The ideal fence
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2020 1:19 am
Zhou Ying
There are countless people who have ideals, but few of them succeeded. Facing the fence of the reality, who can break through it and who will be trapped in? Persevering in changing the world or being changed by the world? Different people have different answers. Today's film review is about two women’s different attitudes toward the ideal fence.
About the Chinese movie And the Spring Comes, it was directed in 2008 by Changwei Gu, a famous Chinese director, and Li qiang was the screenwriter. Jiang Wenli, Li Guangjie, Jiao Gang and other starring actors performed a story about artists in a small town in northern China in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When it comes to Mona Lisa Smile, it was released in the United States in 2003. The time line of the story was in 1953. Catherine, a teacher who graduated from the open-minded Berkeley University went to Wellesley Woman's School to teach art history. The film was talked about the story that she boldly challenged to the outdated teaching system with her ideals and enthusiasm.
Under the huge impact of the economic wave in 1980s, "Beijing" seemed like a seductive magic city to youth people at that time, it represented dreams and happier lives, where was the protagonist—Wang cailing’s dream take root in. Wang was a critic teacher of music in a normal university and she has the inborn great vocal cords so she was an opera addict. However, she was no oil painting. Wang was extremely lofty-minded, and she had one ultimate ideal: hold a Beijing household registration and then sing in the Palais Garnier. In that era of spiritual and cultural infertility, her opera was hard to be appreciated by others, but Zhou Yu was appealed to it, he begged Wang to be his teacher to teach him operas. As time went by, Wang was enthusiastic about Zhou Yu's friend, who was an amateur painter, Huang Sibao. She gave Huang all her sincerity and love in the end but in exchange for his insult in public. She jumped off the high building in the back of normal university and committed suicide in shame, but failed. Then she met Hu Jinquan, a ballet dancer who wanted to marry her to avoid the secular world, she refused. Finally, Hu ended his connection with the world in a self-destructive manner to retain his insistence on ballet.
Hu Jinquan is a mirror that makes Wang know that her future is in vain. She was very sympathetic to Hu’s ending and worried about her future more. Later, in order to help the "ill" girl Gao Beibei, Wang gave up her Beijing household registration to help Gao become famous but she finally knew that it was just a scam. In despair, she chose to adopt a child to live an ordinary life in the small town. Her opera dream was died, she had to shake hands with reality to make peace.
In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, Wellesley Woman's University, ostensibly imparting knowledge to students, was actually cultivating a virtuous marriage partner for men. Catherine dreamed of teaching at Wellesley and she could make a difference here. But at the beginning, her teaching work was not easy. She found that the female students here were proud of being "married". Everyone's ultimate ideal was to get married and had children to form a family. Today, American woman's freedom of thought and economic independence give people the illusion that this has been the case in developed capitalist countries as always. Although the status of women in the United States gradually gained attention in the 1950s, feudal ideology in the upper classes was still very serious, and it took 60 years to develop into what it is today. As we know, 1960s was the time when the second wave of woman's liberation in the United States broke out and 1953 when feminist thought was still in its infancy. The content of the movie was to get rid of the concept that women were affiliated with men and pursued true equality.
At the end of the Chinese movie shows that "This scene is dedicated to Wang Cailing." Actually, each of us is Wang Cailing, and there is no one escape for either of us. This is your lot, you must bear it. In that small town, Wang and Hu’s ideals are their burdens like sixth fingers. They are freaks like fish bones caught in people’s throats in the city. In fact, rather than appreciating art, Wang is more eager for the glory and success that art brings her. She is addicted to the successful fantasy dream and cannot find a breakthrough. She was trapped in the fence and doesn’t know that. She had personal vanity about her talents and deceives herself a lot. Art is only a tool for her to touch success. "Every year when spring comes, It doesn’t actually mean anything. But even so, I feel like something big is happening, and my heart is constantly ready for something. But once the spring is over, and nothing at all has happened. I fell disappointed, as if I have missed out on something." Wang Cailing was waiting for an opportunity to achieve her ideal, when she no longer clinging to waiting, spring may come as promised.
There is no doubt that Wang Cailing was been trapped in the fence of reality. Everyone has found earthly happiness by shaking hands with reality. Compared with Wang cailing, Catherine broke through the “fence”, not only she insisted on her ideal, but also she changed her students. I think the reason of this different ending was their attitudes toward art. Catherine was a true art lover, she taught students to have their own unique views on works and not to copy their predecessors. “I came to Wellesley because I wanted to make a difference. But to change for others is lie to yourself. Catherine Watson, lived by her own definition and would not compromise that. Not even for Wellesley... who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world through new eyes... she will be sailing to Europe, where she will find new walls to break down and new ideas to replace them with.” Not all who wander are aimless, especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.
About the expressions of two movies. And the Spring comes used two scenes of cycling. The first scene is a crowd of people walking across the road by bicycle and the radio was broadcasting "Mu Chun" , this seems to suggest that the little people are constantly being squeezed into the gaps of the times. The second act is that when Wang Cailing was deceived, she struggled to retrograde in the wind, which showed that Wang was in a difficult situation. At the same time, through the opening monologue and the singing voice in the beginning made us imagine the appearance of the protagonist Wang Cailing. In addition, the mirror has been used many times in the film. Every time Wang sang, we can see she in the mirror. Wang Cailing is an admired artist in the mirror, but outside the mirror she is a scandal in the city. This shows that Wang’s ideal is illusory and will not be realized. Furthermore, the close-ups in the film are also very exciting. Whether it is a close-up of the pavilion at the beginning of the movie, a wheel-like paper tape played by Huang standing in the courtyard, or a close-up of mosquito coils are about to fall to the ground when Wang commits suicide, all of this indicated the character's psychology. Last but not least, the director's use of music in the film is also very wonderful. "Mu Chun", Wang has sung many times In the film, shows Wang is eager to achieve her ideals, and the lyrics in the opera; "But in this sad and painful moment. Why, oh, why, God. Why are you so cruel with me?" also hints Wang’s destiny.
About Mona Lisa Smile, the symbolic meaning of Mona Lisa is meaningful. Firstly, it is about the title of the film. The smile of Mona Lisa is symbolic as Mona Lisa is undoubtedly the most famous beauty in art. Use this name for the title because the protagonist was a beauty and she also taught art history. Secondly, Mona Lisa's smile is a mysterious smile that has caused countless people to think and explore for many years. The heroine's attitude to life is very different from the traditional atmosphere in Wellesley, which also means that in that environment no one can understand her way. Thirdly, Mona Lisa's sacred status in art is also showing the heroine's status in the film. From a modern perspective, the educational ideas of other students, teachers, and the school in the film are old-fashioned and outdated; and the heroine's insistence on self and the advocacy of freedom represent the way forward for the new generation of women.
After watching these two movies, I thought a lot. For one hand, there are no fixed standards and formulas for happiness. Only the people themselves knows it, so happiness is diverse. Everyone is Mona Lisa. For Catherine, she left the Wellesley Women's University which was incompatible with her and also her mind moved the students and illuminated the way for their future. This is the happiness pursued by Catherine. We don't just live for the ideal, nor just live numbly. Whether the ideal is realized or not, the world is full of variables. Only by grasping the meaning of happiness can we grasp happiness. After all, we need both poetry and distance. For Wang Cailing, she lost the honor and success that opera might bring to her, but gained ordinary earthly happiness. When she was awakened by firecrackers, she saw her mother's aging body and tears from her stroke father. When she read the story to her own child and took her to Tiananmen Square to plant the seeds of dreams with her daughter, these happiness Isn't it true? Instead of pursuing the vanity and material conditions brought to her by art, earthly happiness may be easier and more accessible. Every spring comes as planned, and her dreams are born again.
From another hand, we should treat art with a heart of innocence and not think art of a tool for success. At the same time, we should have our own thinking about art, not just obey the views of scholars. After all, a thousand people have a thousand Hamlet. What Wang Cailing loved was not art itself, but the success and fame. She overestimated her strength, deceived herself to satisfy her vanity, and eventually her ideals burst. Huang Sibao is just an amateur florist, he failed again and again but blamed him for not having a relationship in Beijing. He created works according to the rigid requirements of the exam without adding his own thoughts. In contrast, Catherine clearly knew that art was connected to her own soul. Even if the students in the university did well job about the exam, they just memorized and understood the artwork according to the teaching materials. In the end, they really understood how to appreciate the artwork under the infection of the teacher Catherine. Art brings not only the pleasure of sight and hearing, but also the joy of the soul.
Furthermore, regarding marriage, age should not be a tool to force women to marry. From the perspective of mainstream thinking in today's China, the "leftover girl" has become a social problem, and parents even ridiculously believe that they would rather have a divorced daughter than a suitable unmarried daughter. If a woman is not married at the age of 30, no matter how good her job or income is, she will be labeled as a "loser." In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, the newly graduated female master is a "life winner" whether or not she has a job if she has a son and her husband is a handsome and wealthy man. It seems that "married" means that you have succeeded at least one step, while being unmarried at the right age is the one voted down. Just as Catherine says, women can own family and career both. Women should not sacrifice themselves to become housewives but be clear about their pursuit of life. Marriage is not a grave, but two people who love each other to help to achieve their pursuit of life.
In people’s eyes, Mona Lisa’s smile is the most beautiful smile in the world. So, when you are disgusted, feared, angry, or sad, dilute it with more happiness, joy, you are still a person with a beautiful smile. Hope we can become Catherine to be our own Mona Lisa, and also hope that we can find our own happiness in the ordinary life like Wang Cailing.
There are countless people who have ideals, but few of them succeeded. Facing the fence of the reality, who can break through it and who will be trapped in? Persevering in changing the world or being changed by the world? Different people have different answers. Today's film review is about two women’s different attitudes toward the ideal fence.
About the Chinese movie And the Spring Comes, it was directed in 2008 by Changwei Gu, a famous Chinese director, and Li qiang was the screenwriter. Jiang Wenli, Li Guangjie, Jiao Gang and other starring actors performed a story about artists in a small town in northern China in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When it comes to Mona Lisa Smile, it was released in the United States in 2003. The time line of the story was in 1953. Catherine, a teacher who graduated from the open-minded Berkeley University went to Wellesley Woman's School to teach art history. The film was talked about the story that she boldly challenged to the outdated teaching system with her ideals and enthusiasm.
Under the huge impact of the economic wave in 1980s, "Beijing" seemed like a seductive magic city to youth people at that time, it represented dreams and happier lives, where was the protagonist—Wang cailing’s dream take root in. Wang was a critic teacher of music in a normal university and she has the inborn great vocal cords so she was an opera addict. However, she was no oil painting. Wang was extremely lofty-minded, and she had one ultimate ideal: hold a Beijing household registration and then sing in the Palais Garnier. In that era of spiritual and cultural infertility, her opera was hard to be appreciated by others, but Zhou Yu was appealed to it, he begged Wang to be his teacher to teach him operas. As time went by, Wang was enthusiastic about Zhou Yu's friend, who was an amateur painter, Huang Sibao. She gave Huang all her sincerity and love in the end but in exchange for his insult in public. She jumped off the high building in the back of normal university and committed suicide in shame, but failed. Then she met Hu Jinquan, a ballet dancer who wanted to marry her to avoid the secular world, she refused. Finally, Hu ended his connection with the world in a self-destructive manner to retain his insistence on ballet.
Hu Jinquan is a mirror that makes Wang know that her future is in vain. She was very sympathetic to Hu’s ending and worried about her future more. Later, in order to help the "ill" girl Gao Beibei, Wang gave up her Beijing household registration to help Gao become famous but she finally knew that it was just a scam. In despair, she chose to adopt a child to live an ordinary life in the small town. Her opera dream was died, she had to shake hands with reality to make peace.
In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, Wellesley Woman's University, ostensibly imparting knowledge to students, was actually cultivating a virtuous marriage partner for men. Catherine dreamed of teaching at Wellesley and she could make a difference here. But at the beginning, her teaching work was not easy. She found that the female students here were proud of being "married". Everyone's ultimate ideal was to get married and had children to form a family. Today, American woman's freedom of thought and economic independence give people the illusion that this has been the case in developed capitalist countries as always. Although the status of women in the United States gradually gained attention in the 1950s, feudal ideology in the upper classes was still very serious, and it took 60 years to develop into what it is today. As we know, 1960s was the time when the second wave of woman's liberation in the United States broke out and 1953 when feminist thought was still in its infancy. The content of the movie was to get rid of the concept that women were affiliated with men and pursued true equality.
At the end of the Chinese movie shows that "This scene is dedicated to Wang Cailing." Actually, each of us is Wang Cailing, and there is no one escape for either of us. This is your lot, you must bear it. In that small town, Wang and Hu’s ideals are their burdens like sixth fingers. They are freaks like fish bones caught in people’s throats in the city. In fact, rather than appreciating art, Wang is more eager for the glory and success that art brings her. She is addicted to the successful fantasy dream and cannot find a breakthrough. She was trapped in the fence and doesn’t know that. She had personal vanity about her talents and deceives herself a lot. Art is only a tool for her to touch success. "Every year when spring comes, It doesn’t actually mean anything. But even so, I feel like something big is happening, and my heart is constantly ready for something. But once the spring is over, and nothing at all has happened. I fell disappointed, as if I have missed out on something." Wang Cailing was waiting for an opportunity to achieve her ideal, when she no longer clinging to waiting, spring may come as promised.
There is no doubt that Wang Cailing was been trapped in the fence of reality. Everyone has found earthly happiness by shaking hands with reality. Compared with Wang cailing, Catherine broke through the “fence”, not only she insisted on her ideal, but also she changed her students. I think the reason of this different ending was their attitudes toward art. Catherine was a true art lover, she taught students to have their own unique views on works and not to copy their predecessors. “I came to Wellesley because I wanted to make a difference. But to change for others is lie to yourself. Catherine Watson, lived by her own definition and would not compromise that. Not even for Wellesley... who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world through new eyes... she will be sailing to Europe, where she will find new walls to break down and new ideas to replace them with.” Not all who wander are aimless, especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.
About the expressions of two movies. And the Spring comes used two scenes of cycling. The first scene is a crowd of people walking across the road by bicycle and the radio was broadcasting "Mu Chun" , this seems to suggest that the little people are constantly being squeezed into the gaps of the times. The second act is that when Wang Cailing was deceived, she struggled to retrograde in the wind, which showed that Wang was in a difficult situation. At the same time, through the opening monologue and the singing voice in the beginning made us imagine the appearance of the protagonist Wang Cailing. In addition, the mirror has been used many times in the film. Every time Wang sang, we can see she in the mirror. Wang Cailing is an admired artist in the mirror, but outside the mirror she is a scandal in the city. This shows that Wang’s ideal is illusory and will not be realized. Furthermore, the close-ups in the film are also very exciting. Whether it is a close-up of the pavilion at the beginning of the movie, a wheel-like paper tape played by Huang standing in the courtyard, or a close-up of mosquito coils are about to fall to the ground when Wang commits suicide, all of this indicated the character's psychology. Last but not least, the director's use of music in the film is also very wonderful. "Mu Chun", Wang has sung many times In the film, shows Wang is eager to achieve her ideals, and the lyrics in the opera; "But in this sad and painful moment. Why, oh, why, God. Why are you so cruel with me?" also hints Wang’s destiny.
About Mona Lisa Smile, the symbolic meaning of Mona Lisa is meaningful. Firstly, it is about the title of the film. The smile of Mona Lisa is symbolic as Mona Lisa is undoubtedly the most famous beauty in art. Use this name for the title because the protagonist was a beauty and she also taught art history. Secondly, Mona Lisa's smile is a mysterious smile that has caused countless people to think and explore for many years. The heroine's attitude to life is very different from the traditional atmosphere in Wellesley, which also means that in that environment no one can understand her way. Thirdly, Mona Lisa's sacred status in art is also showing the heroine's status in the film. From a modern perspective, the educational ideas of other students, teachers, and the school in the film are old-fashioned and outdated; and the heroine's insistence on self and the advocacy of freedom represent the way forward for the new generation of women.
After watching these two movies, I thought a lot. For one hand, there are no fixed standards and formulas for happiness. Only the people themselves knows it, so happiness is diverse. Everyone is Mona Lisa. For Catherine, she left the Wellesley Women's University which was incompatible with her and also her mind moved the students and illuminated the way for their future. This is the happiness pursued by Catherine. We don't just live for the ideal, nor just live numbly. Whether the ideal is realized or not, the world is full of variables. Only by grasping the meaning of happiness can we grasp happiness. After all, we need both poetry and distance. For Wang Cailing, she lost the honor and success that opera might bring to her, but gained ordinary earthly happiness. When she was awakened by firecrackers, she saw her mother's aging body and tears from her stroke father. When she read the story to her own child and took her to Tiananmen Square to plant the seeds of dreams with her daughter, these happiness Isn't it true? Instead of pursuing the vanity and material conditions brought to her by art, earthly happiness may be easier and more accessible. Every spring comes as planned, and her dreams are born again.
From another hand, we should treat art with a heart of innocence and not think art of a tool for success. At the same time, we should have our own thinking about art, not just obey the views of scholars. After all, a thousand people have a thousand Hamlet. What Wang Cailing loved was not art itself, but the success and fame. She overestimated her strength, deceived herself to satisfy her vanity, and eventually her ideals burst. Huang Sibao is just an amateur florist, he failed again and again but blamed him for not having a relationship in Beijing. He created works according to the rigid requirements of the exam without adding his own thoughts. In contrast, Catherine clearly knew that art was connected to her own soul. Even if the students in the university did well job about the exam, they just memorized and understood the artwork according to the teaching materials. In the end, they really understood how to appreciate the artwork under the infection of the teacher Catherine. Art brings not only the pleasure of sight and hearing, but also the joy of the soul.
Furthermore, regarding marriage, age should not be a tool to force women to marry. From the perspective of mainstream thinking in today's China, the "leftover girl" has become a social problem, and parents even ridiculously believe that they would rather have a divorced daughter than a suitable unmarried daughter. If a woman is not married at the age of 30, no matter how good her job or income is, she will be labeled as a "loser." In the movie Mona Lisa Smile, the newly graduated female master is a "life winner" whether or not she has a job if she has a son and her husband is a handsome and wealthy man. It seems that "married" means that you have succeeded at least one step, while being unmarried at the right age is the one voted down. Just as Catherine says, women can own family and career both. Women should not sacrifice themselves to become housewives but be clear about their pursuit of life. Marriage is not a grave, but two people who love each other to help to achieve their pursuit of life.
In people’s eyes, Mona Lisa’s smile is the most beautiful smile in the world. So, when you are disgusted, feared, angry, or sad, dilute it with more happiness, joy, you are still a person with a beautiful smile. Hope we can become Catherine to be our own Mona Lisa, and also hope that we can find our own happiness in the ordinary life like Wang Cailing.
