The Sorrow of the Times: Analysis of the Image of Women in a River of Spring Water Flowing Eastward
Shandong Normal University New Transmission College Drama, Film and Television Literature Class 2020 Class 2 Zhao Chenyu
Three different women, three distinct personalities, three different living conditions, three similar but different endings.
Su Fen is a very typical traditional Chinese woman, she is industrious and optimistic, gentle and virtuous, loyal and unswerving. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, there was no male labor force in the family, the husband was outside the anti-Japanese war, and the younger brother went up to the mountains to fight guerrillas, relying on her to support the whole family and take care of the elderly and children. Witnessing his father-in-law being hanged by the Japanese, hiding from the Japanese to survive, turning around, experiencing various tribulations, but still not losing hope in life, gritting his teeth and persevering, and trying to live. In the stormy night, the storm destroyed the original fragile window, Su Fen placed her mother-in-law and son, rushed out of the house alone to put the fallen window back, let the rainstorm slap on her face, she did not complain, just said "everyone is suffering." And whenever their lives are a little better, they will be destroyed by the Japanese invaders, breaking the peace of life and pushing them into a deeper abyss, such a plot is full of drama, but it can be placed in the living environment of the people at that time, but it also seems very real. Life after the war seemed even more miserable, and she was forced to work as a maid in a rich family, while she was just waiting for her husband to return, hoping to take her out of the sea of suffering and live a stable and comfortable life. Until she met, a husband who married a new lover and flirted with other women, and supported her, all collapsed at this moment, choosing to escape, escaping and facing the life of chicken and egg fighting, and ending her miserable life by jumping into the river. She was cowardly, and when she confronted Zhang Zhongliang at the end, and even was insulted and insulted by Wang Lizhen, she did not say a word, but silently shed tears, watching in horror as her beloved incompetent man was beaten by Wang Lizhen. She is a young woman in the new era, who has gone to school and can read, but she still has not escaped the shackles of traditional family relations, and after losing the man as the center of family life, she used her life to end her short life.
Wang Lizhen is a rich lady, she is accustomed to a carefree life, do not understand the hardships of the life of the people at the bottom, have not experienced the pain of the War of Resistance, and have always had a carefree and hedonistic attitude towards life. Speaking without a cover, everything is centered on herself, looking down on the next person, is a princess who has been spoiled by others. At the same time, she was also a victim, she did not know that Zhang Zhongliang's relatives were still alive, and she thought that she was as helpless as he said, so she was relieved to marry Zhang Zhongliang, who had a better appearance. She is a cult object for everyone, and she can have almost anything she wants with money and status, including lovers. She had never been hit, but because of the infidelity of her "husband", she lost face in front of everyone, as if falling from the clouds to the ground, resulting in her later almost neurotic image. She has a strong desire to control and jealousy, she does not dare to let Zhang Zhongliang return to Shanghai alone, afraid that he will play around, after arriving in Shanghai, watching her cousin's interaction with Zhang Zhongliang, she secretly sulked, she is full of distrust of Zhang Zhongliang, she may know what Zhang Zhongliang looks at her, but habitual self-comfort, deception, the expectation is that Zhang Zhongliang has love for her, and when Su Fen, the real wife, appears, breaks all her fantasies, she becomes grumpy, like a shrew, irrationally scolding. She is both a winner and a loser, from Zhang Zhongliang's final anxious performance, it is not difficult to guess that Zhang Zhongliang finally chose her, abandoned his mother and son, and she won Su Fen. But Zhang Zhongliang's everything is only for her money, the occurrence of this incident also let Wang Lizhen see this man, there has been an irreparable gap between the two, the future has long been impossible to continue to live happily and peacefully, so forcing Zhang Zhongliang to "return to the family", but also just to maintain Wang Lizhen's own self-esteem.
He Wenyan is one of the most complex characters, before she found out that her husband was cheating, just like a traditional Chinese woman, single-mindedly paying for the family, for her husband to "run from place to place, try everything possible, suffer hardships", and also run around for her husband in prison, looking for a lawyer to help her husband get out of prison as soon as possible. But when she found out that there was another young and beautiful woman who went to visit her husband, she was not as grief-stricken as Peifen, nor did she scold like Wang Lizhen, she just coldly left a few words, and then stopped managing her husband in prison and began to live for herself. She immediately thought of Borrowing Zhang Zhongliang, who lived in her own home, and changed the name of her husband's deposit account to all the property. Knowing how to observe words and colors, when she saw Wang Lizhen jealous because of Zhang Zhongliang's interaction with herself, she raised a glass at the right time and said some auspicious words that blessed the harmony of their marriage, so that Wang Lizhen's mood instantly turned from yin to sunny. It is difficult to say whether she has ever had feelings for Zhang Zhongliang, when she watched Zhang Zhongliang and Wang Lizhen make love, she shed tears, I think the contact during this time also made her dependent and possessive. At the banquet, when Zhang Zhongliang avoided her outstretched feet, she instantly woke up, her face did not change color, and her mouth said words of blessing, but her heart broke off. For her, Zhang Zhongliang is just a tool person who can make her live a better life. Compared with Su Fen and Wang Lifang, she seems to be the most successful one, quietly but has everything. But she finally flirted with Manager Cui, it is not difficult to see the situation she will face in the future, her shrewdness and courage have not changed the tragedy brought by the times to women, she can only rely on men, circling between different men, to achieve her own goals. Even Wang Lizhen, if she left her father, she would become nothing.
The film was filmed during the Liberation War, and the people of the Kuomintang District did not wait for the happy and stable life they expected, but entered another hell. The darkness, corruption, severe inflation, and oppression of progressive intellectuals in Kuomintang rule have left the people living in dire straits. The works of art from this period directly express the lives of the people at the bottom, and the film is more real, cruel and has a strong critical nature. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Su Fen family was still able to survive and maintain a basic livelihood. After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he could not even send letters, there was almost no rice and clean water porridge was only enough for his mother-in-law and son to eat, and the rent could not be handed in for several months, and he was almost driven out by the landlord. Su Fen had to work as a maid, and her young son had to sell newspapers to subsidize the family. All the tragedies in the film take place after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, surviving the fierce War of Resistance Against Japan, but dying under the dictatorship of the Kuomintang. The extravagance and erosion of high-society life encroach on an otherwise progressive patriotic youth; the worsening of class contradictions has shaped three distinct female characters and led to their tragic end.
Now the female image of film and television works seems to have obvious "characteristics of the times", whether it is the silly white sweet character design that was popular before, or the current strong female character design, the characters are mostly flattened, and even when we see these people, we can almost guess the plot, and most of the audience has some aesthetic fatigue. In life, each of us has its own uniqueness, similarly, film and television works also need more distinctive, close to life character images, excellent character settings can even save a cheesy plot, get the audience's love. Just like the recently popular "Love is Delicious", although the plot is very old-fashioned, but because of the three heroines with completely different personalities, this drama has been greatly praised. The market needs to be diversified, and film and television works need to be innovative in order to keep up with the trend and not be eliminated by the times.
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