陌生人之恋1963

Essentially, our current soulmates or significant others (who those who are lucky enough to find one) are all strangers at the very beginning, so are Natalie Wood’s Macy’s girl Angie Rossini and Steve McQueen’s odd-jobbing musician Rocky Papasano, both in their salad days, they do make an adorable couple, but before they go down that inevitable road, there is a snag here in Robert Mulligan’s LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER, she is pregnant with his child before they can get to know each other.

Pluckily wrestling with the contentious topics like one night stand and abortion, Mulligan’s follow-up of his pièce-de-résistance TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) is tonally friskier and visually more fluid, especially through its opening passage of a jam-packed musician hiring session, which channels the two protagonists together when she drops the bombshell, and its coda on the crowded intersection right outside the Macy’s, the influence of French New Wave is in evidence, an emancipated mobility runs through these exterior sequences, engenders a revelatory frisson of realism that heralds the footsteps of the New Hollywood.

There are satisfaction aplenty in watching the smoldering interplay between Angie and Rocky which culminates with the moment we await (it is made in the 60s, thus a mainstream American movie would be unconceivable to advocate a pro-choice prog stance), when the abortion is scotched in the eleventh hour, and Rocky, a hardened bachelor, is finally if begrudgingly willing to tie the knot. Much to his disappointment, his purportedly mature overtures only backfire grossly and exasperate Angie, whose modern if slightly paradoxical view on love cannot stomach a shotgun marriage, she wants him to marry her because he loves her, not because there is a bun in the oven.

Mesmerically acting with a steely resolve which possibly she hasn’t exhibited before, Wood reaps her third and (unfortunately) final Oscar nomination by individuating Angie’s plight and independence with an alternately harrowing and delightful seriocomic immediacy and force (the boisterousness of a congested Italian-American household is choreographed and acted with great momentum); McQueen, on the other hand, also ups the ante with delineating Rocky’s persona as amusingly befogged, self-effacing and philosophical in front of the dilemma, a very disarming and likable characterization that is diametrically different from his trademark hard-boiled, taciturn, lone hero screen alter ego, one cannot help but wonder whether Clint Eastwood has that chops in him as well, can he hold that “better wed than dead” placard without any scintilla of machismo? Seems unlikely.

LWTPS also marks our beloved TV star Tom Bosley’s film debut, his Anthony has no qualms about being a fallback in Angie’s plan, bringing about enough lulz with his humble self-knowledge and also comically reseting audience’s first impression of his maladroitness, which could be a trustworthy indicator of a bad match. Plaudits should also be granted to Edie Adams’s canine lover Barbie, Rocky’s casual bedmate who can yap “You want me to find you a doctor?” like no one else could, in the real world, she and Rocky are more aptly to end up together, but through a film’s life-affirming filter, LWTPS is nonetheless, a scrumptious confection with its winning candidness and a proper moral backbone.

referential entries: Mulligan’s INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (1965, 6.6/10); TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962, 9.1/10)

通常情况下，一部谜之尴尬的爱情电影一定抛不开这几点。狗血的设定；流水账的剧情；不能自圆其说的逻辑；表演夸张的男女。基本上只要踩上这几点，一部标榜着自己是爱情电影的电影就基本玩完。当然，踩着上述几点中大多数的爱情片也是如此。哪怕你在其中一点上做的很出色，但是其他都是扣分项，那最终还是不及格。

好的爱情电影我们可以举出来很多例子，他们会让观众们相信真善美就在我们身边，而差劲的爱情片，只会堆砌起来一个美好的谎言，大家都不信，这个时候都会认为这是电影。

并不一定年代久远的电影就是好电影，虽然它能给你一种回忆，并且是带着一定的年代感的回忆，但始终并不能完全的将这种回忆转化为自身优秀的能力。今天给大家推荐的这部具有年代感的影片，就是这样一个举例。一部年代久远的电影，一部年代久远的爱情电影，本身并不是很出色，大家都喜欢给他一些感情分。

《陌生人之恋》说的是一对青年男女经过一次意外的邂逅，女方怀孕了，找到男方后，两人决定去堕胎。临到了男方后悔了，于是终止了这次危险的尝试。男方不知不觉的爱上了女方，然后两人最终突破重围在一起。

这是一个一句话就能说清楚的故事。这个故事主要想告诉我们，陌生人之间也能产生爱情的火花，然后有情人终成眷属。这大概是导演的最初的想法。然而，本片当时的噱头却并不这个观点。而是用“最早以堕胎问题为题材的写实爱情影片”这个显得有点大了，而纵观全片，本片中描绘的堕胎问题，并不是主要问题，仅仅是维系男女之间爱情的一个引子。况且导演并没有在片中提及堕胎问题的严重性，然后就草草收场，这不得不让人怀疑导演仅仅是像今天很多影片营销方一样，做一个噱头而已。

这里不得不提及一下美国的“堕胎问题”了。在19世纪中叶以前，美国大多数州只允许胎动以前堕胎。1845年，美国马萨诸塞州第一个将堕胎视为犯罪。到1910年，除肯塔基州外，美国各州均将堕胎定为重罪。其后愈治愈烈的人权运动和妇女运动，让美国妇女在1973年取得了堕胎权。

2003年11月5日，时任总统的布什签署了《禁止晚期堕胎法案》，这一方案从此成为美国的法律。然而在奥巴马上任后的第一周，他就签署了一项命令，撤销了布什政府执行了多年的禁令。

这就是民主自由的美国社会的现状，同时也是尊重人权的美国社会的真实写照。堕胎问题由来已久，因为美国属于地广人稀的国家，因此人口长期处于不足的状态/我们，我们可以看到的是，东部发达地区的人口几近饱和，但是在西部地区，美国依旧是长期维持着地广人稀的窘境。在这样的大前提下， 美国政府自然不希望生育问题得到太大限制，因此，在美国，长期以来堕胎一直被认为是违法的。

而打着写实主义的本片诞生的环境是上世纪六十年代，那更是一个魔幻的时间点。当时全球范围内掀起的崇尚自由运动在美国也是如此。战争问题，信仰危机等等，美国社会爆发了前所未有的运动。而正是那个时候开始，美国国内的女权运动兴起，此后，堕胎问题得到了重视，女性们重新被赋予了自由生育的权利。

当然，本片中体现的堕胎问题并没有得到确切的描述，而仅仅是当作一个噱头产生话题的。所以，这部电影的质量就下降了。因为现代生活中，我们可以很清楚这种营销手段究竟是怎么一回事。而看看别的点，比如说前文提到的流水账剧情，狗血的设定，不能自圆其说的逻辑，单就表演夸张的男女并不存在，因为男女主人公确实是演技派，饰演的片中的角色也很贴切。女主甚至还提名了奥斯卡。这就是对于演技的肯定。除此之外，本篇可谓是占足了这几个烂片的点。

大多数网友都觉得导演的功力确实差了点，因此，才会将这样一个有意思的故事拍的很一般。对于这样的评论我深表认同，一部好电影的诞生一定是占据了天时地利人和的，任何人想要一蹴而就，基本上不可能。而本片正是用一个反面的例子来说明这个道理。哪怕是老电影，也有着不很优秀的作品，甚至于平庸。

当然，继续探讨美国这个自由的国度，然后参看这部影片的话，你就会发现这可能是一个笑话。即使是全世界最为自由的六十年代，唯独不见了美国人摇旗呐喊，这可谓是最大的讽刺了。