The Editing in Farewell My Concubine - Essay Example

Editing in Farewell My Concubine Chen Kaige’s film Farewell My Concubine is a historical account of the life of two opera singers. It traces their lives from humble beginnings through tumultuous times during the Japanese invasion, and the Cultural Revolution, concluding as the one of the major protagonists, Chen Dieyi, commits suicide. Even as the film’s diegesis occurs entirely within 20th century China, critics have claimed that the film has a particularly western slant and abandoned Kaige’s art house roots (Wau Lau 1995). The film itself was a commercial failure in China and was later banned for its critical depiction of the Cultural Revolution (Barry 2005). When characterizing the film in regards to its technical elements one notes that despite its elaborate mise-en-scene and epic subject matter, the film is shot and edited in a very straight-forward and direct manner. This essay specifically examines elements of editing in Farewell My Concubine and considers the means by which they contributed to the film’s meaning and overriding style. As the film opens the camera follows Dieyi and Xiaolou, in full opera garb, as they enter the vacant auditorium. The film cuts to a shot situated from high in the crowd and the viewer is put in the place of the audience. The juxtaposition of these shots has the effect of first giving the viewer the impression of an upcoming grand performance, and then subverting their expectations with the shot from a distance. It immediately creates a sense of isolation and emotional impoverishment; this is further enforced as the viewer soon discovers that the two performers haven’t performed together since the Cultural Revolution. During this opening scene director Kaige largely refrains from editing shots together, instead allowing the scene to develop. Some viewers might immediately be disrupted by this more ‘art film’ style approach, but by not cutting with frequency the director situates the viewer as an actual member of the audience. The long scenes also establish the film overarching tone as somber and slightly cerebral. Farewell My Concubine also makes notable uses of montage editing to condense time. While it’s become cliché for many films to develop an entire sequence of shots that are spliced together to give the viewer the impression of time’s passage, director Kaige has a subtle technique that adds considerable poignancy to the film. After Xiaolou has been forced to sit outside in the snow with a board on his head, the film cuts to the troupe of boys standing outside in the cold reciting lines. It then cuts to the boys reciting similar lines during summer time, and then finally to them within the housing facility reciting, “These are our rules we must learn them well. From ancient times man has needed a skill. If you devote yourself to this you’ll get paid off.” The lines speak to the arduous journey the boy’s have made. Rather than merely indicating the passage of time, this montage sequence strives to appeal to the viewer on a visceral level so that at the sequence’s conclusion the viewer feels a portion of the characters’ emotional transformation. After the conclusion of the montage sequence the film begins to explore what will become one of its central thematic concerns – namely, gender identity. The headmaster disciplines Dieyi after he refuses to subsume his identity to that of a female for the purpose of the opera. Kaige explores Dieyi’s transformation to a feminine identity in considerable depth and the longevity of this exploration grants the viewer a thorough feel for the process. After the Dieyi escapes and returns, there is a scene where he is situated in a chair in front of the headmaster. Dieyi continues to recite the male lines and then begins striking himself in the face with his hands that have been bloodied perhaps out of punishment for his resilience. The blood splashes on his face, symbolically indicating the self-destruction of his masculine identity. This scene is edited with another scene where the boys are standing outside reciting lines – by now the viewer recognizes this cyclical recurrence as indicating maturation and transformation – and then cuts to the visiting Guan who is ready to audition the boys. This montage sequence indicates that Deiyi’s transformation is all but complete, as his demeanor has now changed, but the last remnants of his masculinity continue to refuse to vocalize the female lines. Xiaolou ultimately takes the tobacco pipe and cuts the inside of Deiyi’s mouth causing blood to spill out, symbolically destroying the last remnants of Deiyi’s masculinity. In perhaps the most artistically effective edit, the film now cuts to the fully transformed Deiyi in elaborate opera garb. The juxtaposition of the two scenes creates a surreal experience within the viewer, as viewing the transformed Dieyi against his former self is truly an uncanny experience. Farewell My Concubine makes frequent use of editing juxtaposition to demonstrate the characters’ tragic and splendid lives. After the Japanese have began their occupation of China there is a scene where the Chinese soldiers are lined up in the snow and then massacred. This scene is edited directly against the ceremony of Juxiang and Xiaolou’s marriage. The juxtaposition of stark winter and the colorful ceremony is visually appealing and perhaps offers a symbolic link between Dieyi’s emotional impoverishment and Xiaolou’s seemingly more satisfied existence. In conclusion, while the enormity of Farewell My Concubine is an epic achievement, it’s the film’s subtle and non-disruptive use of editing that advances the narrative. Director Chen Kaige’s use of long shots and slow-pacing allows the film to unfold and the viewer to truly inhabit the lives of the characters. When Kaige does make use of montage techniques it’s always in a subtle manner, so that the viewer is seamlessly intertwined with the characters transformation and the film’s development. References Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies, 3rd Edition. New York: Norton, 2009. Kaige. Chen Farewell My Concubine. Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. Ed. Michael Berry. \ New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Wah Lau, Jenny Kwok ‘"Farewell My Concubine": History, Melodrama, and Ideology in Contemporary Pan-Chinese Cinema’ Film Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 16-27 University of California Press Read More