ACROSS4SEAS.COM

Xu Xinyue

And the Spring Comes and Mona Lisa Smile, although from different countries--China and the USA, all reflect leading actors’ processes of revolting against tradition and struggling between dreams and realities under the feudal social background. This essay is going to state the main plot in these two movies, and compare their aspects of social backgrounds, narrative techniques, images of characters, symbols and themes.

And the Spring Comes mainly tells the story of the artist youth, especially represented by Wang Cailing in 1980s, who was ugly but had a beautiful voice, wanted to fulfill her dream of singing in Beijing but suffered failures in pursuing love and reality, leading to her final end of getting a spiritual being and finding the sense of belonging. Meanwhile, Mona Lisa Smile mainly tells the story of idealistic and passionate Katherine Watson in 1950s, who graduated from the open-minded UCLA, went to Wellesley College to teach art history and boldly commenced a challenge to the stuffy teaching system, bringing students’ changes and appreciations in the end.

Both of them vary from each other but also have common things in many aspects. The first aspect is social background. From the perspective of And the Spring Comes, in 1980s China was facing the early reform after the Cultural Revolution--the equivalent of a huge turning point for Chinese culture--all kinds of thoughts emerged and various forms of art broke out like hurricane. Hence, like what’s shown in the movie, many artists’ pursuits and new thoughts were not approved and appreciated by the society at that time, especially in small cities like Heyang, which barely became stumbling blocks and failure factors for these young dream chasers. Meanwhile, from the perspective of Mona Lisa Smile, Americans in 1950s were gradually aware of the significance of the gender equality, thus leading the rise to the feminist movement that made the status of women increasingly valued. However, the problem of feudalism in the American upper class was still very serious. One typical example in this movie can be shown that what the Wellesley College really taught to the ladies all from upper class was the knowledge of how to find a good husband and be a good wife instead of the best knowledge used in society. It indicated that the idea of feminist movement was still unacceptable to most of the Americans in 1950s. These two movies reflected the culture of feudal thoughts in different countries at that time.

The second aspect is narrative techniques. And the Spring Comes employed conventional linear narrative technique. The main plot followed normal sequence in the order of time and of development to demonstrate Wang Cailing’s story. Besides, it also employed ring structure narrative technique for the movie actually can be divided into two halves that are real part and imaginary part. And the major real part started and ended with the same scene--pavilion. “The spring comes. There is no real sign of spring but the wind changes suddenly. Overnight, it becomes warm and moist. When this wind blows, it makes me want to cry.” It brought the audience a hint of sadness, and hope of spring. Meanwhile, the movie Mona Lisa Smile used the idea of multilinear narrative to complete the whole story. This technique usually has a main storyline connecting secondary lines, which was the one-year teaching process of Katherine Watson-- “It was whispered that Katherine, a first-year teacher from Oakland State, made up in brains what she lacked in pedigree.”The beginning of this film had mentioned it. Around the main line, the existence of branches can highlight the personal character and the theme exponentially by narrating different stories from different people. This movie, besides the story of Katherine, also told us stories of Betty, Joan, Levy and Connie who were all the students in Wellesley College and finally influenced by the strong personality of the heroine, which optimized the main story of Katherine.

The third aspect is images of characters. In the movie And the Spring Comes, the major actress Wang Cailing was a ugly singing teacher of a normal school in Heyang, who was good at singing and desirous of showing her talent in Beijing and the Paris Opera House but her heart was sky high and life was thinner than paper. In the end, she found her belonging that was Xiaofan and put down her obsession. Another tragic character who had a direct impact on Wang’s belief was Hu Jinquan. He loved art without utilitarian but destroyed himself for he couldn’t be accepted by society. When he was in jail for fake offense of rape, he said to Wang, “I feel like I have finally gotten out of people’s throats.” Here the film employed the non-verbal strategy--motion. He danced ballet with common shoes in prison, just like a ruined white rose brightly bloomed. He used the extreme method to solve the controversy between art and reality, indicating the peers’ tragic results in pursuing dreams of art at that time. Meanwhile, one main character of the movie Mona Lisa Smile is Katherine--an independent new era of woman. She supported the idea of female independence that ladies didn’t need to rely on men either spiritually and materially. A representative example can be shown that she strongly encouraged Joan, an intellectual woman, who went to the Yale to pursue her dream. Her words “You can do both!” left a deep impression to the audience. Another important character is Betty--a defender of conservative ideas. Her surrounding environment and her family decided her stubborn thinking---her mother was the headmaster of Wellesley College. Here the film employed the non-verbal strategy--hint. She totally respected and defended the system of this school in her own way by disclosing every villainy she thought on the newspaper, just like the event of Amanda, the teacher in the infirmary.

The fourth aspect is symbols. From the perspective of the movie And the Spring Comes, on one hand, “and the spring comes” symbolizes beginnings of Wang’s different life stages. The first stage was life imagination of her insisting on dream and pursuits. The second stage was her approaching to mundane life and expectation of it. The third stage was her formally accepting the real life. These three stages fully showed accurate grasp of time and the development history of nobodies’ thoughts and characteristics under that big background. On the other hand, “and the spring comes” , as the name of the movie, is the metaphor of the beginning of a new era. Besides, there are other symbols like Xiaofan. Xiaofan’s harelips implied the lack of life; Wang’s love and caring for Xiaofan implied that Wang herself not only accepted the ordinariness of life but also accepted the drawbacks of the ordinariness; Wang’s action of curing Xiaofan implied transformation of drawbacks and recreation of good life. Meanwhile, the position of the painting Mona Lisa Smile in arts reflects that of the heroine in this film. From a modern point of view, what Katherine pursed just represented the pursuit of modern women. In fact, the author has mentioned the symbol of the topic Mona Lisa Smile at the end of it, said by Betty. “She is smiling. Is she happy? She looks happy. Not everything is as it seems” The title contains the author’s sympathy to the ladies who lived painfully by the bound of feudalism.

The fifth aspect is themes. And the Spring Comes expressed the meaning of embracing dreams regardless of failures and brutal reality. Meanwhile, Mona Lisa Smile expressed the meaning of the importance of pursuing women independence and gender equality.

All in all, we recommend both of these two movies and our reason is that they have great impacts on contemporary young people because they encourage us to pursue our dreams, and be an independent and bold person.

Hello, Xu Xinyue. Xie Ting and me, Xiao Junqi are honored to be able to learn and communicate with you, and we have benefited greatly from your work. However, we have found some problems from it, and we hope that our suggestions and comments can be helpful for your reference. First of all, you have some wording errors and expressions in Chinese English. For example, in the first sentence of the third paragraph, the word “vary” refers to continuous and irregular changes and usually refers to three or more objects. In view of the comparison between the two objects, it is not appropriate. In addition, there is an obvious Chinglish expression of "new thoughts are not approved". Secondly, in the penultimate paragraph of the article, you point out the respective themes of the two films directly. However, each characteristic point of view requires specific text for narrative explanation and explanation, as only in this way can it be persuasive. Perhaps you have done some analysis in the above, but according to the overall layout of your article, those words are serving the subject sentence of each paragraph above. Therefore, have you missed the most important argument part (not to mention the subject part)? Wouldn't it be abrupt? Does not the article become anticlimactic? Lastly, we must admit that you are better than us in the design of the article, especially that each paragraph has a topic sentence, and the focus is very prominent, which is convenient for the development and analysis of views.
We hope we can have more exchange of writing ideas and learning experience. Please give us feedback as soon as possible, thankyou!

Hi Xu Xinyue, hope you are well. I enjoyed reading your short essay from a Chinese perspective. Your analysis is similar to mine. It was very well written and I enjoyed your comparisons between the two movies. In terms of critique, I noticed some preposition miss-use such as the “in’ from “From the perspective of And the Spring Comes, in 1980s China was facing the early reform after the Cultural Revolution… all kinds of thoughts emerged and various forms of art broke out like hurricane.”. This sentence would make more sense without the “in”. Also, be careful of your word choice. As a reader, this sentence does not tell the perspective of “And the Spring Comes”. Perhaps a better word choice would be “cultural background”. In terms of context, you thoroughly explained your quotes, but you could connect the aspect, the quotes, and the importance of the aspect better together. This is most notable in the 2nd and 3rd aspects, and, as a reader, I am left wondering why narrative techniques or character development are important.
Hope these helped!

Hi Xu Xinyue,
I'm glad to be able to learn with you and I hope you are well. I loved reading your analysis. It was very in-depth and I appreciated the careful structure. Your essay was very thorough, and I particularly enjoyed how you contextualized each of the films and connected them to the real-life cultures of their respective places and times. I feel like I learned much more about both culture and the films themselves after reading your perspective. I think your essay could be made even stronger through a couple of clarifications. You make repeated reference to "feudalism" with regard to American culture in the 1950s, although I'm not familiar with that term in that context. I think selecting a new way to describe this concept would strengthen your points. I would also suggest expanding the final paragraph discussing the overall themes of the films. It seems like a logical and important way to sum up the similarities and differences between the two films, and I think a more complete discussion there would be a great way to end the essay.
Best of luck!

Hi, Xu Xinyue and Tang Zirui. Thanks for your instaneous reply to us. I admit that everyone has a unique way and perspective of things. You don’t think film reviews need specific analysis to help readers understand this, but I think you should first understand the definition of film reviews. The purpose of movie reviews is to analyze, appraise and evaluate the contents of aesthetic value, cognitive value, social significance, lens language, etc. contained in the screen, thereby promoting the development of movie art. Therefore, proper analysis and identification are an indispensable part. Without specific examples and characteristic analysis, conclusions and opinions are drawn, that is, people will feel abrupt in ordinary compositions, not to mention in film reviews. So I still suggest adding a little bit to make your work more perfect. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

We think that women's rights and equality between men and women in beginning of spring are mainly reflected in the following points.
First, Wang Cailing was rejected by love and dreams because of her ugly appearance, but she did not compromise, preferring to adopt rather than be bound by secular marriage. She challenged the traditional definition and requirement of women, which is the right she pursues.
Second, Hu Jinquan pulled Song into the men's toilet to try to rape because he was laughed at by Song's husband. This shows that when men are insulted, innocent women are often the targets of vent and revenge. And it shows that women's status is subordinate to men and society, and that men and women are not equal.
Third, teacher Zhang has a good face, which is in line with the aesthetic requirements of "male-dominated society" for women. But she still didn't get the love she wanted, and her husband ran away with all the money. She said to Wang Cailing, "What should I do in the future", which also shows that women are subservient to men and that her self-consciousness is not awakening.
Fourth, Gao Beibei went to the competition because her boyfriend wanted her to be famous. So she even sold her conscience through cheating and other means. This can reflect the effect of male voice on women and thus contrast the weakness of female voice.
Almost every woman in the movie can deeply reflect her desire and demand for equality between men and women and women's rights, thus extending to feminism.
Thank you for reading and wish you all the best.
Xie Ting, Xiao Junqi

Hello, Xu Xinyue and Tang Zirui. We're glad to communicate with you on the topic of movie review again. With regard to your question, I think it arduous for us to make an rational and authetic explanation to you, thus we hope the ensuing suggestions may be helpful or even be edifying to you. We deem that when utilizing a specific example, you should stammer at finding the most bright novel ione because we are confiding to others about our views on a movie. Specifically, We think it similar to writing a argumentation to prove a certain point. I will not elaborate on that example, but to focus on what you want to express, arrange the arguments and deduct them layer by layer. The content you analyze in the film review must be centered on you, use your feelings to attract readers, and gain their recognition. Just try to render the essay be self-explanatory, even if there are loopholes and defects, readers can also understand what we wanna say. In short, express your feelings and entire comprehension of the film. You can also quote famous quotes, slogans, or some existing filmmakers and scholars to enhance the persuasion and logic of the article.
That' all. Look forward to hearing from you soon.
Xie Ting, Xiao Junqi

Hi, Xu Xinyue and Tang Zirui. Hope you are well. Sorry for the late reply. I completely agree about using the character's names. I wrote the essay after watching the movie so I forgot some of the names. I will put them into my paper. And social background is not something I thought about so thanks for bringing that up. I have no knowledge of Chinese history, although, I want to learn more. Are you able to tell me whether feminism was popular around this time? Or individualism? I will research more and add it into my essay. Your comments have helped a lot and thank you for helping me.

Reflection
Two weeks of communication across the ocean is almost over and we have many thoughts about it. At first we feel a little bit of resistance for it takes us too much time and energy to wait replies across seas. However, with time elapsing, by interacting with students in U.S. and other classmates in our school, this activity completely changed our mind and now we fall in love with it! Because, during this period, we’ve learned a lot not only from other students but also from ourselves for this communication provides us with a great stage to exchange ideas and reflect on ourselves.Here we’d like to share what we’ve learned from this activity.
First is language expression. When we are writing, especially as Chinese students, we usually consult a dictionary once meet difficulties in expression. Sometimes, we are lucky to correctly use some words or expressions, but sometimes we make mistakes unconsciously and our expressions can be unnatural and incorrect, such as Chinese English and wording errors in preposition. During the process of communication, Austin directly pointed out our mistakes and offered us help in revising our wording expressions. We think that his suggestion is very constructive and we also appreciate that he is very honest and sincere. Besides, when we are reading Austin’s and Max’s essays, we learned a lot of natural expressions and new words they use. They didn’t make mistakes like repeated reference but we did. Our lack of skills of expressing like a foreigner and resources of vocabulary will enable us to work harder in our major and encourage us to learn more from others patiently. In the future, we will pay attention to our word-use and word-choice to make our articles better!
Second is structure. We think that both Austin and Max have good structures in their movie essays for they can not only express their ideas clearly but also arrange and connect each paragraphs logically. It’s quite good for us to learn! When we are writing, we come up with five points to analyze the essay and simply explain some quotes. It seems to be content-rich and singular in some aspects but actually it lacks logical cohesion. It is our mistake when we connect aspects that makes readers feel confused why we write some paragraphs or contents. Austin pointed out the drawback of our essay again and also tells us his thoughts about how to revise essay. He reminded us of our writing purposes, social backgrounds’ impact on images and narrative techniques’ impact on the overarching theme. We think his three rhetorical questions according to our lack in logical cohesion really inspire us and let us know how to reflect on ourselves in the essay writing in the next time from different angles. In the future, we will pay attention to relationships between each paragraphs to let them serve each other and serve the purpose better!
Third is content. On one hand, our essay didn’t do well in our last paragraph and just ended it hurriedly. We know that but we don’t know how to do. Max offered us help when we asked him for his ideas of improvement. He told us that we’d better strengthen our points and sublime in the end. We think his idea is very helpful for us to do better! Besides, two points mentioned above have close connection with the third point. Hence, we will try to make progress on our disadvantages to polish our articles and let it seem more professional. On the other hand, when we read other people’s essays, we can clearly find their drawbacks in content, which helps us encourage them to revise and also helps us reflect on ourselves objectively.
Forth is culture. During this period, we’ve learned a lot culture and American culture from American students. For example, Austin mentioned “ideology” that is a new word for us and lets us know that we read too less books and encourages to read more. So we search some information and talk with him to get deeper understanding of it. Besides, when he had difficulties, he also asked us for help. Austin asked us questions about feminism and individualism, which enabled us to learn more and then taught him our culture knowledge. We think it’s great for it’s a good chance for both of two sides to learn new knowledge and exchange ideas to help us to analyze movies. Moreover, Xie Ting and Xiao Junqi mentioned women rights and gender equality in their essay, which enables us to learn more too. Hence, we think this across ocean activity is very wonderful for it is completely a great banquet of sparks of thoughts from different students, from different countries.
Fifth is manner. When we write to reply to others, we try our best to express in an euphemistic and polite way instead of saying harsh or sensitive words. Also, we’ve learned manners about writing replies, such as saying hello,xxx in the beginning and saying best wishes/hope these helped/hope hear from you soon in the end. Good manners can bring everyone comfort, so we should pay attention to writing format and wording expression. Moreover, this activity taught us to be patient when waiting replies for American students have jet lag and also our Chinese students have much homework to do and can’t reply in time. We shouldn’t urge others because it’s rude and impolite. Instead, we should wait patiently and leave our contact information politely for pleasant communication.
All in all, we really like this activity for its effect is beyond our expectation and imagination, and we not only learn new knowledge and know how to revise essay but also we have a precious and unforgettable across-ocean experience in our campus life because it’s our first time to exchange online and we also get acquaintance with new foreign friends during this special period! We really cherish it and want to participate in such an activity again in the future! We hope that teachers can choose to share online courses across ocean more and let more students exchange their ideas and grow up from it! Thank our teacher for providing us such a great opportunity to learn! Thank Austin, Max and Xiao Junqi, Xie Ting for interacting with us! Thank you all!

Final Movie Essay
Xu Xinyue and Tang Zirui
And the Spring Comes and Mona Lisa Smile, although from different countries--China and the U.S., all reflect protagonists’ processes of revolting against tradition and struggling between dreams and realities under similar age’s social background. This essay is going to state their main plots, and compare their aspects of social backgrounds, symbols and themes.
The Chinese one mainly tells the story of the artist youth, especially represented by Wang Cailing in 1980s, who was ugly but had a beautiful voice, wanted to fulfill her dream of singing in Beijing but suffered failures in pursuing love and reality, leading to her final end of getting a spiritual being and becoming even-tempered. Meanwhile, the American one tells the story of idealistic and passionate Katherine Watson in 1950s, who graduated from the open-minded UCLA, went to Wellesley College to teach art history and boldly commenced a challenge to the stuffy teaching system, changing students successfully and receiving their appreciation in the end.
They are different from each other but have some similarities. The first aspect is cultural background. In And the Spring Comes, 1980s’ China was facing the early reform after the Cultural Revolution--the equivalent of a huge turning point for Chinese culture--all kinds of thoughts emerged and various forms of art broke out like hurricane. Hence, like what’s shown in the movie, many artists’ pursuits and new thoughts were not approved and appreciated by society, especially in small cities like Heyang, which barely became stumbling blocks and failure factors for these young dream chasers. Meanwhile, in Mona Lisa Smile, 1950s’ Americans were gradually aware of gender equality’s significance, thus leading the rise to the feminist movement that made the status of women increasingly valued. However, American upper class was very serious and conservative. For example, what the Wellesley College really taught to the ladies all from upper class was foolish knowledge of how to find a good husband and be a good wife instead of the best knowledge used in society, indicating the idea of feminist movement was still unacceptable to most Americans in 1950s. They reflected different fusty thoughts in two countries at that time.
The second aspect is symbols. In And the Spring Comes, on one hand, the title symbolizes beginnings of Wang’s different life stages. The first stage was life imagination of her insisting on dream and pursuits; the second was her approaching to mundane life and expectation of it; the third was her formally accepting the real life. These three stages fully showed accurate grasp of time and the development history of nobodies’ thoughts and characteristics under that big background. On the other hand, the title is also the metaphor of a new era’s beginning. Besides, there are other symbols like Xiaofan. Her name means ordinary; her harelips implied the lack of life; Wang’s love and caring for her implied that Wang herself not only accepted the ordinariness of life but also accepted the drawbacks of the ordinariness; Wang’s action of curing her implied transformation of drawbacks and recreation of good life. Meanwhile, Mona Lisa Smile’s artistic status reflects protagonist’s ideological level in this film. From a modern view, what Katherine pursed also represented the pursuit of modern women. In fact, the director has mentioned the symbol of Mona Lisa Smile in the end. “ She is smiling. Is she happy? She looks happy. Not everything is as it seems” said by Betty. These words contain the author’s sympathy to ladies who lived painfully by bounds of old conservative thoughts.
The third aspect is themes. And the Spring Comes expressed the meaning of embracing dreams regardless of failures and brutal reality. Wang Cailing was a ugly singing teacher of a normal school in Heyang, who was good at singing and desirous of showing her talent in Beijing and the Paris Opera House but her heart was sky high and life was thinner than paper. In the end, she found her belonging that was Xiaofan and put down her obsession. Another tragic character who had a direct impact on Wang’s belief was Hu Jinquan. He loved art without utilitarian but destroyed himself for he couldn’t be accepted by society. When he was in jail for fake offense of rape, he said to Wang, “I feel like I have finally gotten out of people’s throats.” Here the film employed the non-verbal strategy--motion. He danced ballet with common shoes in prison, just like a ruined white rose brightly bloomed. He used the extreme method to solve the controversy between art and reality, indicating the peers’ tragic results in pursuing dreams of art at that time. Both of these two people covered the movie with sadness and spirit of pursuing dreams. Meanwhile, Mona Lisa Smile expressed the meaning of the importance of pursuing women independence and gender equality. Katherine was an independent new era of woman and she supported the idea of female independence that ladies didn’t need to rely on men either spiritually and materially. A representative example is that she strongly encouraged Joan, an intellectual woman, who went to the Yale to pursue her dream. Her words “You can do both!” left a deep impression to the audience. Another important character is Betty--a defender of conservative ideas. Her surrounding environment and her family, especially her mother, the headmaster of Wellesley Colleg, decided her stubborn thinking. Here the film employed the non-verbal strategy--hint. She totally respected and defended the system of this school in her own way by disclosing every villainy she thought on the newspaper, just like the event of Amanda, the teacher in the infirmary. These two women strengthen the theme of encouraging women to pursue independence and gender equality.
All in all, from the aspects of diverse cultural backgrounds, symbols and themes, these two movies showed the different histories and cultures in China and America--feminism in the 1950s’ USA and the feudal thoughts in 1980s’ China. However, it is undeniable that two main protagonists, Kathrine and Wang Cailing, are the gorgeous dream chasers--the former purchased feminism and the latter dreamed to act as a soprano in the theater. We recommend both of them because their themes’ implication can stimulate the contemporary young people’s deep thinking and study of them.