Lyceum Theatre
At the beginning of "Lyceum Theatre", Yu Jin, a female star who carries the hatred of the family and the country, returns to the bustling and chaotic island of Shanghai in the film, and turns to her with shaky handheld photography, and suddenly quiets down, staring at this expressionless and worried face for a long time, as if she wants to read the undercurrent under the silent.
We can't help but think that in the classic "Red Sorghum" of the fifth generation thirty years ago, the camera also stared at the same expressionless and worried face - the bride Jiu'er who was sold by her father to lepers in the flower palanquin. This face seems to have an inexplicable power that freezes the camera.
From the fifth generation of emerging works to the sixth generation of transformation and change, the long years separated by thirty years and the huge differences in intergenerational aesthetics are so suitably conquered by the same face, as if this face represents an eternal beauty. The gloomy and confused black-and-white images of the sixth-generation director Lou Ye and the bright and saturated red-toned images of the fifth-generation director Zhang Yimou finally intersected at this time. Gong Li's face, expression, posture, and gait, unpredictable but solid and clear, have become a narrative thread throughout the past three decades of Chinese cinema.
As an oriental visual image
It is said that in the 1990s, when Westerners talked about China, they blurted out Kung Fu, the Great Wall and Gong Li. This often mentioned but perhaps fictional claim carries a certain not without exaggeration. But it is not an exaggeration to say that at the end of the 1980s, it was the image of Gong Li in "Red Sorghum" that defined the visual impression of Chinese women by Western audiences at that time.
Red Sorghum
When discussing Chinese actresses, there is a generally accepted division: the 1980s was the era of Liu Xiaoqing, the 1990s was the era of Gong Li, and the new century was the era of Zhang Ziyi. This division may seem simple and crude, but it is actually quite accurate.
Perhaps some people have objections to Liu Xiaoqing's representativeness, and will cite Pan Hong and Si Qinggaowa, whose works are equivalent, or Chen Chong and Zhang Yu, whose works are not enough but have high national recognition. But for Gong Li, no one can name a mainland actress of the same period who can compete with her. In terms of the weight, popularity or influence of her work, Gong Li is worthy of being the most important film actor in the Chinese mainland of the 1990s.
In 1988, Gong Li, a second year of college, played the heroine Jiu'er in the debut of the fifth-generation director Zhang Yimou, "Red Sorghum". The film won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, setting a precedent for Chinese films to win the highest awards at the three major european film festivals. Since then, the fifth generation has brought Chinese films into the mainstream vision of the West. After that, Zhang Yimou's "Ju Dou" and "Big Red Lantern Hanging High" were also shortlisted for the three major European film festivals, and Gong Li continued to star on the screen as a female figure with a certain oriental visual spectacle, which more or less coincided with the cultural imagination of Mainstream Western society for China at that time, and Gong Li became the international label of Chinese women.
Gong Li, who wore a traditional Chinese cheongsam and made a stunning appearance on the red carpet of Western film festivals, let the world see a kind of beauty that belongs to the East. The visual image constructed by Gong Li in the late 1980s has become a solid aesthetic model, and for a long time, it has dominated the shape of Chinese female stars on the red carpet of Western film festivals - qipao, dragon robe pattern, folk flowers have become China's visual symbols. These classic shapes have been imitated by many actresses who appeared at international film festivals, but they have never been surpassed.
Cannes
Although the visual presentation of the early screen images is relatively single, the personality depth of these female characters portrayed by Gong Li far exceeds the limitations of the visual level and presents the complex cultural connotation and artistic expression of Chinese films.
Face as a fifth-generation visual label
Gong Li's face, which has become an irreplaceable keyword when we define the fifth generation of films, is the visual representation and aesthetic concept of the fifth generation. Almost all of the most important works of the fifth generation in the 1990s were played by Gong Li.
Her most important film roles have a stubborn and stubborn personality. This personality trait also exists in the roles played by Liu Xiaoqing and Zhang Ziyi, perhaps because in traditional Chinese culture, forbearance is often an important virtue of women, or perhaps Chinese some kind of underlying psychological anxiety, believing that only tenacity can fight against the various unknowns and uncertainties in life. Liu Xiaoqing in "Furong Town" and "Spring Peach" is a stubbornness that is implicitly forbearing, and Zhang Ziyi in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is aggressive and ambitious, the former is repressive and the latter is aggressive.
Gong Li's stubbornness is manifested as a complex desire to look inward and outward at the same time, as if walking a tightrope on the boundary between forbearance and release, both cautious and at any time with an impulse to jump down.
This desire to be suppressed and bound but always want to break through, presented in Gong Li's first few characters, is a kind of "woman in the iron house" - a female image that is suppressed and persecuted by feudal society, but finally wakes up. These masterpieces of the fifth generation, such as Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum", "Ju Dou", "Big Red Lantern Hanging High", "Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma's Bridge", etc., all tell about women's actions and desires against fate, and the repressed female characters created by Gong Li are not willing to be at the mercy of fate, and there is a kind of stubbornness in their bones that refuses to go against the grain.
"The Big Red Lantern Hangs High"
Zhang Yimou's early films show the suppression and distortion of individual life and human nature by the feudal tradition, and in the social rules derived from this deformed culture, they contain a kind of original passion that is about to burst out at any time, and Gong Li has become the visual carrier of this repressed passion and vitality. This primitive passion and vitality of life is replaced by a kind of female emotion in Zhang Yimou's films. Through her face, her expression, her eyes and her movements, Gong Li shows the character's suppressed but exhaled desire.
Gong Li's vivid and full body, as the object of desire and the object of gaze, is presented on the screen under the wrapping of the visual symbols of oriental wonders (the flower palanquin head of "Red Sorghum", the red lantern of "Big Red Lantern Hanging High", and the gorgeous dyeing cloth of "Ju Dou"). However, if it is simply presented as a sexy and beautiful female figure, Gong Li can never become the domineering "Gong Huang" in the audience's heart. In those repressive and restless fifth-generation female characters, Gong Li transcends the passive position of women as objects of desire, and changes from being gazed at as an object of desire to a reverse subject of desire.
Whether it is the gaze of Jiu'er gazing at the naked back of the palanquin in "Red Sorghum", the bold desire displayed when facing the robbers, or the gaze of Ju Dou turning his naked body to face the voyeuristic gaze in "Ju Dou", or the desire of Song Lian for the young master in "The Big Red Lantern Hangs High", they are full of active and flamboyant erotic power.
《Ju Dou》
These characters are both repressed women in traditional China and have powerful life energy and passion, so the final destruction is often thrilling.
As a beauty close to the idea
In addition to the fifth generation of films, in the subsequent domestic art films, commercial films and Hollywood films, Gong Li's beauty seems to be harmonious. In addition to the recognized solid acting skills, of course, it is inseparable from the complex, unique, and changeable beauty that Gong Li has.
French researcher Jacqueline Nakas, in her book Film Actors, distinguishes between two kinds of beauty in which actresses exist. One is the beauty of a female star, a brief reproduction of the ideals of the times carried by a certain character. For example, Angelababy, Liu Yifei or Gao Yuanyuan. Another beauty is deeper and more distinctive, and through creative work, it is better remembered. For example, Isabelle Hupper, Juliet Binoche, Gong Li, Maggie Cheung.
This distinction is somewhat close to that of Roland Barthes, who argued that Garbo's face was the idea, while Hepburn's face was the event. Thus the beauty of Garbo is eternal. Gong Li's beauty is also such an eternal, close to the concept of beauty.
For cinematic expression, what creates all the emotions, meanings and depths contained in a shot, the answer is the face. From this, it can be understood why Gong Li's face is a powerful visual evidence of the fifth generation of film concepts, and why she cannot be replaced? It can be imagined that the female image in Zhang Yimou's previous films, replaced by any actress, will not be as appropriate and appropriate as Gong Li. Chen Chong is too foreign, Pan Hong is too urban, Si Qinggaowa is more rustic, Liu Xiaoqing is less feminine, and Zhang Yu is lacking a point of stubbornness.
"Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma's Bridge"
Only Gong Li, no more, no less, simple but not pure, sexy but not stylish, stubborn but not rigid. Therefore, Gong Li's performance of Jiu'er, Song Lian, and Ju Dou, who are newly married girls, is very convincing in terms of visual image and personality.
Therefore, it is not surprising that some people will criticize Gong Li when questioning her beauty, saying that she is a native and a village. Because Gong Li's beauty is complex, ambiguous, and changeable, it is in a sense not standard enough, so it is a beauty that cannot be defined by norms. An interesting circumstantial evidence is that the Japanese actress Momoe Yamaguchi, who is believed to be similar to Gong Li, is also seen in Japan as a visual representation of the era.
Indeed, compared with standard beauties such as Li Jiaxin and Guan Zhilin, Gong Li's face is not three-dimensional enough, her eyes are not large enough, her nose is not straight enough, and her mouth is too round. However, Gong Li's imperfect and prominent facial features have reached a wonderful harmony - a kind of beauty with gaps and not too much saturation, so there is a space for generating meaning. Facing the screen, we always can't help but stare at Gong Li's face for a long time. On the contrary, some actors who are very stunning in the still photo may not necessarily have the desire to continue to watch in the movie.
In the film, the beauty of a character is given by the viewer, often exceeding all standards and even reaching the level of irrationality. This is because the film has an ability to make beauty express something different from its own performance or not, and the beauty of the film character is not a fixed attribute, but should be an action, an emotion, a meaning.
"Jing Ke Thorn Qin King"
Therefore, beauty in the standard sense is less necessary for movies. Angelababy, for example, may be more suitable for some print magazines or commercial films. For the film, the beauty of the film, such as Li Jiaxin's beauty, undoubtedly has a direct and strong attraction to the viewer, but for the actor's performance, this beauty has a hidden danger and trap. This beauty is definite, solid, straightforward, exposed—solid beauty. Therefore, it is stereotyped, because it is too eye-catching to change. When beauty is like bright direct light, nature is omnipotent, losing shadows and layers, so naturally rejects depth, rejects rich variation. Therefore, the visual image of such beautiful people as Guan Zhilin, Li Jiaxin and Qiu Shuzhen is usually relatively single in Hong Kong commercial films, and there is not much gap.
Cinema is born with the ability to make appearances visible. However, beauty that is too blunt sometimes seems to lose its ideographic potential. When the film is gradually liberated from the aesthetic tendency and tries to adopt a deep perspective and a variety of presentation methods on reality, it requires a more complex beauty, a beauty that does not change and flows. Therefore, the best film actresses, such as Gong Li or Maggie Cheung, are not an absolute, impeccable beauty, but with some small flaws in appearance. It is a more subtle, more tortuous and hidden beauty that needs to be recognized, but is also more expressive. Therefore, when we gaze at Gong Li's face on the screen, we can feel that her beauty has a growing power, attracting us to pay attention to the every move of the characters.
Zhou Yu's Train
As an acting textbook
As for Gong Li's acting skills, it seems that there is no need to say more. Gong Li, who is highly talented in acting, quickly reached the peak of her acting career with the help of China's fifth-generation films that surged on the international stage in the late 1980s and early 1990s - in 1992, she won the best actress at the 49th Venice International Film Festival with Zhang Yimou's "Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit", which was the first time that Chinese mainland actress won an international award. This role also allowed Gong Li to win the "Golden Rooster Award" for best actress in China.
Gong Li has created a variety of characters in her acting career. There is a strange two-sidedness to her character, both as a character she plays as and herself. She can have a thousand faces, but she has a unique self-characteristic. The delicate Jiu'er in "Red Sorghum", the sexy and brave Judou in "Judou", but in "Qiu Ju Fights a Lawsuit", she was reborn and became a rustic and simple rural woman. Gong Li's impressive roles are numerous, such as the pure to depraved little palace girl in "A Generation of Demon Queens", the sexy and charming gangster mistress in "Shake, Shake, Shake to Grandma Bridge", the fierce personality painter Pan Yuliang in "Painting The Soul", the dusty but passionate Ju Xian in "Farewell to the Overlord", Zhou Yu who wanders between two men in "Zhou Yu's Train", the laid-off single mother who stubbornly refuses to lose in "Pretty Mother", the mysterious and cold professional gambler in "2046", the sad and depressed mother in "Return", Three dozen white bone essences in the domineering and cold white bone essence. Gong Li easily switches between various roles with great differences in personality, image and age, showing her skill as an international film queen.
《2046》
Gong Li also starred in many Hong Kong commercial films in the 1990s, co-starring with Zhang Yimou in Li Bihua's original "Ancient and Modern Wars of Qin Figurines", co-starring with Lin Qingxia in "Tianlong Eight Parts of Tianshan Tongmao", and co-starring with Zhou Xingchi in "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang". These characters, often with legendary beauty, complement Gong Li's realistic characters in the fifth generation of films.
But it has to be pointed out that Gong Li's complex and meaningful beauty is inseparable from the cultural environment in which she is located, and it is the fifth generation of art films that have achieved Gong Li. Therefore, in Hong Kong commercial films, Gong Li is inevitably a little dissatisfied. Gong Li's few performances in her acting career are the well-known "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang". Because the women needed in Stephen Chow's commercial comedies are usually beautiful vases or pompous and funny clowns, Gong Li, who grew up in the fifth generation of art films, obviously cannot adapt to the nonsense comedy style born in the hong Kong commercial film environment. While she tends to be stunning in these films, this impression comes more from her looks than from her acting skills.
"Ancient and Modern Wars of Qin Figurines"
In fact, the best actor must have some limitations, and it must not be a jack-of-all-trade actor. Because, only by knowing where their boundaries are, it is possible to focus on their own dimensions and reach a height that ordinary people cannot reach. When some of the live videos and photos from the filming of "Win the Championship" were sent out, we were once again struck by Gong Li's dedication and her talent. Her gait, gestures, and expressions are almost the heroine of the women's volleyball team, Lang Ping himself.
"I think these films can be said to be my films, and it can also be said to be Gong Li's films, because she expresses a very strong personality in these films." Zhang Yimou's evaluation of Gong Li can be seen as the most direct and unreserved praise for Gong Li's performance.
In 1996, Gong Li became the first Chinese actress to appear on the cover of Time magazine, which also proved that she has become the most attractive oriental actress in the hearts of film fans around the world, a perfect woman who combines subtlety, introversion, perseverance and sexiness. In addition, she was the first Chinese actress to endorse the French makeup brand L'Oréal, listed by People as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world, and even won the French Knight's Medal of Honor. If it is said that after winning the international film festival, Gong Li was recognized by the world as an actor, then the endorsement of international brands and the cover of mainstream Western magazines prove that Gong Li has already broken down ethnic barriers and become an international superstar with an oriental face but world influence.
"Homecoming"
"Miami Storm" in 2006 and "Young Hannibal" in 2007 are some of Gong Li's films that tested the waters of Hollywood. Due to the limitations of the role of Asian faces in Hollywood movies, Gong Li eventually gave up Hollywood and chose to return to China to create some more in-depth characters, but Gong Li's several works in Hollywood are all cooperation with first-line directors and actors, which also proves her international influence. Her performances are also frequently selected as the greatest film performances in many Western film magazines.
Gong Li has also been invited to serve as a jury member (including the chairman of the jury) at the three major international film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice, and was accepted as a member of the Oscar jury very early, which is one of the few Chinese actresses highly recognized by the West, which only Maggie Cheung can compete with. Zhang Ziyi and Shu Qi, who have also served as judges of international film festivals, still have a big gap with Gong Li in the weight of their works.
Going back to what I said at the beginning of this article, Gong Li is worthy of being the most important film actor in the Chinese mainland of the 1990s. However, when "The Return", "Win the Championship" and "Lyceum Theatre" were released one after another, we found that the time of "1990s" seemed to be far from enough to demarcate the boundaries of Gong Li, and it was too early to define what position Gong Li would have in the history of Chinese cinema.
Author: Liu Qi (Postdoctoral Fellow in Communication Studies, Young Scholar of China Film Art Center)
Editor: Zhou Minxian
Planner: Shao Ling
Editor-in-Charge: Wei Zhong
The picture is synthesized from Douban
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.