班尼的录像带

Benny生活在一个条件优渥的家庭，常常租赁大量有关于暴力的电影录像带，也喜欢用自己的摄影机拍摄暴力景象，并反复播放暴力的桥段。影片从Benny拍摄的一段杀死猪的影片开始，并反复播放了猪被枪杀死的那一刻。影片的惊悚的高潮开始于Benny音像店门口遇到的一个女孩。Benny将女孩带回家，给她播放了杀死猪的影片，并在给女孩展示了那把杀死猪的枪时，杀死了女孩。然而，Benny从处理尸体，到向父母坦白，到埃及旅游，再到向警局承认罪行，Benny，一个少年，从未表现出一丝的慌张。Benny在杀人后的心理和精神的稳定，便是本片最值得关注的特点。

首先，从心理学和精神病学的角度看，Benny的人物塑造比较立体。从心理学和精神病学的角度分析主人公班尼，以更好地理解他的行为和动机。从心理学的角度来看，本尼可以被看作是一个正在与无聊感和对生活的不满作斗争的年轻人。从Benny的房间中电视，录像机，和大量录像带中，我们不仅可以看出Benny是一个对视频技术和拍摄痴迷的人，也能看出父母常常满足Benny的物质需求。Benny每日都把自己沉浸在房间里，通过观看新的暴力电影和自己的片段消遣。Benny并没有在学校和社区与他人有很强的联系，and父母为他提供的更多是经济支持。因此他对视频的痴迷和对拍摄一切的渴望可以被看作是他逃避世俗现实和寻找某种意义上的一种方式。Benny不断地观看他那段最喜欢的杀死猪的影片，从中获得快感，以至于他对暴力和死亡产生了麻木，这或许是一种更为深层次的心理疾病的症状。Benny在杀死女孩后，不仅没有表现出慌张，还悠闲地吃东西，打电话，听摇滚乐，用摄影机拍摄女孩的尸体，并把血液抹在自己的身上。对于Benny来说，死亡似乎是一种值得被影像记录的美学。他倾向于把人和事件看成是电影中的情节，并倾向于把他人物化和非人化，这表明他可能患有缺乏依恋和缺乏移情能力的问题。

同时，影片的cinematography对塑造Benny的成长环境和心理状态起到了较大帮助。整部影片的视觉可以被分成两个差异较大的部分：一个是在阴冷的奥地利，另一个是在温暖的埃及。奥地利的部分以冷色调和高对比对为主。在Benny的家中，影片只使用了单点光源，从单个方向投射硬光在环境和人物的脸上。房间的环境因此显得十分昏暗，让人感到窒息。此外，Benny和他父母的脸会被单点光源营造出有强烈对比的光影。在Benny和父母坐在家里餐厅一起吃饭，和对话时，影片把单点光源移动了至了头顶。人物的眼睛都被处于阴影之中，而仅有额头和鼻子反射着顶部的光源。这种如Francis Coppola的《教父》的打光方式，能很有效地突出人物的神秘和压力感。此外，影片极力避免了使用广角镜头拍摄远景，而是尽量地利用了中长焦镜头所带来的压缩感。在中长焦镜头的成像下，环境和人物主题都会在视觉上压缩得更为紧致，and物体之间的距离也更为接近。这样的压缩感能很有效地创造出狭小的空间，并营造一种压抑的氛围。而这样的高度压抑的环境整反映了Benny生长的环境的内心活动，可能是导致Benny孤僻和冷漠的关键因素。然而，当Benny和他母亲来到埃及旅游时，整个画面转向暖色调，形成较大反差。尽管影片仍然主要使用了中长焦镜头拍摄Benny在埃及的生活场景，埃及其广阔的沙漠和城市，仍能表现出与奥地利全然相反的气质。

总结，Benny's Video的人物塑造是丰满的。Benny的心理和精神问题，很容易从他在犯罪前和犯罪后的各种行为的细节中看出来。同时，摄影所营造的Benny生活的压抑的环境和气氛，更能暗示Benny形成心理和精神问题的部分原因。如果没有这些细节的帮助，Benny的形象将会薄弱不少。

哈内克标志性的冷峻叙事和克制残暴的表现力（还记得大学时候被《钢琴教师》支配的恐惧...）。 班尼杀了一个人，一个年轻女孩，并不出乎意料的，我仿佛在很久以前就预见了这一天。他用杀猪的筛枪创死了她，打了两枪，她不停挣扎，一点也不配合，班尼烦躁地发出最后一枪，终于扼制了女孩绝望的嚎叫，他感到自己被快乐和愉悦的滋味淹没，脱掉衣服，他的灵魂因为脱掉了掩盖的外物显现出真切残酷的光芒，看着镜中那张冷静、看似面无表情的脸，额角的跃动的经脉在艰难地压抑那股兴奋，他反复品味那种身体深处传来的、颤栗的快感。他感到身心自由，这一次，终于是他钳制了自己的家庭，不用再承担受钳制的压抑了，压抑什么的，让别人去感受好了。 三枪的表现力，很容易让人联想起毛姆笔下的“惊慌之中，凯蒂匆匆嫁给了沃尔特费恩。”，短暂，节制，有力，空留余响。 发条橙已经告诉我们，教化能改变很多事，比如潜藏在某些人基因里的凶恶和嗜杀。我不想把这件事与全人类挂钩，我相信丑恶总有去处。 剪发，是班尼面对和迎接暴风的直观姿态。 镜头展现了多次班尼擦拭的动作，最后隐约留下一点痕迹，在昭示有些事情注定无法雁过无痕。 蒙娜丽莎散发着柔光的安详面庞在冷色调画面中显得刺眼诡异，班尼啊，真的有不用付出代价的好事吗，你是巨婴，私自寻求心灵上的释压和救赎，来去一场梦，仿佛世界上只有自己。

In the earl stage of Michael Haneke’s film Benny’s Video (1992), the violence in video media show a more obvious impact to human cognition and behavior comparing to the later film like Caché (2005), but still the recognizable style of Haneke as a cold silent observer to use media as a represent of violence and portrays the alienation of people caused by it. The alienation is generally defined as extension of objectification and materialization, it is the production and products of human’s material and spiritual aspects that becomes alien forces, which in turn rule people (Ruihua, 2010). While Georges in Caché (Haneke, 2005) lost in the threaten of video medium, Benny purely is the submissive advocate of it and then even becomes to an executor to violence. The video clip that one pig is shot to death is played multiple times with bigger and slower images enlarged by Benny each time, and the details of death is displayed more clearly.

There is one scene that he falls asleep when the TV is still playing a scene which seem at the climax of the video, which should be the one appealing scene instead. When the violence is looped and observed several times on screen, people will be gradually desensitized and numb to the repeated images, and finally be filled with them inevitably, then use action instead of psychological analysis and value judgment, which induce one imitation to the violence in the media world in reality (Yuan, 2017). Human are in turn controlled by the products they invented.

Benny also is a recorder himself who frequently record the normal happening around him and the video rental store is the place he frequently goes to, too. Through the operation of camera his own, the video medium successfully transforms the reality into a possessable material, which splits Benny’s presence from the ongoing reality and then reality become closely overlapped with media world. The promises of total visibility that the television and most of media forms can be the “window on world” are repeated by the television technology, as the self-avowed one would have to be understood as the executor of fate, where what appears congeals as what is (Sutherland, 2010). Under the violence of flooded significant, there are the “silent masses”. In the extent of the appearance of simulation with time, in this created hyper reality, simulation eliminates the reality through cloning the replicas of the reality (Baudrillard, 2000, as cited in Yibing, 2008, p37). On the other hand, does the media world originally constructed by human beings bring the emptiness, alienation and violence, or just bring out and reflect the real essence of human beings?

Recently the concept and implementation of the meta universe is getting closer and closer. In such a relatively more thorough alienation, people can not help but make people recall the most initial form of human beings and think about how the final form of human beings will be.

Word Count: 490

Reference List:

Heiduschka, V. (Producer), & Haneke, M. (Screenwriter/ Director). (1992). Benny’s Video [Motion Picture]. Austrian: Bernard Lang etc.

Ruihua, Z. (2010). Media Survival and Human Alienation. Shanghai Journalism Review, 322(2), 29-32. Doi: CNKI: SUN: XWJZ.0.2010-2-010

Sutherland, M. (2010). On Michael Haneke. In B. Price, & J. D. Rhodes (Ed.), Death, with Television (pp167-189). ISBN: 978-0-8143-3699-1

Yibing, Z. (2008). Baudrillard studies: Simulacrum, Simulation and the Implosion in the Bourgeois World. Jiangsu: Jiangsu Social Science.

Yuan, X. (2017). Michael Haneke’s film studies: The sin that be shadowed and highlighted. Wuhan: University of Wuhan.