ACROSS4SEAS.COM

Chris Liu

Individuality Amongst Tragedy

Although set in countries with two drastically different cultures, “Mona Lisa Smile” and “The Spring Comes” are able to depict a common theme about expressing individuality in a society of constrictive dogma and norms, and its potential consequences. Although each movie’s conflict and representation is nuanced with the respective cultures of their settings, it is relatively easy to make the point that the empowerment and freedom of expression most characters sought may end in a more bittersweet conclusion, even if pursued with the greatest ardor. In “And the Spring Comes” Cailing’s dreams of becoming an eminent opera singer are tempered by her unattractiveness and lack of wealth, and in ‘Mona Lisa Smile,” Professor Watson’s teaching career and romance are cut her short by her refusal to compromise with unfair societal standards. Although these two tragic “heroes” can be lauded for their efforts to pursue their dreams, ultimately, they are not left completely fulfilled.

Shot with an intensely relatable and naturalistic style, “And the Spring Comes” and its sometimes jarring transitions help depict the uniformity and franticness of an older mainland China. These realistic angles, combined with the gloomy and hazy lighting, propagate a sense of grimness, representing the uphill struggle aspiring opera singer Cailing and her motley ensemble of free-thinking artists face in earning renown and expressing their deepest emotions in a society of conformity.

Each member’s urge to act upon their senses of wayward ambition can be seen by their rather lofty goals: performing in the Opera in the cultural hub of Beijing, becoming the next Van Gogh, being a homosexual dancer, and etc. Their obstacles are even clearer, as corrupt officials and naysayers of society repeatedly cross their path to make their lives even more difficult, like Beijing housing officials, stuck-up opera troupe leaders, and students masquerading to have cancer. And yet, Cailing is not any more noble, stringing many along with the notion that she is more connected to Beijing than she really is, a tragedy that her talent is backed by no more then false promises and dim hope. This critique of a Chinese society that discourages acts of individual expression is made more clear through the appearances and identities of the artists themselves. Cailing opts for makeup that highlights blemishes not considered beautiful, while her travels bring her closer to people who are admonished for their ”ugliness,” or in one dancers case, his homosexuality. These tropes represent an underrepresented group normally pressured to assume conformity despite their talents, and to an extent, each are searching for their “individuality.”

Cailing’s story progresses and she soon has alienated most of her relationships between her former friends. Many of the supporting characters arcs are reintroduced and concluded sporadically through the film, possibly representing the hecticness of the industrializing society and the fickleness of its people. We see a former acquaintance who is rather unskilled artist , aspiring to be the next “Van Gogh” run a dishonest “match” service company, only to be chased out of town by his angry clients, and a homosexual dancer friend who purposely sought jail time to escape the confines of society, so that he may more freely express himself, ironically, in the iron bars of prison. These artists may have rebelled against the conformist norms of society at the time, but they have accepted and paid the consequences for their actions. As for Cailing, her mounting frustration to be unable to perform or study at Beijing, culminates in a rather emotional ending. She goes to adopt a orphan and has her appearance altered to avoid the same issues she encountered. She settles down as a butcher, and the last scene, lachrymose with a sense of regret, is a transition from her playing with her to new child, to a dream where she is performing where in an opulent opera house. Although she has retained her individuality in a way, she has given up who she was for another life. She accepts the life of settling down and decides to raise and educate a child, but one cannot help but feel the same innate sense of regret, as the images of an incandescent and beautiful opera singer are juxtaposed with the inherent meekness of her current state, alone and singing with her child, surrounded by a hazy fog, a haziness that exemplifies the uncertainty of the future.

Set in a very different location, "Mona Lisa Smile" explores this idea of pursuing individualism through a starkly contrasting setting, a very conservative all women’s college of Wellesley in America. Professor Katherine Watson, a former West Coast instructor in art history, moves to Massachusetts in an attempt to start a newer life and teach through her progressive ways. Through the visual aspects of the set itself, much is given away. The student’s conservative outfits and dimmer lighting reflects a society, or in this case, a college that is very stuck in its repressive ways. Students are encouraged to marry off and are provided based on the status of their husbands, and their “womanly” behavior. This stemming of creativity can be seen through a class of “feminine etiquette,” where the teacher goes over different scenarios on how to be the perfect supporting wife to the husband.

Although Watson’s students are studious and very academically gifted, they are so in a sense that is too counterproductive to how “art” should be interpreted. During her first class, she comes to realize they have all memorized the textbook, and therefore are regurgitating any information back to Professor Watson in her first attempt to teach. In an attempt to try and get through to her students on a deeper level, she scraps the entire syllabus and circumvents the issue by asking them a very personal and subjective question by showing them a totally new piece of art and asking them, “.... what makes art good, and who gets to decide.” Professor Watson changes her curriculum to a very modern approach, challenging students on their individual opinions rather than what society has thrown onto them or from what they have already from established research, trying to foster a sense of achievement and ambition outside of marriage.

As a result, this newfound sense of individualism inspired in all the characters make Watson and her students each go through their own struggles of keeping what makes them unique. For instance, an ambitious student, Joan applies to Yale despite her marriage, inspired by Watson’s newfound teaching methods, although she later rejects her prestigious admission to Yale Law School so she can be with her husband. Watson herself breaks off an engagement and another relationship because a lack of love and trust, respectively and Betty Warren, the most conservative student in the college, is met with an infidelitous husband, and is left distraught when her own mother does very little to support her by telling her to just ignore it.

Of course, in the end, each woman, so inspired, has the burden of society lifted off of them in a way. Professor Watson declines her teaching job because of restrictions of a future ban on her teaching her in freeform method, and decides to leave and explore Europe. Betty breaks off her wedding with her husband, a person that she was once most dedicated to, and decides to live her own life and applies to the Yale Law School with the newfound opening from Joan’s spot and moves in with a friend from Wellesley.. Although these characters out of many have learned to cast asides the shackles of society, they too have also been met with some bitter consequences.

Together, these two movies represent the struggle of two contrasting groups of individuals in a similar conformation society. These marginalized groups have talents and hopes beyond the average man or woman, and yet they face the anguish of pushing back on such deep-rooted motives. One scene, in its ostensible simplicity, summarize this best. Betty, in “Mona Lisa Smile’s” last moments, bikes after Professors Watson's car in a passionate, but vain hurry. She tries chasing after her hero, thanking her for freeing her, bereft of many burdens, but still laden with many more. And yet, her tears represent more than happiness, they are tinged with the regrets of losing a once-loved one, a mother, and the pressing anxiety of the daunting gambit ahead.

[Redacted]

Dear Chris,
I really like you article. Your thoughtful idea was conveyed in your words and those long sentences, which make me tired.
After reading it, I have some suggestions for you.
First, it’s better for you to contrast more clearly. You did very well in criticize the two films respectively, you express your thoughts in your description, but you did not contrast the films point to point. As a result, your article can be probably divided into two articles except the first and last paragraph. So you can try to make the two critique more interrelated.
Also, I have some different ideas about Mona Lisa Smile. I would rather like to think it uses a bright light instead of dim light. I think the atmosphere of this film is completely different from And the Spring Comes. I think the last scene that the girls ride after Katherine is not passive but positive. Katherine start her dreaming travel to Europe, It seems a good ending. The girls will follow her, and live free. To the opposite, And the Spring Comes use a dimmer light to highlight the sadness. Finally, Cailing was forced to be normal and adopt a little girl. Cailing was forced to give up, but Katherine did not.
Looking forward to your reply.

Dear Chris,
I truly like your article. Your article gives me a new perspective on these two films. When I read your article, it is a little difficult to understand initially. Form your article, I benefit a lot. I would like to show you my own view.
First all of, And the spring comes reflects the cruelty and darkness of the society towards the literary and artistic youth in China in 1980s. As you know, society looked at them differently, and they didn't fit in at first. It is not only social factors that have caused their tragedy but also their own. When they lose their ideals, they either go after things that would have been insignificant in the face of them, or they castrate themselves and automatically fall into the system. Besides,as far as Wang cailing is concerned, there is no reality and universality in Chinese society. The characteristics of this character, the coexistence of her vanity and pride, her desire to hold the ideal and her inner dissatisfaction with the reality, are realistic and universal. Director picked up in that era in addition to the loss of the hearts of people in addition to the loss of those hesitation and desire, kneading them together, into the Wang cailing. Therefore, Wang cailing is not realistic, but it is highly realistic. After the great deception, she went into the marriage agency. Then movie time sped up its pace, and she still did not marry, but adopted a child, who grew up, and she began to sell lamb for a living. There is a shot, beautiful and cruel, in the endless grassland, a road winding into the distance, driving a truck full of sheep in the back, Wang cailing in the back of the car, with the sheep. Her expression was complex and hard to read -- not nearly as vivid or vivid as it once was, but more importantly, she was with the sheep, a docile animal that was carried unrecognisable in the back of a car.

Shuixiu Y. wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2019 11:58 am Dear Chris,
I really like you article. Your thoughtful idea was conveyed in your words and those long sentences, which make me tired.
After reading it, I have some suggestions for you.
First, it’s better for you to contrast more clearly. You did very well in criticize the two films respectively, you express your thoughts in your description, but you did not contrast the films point to point. As a result, your article can be probably divided into two articles except the first and last paragraph. So you can try to make the two critique more interrelated.
Also, I have some different ideas about Mona Lisa Smile. I would rather like to think it uses a bright light instead of dim light. I think the atmosphere of this film is completely different from And the Spring Comes. I think the last scene that the girls ride after Katherine is not passive but positive. Katherine start her dreaming travel to Europe, It seems a good ending. The girls will follow her, and live free. To the opposite, And the Spring Comes use a dimmer light to highlight the sadness. Finally, Cailing was forced to be normal and adopt a little girl. Cailing was forced to give up, but Katherine did not.
Looking forward to your reply.

Hi Shuixiu,

Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate the thought put into how I can improve my essay.

To address your first point, my idea was to contrast the films on a mostly individual basis, which is what resulted in your criticism of it's lack of interrelation. Perhaps it would be better if I connected my analysis between the two films as well, thank you.

To address your second point, I agree, "dim" was a rather misleading word for me to use. More correctly, I meant a more grainy and washed out tint, the lighting was definitely bright, but in my opinion it looked rather purposefully faded.

As for your last point, I will have to agree with you on only a portion. In one sense, Betty is definitely liberated and faces a potentially happy future, but looking beyond that, we must realize two bigger things. One, she has lost a husband she has invested much emotion into, and two, she has alienated a relationship with her mother. Although she is free to do what she wants, we do know that as a coddled child, she probably will face many challenges.

I'm interested to see what you think,

Chris,

Xiaochun L. wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:03 pm Dear Chris,
I truly like your article. Your article gives me a new perspective on these two films. When I read your article, it is a little difficult to understand initially. Form your article, I benefit a lot. I would like to show you my own view.
First all of, And the spring comes reflects the cruelty and darkness of the society towards the literary and artistic youth in China in 1980s. As you know, society looked at them differently, and they didn't fit in at first. It is not only social factors that have caused their tragedy but also their own. When they lose their ideals, they either go after things that would have been insignificant in the face of them, or they castrate themselves and automatically fall into the system. Besides,as far as Wang cailing is concerned, there is no reality and universality in Chinese society. The characteristics of this character, the coexistence of her vanity and pride, her desire to hold the ideal and her inner dissatisfaction with the reality, are realistic and universal. Director picked up in that era in addition to the loss of the hearts of people in addition to the loss of those hesitation and desire, kneading them together, into the Wang cailing. Therefore, Wang cailing is not realistic, but it is highly realistic. After the great deception, she went into the marriage agency. Then movie time sped up its pace, and she still did not marry, but adopted a child, who grew up, and she began to sell lamb for a living. There is a shot, beautiful and cruel, in the endless grassland, a road winding into the distance, driving a truck full of sheep in the back, Wang cailing in the back of the car, with the sheep. Her expression was complex and hard to read -- not nearly as vivid or vivid as it once was, but more importantly, she was with the sheep, a docile animal that was carried unrecognisable in the back of a car.

Xiaochun,

Many thanks for your individual analysis, I agree with it wholeheartedly, And the Spring Comes definitely reflects a darker and less inclusive Chinese society in the 1980s as you said. "Social castration" as you termed it, is definitely an accurate depiction of what they went through.

Your description of Cailing in the truck as helpless as the sheep is something I personally missed, and the connection to its docility is exactly the type of tragedy I talk about in my own essay. Yes, Cailing in one sense has chosen a new life, but she is now a more tame a verison of her former "fiery spirit," like a sheep.

Thank you, and if you have any more comments please don't hesistate.

Chris,
Your writing is excellent, and your analysis is well founded! You did a great job! I like the sentence in your article: It is relatively easy to make the point that the empowerment and freedom of expression most characters sought may end in a more bittersweet conclusion, even if pursued with the greatest ardor. All the pursuit of the ideal is accompanied by pain.

Although the protagonists in both films have not really succeeded in their pursuit of ideal, we can still get some relief and hope.

I appreciate your comments on my article, and I have given more thought to it. I have written it and I hope to share it with you.

Qirong

Qirong S. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:18 pm Chris,
Your writing is excellent, and your analysis is well founded! You did a great job! I like the sentence in your article: It is relatively easy to make the point that the empowerment and freedom of expression most characters sought may end in a more bittersweet conclusion, even if pursued with the greatest ardor. All the pursuit of the ideal is accompanied by pain.

Although the protagonists in both films have not really succeeded in their pursuit of ideal, we can still get some relief and hope.

I appreciate your comments on my article, and I have given more thought to it. I have written it and I hope to share it with you.

Qirong

Thank you for your input Qirong!

Your comments have also made me reconsider my points on my own essay.

Best of luck,

Chris

Final Revised Essay

Chris Liu

Individuality Amongst Tragedy

Although set in countries with two drastically different cultures, “Mona Lisa Smile” and “The Spring Comes” are able to depict a common theme about expressing individuality in a society of constrictive dogma and norms, and its potential consequences. Although each movie’s conflict and representation is nuanced with the respective cultures of their settings, it is relatively easy to make the point that the empowerment and freedom of expression most characters sought may end in a more bittersweet conclusion, even if pursued with the greatest ardor. In “And the Spring Comes” Cailing’s dreams of becoming an eminent opera singer are tempered by her unattractiveness and lack of wealth, and in “Mona Lisa Smile,” Professor Watson’s teaching career and romance are cut her short by her refusal to compromise with unyielding societal standards. Although these two tragic “heroes” can be lauded for their efforts to pursue their dreams, ultimately, they are not left completely fulfilled.

Shot with an intensely relatable and naturalistic style, “And the Spring Comes” and its sometimes jarring transitions help depict the uniformity and franticness of an older mainland China. These realistic angles, combined with the gloomy and hazy lighting, propagate a grounded sense of grimness, representing the uphill struggle aspiring opera singer Cailing and her motley ensemble of free-thinking artists face in earning renown and expressing their deepest emotions in a society of conformity.

Each member’s urge to act upon their senses of wayward ambition can be seen by their rather lofty goals: performing in the Opera in the cultural hub of Beijing, becoming the next Van Gogh, being a homosexual male dancer in China, and etc. Their obstacles are even clearer, as corrupt officials and naysayers of society repeatedly cross their path to make their lives even more difficult. Avaricious Beijing housing officials, close-minded opera troupe leaders, and students masquerading to have cancer, combined with inopportune timing, all represent the toils of the path to “individuality.” And yet, Cailing is not any more noble, stringing many along with the notion that she is more connected to Beijing than she really is, a tragedy that her talent is backed by no more then false promises and dim hope. This critique of a Chinese society that discourages acts of individual expression is made more clear through the appearances and identities of the artists themselves. Cailing opts for makeup that highlights blemishes not considered beautiful, while her travels bring her closer to people who are admonished for their ”ugliness,” or in one dancers case, his homosexuality. These tropes represent an underrepresented group normally pressured to assume conformity despite their talents, and to an extent, each are searching for their own tragic “individuality.”

Cailing’s story progresses and she soon has alienated most of her relationships between her former friends. Many of the supporting characters arcs are reintroduced and concluded sporadically through the film, possibly representing the hecticness of the industrializing society and the fickleness of its people. We see a former acquaintance who is rather unskilled artist , aspiring to be the next “Van Gogh” run a dishonest “match” service company, only to be chased out of town by his angry clients, and a homosexual dancer friend who purposely sought jail time to escape the confines of society, so that he may more freely express himself, ironically, in the iron bars of prison. These artists may have rebelled against the conformist norms of society at the time, but they have accepted and paid the consequences for their actions. As for Cailing, her mounting frustration to be unable to perform or study at Beijing, culminates in a rather emotional ending. She goes to adopt a orphan and has her appearance altered to avoid the same issues she encountered. She settles down as a butcher, and the last scene, lachrymose with a sense of regret, is a transition from her playing with her to new child, to a dream where she is performing where in an opulent opera house. Although she has retained her individuality in a way, she has given up who she was for another life. She accepts the life of settling down and decides to raise and educate a child, but one cannot help but feel the same innate sense of regret, as the images of an incandescent and beautiful opera singer are juxtaposed with the inherent meekness of her current state, alone and singing with her child, surrounded by a hazy fog, a haziness that exemplifies the uncertainty of the future.

Set in a very different location, "Mona Lisa Smile" explores this idea of pursuing individualism through a starkly contrasting setting, a staunchly conservative all women’s college of Wellesley in America. Professor Katherine Watson, a former West Coast instructor in art history, moves to Massachusetts in an attempt to start a newer life and teach through her progressive ways. Through the visual aspects of the set itself, much is given away. The student’s conservative outfits and washed-out, although superficially bright, lighting reflects a society, or in this case, a college that is molded in its repressive ways. It is soon delineated that the students are encouraged to marry off and are considered based on the status of their husbands, and their respectively appropriately, “womanly” behavior. This stemming of creativity can be seen through a class of “feminine etiquette,” where the teacher goes over different scenarios on how to be the perfect supporting wife to the husband, culling the “out of place,” students so they may be reprimanded.

Although Watson’s students are studious and very academically gifted, they are so in a sense that is too counterproductive to how “art” should be interpreted. During her first class, she comes to realize they have all memorized the textbook, and therefore are regurgitating any information back to Professor Watson, in her first attempt to teach. In an attempt to try and get through to her students on a deeper level, she scraps the entire syllabus and circumvents the issue by asking them a very personal and subjective question by showing them a totally new piece of art and asking them, “.... what makes art good, and who gets to decide...” Professor Watson changes her curriculum to a very modern approach, challenging students on their individual opinions rather than what society has thrown onto them or from what they have already from established research, trying to foster a sense of achievement and ambition outside of marriage.

As a result, this newfound sense of individualism inspired in all the characters make Watson and her students each go through their own struggles of keeping what makes them unique. For instance, an ambitious student, Joan applies to Yale despite her marriage, inspired by Watson’s newfound teaching methods, although she later rejects her prestigious admission to Yale Law School so she can be with her husband. Watson herself breaks off an engagement and another relationship because a lack of love and trust, respectively and Betty Warren, the most conservative student in the college, is met with an infidelitous husband, and is left distraught when her own mother does very little to support her by telling her to just ignore it.

Of course, in the end, each woman, so inspired, has the burden of society lifted off of them in a way. Professor Watson declines her teaching job because of restrictions of a future ban on her teaching her in freeform method, and decides to leave and explore Europe. Betty breaks off her wedding with her husband, a person that she was once most dedicated to, and decides to live her own life and applies to the Yale Law School with the newfound opening from Joan’s spot and moves in with a friend from Wellesley. Although these characters out of many have learned to cast asides the shackles of society, they too have also been met with some bitter consequences.

Together, these two movies represent the struggle of two contrasting groups of individuals in a similar conformative society. Although the two films differ in severity, with “And the Spring Comes” representing a darkest and more oppressive Chinese society, they are able to touch upon similar conclusions. These marginalized groups have talents and hopes beyond the average man or woman, and yet they face the anguish of pushing back on societies rife with such deep-rooted, and insidious motives. One scene, in its ostensible simplicity, summarize this conflict best. Betty, in “Mona Lisa Smile’s” last moments, bikes after Professors Watson's car in a passionate, but vain hurry. She tries chasing after her hero, thanking her for freeing her, bereft of many burdens, but still laden with many more. And yet, her tears represent more than happiness, they are tinged with the regrets of losing a once-loved one, a mother, and the pressing anxiety of the daunting gambit ahead.

Chris Liu

Border Crossing Reflection

1.)My expectations going into this activity were to be able to experience a multitude of different perspectives on writing and on these two films from an Eastern-oriented lens. They were more than met, the activity was very interactive, and the students in my group responded promptly and we were able to exchange constructive advice and share our comments on the films.

2.)There were a lot of interest moments when interacting with the Chinese students during this activity, one that especially surprised me was the quality of writing from some of the essays that I read. Some of the students had vocabulary and styles that I completely did not expect from first year English majors, for instance, in one essay, the two of us debated about the use of “intransigence.” Additionally, the rhetorical strategies / ideas that they presented in some cases differed from what I expected. Qirong’s essay was centered around “frames and bicycles,” ideas that I did not even consider when watching the two films. However, after reading through the analysis, it made perfect sense, and I was able to understand the points that she was making. Lastly, I was surprised of the structure of discourse. While Taylor and I were more inclined to suggest corrections, only one of replies on mine suggested a change. The rest were points of analysis and opinions they were contributing to my own statements, which I thought was extremely helpful in itself.

3.) Although I did not make too many explicit revisions to my revised copy, it is not because I disagreed with the other students, or that they did not offer helpful comments. One of the students suggested I compare the two movies to each other, but I personally felt my analysis was more suited for an individual basis. However, I did add a few ending statements to my conclusions that interrelate the two more. Additionally, the other replies to my post were less of explicit revision suggestions, but just general discussion. As a result, I changed some wording around in my essay as I read through their perspectives and was able to change my own around a little bit.

4.) This activity was definitely beneficial in the sense that it offered me the chance to see another global perspectives on two films. Through their essays, being exposed to an ESL student’s take on an American film, and their take on their native Chinese film, I was able to read different presentations of ideas then I was used to. As I have mentioned before, the use of frames and bicycles was one of the more interesting ones that I saw, or the comparison of Cailing to the docile sheep trapped in the truck.

7.)If I were to use three adjectives to describe my feelings toward the activity, it would be refreshing, rewarding, and stimulating. I call it refreshing because I am not often exposed to writing / writing standards of other nations, not to mention from students who use it as a second language as well. Their choice of diction, structure, and style, are reminiscent of the ideas we discussed in “Writing in the Devil’s Tongue,” and it was a good experience to be able to see that in a more practical activity. This activity was rewarding because of the knowledge and perspective changes that is offered by simply discussing essays with these students. Not only have I learned what is effective in my own writing, but I also have had the opportunity to exposed to different perspectives. And finally, this activity was stimulating because the inherent nature of film review and tying different conceptual elements together. The act of watching a foreign film and trying to analyze it, and also try to offer criticism and comments on students who natively speak the language of the foreign film makes one assume their sharpest and most critical mindset.

8.)I would like to make some points on how I chose to engage in discourse with the Chinese students. Instead of being more aggressive details or specific grammatical issues, I chose to question bigger ideas and asking questions on their statements and analysis, because I believe that grammar/spelling will ultimately naturally improve with time, while these bigger conceptual points are the best way I can offer my assistance. For instance, I asked almost every one of the students what they thought about the ending to the both movies, as I believe there existed an inherent tragedy in both. The responses were both refreshing and insightful, and they all commented on what they thought. I received many replies that implied that this form of discussion was helpful.