2 - Analysis Between “Mona Lisa Smile” and “And the Spring Comes”

[Zixuan F.]

And the spring comes, but does it make a difference? In traditional Chinese thinking, people referred spring to hope and confidence, but in the movie “And the Spring Comes” spring would always come, but the spring of Cailing Wang never comes. Instead, I think to switch the titles between those two movies would make both of them a better fit.

In Gu’s movie he used the overview of the city as the transition between different scenes several times, that was the conventional looking for a city located in northern China, which highly relied on the massive industry back in the period, it was old, and gary, the director is tending to use this kind of shallow scene to give the film a themes without any bright. Not only the transaction of using the city view but also the movie shot with the director is narrowing down the story. He hardly ever use a colorful camera shot to display the movie. Even the scene where the dance teacher and Cailing Wang was in the performance, the bright still gives a feeling of cheap, during my second watching the movie, there was one line from the other film kept emerging from my mind, “ She is smiling, but is she happy ?” Although the characters seems all ended up as a normal member of the society, being married, raising up a kid, but it was way off from their persuasion. Even in the end of the movie, Cailing was imagining she was performing in a huge stage, but the reality was she playing with her daughter in the Tian An Men Square.

Instead of the dark narrative of Gu’s movie, “Mona Lisa Smile” sculpted a shining female character Miss Watson with much more brighter shots. The transactions between different scenes were the beautiful sights in Wellesley. The clothing of the characters are gorgeous and figured; we can hardly ever see a person in this movie wearing two same clothes in different scenes. Although the period of this movie is about 30 years before that of the other one, the shots did not make the era cheap because of the lack of devices. Instead, comparing the modern age of France, the movie made a beautiful vintage feeling to the audience.

Both of the movies talked about a story that one or more people could not be satisfied by the real life. In the Chinese movie, the characters were aiming for their persuasion of art, and Miss. Watson was trying to change the traditional view of women having to be a good wife. However, in the Chinese movie except for the dance teacher, none of them was aiming for art, but the additional elements that art could bring them. Jinquan Hu could rape a girl just to go to the jail to stop others from talking about his “strangeness,” and he was so happy when he found he could help the officers in the jail with teaching dance. In my opinion, that is the desire of art. For other characters they were claiming that they want art, but they were more like daydreaming their amateur-level of performance could provide them a better life. they were not happy with living in the small city. Just like Sibao Huang once said, “ I want to leave, no matter to which city.”

Miss Watson herself was one of the beneficiaries of that era, she has an honorific job, gorgeous out looking and brilliant mind, even more, she once had romantic relationship with a Hollywood Star, in a more general way of thought, woman like her should not be complaining, and it is so easy for her to find an outstanding husband and organize the family just like every other female did in the nation. But her persuasion was to inspire her students with her vanguard like thought brought from California and for sure, she did accomplish her goal in the end. Because of her outstanding and innocent intent, she could leave the college leisurely without adopting a daughter, yielding to the reality.

The title of the Chinese movie seems to show that the springs of Cailing would come in the soon future, but the life she ending up with is truly a better just in others’ view, we do not know whether she would keep aiming for her target, but we could tell from the end, she was still imagining she could sand on the stage. She is smiling, but is she happy? As for the American movie, shortly after the time period of the movie was the well done feminist movement, the spring of females. And even more that, the film ended up in the beginning of the spring semester, students inspired by Miss Watson will continue their study in Wellesley, Miss Watson will continue her journey of running away from the tradition. Everything is tending to a brighter direction, and the spring is coming.

[Mikaela A.]

Hi Zixuan!
I really like how you focused a lot on the idea of Spring here and how And the Spring Comes doesn't really showcase the new beginning of spring but Mona Lisa Smile does. I think that by narrowing down your focus to two ideas from the assignment page, your writing would be more clear for others to read. For example, you could say that you are focusing on camera angle in the beginning of your essay and women's empowerment in the second half of your essay since you discuss what being a female means a lot and the feminist movement. You should also include in your essay your opinion on the topics you're focusing on! For example, did you like the way that the camera angles were utilized in the film? Did you agree with the decisions that Miss Watson made throughout? The organization of your essay was easy to follow, but I would be really careful with how you are using your commas because you often times have too many in one sentence! Try using just one or two in a sentence and then starting a new sentence where a comma was before. For the next version I would focus on adding your opinion and fixing the commas! Great job (:

[Yixiong X.]

Hi Zixuan,
I like when you talk about both movies in turns, which shows that you are a person with active thinking. Without some grammer problems in the first paragraph confused people, I like your idea of switch titles for both movies. That's saying, you are the kid with whole a lot of new ideas in your mind. However, since you jump from "And the Spring comes" to "Mona Lisa Smile" and jump back many times in your analysis, the whole structure of the essay seems messy to me. If you could analysis both essays separately from cultural representations, verbal strategies and non verbal strategies, your essay will give the audiences a better sense. By the way, overstate the story in the movie is unnecessary. Everyone comes to this website has already seen the movie or has a brief sense of the story. But anyway, keep up your active thinking and you will create more better ideas!

[Jinfeng G.]

Hi, Zixuan!
I am surprised that you raised a valuable point in your essay. Your ideas are very attractive and newly. But there are still problems in the essay. I think the structure is not very clear and it may cause some confusion for readers. I think maybe one or two core sentences to support your structure is a better way to organize the whole essay.
I think you discussed more about camera angle and contents in movies but not for their title. And maybe you can divide into two parts for camera angle and movie contents when writing for their titles. And add details or specific plots to explain the camera angle to make the idea more stronger.
Actually, do you think you need to talk more about Wang Cailing’s development? After all, she experienced many difficulties. And do you think the cold reality is the only thing that beat her and drive her to give up? Do you have any other aspect besides reality?

[Zixuan F.]

Hi Jinfeng

Thank you so much for giving suggestions with the structure of my essay, those are very helpful and I would like to make adjustments on my essay based on your idea to separate the essay into two parts. When I'm watching movies, it is always the first thing for me to check the camera angles, since the verbal connections could provide the most direct thought of the film. As for your opinion of I talked more about those instead of the idea of title switching, I think it is very valid so I went back to reread my essay. In my back analysis of my essay, I feel like I was missing the most important part to go back to my theme while developing the evidence to support it. The reason why I talked a lot about the camera angles is that I want to use a more direct way to show the spring seems would never come to Cailing's life by comparing the two films in a more direct perspective.

Besides, instead of the cold reality, I feel like her professional skills and her personality were the most important features driving her to accept the cold reality. There are no doubts that she faced a lot of difficulties, however, I would like to refer her ending to her limitation of the lack of professional skills, for my perspective I do not think her singing could be on a professional stage, rather I would say she was more like a professional amateur. It is not bad to have a dream, but Cailing seems never realized the gap between herself and professional opera actors. In a famous Chinese quote, she is a person "心比天高，命比纸薄。"

[Zixuan F.]

Hi Mikaela

Thank you so much for responding my essay. I really like the suggestion you gave about the content of my essay, I do agree that I somehow missed my own opinion when I was narrowing down the essay. I would try to go back to my theme while developing the evidence to support it. I think the cinema angles are making perfect jobs to settle a clear theme for both movies, it is mainly because of this reason, I think it might be better to have the titles to be switched. Verbal connections are the most direct communication in a film, so I focus on it a lot in my essay to explain my expression of the films.

Besides, in Jinfeng's response, I found a very interesting point and I would like to share it with you. In your opinion, what is the mean reason for Cailing to give up her dream at the end of the film?

[Mikaela A.]

Hi Zixuan! I am glad you will be adding your opinion to your revised essay!

I believe that Cailing gave up her dream at the end of the film because she decided that she didn't need to be an opera singer at this particular place in order to be successful. In my essay, I mentioned that she re-defined success by realizing that she could be successful as a mother rather than in her professional career. What do you think of this?

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

[Zixuan F.]

Hi Mikaela

Thanks for sharing your idea.

I do agree with that Cailing have up her career dream in the end because she changed her goal.But being a good mother is the common idea of success back in the day, rather she did not choose to be a wife which is still showing she does not want to just follow the normal pattern of the society. Somehow, I would refer that to another kind of compromise to the reality. How do you think about this?

[Mikaela A.]

Hi Zixuan!

I would definitely agree that it is her compromising to the reality of society! However, that is still her re-defining her idea of success because it was once different! What are your views on the fact that success used to mean you were a wife and why do you think that has changed today! I'm interested to hear your take on this!

[Zixuan F.]

Revised Essay

Analysis Between “Mona Lisa Smile” and “And the Spring Comes”

And the spring comes, but does it make a difference? In traditional Chinese thinking, people referred spring to hope and confidence, but in the movie “ After the Spring Comes” The spring would always come, but the spring of Cailing Wang never comes. Instead, I think to switch the titles between those two movies would make both of them a better fit.
In Gu’s movie he used the overview of the city as the transition between different scenes several times, that was the conventional looking for a city located in northern China, which highly relied on the massive industry back in the period, it was old and gray. The director is tending to use this kind of shallow scene to give the film themes without any bright. Not only the transaction of utilizing the city view but also the movie shot with the director is narrowing down the story. He hardly ever use a colorful camera shot to display the film. Even the scene where the dance teacher and Cailing Wang was in the performance, the bright still gives a feeling of cheap. The way how the shots were structured made me feel touched. During my second time watching the movie, there was one line from the other film kept emerging from my mind, “ She is smiling, but is she happy ?” Although the characters seem all ended up as an average member of the society, being married, raising up a kid, it was way off from their persuasion. Even at the end of the movie, Cailing was imagining she was performing in a huge stage, but the reality was she playing with her daughter in the Tian An Men Square.
Instead of the dark narrative of Gu’s movie, “Mona Lisa Smile” sculpted a shining female character Miss Watson with much more brighter shots. The transactions between different scenes were the beautiful sights in Wellesley. The clothing of the characters are gorgeous and figured; we can hardly ever see a person in this movie wearing two same clothes in different scenes. Although the period of this movie is about 30 years before that of the other one, the shots did not make the era cheap because of the lack of devices. Instead, comparing the modern age of France, the movie made a beautiful vintage feeling to the audience. The shots from both films seem git better if the title was switched, on the one hand, the bright scene in the America movie could give a more decent feel of spring, on the other hand, the dark narrative in the Gu's movie could provide the obscure smile of Mona Lisa. Instead, I still feel like the American film did not do an excellent job to explain why the Germany teacher would call Katharine Mona Lisa.
Both of the movies talked about a story that one or more people could not be satisfied by the real life. In the Chinese film, the characters were aiming for their persuasion of art, and Miss. Watson was trying to change the traditional view of women having to be a good wife. However, in the Chinese movie except for the dance teacher, none of them was aiming for art, but the additional elements that art could bring them. Jinquan Hu could rape a girl just to go to the jail to stop others from talking about his “strangeness,” and he was so happy when he found he could help the officers in the jail with teaching dance. In my opinion, that is the desire of art. For other characters, they were claiming that they want art, but they were more like daydreaming their amateur-level of performance could provide them a better life. they were not happy with living in the small city. Just like Sibao Huang once said, “ I want to leave, no matter to which city.” I like would the movie was narrowing down to develop Cailing as a rare person back in the day, things she experiences, and things she went through really did a fabulous job to show her personality. So that is why when she ended up with a relatively unusual way of life, adopting a girl without getting married, I still feel like that is a compromise not that she finally finds her definition of successful, or Cailing could have confident tell Yu Zhou she was not married when they met in the hospital.
Miss Watson herself was one of the beneficiaries of that era; she has an honorific career, gorgeous out looking and brilliant mind, even more, she once had a romantic relationship with a Hollywood Star. In a more general way of thought, a woman like her should not be complaining, and it is so easy for her to find an outstanding husband and organize the family just like every other female did in the nation. But her persuasion was to inspire her students with her vanguard like thought brought from California and for sure, she did accomplish her goal in the end. Because of her outstanding and innocent intent, she could leave the college leisurely without adopting a daughter，yielding to the reality.
The title of the Chinese movie seems to show that the springs of Cailing would come in the soon future, but the life she ending up with is truly a better just in others’ view, we do not know whether she would keep aiming for her target, but we could tell from the end, she was still imagining she could sand on the stage. She is smiling, but is she happy? As for the American movie, shortly after the time period of the movie was the well done feminist movement, the spring of females. And even more that, the film ended up in the beginning of the spring semester, students inspired by Miss Watson will continue their study in Wellesley, Miss Watson will continue her journey of running away from the tradition. Everything is tending to a brighter direction, and the spring is coming.