A Movie Review about Women's Rights

[1348831303]

A Movie Review about Women's Rights

Guo Chengcheng

The film “Mona Lisa Smile” depicts the United States in 1953, when times are changing. Katherine, who graduated from the open-minded University of Berkeley, went to Wesleyan Girls' School to teach art history. She has revolutionary leading consciousness and is full of ideals and enthusiasm, boldly challenging the outdated teaching system to change a group of extremely smart female students who take marriage as their ultimate career. The film "And the Spring Comes" tells us that Wang Cailing, who is as an art suitor, constantly suffered setbacks and blows from reality on the road of pursuing her ideal, and finally had to succumb to the cruelty of reality.

These two films are both about dream and reality, exaggerated as heaven and hell. Surprisingly, the two heroines in the film are both revelers with feminist temperament. They all give us a perfect presentation of one person's war. The role orientation of women has always been the focus of attention, and female's pursuit of freedom and equality is a timeless topic.

The film “Mona Lisa Smile” reflects the consciousness of female's pursuit of self-consciousness and value on the eve of the American sexual liberation movement. The heroine seems to be fighting against the rigid teaching system, rather than speaking for female's rights. In Wesley, a girls' school known as "ivy without men", their education spreads to students the idea that "women should serve men" and defines students' future marriage as the standard of educational success. The fate of women is always in the hands of men, favored by their love and depraved by their disgust. Like Betty, a loyal defender of traditional etiquette in the film. Her goal is to get married and become a housewife. In fact, she was suffering from marriage. When she poured everything into her husband, the flirtatious husband soon had a third party. In the face of betrayal and her mother's education to stick to her womanhood, Betty chose silence and forbearance at first, but in the end she was the first female in a group of students to break through the old tradition.

"And the Spring Comes" shows the awakening of early Chinese female's self-consciousness. After repeated failures in love, Wang Cailing realized that "they (married women) all seem to be used as mirrors" and became the winner who rushed out of the "iron house". She broke through this limitation, got rid of her masculinity and married herself. For thousands of years, women have always been a vulnerable group deprived of the right to speak, and their fate is dominated by men in the patriarchal society, no matter who can escape this fate. So we think Katherine and Wang Cailing have given the most firm answer whether to yield or resist.

The excellence of these two films lies not only in the interpretation of feminism, but also in some well-designed artistic techniques worthy of attention. Firstly, in the use of picture colors, most of them are cold tones, giving people a kind of visual chill, which is a kind of strengthening of the theme. For example, in the scene of Hu Jinquan pushing a cart and walking in the snow after Hu Jinquan's fake proposal to Wang Cailing was rejected, the color of the whole picture was reflected in blue, plus the cold light reflected by the snow, using the cold color to the extreme. This kind of coldness corresponds to the sadness in Hu Jinquan's heart and is the externalized portrayal of the tears of pain on his face. Additionally, in the use of the film music, it fully reflects the narrative requirements of the story, and uses more slow and quiet music to make the music coincide with the tone of the film, the narrative tone of the long shot and the rhythm of the editing. Moreover, many lyrics and melodies of the opera also seize the opportunity to set off the theme and mood. Therefore, this film is a work with excellent ideological and artistic quality, which is worth digging and savoring carefully.

However, “Mona Lisa Smile” is good at hinting and contrasting with the plot, and shows its language art with the confrontation between Katherine and Betty. For example, the first confrontation : Katherine showed her students a work of art that was not part of the syllabus and asked her students to express their views. The dialogue between Katherine and Betty was actually a battle between modern and traditional. This conflict defined the positioning of the two characters for the first time, and also laid the groundwork for the promotion of the later plot. The second confrontation: married Betty took the class for the first time after missing many classes. A large number of parallelism sentence patterns push the conflict between the two to a new and most exciting part. The sentence is short and concise, but it conveys the middle ideas thoroughly and creates a tense atmosphere at the same time. In this conversation, Katherine conveys a dissatisfaction with the tradition that Betty adheres to, and Betty firmly conveys an unchallenged arrogance of authority. The third confrontation: the students make an exception to invite Katherine to join their secret group, where everyone told everything they know and gossip and chat together. But Betty still showed a consistent aversion to Katherine. Joan's application and choice to Yale University pushed the contradiction between the two characteristics to the highest level and became the direct fuse for Betty to write an article attacking Katherine. Betty believed that Katherine interfered with Joan's choice, but in fact Betty kidnapped Joan in a traditional, ostensibly good manner for Joan and thought that any deviation is incorrect, which is the bondage of the traditional old thought. However, Katherine opens Joan's world view of looking at problems from multiple angles, but how to choose still needs to be decided by Joan, which is a kind of liberation brought by new ideas. Throughout the film, similar language sparks are no longer rare, appearing among different characters. Through these dialogues, the ideas conveyed by the film unwittingly permeate the audience’s consciousness. Sometimes, a good film does not necessarily need ups and downs of the plot or the character expression, like the film, the language seems to be more memorable.

It is often said that a good film should not only have a different artistic approach, but also have a theme that is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In our opinion, “And the Spring Comes” and “Mona Lisa Smile” precisely meet this standard. The unique use of color contrast, the ease of switching between long and short shots, and the ingenious setting of the plot are the professional techniques carefully designed by the director everywhere. Both films show the awakening and contradiction of self-consciousness and the struggle against the traditional vision. The protagonists are all female characters with distinct personalities. There is no need to discuss the final outcome, because their struggle process has shown the light that belongs to them, although short but also dazzling. We think these are what the films bring to us—the professional techniques hidden behind the screen and the life thinking behind each protagonist.

[1528156245]

Dear Guo, Liang,
I am glad to read your article. The structure and content of this film review are wonderful. You not only use many details in the movie to manifest your idea, but also have a clear theme. From the perspective of women's self-consciousness, this paper compares and narrates the stories of Catherine in heaven and Wang Cailing in hell. You mentioned a lot of details in the films. For example, when Wang Cailing refused to Hu Jinquan，the lens color is changes, it was refreshing. And in the Mona Lisa's smile, Betty and Catherine's three duels, step by step, reading very smoothly.
Besides, you also mention music, language in the two movies. The article has a rich content providing readers various information in all aspects. There are two suggestions. Firstly, some paragraph is too long to read, which you can divide into two parts. Secondly, it would be better if you could add some echo about the background of films.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Cao Biqin
Li Boxin

[1348831303]

Dear Cao and Li,
We are glad to hear from you. Thank you very much for your appropriate suggestions on our article!
Indeed, some paragraphs like the second one are too long to read. We will make appropriate changes without changing the original meaning. But will the separation of paragraphs lead to incomplete content or unclear structure of the article? How do you deal with such a problem? Do you have any good suggestions? And with regard to film music, in order to make the article detailed and slightly, this part of the content is less involved. Because of the limited space, we can't cover everything. This is our original idea(*•̀ᴗ•́*) Your suggestion is great, we can continue to communicate!
Looking forward to your reply!
Guo Chengcheng
Liang Hanbing

[mnc5223]

Dear Guo,

Great job with this essay! I also wrote about feminism and female empowerment in my essay. You use an appropriate amount of evidence from the movie to prove your points. I would make the suggestion to bring the focus back to feminism in the fifth paragraph. I agree that the artistic and visual techniques are worthy of attention, however that paragraph seems to lose sight of feminism. If that paragraph could relate the artistic and visual techniques to feminism, it would reflect the topic of this essay. For example, the sixth paragraph does a good job of relating language and confrontation to feminism. The sentence "However, Katherine opens Joan's world view of looking at problems from multiple angles, but how to choose still needs to be decided by Joan, which is a kind of liberation brought by new ideas" shows how language brought about new ideas related to female empowerment. If the fifth paragraph could relate visual techniques to feminism in a similar way that the sixth paragraph does, the fifth paragraph would be contributing to the topic of feminism in these movies.

Let me know if you have questions about my suggestion!

Megan

[1348831303]

Dear Megan,
We are glad to hear from you.！Thank you very much for your suggestions on our article! Your suggestion is very reasonable!
Feminism as the main topic of the article should run through the full text, so as to better fit the title of the article-women's rights. It is true that the fifth and sixth paragraphs are not related to feminism when we write about the artistic techniques of the two films. We should add some description from this aspect.
At the same time, we had some discussions about your suggestion, which led to some confusion: we think that the performance of feminism in the two films is more focused on dialogue and plot. It is not easy to explain feminism directly from the perspective of artistic techniques. If we write from the tone and background music, the way we can think of is that the tone and music set off the mood of the characters in the current events, and contact the relevant plot to feel the characters' inner desire for the ideological liberation of feminism. This has an indirect connection with feminism. How to make a direct exposition between artistic techniques and feminism, and do you have any good angles or ideas on this issue? Or do you have any better thoughts for us to learn from?
Looking forward to hearing from you again!(*•̀ᴗ•́*)
Guo Chengcheng
Liang Hanbing

[1528156245]

Dear Guo and Liang,
I have received you replay and I will try to answer your questions. For example, the penultimate paragraph of the article. You mainly want to express Mona Lisa's Smile is good at hinting. You've listed Betty and Catherine's duels throughout the movie to confirm your point. Though some detailed plots can help reader learn the movie, We think it's unnecessary to write the cause of Katherine and Betty's third quarrel.Because everyone in the class has seen the movie.In this way, the logic of the article can be coherent, and the paragraphs will be more concise.
We are going to end my explanation here. If you have any questions about our explanations just tell us.
Cao Biqin
Li Boxin

[1348831303]

Hi, Cao and Li,
We' re glad to hear from you.
With regard to the description of the plot in the second half of the article, we would like to say that it may be true that in order to prove that the film is good at hinting at the three conflicts listed, as you said, all the students in the class have seen it, and they all know the plot of the film. However, if it is for people who have not been exposed to the two films, whether there is no corresponding plot description will make it difficult to understand. With regard to the question that the paragraph is too long, do you think it will be improved if we replace some of the long sentences in the text with simple sentences, or highlight the central sentence of the paragraph? Do you have any suggestions for our idea?
Looking forward to your reply！(*•̀ᴗ•́*)
Guo Chengcheng
Liang Hanbing

[heg5082]

Hello Guo!

I think you have a really thoughtful essay here! I appreciated your use of comparing these two women with women's empowerment in mind. My essay had a similar theme, and I think you have a very clear comparison between Katherine and Cailing. I also liked your comparison with dreams and reality and heaven and hell. That was a good way to explain the feminist perspective of the films. I'm glad you also noticed the mood of the movie; very dark and "chilling" with the cooler-toned lens the movie had. "Mona Lisa Smile" had a different tone with more color and I think this could be attributed to its American influence. Maybe you can talk about this more in your essay? You can try to point out the differences between culture more. I would also suggest bringing in more of a focus on feminism throughout your essay.

Thanks and let me know if you have any questions!
Heidi

[1348831303]

Hello Heidi!

Thank you very much for your suggestions!

We agree with you that the more colorful tone in "Mona Lisa Smile" is attributed to American culture. But because we have little understanding of American culture, we wonder how to write about this. In addition, due to space constraints, if we discuss the relationship between the tone of "Mona Lisa Smile" and American culture, it may be too long.

At the same time, do you think that when we write about the plot of color and music of "And the Spring Comes" in the article has nothing to do with our theme of feminism? We are very confused about this and hope you can give us more suggestions!

Look forward to your reply!
Guo/Liang

[mnc5223]

Hello Guo and Liang!

I've received your reply and can elaborate on my suggestions. First, just to clarify, I believe your sixth paragraph relates to feminism but your fifth paragraph could be improved to relate to feminism. For the fifth paragraph, I think your ideas about colors representing the mood of the characters can actually relate directly to feminism. Here's how: your essay explains how When The Spring Comes uses cold lighting and weather to represent several characters' mood. I think what you may be thinking about is how the cold tone represents how the characters feel about not being able to achieve their dreams by being their true selves. For example, the reason Professor Wang cannot be her true self is because her life does not follow what women are expected to do (like get married or be very beautiful). So, the movie shows her depressed through the artistic techniques and this is representative of how women can feel when they are not meeting society's expectations of women. Hopefully this explanation make sense because I think your ideas are great and could be related to feminism in order to stay within the theme of this essay!

I can always re-elaborate if you still have questions.

Megan