BEEF! BEEF!! BEEF!!!

Show Review
Episode Title Card
Reference
剧评
标题卡
参考

"BEEF" (Screenshot/Netflix, 2023)

Show Review

On Douban, there's an interesting review that reads "everything everywhere all fucked up" to this show, which contrasts with the phrase from the movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once".

Everything Everywhere All at Once is about the triumph of existentialism over nihilism. BEEF rages against life, exposing its chaotic and ever-changing nature, where chaos and confusion are the norm. While the choices of existentialist believers are undoubtedly important, life will not necessarily follow their chosen paths. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" represents humanity's attitude towards the world, while "Everything Everywhere All Fucked Up" represents the world's impact on humanity. But what is the world's attitude towards humanity? The world does not have an attitude towards humanity; it operates logically, and adapting to its changes is the key to living.

I really loved the last two episodes. The intense argument in the jungle in darkness is particularly serene. Anxiety, anger, unease, envy, and suspicion are insignificant in the face of nature.

In the end, Ai Weiwei remarks that the Chinese lack the middle finger attitude, and that this is true not only for China but for the whole of East Asia.

Episode Title Card

Episode title cards | BEEF (Netflix, 2023)
“A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms” by Pieter Aertsen (Episode 1)
Artwork by David Choe (Episodes 2-10)

“When I prepared the PowerPoint pitch for buyers, I wanted a very bombastic title card to catch everyone’s attention. I had loved the 16th-century painting ‘A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms‘ for some time, and I felt the look and themes of the painting fit the mood of the show,” Lee told IndieWire. Lee planned on using classic paintings in the public domain for all 10 episodes to convey a sense of bombast and the subversive glee of puncturing it, but he found an even better solution on set.

“David Choe, who plays Isaac, suggested I use his paintings. He stopped showing his work publicly over a decade ago, so he had hundreds of paintings no one had ever seen,” Lee said. “He graciously allowed me to pick the ones I felt fit the episodes the best.” Choe’s work is an excellent match for the series, frenetic and brimming over with messy emotion — whether that emotion is desire, longing, or something uglier.

Lee then had the title text custom-designed to fit each painting. “I worked closely with the company Sarofsky in designing each title. We used a lot of late ’90s and early aughts albums and magazines as inspiration, specifically Ray Gun,” Jin said. “The font was also customized by Sarofsky. We went through hundreds of fonts and ultimately landed at Balboa, but needed to tweak a few things to our liking.” The tweaks do their small smart to turn the screws as the series progress, looking like increasingly manic screenprints of something that should be a lot more elegant and orderly.

But Lee credits a lot of the title cards’ impact to composer Bobby Krlic (also known as The Haxan Cloak), whose work in TV and film tends to be a grandiose celebration of the twisted and fucked up, from “The Alienist” to “Midsommar” and “Beau Is Afraid.” “For me, Episode 3 feels like the perfect marriage between the painting and the score,” Lee said, and indeed the pounding drum and discordant horns somehow capture Danny’s panic at being spotted by Amy’s daughter as he tries to commit some light arson and Amy’s fake smile as she says a new chapter is about to start for her family.

While Lee loves that moment, his favorite painting is the finale’s “Figures of Light.” “It captures an outpouring of experience that mirrors how reality shifts for Danny and Amy in the show’s finale and even a sense of perspective,” he says. “The figure in the painting is peering down at the mess on the ground in the exact same way the high-top camera shot comes back on Danny’s and Amy’s wrecked cars.” Whatever turn each episode of “Beef” takes, the opening titles are the show’s way of yanking on the tripwire that makes the characters fall.

(This section is cited from Ref.1)

Reference

剧评

豆瓣上有一个神评“everything everywhere all fucked up” 跟瞬息全宇宙的 “everything everywhere all at once” 对照。

瞬息全宇宙讨论的是存在主义相对虚无主义的胜利的话，怒呛人生就是揭露生活的本质是混乱与变化，一地鸡毛才是常态，存在主义信徒的选择固然重要，生活却不会按照选择顺意地走。瞬息全宇宙是人对世界的“态度”，怒呛人生是世界对人的“影响”，那世界对人“态度”呢？世界对人没有态度，世界按照逻辑运转，习惯世界的变化才是生活之道。

太喜欢最后两集了哈哈。最后那段暗夜和丛林在激烈的争吵中显得格外静谧。焦虑、愤怒、不安、嫉恨、猜疑，在自然面前无足轻重。

最后的最后，艾未未说中国人缺中指态度真是够准，整个东亚都挺缺。

标题卡

剧集标题卡 | BEEF (Netflix, 2023)
《圣家施舍的肉摊》Pieter Aertsen (第 1 集)
David Choe 的艺术画作 (第 2-10 集)

李导演告诉IndieWire：“当我为买家准备幻灯片时，我想要一个非常夸张的标题画面来吸引所有人的注意力。我很喜欢16世纪的绘画作品《圣家施舍的肉摊》，我觉得这幅画的外观和主题很适合这个节目的氛围。” 李导演计划在公共领域中使用经典绘画作品为所有10集传达一种夸张和颠覆的快感，但他在现场找到了更好的解决方案。

“David Choe 扮演的Isaac建议我使用他的绘画。他在十年前就停止公开展示他的作品，所以他有数百幅从未被人看过的画作，” 李导演说：“他慷慨地让我选择那些我认为最适合每一集内容的画作。” Choe的作品非常适合这个系列，充满了杂乱情感，无论情感是渴望、向往还是更丑陋的东西。

然后，李导演让每幅画都量身定制标题文本。“我与Sarofsky公司密切合作，为每个标题设计。我们以许多晚期90年代和早期00年代的唱片和杂志为灵感，特别是Ray Gun，”他说。“字体也由Sarofsky定制。我们尝试了数百种字体，最终使用了Balboa，但需要调整一些东西以符合我们的要求。” 随着系列的进行，这些调整会巧妙地转动螺丝，看起来本应优雅和有序的丝网印刷品却逐渐躁狂。

但是李导演将很多标题的影响归功于作曲家Bobby Krlic（也称为The Haxan Cloak），他在电视和电影中的作品倾向于是扭曲和破碎的庆典，从“The Alienist”到“Midsommar”和“Beau Is Afraid”。李导演说：“对我来说，第3集感觉像是画作和配乐的完美融合。”实际上，重击的鼓声和不协调的喇叭声以某种方式捕捉到了丹尼在试图纵火时被艾米的女儿发现时的恐慌，也在隐喻艾米假笑着说新的一章即将开始时对她家庭的影响。

虽然李导演很喜欢那一刻，但他最喜欢的画作是结局的“Figures of Light”。他说：“它捕捉到了在节目结局中丹尼和艾米如倾泻一般剧烈的现实转变，它更是捕捉到了一种视角，”他说，“画中的人物正以与高角度镜头重新对准丹尼和艾米的残骸车辆一样的方式凝视着地上的混乱。”无论“BEEF”的每一集如何转折，开场标题都是该剧拉扯绊线、让角色跌倒的方式。

(本部分文字摘录自参考#1，Chat-GPT 翻译，手工微调)

参考

2023-05-01 23:28

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