La diosa

Young filmmaker Wu Yonggang was one of many thriving filmmakers working in Shanghai's movie industry during China's pre-Communist years. His first effort for Lianhua Film Company (United Photoplay), one of the city's three major movie studios, was December 1934 "The Goddess." Shanghai was China's version of Hollywood during the early 1930s. The city's Western influences in cinema were driven primarily by American film technicians who were invited to visit the city during the late 1920s to teach the Chinese how to operate the latest film equipment. As one of the world's most modern cities, Shanghai was a melting pot for wealthy capitalists, radical intellectuals and dissidents. And from that bustling region many talented filmmakers, including Wu Yonggang, were creating the country's best movies. The 1930s marked the first "Golden Period" of Chinese cinema--otherwise known as the 'left-wing' film movement--which examined class struggles, especially in the lower one, and lasted until the mid-1937 Japanese invasion of the country.

The writer/director Wu Yonggang showed enough potential from his first couple of minor films to be hired by Lianhua. His first major movie focuses on a mother (Ruan Lingyu) whose love for her baby boy is so great it shows no boundaries. There is only one glitch: she's a streetwalker. She gets in a jam when she comes across 'The Boss' (Zhang Zhizhi). Despite his controlling her life, the mother, labeled "The Goddess," is able to save enough money to send her son (La Hang) to a private school. The kid is taunted by his classmates for his mother's profession, but the principal feels sorry for him, and plays a crucial role in his life after the child's mother undergoes a series of overwhelming tragedies.

"The Goddess" has been interpreted as symbolizing the city of Shanghai itself, with an unusually high percentage of its women, estimated at over ten percent, resorting to street walking. Wu Yonggang's movie draws upon the brutalization of the women as being trampled upon by those apathetic wealthy capitalists who victimize them for their own pleasure. 'The Boss' has traits of foreign influence who take advantage of these vulnerable women. Similar to Hollywood's Hayes Office of Censorship, Shanghai's movie code forced Wu to toe the line. 'When I first set out to write about the goddesses," the director related, "I wished to show more of their real lives, but circumstances would not permit me to do so."

"The Goddess" belongs to the "fallen woman" category that was popular during Hollywood's silent film era and the early 1930s. The movie adapted elements from such movies as 1925's 'Stella Dallas" and 1929's "Madame X," with a dash of 1932's "Blonde Venus." Actress Lingyu Ruan plays the mother whose only talent is working the streets. At the time of filming, Ruan was one of China's biggest movie stars, earning the label 'China's Greta Garbo.' Just like her character in "The Goddess," Ruan fell in love with a gambler, Zhang Damin, and supported his losing habit. She broke up with him while making this movie and was dating a married tea tycoon, Tang Jishan, who bought her a mansion and made her his mistress. Former lover Zhang heard about the arrangement and filed a lawsuit against her, claiming she owned him money. The lawsuit and her dalliances made national headlines.

The 1991 movie "Center Stage" about Ruan's life, directed by Stanley Kwan, renewed interest in the actress's film career and placed a spotlight on Shanghai's burgeoning movie industry during the 1930s. "The Goddess" has been recognized as one of the greatest films in China's "Golden Age of Cinema," and is listed in the reference book as one of the '1001 Movies You Should See Before You Die.'

The Goddess was released in 1934, which is directed by Wu Yonggang. This movie is regarded as one of the best movie of China's film history. The actress, Ruan Ling-yu, became an icon of Chinese silent film for her performance in this film.

The Goddess portrayed the miserable life of a prostitute in Shanghai during the 1930s. The prostitute is shaped as one representativeness of the social marginalized group. She suffered physical as well as psychological abuse from her surrounding environment. The more she made efforts to escape from her poor life; the more cruel things happened to her. This film has not only social significance but also cultural implication; which exhibits how weak a humanitarian morality is while facing the social reality(Meyer, 2005).

The Goddess was regarded as one outstanding realism film of China's cinematic golden age (Meyer, 2005). During the period of between 1930s and 1940s, the thematic concerns of social conflict always focus on economic exploitation and political oppression in the realism film. As compared with the film with similar theme, the director of The Goddess did not place too much in revealing social exploitation and oppression. The director exhibited the social harsh through the relationship between the prostitute with other people, including her neighbours, the master of her son's school, the gangsters and other children's parents. The prostitute gained sympathy and helps from some kind people; but mostly she had to suffer the mistreatment from the evil people as well as the discrimination from the middle-class in her society. The implicit expression help director enhanced the social tragedy meaning for the disadvantaged group.

The role of prostitute was performed by Ruan Lingyu who successfully shaped a woman living a dual life. As a prostitute, she abandoned her self-respect as a woman while standing at the night street to make a deal with clients. In the other hand, she had never forgotten to take her responsibilities as a mother. For example, when she returned home with a tired face every morning, the first thing what she did was to see her son. However, his son was isolated by school peers and was required to drop out because his mother was prostitute. The prostitute became the obstacle to her son; and her basic rights as mother was deprived. The image of prostitute has double tragedy meanings. This is a silent movie. The actress, Ruan lingyu, used different body language to express duel personalities of that woman, for example, seeing through the legs of that gangster, her panic face and desperate eyes. The inner world of that character has been performed by implicit facial expression and dull body movement. Yun's body language is natural but restricted, which creates a sense of elegant and classical aesthetics.

The director has been influenced by symbolism and European pioneer films (Meyer, 2005). The approach to narration in this film does not follow the routines of traditional Chinese drama. The dramatic conflicts have not been enhanced by strong external actions and emotion tensions. The director more focuses on the character's psychological descriptions in the climax of the plot. For example, the prostitute was raped by that gangster; the prostitute killed that gangster; and the prostitute was in the court. There are a lot of lens that express psychological change of the characters through eyes and facial expression. In addition, aligning with Chinese aesthetic approach, this film enhance the visual effects by the means of light and the picture composition. This film also emphasizes the details design. For example, the environment landscape has been repeated through leans; and the feet of prostitutes while walking in the street to meet clients. The subtle and plain cinematographic technique create a flowing but deep style.

Chinese aesthetic artistic conception has gone through the film. This film is about a story of prostitute. The title of this film – The Goddess – is actually borrowed from Chinese classical literature works, which is a euphemistic saying of women who are keeping immoral sexual relationship with men. The occupation of the character in the film is a prostitute. The tile has conveyed a implicit meaning for audiences about the content of story. The character's psychological desperation and performance form have not any erotic meanings; it is very clean instead. This is in consisting with Chinese traditional euphemism expression and subtle art style. Because of realistic social meanings, implicit narrative approach, subtle cinematographic and the outstanding performance of actress, The Goddess is one of the most important movies in the history of Chinese cinema.

References

Meyer, R.J. (2005). Ruan Ling-Yu: The goddess of Shanghai. Hong Kong University Press.

The Goddess (Chinese: Shen nu) (1934) Wu Yonggang

As an ancient Chinese poet has mentioned before, "it is even mesmerizing to be silent rather than with sound"... this is what i would like to quote here to describe the feeling when i was watching " Shennv".

A quite simple plot, but truly a heartbreak story...Even though it is not a talkie, no background music( the VCD version i watched), no color, but her splendid acting already captured my heart, the way she express the sorrow and the ambivalent being a wonderful mother and a depressed prostitute is simply captivating...I am wandering how a young actress (she should be 24 at that time), without any formal education of performing art, will able to achieve such a superb and impressive acting skills...no doubt she has become one of the screen legend in cinema history...

it is no doubt a genuine classics in Chinese silent cinema, worth watching...

The Goddess (1934)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely good silent drama from China about a devoted and loving mother (Lingyu Ruan) who wants the best for her young child so by night she works as a prostitute. This leads her to take all sorts of abuse by the other women in her area but worse of all is the abuse she takes from a man (Zhizhi Zhang) who pretty much takes possession of her. THE GODDESS is without question a true gem and certainly one of the best Chinese pictures I've seen from this era. It's easy to see why this film was such a hit in China when it was originally released and especially when one learns that many women in that era were working as prostitutes to support themselves. Making a silent film in 1934 certainly wasn't the norm at the time but I honestly don't think this movie would have worked had there been sound. Director Yonggang Wu does a masterful job at making everything flow so well that the added words would have just taken away from its poetic beauty. The film flows from one bad situation to the next and after a while you begin to realize that whenever something nice happens for the young mother then sure enough something bad will follow. What really makes this film work so well is the amazing performance by Ruan who apparently felt many of the same emotions as this character. From what I've read, before this film she had several suicide attempts and she eventually did kill herself about a year after this picture was released. Her performance is simply one of the best from this era in any film because of the emotion and love she shows for her kid. Even better is when the pain of her situation and "job" begin to haunt her. Zhang, who plays the abusive jerk, is certainly a major snake that people will have no trouble in hating. The only negative thing is that the film never really bothers to tell us how the mother got into this situation and there's really no explanation as to why she doesn't try doing something else. Still, THE GODDESS is without question a real gem with one of the best performances that you're going to see.

This silent film comes from the "social conscious" school of Chinese filmmakers of the mid-thirties and deals with the problems facing a single mother who has slipped into a life of prostitution, partly from a desire to maintain her child. It's very much of a "studio" film, with few exteriors and rather limited sets.

Despite some melodramatic aspects of the story, the acting is quite well-done. In fact the primary interest of the film is due to the sensitive and luminescent performance of the star, Ruan Lingyu. Since the story concerns the plight of a woman (and her child) who suffers from scornful remarks made by those around her, there is an extra element of interest associated with the fact that Ruan Lingyu committed suicide shortly after making this film, apparently because of malicious gossip made about her private life.

Technically, the film features some inventive camera work, considering the mundane sets. The editing, however, is not first-rate, with numerous jump cuts and camera-axis crossings. Another surprising element is the text length of some of the titles. Many of the titles seem unnecessarily long.

In any case, the film is carried along by the emotive performance of Ruan Lingyu. This film is well worth seeing.