儿子比较朴实，只想安静地做个美男子，对资本主义不太感兴趣，反倒是受到“广阔天地大有作为”的影响，一心想去农村种地。另外还有个女儿未婚先孕，性格越发叛逆。女主的家庭则是个普通家庭，母亲是个老封建，热衷于给女儿洗脑。两人的爱情故事就发生在这样的背景下。

哦对了，女主还有个绿茶同学，虽然是60年代老茶但比起最近两年新茶味道一点不差。和男主睡到了一起。基本就是这么个韩剧的关系。

　　1961年的电影《天涯何处觅知音 Splendor in the Grass》

　　看《Just kids》时提到的电影，便顺便趁着有时间找来看了，全片2个多小时，一下子就看完了，之前稍微看了眼豆瓣短评，提到社会性压抑问题，原谅我一开始就代入这个角度去看了，但显然它并不是光这个，性压抑只能说是社会时代背景之一。

　　两个相爱的人为什么不能在一起。

　　Bud和Deanie是坚定地爱着对方的，这是一个前提。但是他们要面对社会环境对性的过度压抑，父母对于他们秉持的不同态度等等问题。

　　Bud在医院问医生，我很爱她，她也爱我，可是我感到痛苦。从这里便开始转折了，他接受了父亲的建议，在自己的渴望无法得到满足时，接触了另一个与Deanie完全不同的“另一种”女孩，这给Deanie带来巨大的痛苦，她年轻而传统，像是一朵脆弱的温室花朵，因此遭受重击，即便是被送入精神病院，她其实也是美好又热情的，她仅仅只是逃不脱这段爱情。

　　而曾经横亘在Bud面前的属于父亲的希冀的这座大山，也伴随着经济萧条父亲的自杀而逝去了，当Deanie离开精神病院，最后去见Bud时，他们真正地跟一切和解了。

　　Deanie的母亲接回Deanie时，请她不要怨恨自己，因为她并不知道自己的教育是不是有问题的，她母亲，她母亲的母亲，也是这么教育她的。这是跟父母一辈的和解。

　　Deanie有了自己的未婚夫，而Bud也有了妻儿。这像是跟他们过去浓烈的爱和解。至于是否相爱已经不是问题所在。

　　影片最后她再次想起华兹华斯的那首诗时，心境与第一次她在课堂上泪奔读出已经完全不同。

　　“再也没有灿烂的阳光

　　壮美的草原和艳丽的花朵

　　没有悲伤

　　我们要从现有的一切中汲取力量。”

Two teenagers falling in love in Kansas 1928, Deanie and Bud (Wood and Beatty) are the ne plus ultra of high school sweethearts, he is a jockey born with a silver spoon, she is as lovely as a storybook princess, both parents are quite content with their pairing, then why, in Kazan’s SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, apart from the fallout of the imminent and fateful Crash of 1929, their lives will be permanently scarred, and both opt for a settling-for-less middle ground.

As incisive as Kazan’s brand constantly boasts, here the bane is sexual repression and the bigotry from the moral majority, Bud is eager to marry Deanie as he can barely keep his libidinous urge in check, while Deanie, dinned into behaving like a “good girl” by her mother (Christie, giving the performance of her lifetime here, brings so much deeper pathos and affection from a conventional mother figure, and completely subverts our usual question: is she a good or bad mother? Her quiddities can be applied to more than a generation of women and then some, and her insularity is a sign of the times), is fretted by whether or not she should “go all the way” with the boy she madly loves. Also, the prevailing double standard between different sexes plays a crucial role to drive them apart, as a male, Bud has an easier solution to his problem, all he needs is the help of a different kind of girl, but his self-seeking conduct terminally disturbs Deanie, pushing herself to the extreme and she is sent away to a psychiatric institution.

Since then, their paths only converge in the end, and Inge’s Oscar-winning script considerately conceives a more auspicious direction for Deanie, albeit the mental distress, she recovers and finally can make her peace with Bud, and her family fares much better in the aftermath of the financial catastrophe than Bud’s. Also Wood unequivocally delivers her best performance ever, Deanie’s vulnerability and anguish are elicited to an electrifying effect through her all-pouring commitment, though Wood still feels insecure to deglamorize her screen persona, however, under the tutelage of Kazan, that sense of insecurity becomes a bonanza which pointedly characterizes Deanie’s own plight. Wood looks particularly heartbreaking during the treacherous drowning scenes, we all know her blamed tragedy, that really casts a pall here.

Beatty, in his film debut, already struts his stuffs which will make him a movie star, his Bud is virile, seductive, but also unpretentious, a quality soon will desert him as he matures and his star is rising. Here, Beatty’s most astounding act is actually neither with Deanie, nor with Bud’s overbearing and paternalistic father (played by a gimpy Hingle blasting every line into our cochlea with maximal volume, a pyrrhic victory of acting for my money, though I would appreciate someone who could be less forceful), but the dramatic charge between Bud and his promiscuous sister Ginny (Loden), the black sheep of the family, who rebels in the most radical, tactless, self-destructive way. But being the member of the weaker sex, Ginny can never win, she is the victim of a phallocratic society, which makes the scene where she slaps Bud in the face such an instance of emotion-packed effusion, Loden, who was romantically involved with Kazan at that time, is also uncompromisingly baring it all to audience’s utter amazement.

Festooned by David Amram’s richly boisterous jazz soundtrack, and albeit the eye-rolling adults-playing-teens factitiousness, Kazan’s SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS is a searing social drama full of hearts, theatrics and delectation, it potently reminds us the fight against human bigotry, sexism and paternalism is a never-ending battle, and we shall never let up.

referential entries: Kazan’s WILD RIVER (1960, 7.5/10); Robert Mulligan’s LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER (1963, 7.7/10).