女煞葛洛莉1980

《女煞葛洛莉》有着中规中矩的制作，无论是运镜、剪辑、叙事，这部片都无甚亮点。这部电影最迷人的地方在于丰满的人物和人物间绝妙的化学反应。

女主角为什么迷人？首先，《女煞葛洛莉》呈现的是一个衰败、肮脏的世界，在这部电影里我们处处能看到萧条的街道、老旧的建筑和贫民窟，甚至片中最有权势的黑帮老大也有个不好使的“缓慢电梯”，而在这个世界里，女主角始终穿着精致、打扮有型，凸显了她与整个环境的格格不入，进一步强调了主题中的“个人对抗体系”。其次，和常见类型片展现的“女人都是天生的母亲”这种刻板印象不同，葛洛莉是位厌恶儿童的单身女性，她的目标不是找个男伴，而是存下钱过安稳生活。这两处独特的处理让葛洛莉的形象丰满又迷人。

一反卡萨维兹常态，本片如同常规类型片一样使用了丰富的配乐，并且丝毫不试图掩饰电影所处的年代。同样的剧本和演员，如果交给一个熟练的类型片导演，比如帕尔马来拍，恐怕电影制作会更精良，几场重头交火戏也会更精彩、更充满悬念。

这部由百老汇舞台剧大姐大吉娜.罗兰兹出演，拍摄于上个世纪八十年代，故事和《这个杀手不太冷》刚好反过来了，小男主是个不足八岁的孩子，大女主是个风韵犹存的踩着高跟鞋走路扭着屁股的半老徐娘，故事的背景依然是套路化，小男孩一家人被黑帮杀害，侥幸逃出来的小男孩被老女人救了，于是，两个一路躲避追杀。当然了会讲故事的导演并不满足于，讲一个俗套的故事，而是把有意思的点设定在——小男孩被这个老女人迷住了，一路上还想尽办法勾引这个体重都比他重六十磅的女人，人家在单人床上一个翻身就能把你这个玩尿泥的小不点弹下床。好玩的这个设定，其实是定义了男孩和男人的划分了，正如传说中的俗话，有些男的生下来就是男人，有些则不是。对于，影片里一开始呈现出的小男孩，也是肉眼可见的孩子，可是接下来一步步的发展，不得不让你感慨，小男孩是个男人。这也不得不让我们思考一个问题，有图真的是有真相嘛，真实世界的真相就算是导演设计的胶片纪录都在告诉我们，看这个世界通常意义上并非肉眼而要心眼。这部电影的可看点更加有趣在于平铺直叙的讲故事，在今天讲故事已经成了商品，如何讲好一个故事和如何生产出一个好产品一样一样值得琢磨。因为，今天的社会是个商品社会，眼里有点活那也是硬核技术 。被小病毒路过抚摸过的人儿们，没事干可以看看，毕竟闲着也是闲着，看部不错的影片也是利用闲暇时间历练技术，铸就工匠精神，储存混社会的正能量。

Cassavetes’s tenth feature, GLORIA is a Venice Golden Lion winner, an honor shared with Louis Malle’s THE ATLANTIC CITY (1980), its skeletal storyline anachronistically reminds of late comers such as Luc Besson’s LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL and Eric Zonca’s JULIA, Gena Rowlands plays an ex-moll Gloria Swenson (a nod to G. Swanson), who is press-ganged into protecting a young Puerto Rican tyke Phil Dawn (Adames), the 6-year-old son of her neighbors Jack and Jeri Dawn (Henry and Carmen), by the aftermath of the Dawn’s ruination at the hand of a mob clan.

The reluctant pairing of a recently bereft, peremptory kid and a childless, trigger-happy termagant takes a tough route in the purlieus of NYC (although it gives audience a wrong impression that a six-year-old can freely ride on a train or take a taxi in the land of freedom), and Cassavetes’s script has no tact in plot plausibility, police force is conspicuous by its own absence after their initial advent, and the ill-fated henchmen from gangster land don’t fare better either, often insipidly and frictionlessly overwhelmed by the outnumbered duo-on-the-lam. Ergo, the momentum is emphatically concatenated by Gloria and Phil’s consecutive hopping from one big yellow taxi to another, transiting from one transitory dwelling to another, concomitant with the bumpy ride of two strangers’ bonding process, to the point where great sacrifice is induced to end all the fracas.

Ms. Rowlands, as fabulous as ever, roundly commands our attention under her hubby’s close inspection, her Gloria, might be a far cry from a competent child rearer, but fo’ shizzle she knows how to handle ruthless yet code-of-honor adhering gangstas by exerting her feminine acuity and quick-on-the-draw second nature. It is a larger-than-life character, but Rowlands prevails with her inimitable flair and pizzazz that even the far-fetched happy ending cannot take the shine off her pervasive brilliance.

Moreover, the interplay between Gloria and Phil, beguilingly detracts from the mushy maternal bond default, also helped by an alternately rambunctious and biddable temperaments of a telegenic Adames (intentionally or not, it also implicitly reflects the sign of its times, how toxic masculinity takes its root at a boy’s young age), there is a rare balance of parity in the duo’s co-existence (which might surprise a prudish mind), far from being a trite exploitation of a childless woman’s effusing motherly love triggered by a cute, doe-eyed boy, in the end of the day, it is a goodhearted human being’s sense of justice and compassion that outflanks one’s primeval self-preserving rationale, and elevates Gloria into a very unlikely heroine.

Opening with Romare Bearden’s water colors, and dialing up Bill Conti’s soaring saxophone-heavy score, John Cassavetes’s GLORIA is as close as a genre practice among his output, while structural and narrative coherence may be in deficit, as far as watchability is concerned, it can still hold court thanks to a magnificent leading lady and Cassavetes’s unorthodox discernment and aesthetics.

referential entries: Luc Besson’s LÉON: THE PROFESSIONAL (1994, 8.6/10); Erick Zonca’s JULIA (2008, 7.1/10); Cassavetes’s OPENING NIGHT (1977, 8.1/10).