At 18:38 on March 8, 1935, Ruan Lingyu, the most popular actress in the thirties, committed suicide by taking 30 sleeping pills at the age of 25.
After her death, hundreds of thousands of people in Shanghai took to the streets to pay her a funeral, and even several fans committed suicide.
Her lover, Tang Jishan, has since published two suicide notes, pointing directly to her suicide because of "fearsome words" in her life.
Even Lu Xun wrote "On the Fearsome Words of Man"" to complain.
Soon, however, Tang Jishan's sister Liang Saizhen, a dancer, released Ruan's true suicide note, and in Ruan's original text, there was only a rebuke to Zhang Damin and Tang Jishan's shamelessness and meanness.
The authenticity of the two sets of suicide notes and the true cause of Ruan Lingyu's death have always been debated.
Guan Jinpeng's 1991 film "Ruan Lingyu" retains the words of the two sets of suicide notes in the film.
The film is also the main channel for most contemporary audiences to get to know one of China's best actors.
The movie "Ruan Lingyu" does not directly tell the life of Ruan Shi, but mixes the comments of the film's creators, interviews with witnesses at that time, and Ruan Lingyu's film clips into the plot of the choreography.
Director Kwan Kam Peng tried to use a similar "separation" technique to avoid the audience from immersing themselves in Ruan Lingyu's emotional world.
You will find that whenever you reach the emotional high point of the choreography part, you will insert the discussion of Maggie Cheung, Leung Ka-fai, Liu Jialing, Qin Han, Wu Qihua and others on the events of the time, the emotions of the characters, the career of the actors, the public opinion of the audience, and so on.
Even, at the end of the picture of Ruan Lingyu's funeral, the scene materials that are generally regarded as "shooting tidbits" are frequently cut into the main film, and the act, the drama before and after the cut, and the costume change are not cut.
Our eyes wander between the real Ruan Lingyu, the ruan lingyu who plays, the Ruan Lingyu who plays someone else, and Maggie Cheung who thinks about Ruan Lingyu's life.
It seems that Guan Jinpeng wants the audience to join him in examining this "public opinion incident" decades ago with a calm attitude and an objective perspective.
The film begins with Ruan Lingyu joining Lianhua Pictures in 1930 and starring in Sun Yu's "Wild Grass Idle Flowers" and "Spring Dream of the Old Capital".
Before entering Lianhua, Ruan Lingyu, who entered the industry in 1926, has been mixing in entertainment and strange films, until the completion of these two films, she embarked on the road of acting and became one of the most attractive stars.
Maggie Cheung, who plays Ruan Lingyu, has a similar acting career and was once regarded as a vase, until starring in Wong Kar Wai's film, and then embarked on the road to film queen.
In the plot of the previous hour and a half, Guan Jinpeng carried out an art film-style treatment, without too many ups and downs and exciting plots, showing Ruan Lingyu's daily life, work and emotions in the way of life flow.
In Ruan Lingyu's life, there have been three loves - Zhang Damin, Tang Jishan and Cai Chusheng.
Zhang Daming came from a large family, Ruan's mother worked in his home, and the young girl Ruan Lingyu quickly became fascinated with this young master.
However, Zhang Daminkong has the identity of a big and young man, but he does not learn no skills, and after Ruan Lingyu became a movie star, Zhang Daming relied on her to provide for him;
Wealthy businessman Tang Jishan specializes in raising actresses and dancers, and met Ruan Lingyu when she was hiding from the war in Hong Kong.
After returning to Shanghai, Ruan Lingyu separated from Zhang Damin and lived in a small Western-style building purchased for her by Tang Jishan;
Cai Chusheng is a film director, similar origins, creative thinking, so that the two people in the cooperation of the faint feelings.
Hindered by Cai Chusheng's family, in the end, Ruan Lingyu and him only had a heartfelt ceremony.
However, these 30s female celebrity gossip hot searches are not what Guan Jinpeng most wants to show to the audience.
What he wants the audience to see is a tenacious performance artist.
From 1930 to 1933, Ruan Lingyu successively starred in "Wild Grass Idle Flowers", "Spring Dream of the Ancient Capital", "Peach Blossom Crying Blood", "Gadgets", "City Night", "Three Modern Women", "Xiangxuehai" and so on.
The director tried to reconstruct the filming process of these parts that had been scattered in the film.
Through Maggie Cheung's performance, we can see why Ruan Lingyu was the most popular actress at that time.
In the prologue to Wild Grass and Flowers, she plays a mother who bites her finger in the snow to feed her baby.
Ruan Lingyu, who has never given birth, will ask her friends in detail about the feeling of childbirth, the mentality of finding her mother, and will lie in the real snow, feeling the cold and hunger.
In "Gadgets", she and Li Lili played a mother and daughter who died in the war.
Li Lili was always unable to find the emotions at the end of her life, and Ruan Lingyu taught her that although she was in pain at this time, she did not want her mother to suffer.
As a result, Li Lili realized that she was lying calmly in Ruan Lingyu's arms, and wiped Ruan Lingyu's tears with her fingers.
This was a stroke of genius in the silent film era, when it was still keen on exaggerated performances.
At the beginning of the preparation of "Three Modern Women", director Bu Wancang did not intend to play Ruan Lingyu, who was accustomed to playing a noble and charming woman, to play Zhou Shuzhen, a female worker representing the revolution.
In order to win the role, Ruan Lingyu wiped her lip gloss in front of Bu Wancang, raised her hair bun, and boasted that if the film failed, she would take responsibility for herself.
In the end, Ruan Lingyu challenged herself and broke through successfully, which was very different from Ruan Lingyu's previous image of Zhou Shuzhen, making "Three Modern Women" the most socially influential work of the "left-wing film movement".
As a star actor, Ruan Lingyu is extremely socially conscious, and her later starring roles are works that reflect social problems, call for ideological progress, and emphasize national resistance.
At the same time, Ruan Lingyu's performance ideas beyond the standard limits of the silent film era have allowed her to portray characters that can still impress the audience today.
Her two most iconic films, "Goddess" and "New Woman", not only became her life-telling charm at the time, but also became a portrayal of her fate.
The movie "Goddess" tells the story of the goddess who fell to the street to support her son, first became a prostitute, and then was forcibly occupied by hooligans...
The tragedy of the goddess's life lies not only in poverty, but in the fact that the whole society "hates prostitution more than hates poverty."
Except for the headmaster, no one cared about why the goddess had fallen, they only cared about the "dirty" result, they only wanted to hate and rebuke the result.
In "New Woman", Wei Ming, played by Ruan Lingyu, is the same as the goddess, she committed suicide in suffering and rumors, and when she died, she saw rumors and slander in the newspaper and shouted "Help me!" I want to live! I want revenge! ”
In "New Women", the tabloid reporter, in order to seek "exclusive" disregard for human nature, was opposed by the Shanghai Journalists Association, demanding that Lianhua Company publicly apologize and delete the bridge section of the reporter in the film.
Soon, the reporters pointed their pens at the heroine of the film, Ruan Lingyu.
When Ruan Lingyu and Zhang Damin agreed to divorce, they promised to give Zhang monthly living expenses, but Zhang, who was insatiable and unable to support himself, quickly started Ruan Lingyu's idea.
Zhang Damin, in order to blackmail, tore up the old agreement and sued Ruan Lingyu Tang Jishan.
The news reporter was moved by the wind and began to make a big fuss in the newspaper about how Ruan Lingyu committed adultery, sexual affair, and the erosion of her private life, and even told the story of "Goddess" and "New Woman" that Ruan Lingyu and her mother were told.
Rumors are rife, and there are countless people pointing at Ruan Lingyu behind their backs.
Tang Jishan did not understand Ruan Lingyu's pain and helplessness at this time, and Ruan Lingyu also realized that even if the lawsuit was won, in the eyes of the public, she and Tang Jishan would always be a pair of "adulterers and adulteresses".
On the eve of Women's Day, Ruan Lingyu went to the home of Lianhua boss Li Minwei to attend a party.
At the party, she drank, talked, danced, enjoyed herself, and hugged and kissed with her friends and family.
No one realized that she was saying goodbye to the whole world.
That night, Ruan Lingyu left a suicide note, and Tang Jishan took care of her mother and adopted daughter, poured thirty sleeping pills into the porridge and swallowed them, and passed away unexpectedly.
Director Kwan Kam Peng recorded Ruan Lingyu's two suicide notes on "people are fearful of words" and "what crimes are fearsome" through Maggie Cheung's narration in the film.
He did not film the exciting drama of how Tang Jishan forged the suicide note and delayed the delivery of the doctor, causing the lack of skills to return to heaven.
Instead, he recorded the memories of a large number of people who had lived with Ruan Lingyu at Ruan Lingyu's funeral.
Fei Mu, Li Minwei, Cai Chusheng, Bu Wancang, Sun Yu, Wu Yonggang... These famous figures in the history of Chinese cinema either sit or stand by Ruan Lingyu's body to remember her various benefits and conscience.
Ruan Lingyu, who had only heard evil words and humiliation before committing suicide, if she could hear these people's evaluation of herself when she was alive, she might not have gone to the end of the road.
However, the truth is that when Ruan Lingyu pointed fingers and carried a lawsuit, including Cai Chusheng, who had filmed "New Woman" with Ruan Lingyu, they all flinched.
None of them pulled Ruan Lingyu.
As a result, this emotionally rich talented actor and a new woman who knows how to resist and progress embarked on the most resolute road of resistance, stagnating her beautiful life at the age of twenty-five.
Regardless of whether Ruan Lingyu wrote "Fearsome Words" before she died, she eventually died of "Human Words".
Zhang Damin's despicableness is the chief evil, Tang Jishan's selfishness is an accessory, and the reporter who chases after "peach news" and uses slander to stir up public opinion is the handle of the knife.
And incited by the report, everyone who insults Ruan Lingyu, sees Ruan Lingyu's jokes, and is indifferent to Ruan's encounter is a blade.
Everyone is a murderer.
Ruan Lingyu's nerves were blocked by sleeping pills; and Ruan Lingyu's spirit was cut off by the entire public opinion.
How painful it was when sending the funeral, how much remorse she was in the remembrance, it was useless, and Ruan Lingyu, who was killed, could not hear it.
Ruan Lingyu as a female star, unfortunately, everything in her life is peeped as a spectacle;
Fortunately, as a movie star, the dark film will forever engrave her squinting eyes and sweet smile, so that her tragedy and the tragic character she played are remembered to this day.
But in contemporary times, ordinary people will also be spied on by the camera and targeted by media opinion, and everything in ordinary people's lives will also be placed on the information flow for the past to be evaluated.
But similar encounters for ordinary people are not necessarily remembered.
Even if it causes heated discussion, in exchange for the black character hot search on the tragic white screen, in a few days, the hot search and discussion will naturally lose heat together.
Then, rumors and bad words will turn to the next target, a new "Ruan Lingyu"...
In the Douban hot review of the movie "New Woman", there is such a sentence that "if I think Wei Ming lives today, he should not die, and Ruan Lingyu is also".
In fact, "New Woman" has never been less than a film and television work that explores the conscience of the news, the violence of public opinion, and tries to be a warning to today.
"The Distance Between Us and Evil", which has set off a ratings frenzy, is to tell how the rabble-rousers attracted by the media and internet public opinion who are good at inciting emotions and winning heat are "killing".
Last year's "The Day It Became You", through the love story of exchanging bodies with the star, also denounced gossip reporters for chasing gimmicks.
Including the "Beginning" of the fire some time ago, Wang Xingde and his wife were stimulated, but also because their daughter changed from a victim to a "mentally retarded" in the internet gossip that wantonly commented on video bloggers for the sake of gaining heat and attention...
However, these events happen over and over again in reality.
Too many people hide in closed circles, following the clouds of public opinion, projecting their emotions onto people and things they don't know at all.
The rich media and fragmented information escalated the damage that Ruan Lingyu had suffered to a greater extent.
In the contemporary era when everyone is a netizen, whether it is a person who makes a bad comment or is badly criticized, it is difficult to know what kind of person is on the other side of the network line.
This is not just a matter of denouncing a "cyber violence".
This is closely related to the thinking of society as a whole. And this kind of thinking, not only has not disappeared with the progress of the world, but even with the concealment of the network, it has been infinitely amplified.
Perhaps, the world really will not change?
We are like the world.