黑色電影之父系傳奇---從弒父失怙到流離失所

Abstract

外國語文學系 計畫名稱：黑色電影之父系傳奇：從弒父失怙到流離失所 研究者：林建國 經費來源：行政院國家科學委員會本計劃案為黑色電影的研究，連接「心神」(psyche)與「政治」，探討黑色電影如何呈現人從最古老的「弒父失怙」想像，最後歷經現代性帶來的「流離失所」。前者指心神上的損傷、失落，後者則是民主體制破產之後的敗象，兩者呈現因果關係。 所謂「弒父失怙」想像，靈感來自Juliet Flower MacCannell一書《兄弟集團：父權之後》的闡述，認為父權的發生歷經兩個梯次。一為佛洛伊德《圖騰與塔布》一書所提人類歷史上的原初弒父，通過一場凶殺，兄弟諸人共構父系社會，體現婚嫁體制，成功禁止亂倫。進入資本主義社會，第二梯次父權體制又是透過凶殺，由奪權的兄弟竊據原父位置，獨享勞動報酬，是為美國資本家角色，以致人民流離失所，傷害民主體制。Dean MacCannell的論文〈流離失所的黑色電影〉，即藉著這個理論，闡述黑色電影如何描繪第二次凶殺帶來的傷害，成功結合精神分析與馬克思主義的洞見。 本案第一年計畫，擬在這篇論文基礎上，重寫從《梟巢喋血戰》(1941)到《唐人街》(1974)以降的黑色電影史。《唐人街》跟前片針鋒相對，早有論者指出；但是以兩梯次父權更迭與凶殺模式討論兩片關係，則未曾有過。次年計畫探討嚴浩的黑色電影《天國逆子》(1994)，其所呈現的現代性，同樣需藉凶殺完成，其結果是家庭的破滅，成員流離失所。 申請編號：98WFA0600821

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Title: Film Noir’s Paternal Romance: From Fatherlessness to Homelessness Principle Investigator: Kien Ket Lim Sponsor: National Science CouncilThe present study seeks to reevaluate the film noir phenomenon as originated from the West by linking the psyche with politics to shed light on how film noir has its repercussion in Chinese cinema. In particular, my project will take the trajectory traveling from fatherlessness to homelessness—from the psychical loss to the democratic bankruptcy on the global scale when the surge of capitalism engulfs us all. The concept of fatherlessness has been inspired by Juliet Flower MacCannell’s book Regime of the Brother: After the Patriarchy (1991), according to which patriarchy has progressed on two levels of murder. On the first, that of Freud’s Totem and Taboo, the primal father was butchered and eaten by the brothers, with the result which is an injunction against incest, embodied in the establishment called the system of marriage. The second level of murder is far more sinister: one of the brothers comes to usurp the place of the dead father, seeking to own all the enjoyment he is thought to have enjoyed. This brother finds his incarnation in the capitalist of the American breed. Because of his usurpation of wealth (the fruit of workers’ labor according to Marx), all others become property-less, and hence homeless. The state of homelessness is precisely the work of what MacCannell would call in her book title the regime of the brother. Adopting the findings of this book, Dean MacCannell’s essay “Democracy’s Turn: On Homeless Noir” analyzes the state of film noir, in which the second tier murder runs rampant. I will take this as my clue to investigate as my first-year project the rewriting of the private-eye noir, in particular John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), historically the first film noir, by Roman Polanski’s retro-noir Chinatown (1974). When Huston is invited to play the patriarch in Chinatown whose role is to perform the second-tier murder and garner his enjoyment in incest and wealth, Polanski’s film noir brings into picture the havoc wreaked by capitalism Huston’s first film noir could not have foreseen, with the immediate result which is homelessness to all. Fatherlessness takes a different turn when it is carried by film noir to a place where modernity gives rise to, and negotiates, a very different historicity. My second-year project will look into The Day the Sun Turned Cold (1994), a Chinese film noir by Hong Kong auteur Yim Ho set in northeastern China, where the murder of a father is to be brought to justice by his grown-up son, with the immediate outcome which is not justice, but the son’s homelessness. The two-tier paternal romance is equally at work here. There the mother has an affair; the happiness, earned through the murder of her spouse, presents a special problem about how one should enter modernity to elude the bond with the primordial, first murder—the bond known to be patriarchy. Once this is violently done, whose extreme form is murder, the result is the bitterness swallowed by the son as the homeless. Application number: 98WFA0600821