Introduction: Left-wing films in the absence of the Messenger of Justice and the Heinous Double Absence.
Shortly after the founding of the Left League, left-wing literary and art workers under the leadership of the Communist Party of China officially entered the film industry, and there was a vigorous left-wing film movement. As a left-wing film shouldering the responsibility of the forerunner of the times, many films reflecting the reality of society and the times were shot during this period, opening up a new direction for the development of Chinese films, creating the tradition of Chinese film realism, and driving the overall leap of Chinese films.
The director of the film is Cheng Bugao, who has filmed "Wild Currents", and the fine scene scheduling, the display of camera positions at various angles and the special camera movement in the film are undoubtedly the director's meticulous control, which adds the fun of watching and the documentary nature of the picture to the whole film. At the beginning of the film, more than thirty seconds of long shots appear from the plaque on the door of "Shundri", the camera follows the garbage truck slowly into the alley, to a door, although the picture is not very stable, but it is such a shot that allows us to see the small environment in which the story takes place, and also sets the smooth tone of the whole film. This is cheng bugao's "sports skills", long motion shots must be rare in that era, and it is such a director's skill that presents us with such a complete and smooth film.
The story of "New and Old Shanghai" comes from the screenwriter Hong Shen, it does not have a strong sense of educating the masses like some left-wing films, but it uses an almost white painting technique to draw a picture of the ordinary life of the most ordinary people, from which we can't see that it has any emotional color, it seems to simply record the parents in the lives of several families, which shows that left-wing films advocate the "popularization" and "popularization" of films.
Such a story was screened at the time, which would give the public more recognition and thus increase the love of the film. What is even more incredible is that some of the social problems reflected in the film at that time still exist: housing shortage, how to solve unemployment and layoffs, the gap between rich and poor, the problem of husband and wife relations, and the education of children, etc., are still our current social hotspots. Such a plot was rare in the left-wing trend of thought at that time, and it was ignored, but it should not be ignored.
In addition to the special nature of the story itself, the character portrayal should be the biggest highlight in the film, in "New and Old Shanghai" each character is complete, multi-faceted, there is no absolute good, nor is it absolute evil. This is different from the previous and left-wing films, in which no one is an absolute "messenger of justice" or a villain who does nothing wrong, which seems to be closer to our real life.
At the beginning of the film, we are painted with a picture of the sentient beings of the small citizens: one morning at six o'clock, the car Fugentai and his wife got up at six o'clock, and the employer had to use the car at seven o'clock, so they went out early; the second landlady who got up early in the morning to clean up the house; Mr. Chen, a teacher who lived in the cabinet room and was woken up by the early landlady; Mr. Fan and her sick wife and children who ran the street in the carpentry shop; the dancing sisters who had just returned from the dance hall in the morning; and Mr. Yuan who got up early to "go to work". The film spends one-fifth of its time describing such an ordinary morning, but it allows us to see that the life of every family is not easy, and it is also a microcosm of the real life scene of the bottom Shanghai citizens under the Great Depression in Shanghai at that time.
The second landlady does not occupy the most important part of the whole movie, but the appearance of the second landlady makes the six families inextricably linked, and the display of the landlady in the film shows us that the landlord is not only "good or bad". A scene that often appears in the film is that the landlady sits in the parlor, watching each household in and out, and then a few seemingly casual greetings, only standing up and saying hello when Mr. Yuan, who has good living conditions, such a simple plot design and detailed description, the landlady is good at observing the color, the mind is meticulous and the character characteristics of the snobbish and money-minded character are vividly expressed, which seems to be a representative image of an "evil" landlord.
But later, when the landlady knew that the life of the Yuan couple was not good, she also burned his favorite braised hoof for Mr. Yuan during the festival, and only asked for rent from Mr. Fan's family, who had already owed her three months of housing money, when she owed the big landlord two months of housing money, which not only made the landlady's character image three-dimensional, but also closer to reality, so that we saw a real character, rather than the "paper man" who appeared in the story.
The most important characters in the film are the Yuan couple, and the portrayal of the two in the film can also be described as meticulous. Mr. Yuan works in the silk factory, has a relatively decent identity occupation, in these six families is the best life, but because of the Shanghai economic downturn, the silk factory stopped working, Mr. Yuan wants to face, still insist on getting up early to "go to work", in fact, to go to the tea house to pass the time, the family has no source of income, but also to maintain the previous decent life, in order not to make the landlady suspicious. Later, when they won five thousand pieces, they said that the braised hooves were not eaten, for fear that the neighbors would know that they had made a fortune, so it seemed that Mr. Yuan was a good-looking, hypocritical, and stingy person.
But there is also such a scene in the plot, Mr. Yuan only uses the money he should use to barely make up the money to repay others, but when mr. Fan, a neighbor who is unemployed and has a poor family, opens his mouth to him to borrow some money to see a doctor, he is too generous. He may also have lent money to neighbors for the sake of face, but it is also a similar scene that allows Mr. Yuan to have a more faceted understanding. And it is this kind of neighborhood neighbors who are wary of each other, look at each other but are in the same boat, and tide over difficulties together is a true portrayal of that era, and it is also a multi-faceted presentation of everyone.
And Mrs. Yuan seems to be a hot and unreasonable woman, always talking to her husband when the other party is dumb, but at the same time considerate of her husband, she is still a new woman with a relatively "advanced" idea, "as if a woman will not have money", "you have your own money, I naturally have my own money", "these five yuan are poor and can't go anywhere, and the wide is not where to go.". These few lines also made Mrs. Yuan speak for the majority of women in the society at that time, enriched the character characteristics of the character, and made the character image of Mrs. Yuan plump.
In addition, the Yuan couple contracted most of the laughs in the whole film, and the dialogue between the two is still fashionable today, as a comedy, I think the most classic part of it is the dialogue between the two lying on the bed after the wife has won five thousand one hundred pieces. Both said go to sleep fast, but they couldn't help but make plans for five thousand pieces, and then secretly laughed, and discussed how to pretend to be poor in the future, the dialogue between the two people back and forth made people can't help but be funny, the camera has always been fixed, that is, relying on the language and subtle looks of the two people to perform a funny effect, laughing at the same time to cause the viewer to think, this seems to be the best destination of comedy, is the display of black humor eighty years ago.
Throughout the past, in the film "Labor Love", those funny scenes seem to be playing a funny play, through some exaggerated action looks, some deliberately designed funny scenes to tease the audience, just floating on the surface; looking at the present, comedies are innumerable, but there seem to be many points that make people laugh or return to using exaggerated acting skills, deliberately designed funny plots to tease the audience, although there is laughter, I am afraid that it is only an embarrassing laugh of the scene.
The comedic color in "New and Old Shanghai" is not deliberate, it seems that the director just presents the daily life of a couple to the audience, which is very natural, but the plot is clever, or you can see the unique ingenuity of the director and screenwriter. Husband and wife quarrels are the most illogical verbal disputes, but in "New and Old Shanghai", the quarrels between the two have not only strict logical reasoning, but also have a great talent for expressing arguments. [1]
In fact, strictly speaking, I don't think "Old and New Shanghai" is a qualified left-wing film, because it has too many things that are not like left-wing films. After November 1933, the Shanghai Yihua Film Company was destroyed, marking the end of the early days of the left-wing film movement. Later, in 1934-1935, there were fewer than 20 left-wing films, which were more obscure in their expression, and there were fewer and fewer films that directly expressed sharp class antagonisms and class struggles. [2]
As "New and Old Shanghai" produced in 1936, its own left-wing color is very limited, and it only depicts the most ordinary civilian life in Shanghai at that time, which is unique in left-wing films in the 1930s. [3] In those turbulent times, it quietly showed us what life itself was like, and that alone was enough to be cherished.
[1] 1936: Interpretation of the sound film "Old and New Movies" by Yuan Qingfeng
[2] History of Chinese Cinema Courseware
[3] The overlooked "Old and New Shanghai" by Song Jinxuan