Song Lian, a Chinese female college student in an old society, was forced to marry into a typical old society giant due to family reasons.
Songlian became the fourth wife of Mr. Chen. She was persecuted in the high-walled courtyard of the Chen family and persecuted by the fights among the concubines, and eventually had a mental breakdown. She had only been a concubine for a year and escaped forever. Not out of the door of the house deep like the sea. The story of
is exactly the 1991 film "Raise the Red Lantern" directed by Zhang Yimou.
"Raise the Red Lantern" describes in detail the tragedy of traditional Chinese women in the family. Because it is a story of a woman, the host of the mansion, Chen Zuoqian, is miraculously avoided in the movie. He only uses his back Appearing in long shots, or appearing on the scene with voices, the main characters circulating are still women and servants.
The different destinies of five women
is a very plain but touching movie, the mood is very calm, but it makes the thinking feel very complicated. That is the suffering of the times for women, that is the sorrow of women for life, that is the confinement of the house The sadness and suffering of women's freedom.
This is a tragic story of the times, the story of five different women.
The old lady, an old lady who had to accept the fact that her husband repeatedly accepted a young and ignorant girl as a concubine, she could only keep her name as a lady, but she could only stay with the ancient Buddha of the blue lantern. I will not be pampered by the facts.
she is not a human;
second concubine Tai Zhuoyun, the superficial Bodhisattva, is the most vicious and snake-hearted woman. Work in scheming, easy to plot. Maintaining the superficial harmony, but secretly trying to fear that she will be abandoned and causing harm, superficially befriended everyone, her misfortune began when she only gave birth to a daughter for the Chen family, and from then on, she was one level lower in Mrs. Chen Jiazhong , This hidden sense of inferiority made her the most suitable woman for life in the palace.
, she is not like a person; the third concubine of
, Mei Shan, as a former opera star, her beauty and singing voice are deeply loved by the Chen family. She thought she was the hottest and most scheming woman, but she just wanted to be here. A sad woman who maintains a certain position in the lonely compound.
She is not convinced;
Maid Yan'er, a maid with a dream of a wife, thinks that Master Chen's hands and feet can make herself sit in the position of a wife, and she lights the red lantern in the house privately, dreaming of the day when she will fly to the branch. , In the end it ended tragically. The protagonist of the story of
is the fourth concubine Songlian played by Gong Li. She is indifferent and forced to be a concubine for life. She is simple but smart. She sees the status and source of power in this house, but she doesn’t want to. Yu helplessly joined the ranks of the battle for favor, but repeatedly entangled in kindness and cruelty.
The eighteen-year-old girl is a flower, while the nineteen-year-old Songlian has entered a tragic destiny. Zhang Yimou's first opening shot used a close-up shot of Gong Li's powerful and beautiful face. "When a little wife is a little wife, isn't that the way a woman is?" Her tone was firm, but she was full of tenderness, tears still slipping down her cheeks.
But she still failed to escape. The scene begins in summer and ends in winter. In the last scene of
, Lilian stood in the alley of the fourth courtyard, and then two lenses merged in. The lens became wider and smaller, and the field of view became smaller and smaller. The surrounding high-rise buildings were confined. These images are very powerful to tell the audience that this compound It is so strong that it cannot be overthrown.
lights up wherever you sleep, and you can order food at the dinner table the next day. This is a process of showing off. When wives and concubines fight, they will be more exhausted to please the master, but the master is also engaged in the film. The struggle of these wives and concubines may end up dying one by one, but in fact they are not much better.
maid, as a servant, I also want to be lighted up, and it is more stable. Everyone wants to be lighted by the master, and the master is the greatest beneficiary. In the story, she died because of anger. She didn't fight for anything, just because she arranged herself. Xiaotiandi, hang red lanterns in the room.
has two functions in the story, one is to aggravate the protagonist's self-destruction, and the other is to make this little character instantly become a hero who defends his dignity. The transformation from the original enemy to the hero also adds to the whole story. The small characters in Zhang Yimou's movie world can also become a branch of the story.
Because director Zhang Yimou loved photography in his early years, he has a special liking for color and composition.
These two elements are prominent in his previous director's works. If
uses red in this filmAs the main color. In traditional Chinese culture, red represents joy, hope, etc. These are mostly beautiful things. However, the main purpose of this film is to criticize the decadent rules in the feudal landlord's family and the destruction and degradation that these bring people, and Zhang Yimou's use of red as the main color can be almost understood as a kind of irony. The characters of
are placed in the center, the background is symmetrical, and the composition of the same location is the same. It is the same as the tradition of the Chen family. It follows the rules of the predecessors very much, and can control a series of composition in the same element, and one by one with the script Interlocking, this is the best shot. The plot of
is flat, but there is a lot of dramatic tension in it. The picture of
looks particularly bleak in the courtyard of the Taiyuan mansion in Shanxi, especially the snow-covered yard in winter. It is a whole with a sense of withering. In the picture without the picture, the contrast of black, white, and red colors shows that Hang up the lit red lanterns. The folk operas one after another by
have a finishing touch to the whole movie. In addition to the outstanding use of colors in the main body of the
film, the details are also considered.
For example, in the exquisite clothing of characters, the audience can see the changes in the character and the character's heart from the color of the characters' clothing. The master is the incarnation of feudal decay, so he wears black clothes throughout the film. When Songlian was preparing to enter the Chen's house, she wore a white school uniform to show her identity as a student and her inner purity. After entering the door, she wore a red dress to show that her psychology had changed, and she was no longer pure, and then slowly degenerate.
also reflects the psychological changes of the characters through a change of warm and cold tones. Such as Songlian's first encounter with the young master, the use of warm colors implies that Songlian and the young master have a mutual affection for each other. When Yan'er died, the color tone was cold, which expressed Songlian's self-blame for Yan'er's death.
Red is intensely red, and black is miserable. The lantern is used as a symbol of feudal rules, and its form itself has transcended the essence of connotation to become a constraint.
You can enjoy a foot-hanging massage when you light the lamp, and you can add dishes according to your own taste when you light the lamp. In such an environment, lighting has become the only way to realize self-worth. Women live a lonely and boring life with such longing and hope every day, just like Zhang Yimou used Gong Li's Song Lian's mouth to convey to the audience "The women in this hospital are like everything except people."
The closed composition of the eaves created by the camera position externalizes this lifeless and still atmosphere to the extreme.
Zhang Yimou's use of color and composition in the film is perfect, and the theme is clear and profound, which is worthy of people's thinking. "Raise the Red Lantern" is worthy of an excellent work exposing feudal corruption.
In addition, the composition of the film is also excellent. The extensive use of balanced and symmetrical composition makes the picture extremely stable, which is logical and more in line with people's common visual habits and aesthetic concepts.
But the most important thing is that these two kinds of composition metaphors that this mansion is like a prison, and all people in it are prisoners under feudal decay, and they are restricted by that wall without freedom. Such as Songlian and Feipu, two people of similar ages have mutual affection, but because of the environment they are in, they can never be together and lose the freedom of love.
At the end of the film, another concubine married into the Chen Family Courtyard. Framed composition is used here to give a picture-in-picture effect. The fifth concubine wearing a red wedding dress appears on the screen like the same portrait, which implies As long as feudalism does not end, it will continue to be destroyed. The most interesting aspect of the
movie is that the master Chen Zuoqian who controls the Chen mansion has never shown his face from beginning to end. This is very interesting, which conveys that the master Chen represents the image of an authoritarian host under the feudal system since ancient times.
uses the four seasons to line up the sadness
Songlian's clothing in the movie implies a transformation of her personality, which is also one of the strengths of visual art. When
entered the door, Songlian was wearing a school uniform from the beginning of the Republic of China and tied two braids.
In summer, she wears a white cheongsam; in autumn, she wears a red cheongsam because of her pregnancy; in winter, her life is bleak and she wears a thick purple jacket. The last scene of the movie stops at Songlian wearing a school uniform with messy hair and walking around alone in the courtyard. Songlian's ending points out another possibility of life for the women in the courtyard-if you want to maintain the true human nature, you must pay for mental abnormalities The price.
(1), Xia
Song Lian first met the wild goose, wasIn an ironic tone, she was not afraid of being a newcomer, and she said: "I am the fourth wife, you carry the box into me", a "give me", which categorically divides the lady and the maid. The boundary line also laid the groundwork for the follow-up Yaner to steal a lantern and the mentality of exceeding the moment.
Hanging lights, lighting up lights, washing feet, and beating feet are the old rules before the ancestors.
However, on the first night of the wedding, he was disturbed, and the master was robbed by his third wife. Early in the morning, I went to the third wife and asked Ann to touch another nail. The old lady's advice to Songlian: "Look for a long time and get used to it."
Songlian has not experienced much human relations after all. After being so excited, she sinks into this power game, and feels nothing to rub herself. Feet, and face the Yaner's cold words: "I am born without a face."
Songlian's inner bleak situation can be imagined. In this situation, she stepped into the deepest and full of sullen "Dead Chamber", where the scene and mood are contrasted. Zhuo Yun then offered to Song Lian again. It seems that the two people who are fighting openly and secretly are actually the "poor" wife who is the most distorted. The theme of
winning or losing was revealed on the mahjong table in the third sister's room. The actors and scholars have different statuses, but they also have a missed past. But now they have all become men's playthings.
This hot "summer" ended coldly when Songlian saw the adultery between Mei Shan and Doctor Gao.
(2), autumn
The gloomy mansion, exhaled with ghosts, will go crazy after staying for a long time without illness, Songlian is suffering internally and externally.
Yan'er looked at and was pressed down by the three wives again, and she once again showed her toughness: breaking the rules, sending food into the room. The old lady laughed at herself as an old antique, but there was still a remnant of power. Not only did Mei Shan only shout to her eldest sister, she still relied on her decision when dealing with the Yaner case later. The sound of Feipu's flute attracted Songlian's first encounter with him. The quiet atmosphere in the mansion's courtyard became chaotic overnight, and Feipu said in an expectant tone: "Will you play?" The affectionate styles of
are all in it, like two candlelights that suddenly appeared in the dark night, and they didn’t want to burn him to the sky, but the big lady called, cutting through the eternity of this moment, and the two were separated The long rooms face each other. The words
and the scene in the two pairs of eyes fixed Songlian's love.
's love evoked by the flute evokes a great murderous intent: first the wild goose cuts the grass, and then sees Zhuo Yun's true face, a cut ear, although the ear is not broken, but the heart is no longer tolerable. When Songlian arrived here, she could really see the deep sorrow and blood. After all, Mei Shan who sings is of true temperament, and the two people in this house who are making troubles secretly fight together in the end, but they are really sympathetic to each other.
couldn't help being so agitated by Zhuo Yun, the young and frivolous Songlian actually used the trick of false childbirth and turned Zhuo Yun and Yan'er together.
(3), winter
rice field is like a battlefield, the second wife attacked first, forcing the eldest wife to discipline Songlian, but thankless. This is indeed still sophisticated, and I have been immersed in the Dharma for many years, and may really no longer argue.
Mei Shan just smiled, Zhuo Yun wanted to win over her again, but in exchange for a sentence of irony, Zhuo Yun who was double-excluded, plus the provocation of Songlian, this struggle was burning in this cold winter day. At the peak. It is chilling, spicy and numb. After
, the plot went straight down: Yan'er and Zhuo Yun dismantled the fake birth, and the fourth hospital went from Changming to closing the lamp. Songlian didn’t say anything, but knew that they made a ghost. The camera turned and the red lanterns were all From Yan'er's house was thrown on the snow. Songlian, she still has to fight for herself and clearly delineate the line between maid and wife. This status is insurmountable.
But how did she think of this trouble, but Yan'er was killed in Huangquan, and then under her own drunken gaffe, Mei Shan, the only one in this courtyard who was more suitable, also suffered a bitter hand.
Before the death of the third wife, the scene of the second act of singing appeared on the scene, and the heartfelt words of two women on the quiet high pavilion:
"If the play is done well, it can deceive others, but if it is not done well, you can only deceive yourself. , I can only lie to ghosts." "People are ghosts, ghosts are people." "I don't care if I turn on the lights and seal the lights. People don't look like anything in this courtyard anymore." "What does he look like?" ...
Life is like a play. You can’t laugh and fall in love with the character. Instead, you are trapped by love, fighting for a variety of names. Songlian’s heart falls again deeply. She is in her prime, and she meets Feipu again, but Is the heart is dead,The love was gone, and he said coldly, "It's better to be alive than to die."
talked with Feipu, the hope in Songlian's heart was like a spark, and then she was deceived by Feipu, which really broke Songlian’s dream, and the pulse in Songlian’s eyes was also flying. With Pu's farewell, the roots were destroyed.
(4), summer
spring breeze is not coming, the fifth wife moved in, but Songlian wandered like a ghost in the fourth courtyard.
"Who is that person?" "The former four wives, now there is something wrong with the brain..."
At the end of the dialogue, Zhang Yimou once again clarified the contrast of "wake up and confused", and finally merged the use of the lens: mirroring Thousands of red lanterns, cascading mansions, gongs and drums and reverberating songs came out, smearing a woman's long and miserable life.
Zhang Yimou uses the "four seasons" as a time division, but he misses spring.
Spring represents endless life, but at the end of the film, the master married the fifth wife. In the midst of joy, the thin face of the bride presents a fatal look, which sets off the scene of the crazy Songlian wandering in the yard.
Spring comes again, is it still indefinitely? The difference between
film and the original work
Su Tong’s "Wife and Concubine Groups" was highly valued after it was published that year, and then adapted into movies and TV series. The themes are not uncommon. The tragedies of women in feudal families. The meaning of cessation, the concise narrative is fascinating, the female student Songlian leads the readers into this large house filled with countless souls and reveals the secret of the ancient well under the wisteria trellis; only the secret is revealed, the female students of the year were also crazy. , The end is abruptly stopped but there is endless aftertaste.
Compared with the novel, Zhang Yimou gave us a special surprise in "Raise the Red Lantern". Songlian, played by Gong Li, has a cold and arrogant character in the film. She is not like the treacherousness of the second concubine Zhuo Yun's smile, but also the sharp and violent third concubine Mei Shan. This point is different from the original work.
If you only watch Songlian in the movie, you will think that she is a poor person who can't help herself. However, the novel clearly shows that Songlian looked down on the other three wives at the beginning. She thought that with her youthful beauty and educated background, she was afraid that she could not be in Chen. The government stood firm. It's just that when she faced repeated malicious attacks, she was deeply stuck in the mud and couldn't resist the destruction of reality. The
movie focuses more on the confrontation between wives and concubines, but Su Tong actually arranged Songlian and Mei Shan to be less hostile in his novels. In the
movie, we see Songlian and Mei Shan have similar personalities, they are both rebellious and daring to commit taboos.
Songlian went from peeping at the turret, lying about pregnancy, ordering food to eat in the room, to dealing with the wild goose.
Mei Shan called her master away on Songlian’s wedding night, competed with Songlian to order food, and even after Songlian discovered her adultery with Dr. Gao, she did not hesitate to be ruthless, saying that she was going to date Dr. Gao.
Mei Shan once said to Songlian: "It was originally a play! A good play can lie to others, but a bad performance can only lie to yourself. When you can't even lie to yourself, you can only lie to ghosts! People follow ghosts. It’s almost a breath. People are ghosts, ghosts are people!"
Songlian replied helplessly: "Light on, turn off, turn off the light. I really don’t care. I just don’t understand, in this room? What is a person? Like? A dog, like a cat, like a mouse. It looks like everything, but it’s not like a person. I’m always thinking about standing here, why should I hang myself in the dead man’s house?!"
Mei Shan and Songlian have such complaints, but they are right. The value of own existence has a female consciousness.
Has anyone noticed the couplet at the door twice? The
novel accurately points out the morbid state of marriage in traditional society, slowly expressing the morbid decadence of the old feudal tradition, the abuse of cannibalism to women, and the struggle of female consciousness at the transition of the old and the new era, which is thought-provoking.
And this novel under the lens of Zhang Yimou, showing different characteristics, it can be said that each has its own merits.
"Raise the Red Lantern" is a successful film that satisfies the taste of Westerners. In the novel, hanging lanterns is only mentioned briefly, but hanging red lanterns has become the main axis of the movie. The various tricks derived from hanging red lanterns, lighting, extinguishing, sealing, beating the feet, and ordering food constitute the center of the lives of all the wives, concubines, and servants of the Chen family. It is the whole tradition to accept concubines to fight for favor and to count the institutions. The epitome and testimony of closed culture.
Basically, there are many differences between the novel "Wives and Concubines" and the movie "Raise the Red Lantern" and the focus is also different, but they both maximize the visual characteristics of text and images, and the themes of both works are deepened. The author wants to express the rich meaning, and brings readers and audiences profound enlightenment on the relationship between the sexes.
So I still recommend that you read the original book first and then watch the movie, you will have a different experience.
