一般来说,能够抓住我的事情都出自机缘巧合.我只是因为打发周末的时光,走进小区对面的小店,想随便借点剧集看看.到了阁楼上的库房里,数量还不算少的存货DVD引起了我的兴趣.就这样,我买了Robert Altman的3 Women和Peter Watkins的Punishment Park.两个都是70年代的片子,我也只是打算作为为数众多的,存放着的电影收藏而已.
下午读着<精神现象学>,想起来不妨把碟开着,顺便看看罢了.电影似乎有点平淡,但是细节,如音乐,表演和场景等等都暗示了片子的水准.
演员都很不错,Shelley Duvall是Robert Altman发现的,在Shining和Annie Hall等也都有上佳出演.曾在Brian De Palma执导的Carrie中有上佳演出的Sissy Spacek;以及扮演女画家的Mary Janice Rule .
3个女人和一个男人.同性的女人--梦--自我的分裂--合体--1--2/2-3/3女人.在最后,男孩出生即已死去,而男人则被打死了,3个女人生活着.一幅画,四个人,星辰.
和精神现象学一起看,算是不错的耦合.一部弥漫着心理学气息和对于个体及其间关系的片子.
问：《3女性》是基于一个梦？
答：《3女性》是字面上来自一个梦。它并不是我梦到的那个样子，我所梦到的是我正在拍这么一部电影，或者准备拍。Catherine，我的太太，那时候已经生重病进了医院，而我的一部电影刚好流产。我回到家，我和我最小的孩子朝外面看着沙地，然后我躺到床上，试图睡觉，然后我梦到了这部电影。我醒来，拿起床边的黄色记事本，写了《3女性》的草稿，然后再睡。我又梦到更多，于是写的更多。我还想好了演员。然后我叫了两个为我工作的人到我卧室来，告诉他们去Palm Springs，因为我们要在沙漠里拍，但我又想离乐趣近点。
然后我真的醒了。我床上有我儿子弄来的沙子。我也没写下任何东西，我床边根本就没记事本。所以我梦到了这个标题：《3女性》，和这个发生地的景像。我就打电话给某个一起工作的人，说，“我有一个酷毙了的故事，就发生在沙漠里...等等之类的”，第二天我就在Fox的Alan Ladd的办公室里了，再后天，我就到Palm Springs找外景了。所以那的确是从一个梦里头来的，不过不是电影的具体细节。
3 WOMEN
Directed, Produced & Written by: Robert Altman.
Director of Photography: Chuck Rosher.
Edited by: Dennis Hill.
Music by: Gerald Busby.
Released by: Criterion.
Country of Origin: USA. 124 min. Rated: PG.
With: Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek & Janice Rule.
DVD Features: Commentary by: Robert Altman. Gallery. Trailers & TV spots. New high-definition digital transfer.
3 Women - literally dreamed up by Robert Altman as his wife lay in a hospital extremely sick - is the epitome of an art film. While it could be argued that most of the director’s work falls under that term, this 1977 film all but proclaims itself an example of such by actually featuring mural paintings as a visual motif. Emblematic of the “New Hollywood” period in the late 1960s and ‘70s, when auteur-driven films with deeply philosophical ideas were successfully produced, 3 Women is distinct from the techniques and style of Altman’s most well-known movies.
It is devoid of his signature jittery hand-held camera movements and satiric slant. In spite of some identifiably Altmanesque touches (such as a detached, razor-sharp attention to detail, including close-ups on seemingly irrelevant minutiae; often hilarious character dialogue that, if not overlapping, is heard clearly off-screen; and subtle performances in support of a vaguely-articulated meaning), the movie is not ambiguous in the manner usually associated with the filmmaker. Instead of a great number of possible explanations for events that occur as the plot unfolds, 3 Women is enigmatic, with a sense of there being only one specific reason for what happens, which is, coincidentally, impenetrable. The story becomes nonsensical, with an explicit hallucinatory quality toward the end.
The coherent part of the narrative relates how Pinky (Spacek, depicting a flirty knowingness even when her character is supposedly naïve) begins work at a California retirement spa, bonding with Millie (Duvall, using her voice and conversational tone to great annoyance). Another orderly, Millie is seemingly unaware that everyone - including the viewer, since Millie’s need for attention is insufferably voracious - dislikes her. Everyone except Pinky, who - just as lonely as her friend - becomes obsessed with her, gradually adopting Millie’s identity. This process speeds up when the women become roommates at an apartment complex owned by a couple, Edgar (Robert Fortier) and the third woman of the film’s title, Willie, a painter (an underwritten estranged witch-type character played by Rule). Her murals depict huge phalluses and sexual triangles, providing visual commentary on the movie’s sexual developments.
Despite some remarkable elements, the film does not add up to much, perhaps constituting Altman’s impressionistic rendering of his feelings of abandonment when faced with his wife’s mortality. Its influences (such as 1966’s Persona) are evident, and its impact (2001’s Mulholland Dr., and even 1999’s The Sixth Sense) is appreciable.
DVD Extras: The included ads for the film are notable, if only to see how a major studio went about attempting to market such a blatantly noncommercial film (in a word: badly). The major bonus, is, of course, Altman’s commentary track, on which he explains how in his dream that inspired this film, he only dreamed the title and that it would star Duvall and Spacek. Conceding it only gets more confusing as it goes along, he likens the film’s intended effect to that of a painting – citing its color design of yellows and pinks, which affect its mood. Altman also discusses Busby’s atonal music score as having that same mood-setting aspect without determining viewers’ reactions completely, describing the music as vaguely disorienting and unsettling.
Also fascinating is his metaphorical explication of the film as his concept of “the last male” - a kind of primitive fear that, since women seem to conspire against men behind their backs (as well as against each other), they will therefore invariably try to get rid of man, believing they are better off without him but actually, in effect, putting an end to civilization. This take on the film is almost self-evident when one considers the ending, but easy to overlook on an initial viewing, and not helped by the fact that most of the criticism describes the movie as “feminist.” Altman - perhaps unwittingly - positions it within a whole other framework, with an explanation that forces questions as to his subconscious reasons for making the film in the way he did.
Additionally, some of the filmmaker’s apparently off-the-cuff remarks are hysterical, such as when he compares Millie’s do-anything-to-fit-in nature to the characteristics of a Republican. Furthermore, Altman’s contention that films are ruined by too much acting - while undoubtedly deadly serious - just comes off as funny. Toward the end of the film, Altman comments on a specific plot point, suggesting that if it had been different, the film would have made no sense, to which the viewer might want to respond: “Is he kidding?” Reymond Levy
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