虎胆忠魂

While the city of Belfast and IRA are conspicuously unspecified in Carol Reed’s film noir mood-setter ODD MAN OUT, it actually betrays that what Reed tries to tell is a universal moral story. Thrusting Johnny McQueen (Mason), the head of an insurgent organization, who becomes a wounded fugitive on the run after a mill-robbing bravado goes amiss, at the mercy of various characters he encounters, with whom the film deftly applies the litmus test of humanity.

Mason plays Johnny with a decided “softness”, he is a leader who is averse to violence and incapacitated in the aftermath of killing an innocent person (touchingly he is in a trance wish “everything is just a dream”), his fate is sealed when the whole city is under a police dragnet to hunt him down. Therefore, most of the time, Johnny is reduced to a passive, nearly insensate deadweight, whose appearance stirs the placidity of people and prompts their actions that reveal their true colors.

Most people are either sympathetic, like the avuncular Catholic priest Father Tom (Fay), or Rosie (Fay Compton, particularly assertive), a no-nonsense first-aid doer, who only balks after finding out Johnny’s identity and dares not defy her husband’s authority; or want nothing to do with a hot potato that Johnny, yet is not above to alert the police, like the unwitting hansom cabbie (Tomelty) or the bar proprietor Fencie (Hartnell); nevertheless, some has their only self-seeking agenda in the act, a well-off fink like Theresa O’Brien (Delaney) or the deadbeat Shell (McCormick, extraordinarily effervescent in a poor man’s naiveté, and the coded exchange about a wounded bird called Johnny), who is a naive fool wanting a touch of faith, or the inebriated painter Lukey (Newton, plumb in his wheelhouse as a hellraiser), who in time will painfully realize he is not cut to be a top-line maestro.

Also embroiled in the fold is Kathleen (Ryan, supernaturally cool, calm and collected), Johnny’s faithful girlfriend, who is resolute to accompany her love to damnation as the last resort. Yet to today’s eyes, the raison d’être of Kathleen’s act is mostly contentious, as literally she leans on religion for her own radical decision, were it not for her firm belief of life after death, she could find a more tactful recourse to end her and Johnny’s misery. Whether Reed and his scribes attempt to extol or condemn such deeds is moot, but it serves as a warrant that even vintage pictures need reappraisal from time to time, to calibrate its merits and demerits according to the ever-shifting ethos.

Achieving quite a sociological portraiture of characters with distinction, Reed and co. also brilliantly maps out a striking visual flair underscored by stark chiaroscuro of dark alleys and Stygian cityscape, vehement Dutch angles, low-angle composition and surreal montages of foreshadowing and hallucinations, whose completion is roundly state of the art, and ODD MAN OUT is a razzle-dazzle that encapsulates the film-noir aesthetics down to the ground, with or without its antiquated sentimentality.

referential entries: Reed’s THE FALLE IDOL (1948, 7.7/10); THE THIRD MAN (1949, 8.3/10).

由于影片中文译名的误导，会觉得这是个描绘英雄的故事，实际上这是描写一个英雄落魄的故事。爱尔兰叛军的一位英雄由于久居牢狱，盛气或者说是戾气已经被消磨殆尽了，见到光亮他觉得眩晕，见到人多耳旁也会产生眩晕，在这种状态下去抢劫银行，在医生警铃之后，他眼前一黑，台阶上下来几乎踩空，遇到了警卫正面拦截，他杀死了警卫，自己也因此受了重伤，没能赶上同伴的车。这便是故事的开头，后面的故事的主体就是同伴如何舍身相救 、百姓们怎么就他或者将他舍弃在街头、心爱的女人如何誓死相随，最终共赴黄泉。

故事是黑白的，光影处理非常出彩，但通篇没有现代电影的商业元素，没有英雄没有美女，甚至没有荡气回肠的爱情，几乎让人怀疑导演拍片的目的。

当爱人凯瑟琳揣着手枪执意要去找约翰尼德时候，奶奶说了一段意味深长的话：“我见过像他这样的人，我见过女人出门去寻找他，但她们从没找到过他们。”有些男人在某一刻闪亮耀眼，如流星般飞逝而过，或者你很快失去他，又或者等待你的是一辈子茫茫的黑夜和无奈。

而英雄只出现在孩童们的儿歌中，是他们向往的人生。他们怎么想的到儿歌中的英雄是眼前落魄的流浪汉。而现实中，谁的人生又不是此般窘迫？逃到一边是墙角，匆匆从岔路逃去，迎面是另一面墙。

开头提示强尼在家呆了六个月，为后面掉链子寻理由，略显刻意；同伴建议他不要出去，略显刻意；他表示一定要出去，略显刻意；作为老大，不专业，关键时候掉链子，被阳光刺眼头晕后就怎么都叫不上车，这个安排略显刻意；关键时候路口被一辆车挡住了，略显刻意；被甩出车后，司机开出那么远，怎么叫都不停车，略显刻意；停车后傻等在那里，为怎么处理争执不休，略显刻意；爬起来，居然不向车那边跑，这一点你可以说他爬起来后以为车向那边方向去了，所以他跑向那个方向，也解释得通，但这个安排也略显刻意；躲起来后突然有个球被踢了进来，然后有人来找球，略显刻意；这个时候竟然产生幻觉，把小女孩当作狱警，泄露了所有的事情，略显刻意。总之这一切的刻意都是为之后剧情的发展作铺垫，但那么多的刻意放一起真的是尴尬到了极点。 还有，抢银行不戴个面罩的，那个银行怎么那么好进啊？配乐太煽情。 接下来，那三个同伴出门，见到警察就慌了，还跑了起来，略显业余；跑到一个太太家，居然把这事说了出来，这是一个什么样的组织啊，抢银行这样的事居然到处乱说，实在业余。同伴为引开警察好让强尼逃跑，设置一个三声枪响的暗号，刻意又多余，警察被引开强尼自己看不见吗？逃跑需要等那么久？没有电影引开警察是这么办的，不合逻辑。 救他进门打算医治他的那两个女的，送他出门的时候，女人的丈夫让他喝了点酒，紧接着，强尼遇到三个士兵，士兵以为他是喝醉了，就没管他。这个酒的情节太刻意。强尼背迫离开，走进雨中的时候，配乐煽情到了极点。强尼坐在马车里通过检查口，警察没查看的理由不够充分。 女主藏枪的时机真的刻意到了极点，话刚说完警察就推门而入。 女主为什么要去找神父？找神父的时候居然正好有个知情人在神父家，然后用鸟做比强尼的对话看起来很聪明，很漂亮，这种漂亮没有为剧情添彩，反而显得为漂亮而漂亮。竟然还当着一个神父的面，赤裸裸谈价钱。 太多问题了，说不过来，算了。

British version of film noir

Highly unnatural seasons, compressing a year into a day, texture created by seasonals shifts

a lot of actors come from Abbey theaters/Kathleen more held within, theatrical groupings, Tempest, the interlude of comic characters, old mode of theatrical construction, local color blooming into something memorable

dread, anxiety, fate

oblique, no explanation, no contextualization (even though clearly Belfast), obliterating the political frontlines, church and the gangs against the govenment/monolithic power

Johnnie/the Christ figure, the artist is only interested in the allegorical rendering, not the actual suffering

city physical distortion, fun house, through the consciousness of the claustrophobic man

in a way he is unaligned, Kathleen too/ everyone is trying to claim him

Belfast: heavily hit by air-raids, the rights of minority, post-war in the ruins, tradition of expressionism in Europe, air-raid shelter, the status of children (street urchins, oral urban legends, lore among the kids), social terrain of the city (illuminating different places and different corners, ethical more than political), museum of the 19th century, Victorianism, played as grotesque in the film as a kind of ornamentation

first aid: are they making things better or worse

rigidly obeying the code

grotesque, the third code, hallucinating about himself giving oratory speeches, filtered through the expressionism (Caligari)

影片结尾男女主角双双殒命，这一次没有蛇蝎阴谋，没有背叛毁灭，有的只是爱的执着透出的凄美，这份凄美在漫天飘落的雪花中更加令人动容。这是一个有别于传统黑色电影的“黑色”结局，实际上从男主中枪逃离开始，电影的黑色基调就发生了偏转。

一方面男主好似一个符号道具，将形形色色的人串联起来，大部分遭遇到他的民众对其的态度都是即不支持也不对抗，而神父想宽恕他的灵魂，画家把他当作传奇的绘画素材，这其中可能也暗含了人民对爱尔兰共和军在名族主义斗争中所处的态度。还有一位养鸟人把他量化成悬赏的金钱（实际上个人感觉这个不太讨喜占据三分之一篇幅的角色可以得到缩减，特别是当他和神父、和画家的对手戏着实过长，这其中还以冗长的对话探讨了金钱和信仰的关系，对我而言都起到了消解观影专注度的副作用）真正忠于他的唯有兄弟和爱人，甘愿为其奉献一切。

另一方面当他独自痛苦挣扎前行时，凛冽寒风和悲壮配乐烘托出充满忧郁的悲剧气息。作为多年在牢狱度过的反抗军领袖，他与社会早已脱节。他视线所及的城市以俯视的压抑以及快速翻转的眩晕呈现在眼前，挤压着生存空间。而如迷雾般的夜晚打光则透视着浑浑噩噩的迷茫，不知道为何而战，不知道为何奋斗，不过是身体的本能支撑其在倒下后又站起，一步步走向注定的终结，最终在爱的拥抱中得到解脱，而其身上的悲剧性又使得爱得到了升华。不得不说以这样的死亡呈现的结局是我所看过的黑色电影当中最具震撼性的。