In the summer of 2019, Hollywood once again brought a visual spectacle movie: The CG version of "The Lion King" . Even though this movie is no different from the 1994 version of the animated version of "The Lion King" in terms of story, characters, logic, and even songs, the fusion of brand-new film technology and ancient stories still makes people feel "homesickness". "Meaning.
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Although Disney has always claimed that ćē®ēć is Disneyās first original animation script, but from a broad perspective, "The Lion King" is very Loosely adapted from Shakespeare's immortal masterpiece "Hamlet." The crew also once admitted frankly about the influence of "Hamlet" on the film.
In terms of character relationship, Mufasa, Simba and Scar are all direct exchanges of characters in "Hamlet". Simba, like Hamlet, "delayed" his revenge because of his weakness and indecision. But the reasons for the "delay" are different.
åå§é·ē¹ē "Delay" , in the mainstream view of todayās cultural circle, is a humanist looking for behavioral meaning and motivation the process of. Especially when Freud's theory is popular, people pay more attention to the psychological meaning behind role behavior. In the age of Shakespeare, drama focused on the actions of the characters rather than the psychology of the characters.
But in the script of "Hamlet", Shakespeare used a lot of monologues to show the indecisive prince's spiritual changes. It must be said that this is a very "modern concept" creative method.
For this kind of complex, profound, and even difficult to simply present the "humanity". The Disney team chose to "do subtraction" on the script. They simply used the concept of "scapegoat" in the "Bible" to find a reasonable explanation for Simba's "procrastination":
ååThe design killed Mufasa, and the frightened Simba mistakenly believed that his own playfulness and negligence killed his father, so he exiled himself to escape the condemnation of his heart and conscience. It grew up in avoiding responsibility. Compared to Shakespeare's original work, Disney's adaptation adds a graceful character to Simba.
In Shakespeareās original work, Hamletās revenge is too solemn and tragic. King-killing, death, deceit, these dirty words of the adult world, in "Hamlet" build a sense of solemnity in polyphonic music.
But in "The Lion King", these heavy words have become Xinba The process of "growth" and "maturity" to rediscover their responsibilities and obligations. At the end of the movie, Simba didn't kill Scar because he needed revenge. Scar was killed by a group of coyotes because of his own injustice.
Therefore, the horrible revenge of the vulture has become the "not kill" of seeking benevolence. This creates a paradox between the themes of "The Lion King"-revenge is based on not killing, but the establishment of a powerful nation always requires blood and barbarity. Therefore, Simba stood on the Glory Stone at the end of the film and looked at a devastated country he inherited. Obviously, at the end of the reunion, he added a discordant tone- and this is also "The Lion King" Surprisingly, it has become a classic reason.
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Based on the ancient Greek-style revenge theme, "The Lion King" unexpectedly enriches the film's color and emotional saturation with the two characters Peng Peng and Ding Man .
If the emotional maintenance of the lion group is the power, responsibility, obligation and even moral concept, then the existence of Peng Peng and Ding Man is a kind of carefree, the pursuit of happiness, or it is not about oneself. status. In fact, Nana's hard life, Scar's plot to kill her brother to seize power, and Mufasa's stalwart, tall king image are not difficult to understand. The most puzzling characters are these two little animals that always seem to be carefree.
After the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the baby boom, the Beat generation and Woodstock, the United States returned to normal in the late 1980s. And the slightly conservative generation. With economic prosperity and social stability, without the most powerful enemy, a trend of pursuit of pleasure is spreading in society. It is understandable that the United States in the 1990s was as strong and unshakable as the gods, and there is nothing wrong with this trend.
In "The Lion King", Peng Peng and Ding Man sang "Hakuna Matata" and lived in the forest without fetters. They sing, dance, and sleep. Obviously, this is the meerkats and warthogs at the bottom of the food chain, one of the few happiness. According to the classification of the Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman, people's happiness is divided into two types, one is experiencing self and the other is remembering self.
Peng Peng and Ding Man undoubtedly belong to the former one. At every moment of life, they are experiencing themselves in life, a direct experience every moment. But due to the length and complexity of life itself, there is no memory ability to experience the happiness of oneself. Therefore, the happiness of Peng Peng and Ding Man comes quickly and goes quickly.
And Simba, after learning the self-paralysis of "Hakuna Matata" (carefree), indeed spent a period of happy days until it and Nana met by chance, the level of "memory self" , Opened suddenly. In the experience of happiness, the memory of self plays the role of a bystander who integrates and summarizes one's own past afterwards.
It makes people think about their past and make decisions about the future. Here, Simba recalled Mufasa's teachings on it by pointing to the stars in the sky, and discovered the meaning and value of his father's words. Therefore, it decided to return to the lion group and its own kingdom.
Rather than say that there is a difference between experience and memory, it is better to say that these are two sides of life. The most typical example is tourism. In the process of traveling, people always take photos as memories in the future. This is obviously a self-acting experience that serves memory.
Therefore, Peng Peng and Ding Man, these two seemingly insignificant roles, actually played in "The Lion King", let Simba Stepping out of the haze, escaping, and taking the initiative to become the catalyst of the king, this has to be said to be a pioneering work of Disney.
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Disney, who is extremely compliant with the trend, will not fail to understand the risks brought by the production of revenge stories in the form of cartoons in the 1990s. Especially in the story, Mufasa's death is the most difficult plot in the whole film. In "Bambi" in 1942, the death of the doe was once rated as the saddest movie moment in American memory by film critics. In 1994, "The Lion King" showed this sadness obscure and rapid. Appeared quickly and disappeared immediately.
Similarly, Mufasaās ghostācorresponding to the ghosts of Hamlet and his fatherāappears in a way that is no longer in Shakespeareās pen. Gothic sharpness and coldness have become a father's indoctrination and even mumbling to his child. Rather than say, this is Disneyās purpose of caring for child audiences and G-level classificationThe compromises and sacrifices made. Rather, it is the pace of the times.
In 1948, Lawrence Oliver's version of "Hamlet" made the ghost of his father Crotis always appear in the backlit position, thus appearing ghostly The shadows are very tall. This kind of self-prestige image not only draws a line with Hamlet, but also sets aside the blood relationship. In Oliver's film, Hamlet is just a tool for his father's revenge, not a prince who needs to be taught.
Similarly, in the 1963 version of "Hamlet" by Gregory Kojingtsev, the former Soviet film master used Dramatic modeling, lighting, contrast between front and back, and deep focus photography are used to create a terrifying, changeable and complex screen space. Whether it is Hamletās cloak, the rugged boulders on the seashore, and even the ubiquitous souls in the story, they all express the understanding of the proposition that "revenge is terrible".
When the time came to the 1990s, Kenneth Branagh also produced his own "Hamlet." The whole film is eye-catching with luxurious scenery, complicated camera positioning and self-talking drama. Although the quality of the film is average, it does represent the trend of a certain film concept in the 1990s.
As for "The Lion King", the film conforms to the trend of the 1990s and rewrites the Oliver version of the father-son relationship, whether Mufasa is alive or dead Later, they were all Simba's instructors and assisted him until he became king. And Simba himself, without going through the stage of melancholy and repetition, directly transformed into a stalwart king-continuous character transformation, allowing the audience-especially the children with less concentrated attention to experience a steady flow Pleasure.
Finally, Disney replaced the horror and goth in other versions with the same song as before. Revenge does not exist in the Disney framework. Simba is not facing enemies and enemies, nor is it the philosophical obstacle of "survival or destruction" that Simba faces. All he has to face is his own guilt and shame in order to grow.
Some people may think that this is a superficial adaptation of a masterpiece by Disney and commercialization of great literature. But in the field of popular culture, film dissemination and easy-to-understand angles, is this not Disney's magic?
(The picture in the text comes from the Internet)
éå½±Vanguard Contributing Author | Yunqijun
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