灼热的马鞍

1.完全无了解观影

2.开场黑白对歌预示了本片风格。

3.排队吊刑、州长对权色的表现很美国。

4.大香肠

5.结尾乱入歌舞片影棚、演员餐厅、众人冲出华纳大门、商人买票出示学生卡、影院入口展示的牛、地上的名人手印、看电影前买的小饼干，决斗后在地上写上名字，都是对电影工业的致敬。

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对于商业电影来说，好莱坞确实是一个绕不开的话题，在全球范围内进行文化输出的影视团体中，好莱坞是最能打的之一。为什么好莱坞会受到影迷观众们的认可，原因很简单，好莱坞在商业电影领域一直以来都能跻身前沿。甚至可以说它是商业电影的风向标。很多影片正因为好莱坞的理念最终才能成为经典。

然而并没有什么影视团体是可以时刻保持常青树的姿态的，当资本不断地涌入之后，留给好莱坞的未来越来越窄，影迷观众们的意见也就越来越多。可见，曾几何时创新能力极强的好莱坞，最近十年正在接受着越来越多的挑战。资本将好莱坞拉下神坛，然而之前的好莱坞确实是好莱坞，确实是一个对于创新十分敏感的影视团体。为什么这么说，今天给大家推荐的电影就是很好的证明。

《灼热的马鞍》是一部上世纪七十年代的作品，趁着上世纪六十年代的风起云涌，全球范围内掀起来的创新高潮影响之下的好莱坞并没有例外。对于影视创作它一点也没有拉下。《灼热的马鞍》作为今天给大家推荐的电影，它一定程度上代表了好莱坞曾几何时的经营理念。关于影视创新而言，好莱坞之前也是不遑多让的，其中最关键的一点就是出乎意料的颠覆。

《灼热的马鞍》带给大家的是曾经美国西部的淘金热，那个时候的黑人没有任何的权力，完全被当做底层劳动奴隶对待，当白人的资本团体想要通过一条铁路换取更多的收益的时候，他们不得不面对一个小镇。将小镇的居民驱逐可以使得白人资本团体的获益最大化，小镇居民们不得已请求上级派遣一个警长来对抗入侵。最终，这个重担落在了一个黑人身上。

原来的老公摇身一变成为了威风凛凛的警长，在凭借着一个神枪手的加持下，这个警长带领着原本不相信自己的小镇居民联手抗击了入侵。最终，小镇居民们接纳了这个黑人警长，民众们想要留下他继续守卫小镇，而他却选择了浪迹天涯。

这是一个原本可以拍成《绿皮书》一样政治正确的故事的故事，然而本片却用一种戏谑的手法为我们展现出来了一出荒诞的喜剧。作为一出喜剧，本片并没有放过任何一个可以制造矛盾的点，并且在这些点上面毫不避讳，甚至是和盘托出当代我们认为是政治不正确的内容。作为喜剧，本片消解了一切可以被当作对立点的矛盾，这就是本片的可爱之处。

举一个最简单的例子，本片中的政治身份是黑人和白人以及华工。这在美国淘金热时期，除了白人之外，这两种族裔的人是没有任何的权益而言的。黑人和华工是被当做奴隶对待的，而那个时候的白人可以肆意的对于这两种人进行殴打设置是杀戮。在当时的大环境背景下，这本就是一个不平等的开始，然而本片却选取了这个矛盾进行消解。

一个被当作奴隶即将要处死的黑人劳工被救下，然而死里逃生的他却依旧免不了被当作炮灰的命运。原本两个利益集团之间的争斗选取了这个身份卑微的人作为交换和试探。然而谁也没想到他却能爆发出来一般人没有的力量。原本被戏谑处理的黑人警长，一下子用能力抹平了自己的身份障碍。这是一个现代好莱坞作品中不多见的设定。

我们看多了好莱坞电影之后，就会发现很多黑人角色最终的升华是依赖于一个白人的帮助多一些的，自我完成升华的影视作品很少见，然而本片却能做到这样，实属不易，虽然片中还有一个白人神枪手来助力，但是那个神枪手基本上属于一个工具人，对于整个剧情的走向是没有影响力的。

在这之外，本片中的结局再一次为我们证明了什么叫做意料之外，情理之中。当现代好莱坞影视业逐渐的在剧情上形成一种批量审美之后，我们所能预知的结局也就越来越多了。很多电影的故事情节看上去千差万别，实际上却都有一个共同的结局，在罗伯特麦基的《故事》中，我们现代的很多创作者们大都遵循他的叙事逻辑，因此，最终导致好莱坞作品越来越没有新意。因为类似的结局看多了之后，观众们大概率是会预知到的。

然而本片却用一种冲出荧幕的方式来消解了这种可以预判的结局，这一点算是创造性的颠覆了。在结尾处我们看到了本片创作者对于好莱坞经典场景的冲击，而这种冲击彻底的打破了观众与荧幕的界限，这种打破对于当今好莱坞创作者来说是非常艰难的，因为他们无法预知这种打破会不会来来高票房收益。因此，当创造性还存在于某一个行业的时候，我们应该庆幸。

……

你好，再见

1974 is a banner year for Mel Brooks, before releasing YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, “the scariest comedy of all time!”, BLAZING SADDLES is a rip-roaring parody of horse opera that subverts everything in the genre, and then some.

First of all, our hero is an African-American railroad worker Bart (a terrifically chirpy Little), who has been appointed as the new sheriff in the frontier town Rock Ridge, as a cunning stratagem to inflame a racist riot to the benefit of the vile attorney general Hedley Lamarr (Korman), who hopes the town will be ruptured inwardly and pave the way for his new railroad business. But Lamarr’s ploy backfires spectacularly, not only the parochial townspeople (all sharing the same family name Johnson) doesn’t rail against Bart, after being stumped by the latter’s self-sustained “two-man” act of hostage and impressed by his ingenuity in subduing the bozo strongman Mongo (Karras), sent by Lamarr’s lackey Taggart (Pickens), they even warm up to Bart, soon it becomes a losing game for Lamarr out the wazoo, aided by a Caucasian sidekick in the person of the dead-eye gunslinger Jim (Wilder), Bart is indomitable and if you think building an entire town’s replica within 12 hours is scarcely credible, wait for the final ten minutes of the film, it will just blow your mind.

Brooks goes whole hog in this whimsically jocular satire, where sparks and N-words fly, he is not deterred by touching a raw nerve of USA’s inveterate racism and discrimination, and plays up to the stereotypes and preconceptions with a winking archness (the content of his sideswipes and mockery ranging from indigenous Indians, Ku Klux Klansmen, Irish immigrants, Nazi members to Methodist). However, the most sidesplitting gag comes from the nonpareil Madeline Kahn, as the Teutonic seductress Lili Von Shtupp, who walks away with an Oscar nomination by fantastically impersonating a world-weary version of Marlene Dietrich and belting out “I’m Tired” with an exhilarating air of lassitude and knowingness, not to mention nailing a well-endowed joke like nobody’s business.

Also deviously funny is Harvey Korman’s Lamarr, who is constantly ruffled by being called Hedy instead of Hedley (a subpoena sent on behalf of Ms. Lamarr is definitely on the way), and delectably articulates the most treacherous mouthfuls with such distinction that even his wiles are effulgent to a fault, whether he is coaxing Gov. William J. Le Petomane (a boss-eyed Brooks in one of the umpteen roles he plays here), or being soft-soaped by the feckless Taggart. All the greater, he has a self-revealing declaration that his wrongdoings might cost him an Oscar nomination, and his prescience unfortunately is eventuated.

Most outrageously, BLAZING SADDLES really bowls audience over near its coda that brandishes its subversive, anachronistic élan to the hilt, in the white heat of the final good-vs.-evil showdown, the fourth wall is abruptly broken by a craning shot and reveals the contemporary setting, whereupon the ongoing rough and tumble is literally transited onto the lot of Warner Brothers studio (a Busby Berkeley-esque musical nonetheless), a western brawl escalates into a pie-throwing three-ring circus, but when Lamarr escapes into a cinema where the film itself is screened, an inexplicable mise en abyme is actualized with a Möbius loop, how could that happen if the film hasn’t been finished by that point? Is it just a loophole in the setting? Apparently, a head-scratcher is not in Brooks’ intention, one might guess, but that is why BLAZING SADDLES is so fun and ingenious in jostling for the lulz and at the same time, throwing audience for a delirious loop.

referential entries: Brooks’ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974, 8.1/10); THE PRODUCERS (1967, 7.2/10).