Shen nu

One of the most important productions of the golden age of Chinese films because of its symbolism was director Wu Yonggang's first endeavor,"The Goddess" (Shennu). The title of the film was the Shanghai way of describing a woman who sells her body. Ruan plays a prostitute who uses her earnings to support and educate her son. The heroine is forced to enter the oldest of professions, as it is the only way for her and her child to survive and to provide for his education. More than any other film, "The Goddess" captures the misery and hopelessness of China at the time. Ruan is the symbol of China's suffering. Only as a prostitute could she support her child and give him an education. "The Goddess" was a breakthrough for the director Wu in his sympathetic depiction of a prostitute. He used montage to portray Shanghai at night. He also shows that she was moral, but evil forces were the cause of her plight. A new DVD with English inter-titles and a beautiful piano score by Kevin Purrone is available from The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (www.silentfilm.org). My new book "Ruan Ling-yu: The Goddess of Shanghai" published by Hong Kong University Press tells the tragic story of Ruan Ling-yu.

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.

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

The Goddess (Lingyu Ruan) works the Shanghai street as a prostitute to raise her beloved son. She falls under the control of The Boss. She tries to escape the life but she is pushed back in. He's an illiterate sadistic brute who even pretends to sell her son to put her in fear. Her son is ostracized by the other kids and she uses her hard earned money to pay for an education. The other parents find out and try to get him expelled. The elderly principal struggles to let him stay but he is unsuccessful. The boss steals the money she had hidden away.

This is a throughly modern movie. It's a silent movie from China. The lead actress is terrific. It is such a downtrodden portrayal. It's also amazing to see Shanghai during its 30s Golden Age. This is a treasure of a time gone by.

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.