| Collector's Corner August 2008
Raise the Red Lantern
(Da hong deng long gao gao gua)
- Starring: Li Gong, Caifei He, Cuifen Cao,
Jingwu Ma, Qi Zhao, Lin Kong, Jin Shuyuan, Weimin Ding
- Directed by: Yimou Zhang
- Theatrical release: 1991
- DVD release: 2007
- Video: 1.85:1 (anamorphic widescreen)
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
- Released by: MGM
"When
I look back at the times I shot artistic movies, I found I learned quite a lot from them.
So in the future, I hope to do both -- make more personal films, which I prefer. And in
certain circumstances, I will shoot some other commercial movies like [Hero and House
of Flying Daggers]." So says Yimou Zhang, one of contemporary film’s
greatest directors, and one of the most contentiously debated.
Most of the criticism of Zhang comes from those who want
him to deliver a vitriolic haymaker to his home, the People’s Republic of China, in
the form of a more politically pointed film. They say that he deals too much with beauty.
When Raise the Red Lantern was first released in the US, Washington Post
columnist Hal Hinson wrote, "The silken, erotic flow to his imagery is like a sweet
kiss to the eyes." This was a left-handed compliment; in his final paragraph, Hinson
wrote, "As gorgeous as it is, Raise the Red Lantern never achieves any
momentum or weight."
Zhang is part of the China’s Fifth Generation of film
directors, who came to their trade after the end of China’s Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution, which lasted from Mao’s announcement of it in 1966 until the
capture of the Gang of Four in 1976. By the time the Revolution ended, Zhang was 25. Two
years later, the Beijing Film Academy opened, and Zhang was a member of the first
graduating class, in 1982.
At first he worked as a cinematographer, which partially
explains the exquisite loveliness of his films. By 1987 Zhang had worked his way into the
director’s chair. His first project as a director, Red Sorghum, began a run of
six spellbinding films -- Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The
Story of Qiu Ju (1992), To Live (1994), and Shanghai Triad (1995) -- and
one embarrassing attempt at commercialism, Operation Cougar (1989). It is those
first six films that Zhang refers to in the opening paragraph as his "artistic
movies."
Art is the right word. The cinematographer’s
eye is everywhere in these films; each frame is a lovely work of art. Zhang is also a
genius at visual storytelling. If any of these films had no dialogue whatsoever,
you’d still have a good idea of the story.
Raise the Red Lantern was the fourth of eight films
that Zhang made with his girlfriend, Li Gong. His love for her is visible in every scene.
With the close-ups of her stunningly fine-looking face, the slow or static shots of her
graceful body, and the soft-focus lighting that caresses her every nuance, it’s no
wonder hundreds of critics around the world have dubbed her the most beautiful actress
working today. But she is much more than a beautiful face. Li Gong is an understated actor
with a fearsome ability to bring true emotions to her performances, alternately sweet and
dangerous, loving and vicious. She has at her command the entire palette of feeling, and
never seems "actorly."
The tagline for Raise the Red Lantern told the whole
story: "China, 1920. One master, four wives." Nineteen-year-old Songlian (Li
Gong) is a student whose stepmother (Weimin Ding) sells her to a rich Master (Jingwu Ma).
Songlian will be the Master’s fourth wife, to be pampered with any luxury she wants
-- except the freedom to leave his castle. Each night, the Master selects one of his wives
to receive his regal self in her bed. The chosen one gets a ceremonial raising of the red
lantern outside her door, a foot massage, and a night with her husband. (No sex is
depicted, with the odd result that this film, which can be taken as a polemic on sex
slavery, forced prostitution, and/or polygamy, was rated PG in the US.)
The tension comes from the interactions of the four wives
and their servants; the Master is barely in the picture, and when he is, his face is
seldom revealed. First Wife (Jin Shuyuan) is a spent force whose red lantern is now seldom
raised. Second Wife (Cuifen Cao) is friendly and welcoming to Songlian, but has a hidden
agenda. Third Wife (Caifei He), a former opera singer who was torn from her career to
marry the Master, had demanded the bulk of his attention until the arrival of Fourth Wife,
Songlian.
Songlian initially rejects her status, but soon starts to
play the politics of the household, in which the wives’ moves and their manipulations
of each other’s servants becomes a four-way chess game. And at this point, things
begin to get out of hand.
Raise the Red Lantern is subtly acted, strikingly
filmed, brilliantly plotted, and demonstrates that in only his fourth film Yimou Zhang was
already at the peak of his game, and a challenge to the best directors in the world.
Remarkably beautiful people are often assumed to be vacant
and brainless. But if natural selection is valid, there’s a decent chance that
they’re smarter than average. Likewise, some art is considered too beautiful to be
taken seriously, and many film critics and scholars place Zhang in that category.
Actually, they don’t seem to understand his subtleties.
One of those subtleties was unintentional. When the Beijing
Film Academy opened, all they could afford were junked cameras from Hollywood. Technicolor
had dumped their three-strip color process (even though the process they replaced it with,
VistaVision, was inferior). Technicolor had three disadvantages: it was complicated, the
dye process was expensive, and it required strong lighting that largely prevented its use
in live-action films. Technicolor had only one advantage: it produced the most beautiful
colors ever seen on film. But given Zhang’s use of fixed locations, the camera’s
local availability, and China’s state-sponsored film processing, Technicolor made
sense. The result is a startling rainbow of colors that leap off the screen.
Other subtleties in Raise the Red Lantern come from
the symbolic aggressions among the wives, such as the methods each uses to assert her
power through her closeness to the Master. Or the wives’ cunning exploitations of
their servants. Or how Zhang sometimes inserts comedy and terror into the same scene. Or
how grays and reds come to foreshadow certain events. The list is nearly endless, because
Zhang is the complete director: Not only can he make bold, entertaining films such as Hero
and House of Flying Daggers, he can also make gorgeous, sweeping melodramas.
The one constant is the visual beauty of everything he does.
 There
are two DVD editions of Raise the Red Lantern on the market. One is an abysmal
failure, the other a make-do until the Blu-ray appears. Razor Digital Entertainment’s
version (pictured at right) uses drastic edge enhancement to try to make Zhang’s
Technicolor work look like a modern color film. The MGM version (at top) gets the color
and focus just right, but there are no extras. The best version to see right now is the
version shown by MGM’s HD cable station, which is free and HD.
Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for Best Foreign
Film in 1992, but lost to Mediterraneo. Li Gong, whose delicately nuanced portrayal
of Songlian’s descent constituted better acting than any of that year’s Best
Actress nominees, wasn’t even nominated. Nor was Zhang. Both have won dozens of
awards from organizations all over the world, but neither has taken home an Oscar.
Perhaps Yimou Zhang will continue to be considered
"merely beautiful" until he pleases the critics and takes aim at his home
country. He already has, of course, but has been so sly about it that hardly anyone has
noticed. If you decide to try some of these movies, pay attention to what happens to the
women; they’re Zhang’s symbols for the people of China.
Zhang told Geoffrey Macnab, of the British newspaper The
Guardian, "The Chinese censorship system has been in practice for many years. I
don’t think there will be much change in society in the short run. This situation has
been present for a long time and it is a reality in China. I work and live in this system.
There has not been a significant change. . . . The Cultural Revolution was a very special
period of Chinese history, unique in the world. It was part of my youth. It happened
between when I was 16 and when I was 26. During those 10 years, I witnessed so many
terrible and tragic things. For many years, I have wanted to make movies about that period
-- to discuss the suffering and to talk about fate and human relationships in a world
which people couldn’t control and which was very hostile. I would like to make not
just one but many movies, both autobiographical and drawing on other people’s
stories. I’ll just have to wait."
. . . Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
