2008-06-02 23:42:49聖女貞德
The Art of Framing in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (part 2)
III. Framing in Lust, Caution
There are many similar symbolic implications of her crossing over boundaries between having actual emotion and performing in the film. For example, she is seen in the framework between the balcony and the living room when Old Chow threatens to reveal their secrets. What is more interesting is that she collapses under the stair since the process of Chow’s dying is too nasty and makes her lose all the security of staying at where she might think is the final imaginary “stage.”
Lee’s careful mise en scène can be found in many shots. On the scene of Mr. Yee and Wong’s first time dating, to highlight the idea that Wong’s seducing of Mr. Yee is just a performance, he arranges for Wong to stand on a few steps higher in front of the door at “her house”. It is obvious that Wong’s background is a door in dark brown colour and provides cinema audiences an illusion of Wong being in a frame. The contrast between Wong as a performer and Mr. Yee as her audience is constructed. What is even more interesting is that Mr. Yee climbs a few steps and symbolically joins the show. Lee provides a good hint that Mr. Lee is good at performing as well, as Wong later tells his superior that Mr. Lee is familiar with tricks of “manipulating emotions with acting” (假戲真做). What is most interesting is that, on the following scene, after Wong fails to bring him into the house, she opens the door and becomes the focus of her comrades, at the same time she is in a frame (of a door). Once again, the contrast between the performer (Wong) and the audience (her comrades) is highlighted. There is only one difference from the previous scene, the audience does not “join the show” as Mr. Lee, instead, Wong turns on the light – what precise metaphor showing that of “the show is over.”
While idea of performance is relevant, actual emotion is significant as well. The metaphor of the poison pill is also notable, since the pill appears two times: It appears for the first time when Wong defines herself as Mr. Yee’s fake lover (performer); and it appears for the second time just after Wong defines herself as Mr. Yee’s true lover (actual emotion bearer). Wong’s refusal to take the pill symbolically concludes the whole story: Wong’s self actualization is completed when she eventually gives up playing the role of agent. She stops performing and frees herself with her actual emotion.
In the final scene, Mr. Yee’s sitting of Wong’s bed giving a tragic sense of floating signifier that subverts the reality and fictional play within a play. Given that the very place on the bed is somewhere Wong has trickily chosen to sit on when Mr. Yee “comes from Naking,” as Mr. Yee does not want to tell others where indeed he has left for. The very place is not somewhere Wong has chosen to sit innocently, when she has chosen to sit there with conspiracy to maximize her acting effects to stimulate Mr. Yee sentiment of her. What is tragic is that the very place where Wong has trickily chosen to sit of becomes the very signifier that Mr. Yee relies to memorize her. When it is tragic, it is also a powerful expression of Mr. Yee’s true love. It provides a clear conclusion that Mr. Yee loves Wong in his deep down.
The floating signifier here is interesting: Mr. Yee’s image in the frame of the mirror is inspiring. The inspiration is full of complexity that include a series of crossing over between actual emotion, which is represented during close-up shots of his red eyes with tears to roll out, and performance, which is depicted during long-shots of the dialectic relationship between his back, his mirror reflection, and Mrs. Yee.
IV. Conclusion
In Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, the applications of framing, particularly “inner frame” in his term which is the same as “the frame in frames” in Deleuze’s term, are not only frequent but also significant when there is a theme of play within a play in the film. Although Lee’s unique mise en scène is modest and in a low profile, compares to many Asian film makers. Lee’s work employs a spectacular subtlety when he demonstrate a paradigm of co-operation of the framing arrangement and a theme of play within a play. The framing successfully highlights the ambiguity between actual emotion and performing of Wong, the heroine.
When Wong struggles between her identity displacement between being a patriotic agent and a lover of a betrayer, Mr. Yee, her actual emotion and performing are spectacularly represented by Lee’s art of framing.
The assassination, which is originally sponsored by Kuang, leader of a patriotic drama group, appeals to Wong who likes acting, although Kuang has announced that the plot they set up to kill Mr. Yee is by no means a performance. Kuang giving up provoking audience’s nationalist awareness through drama makes perfect sense, since he is interested in performance just because of a politically pragmatic reason. However, the reason Wong’s giving up drama due to the enjoyment of performing. She goes undercover to seduce Mr. Yee and is supposed to acting a Mr. Yee’s lover; however, she loses control on herself and ends up falling in love with him. She loses her stage of performing and loses her ground to keep being the agent. She loses her direction of life while what she only has is Mr. Yee’s love. It is a struggle between Wong’s enjoyment of being loved by Mr. Yee and her enjoyment of performing.
When Wong’s enjoyment of performing is highlighted by the director’s framing, Lee does not confine himself with maintaining the ambiguity between actual emotion and performance. He highlights Wong’s and Mr. Yee’s final actual emotions at the ending.
By giving a positive depiction of actual emotions of love, Lee successfully avoids letting his film become a deconstructionist postmodern work, which would ridiculously distort Eileen Chang’s origin as a modern short story. Both Wong and Mr. Yee achieve a true love experience although they pay a huge price. The achievement at the end guarantees the nature of being a modern rather than a postmodern story of the Chang’s origin. Lee has not distorted it by exaggerating the framing and the plot into Wong’s eternally performing with a everlasting losing her grounds of real life and confining herself on a stage of performance and being as cold blood as a assassin should be. Lee is loyal to the Chang’s origin.
Bibliography
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1991. 13-15.
Gilles Delueze creates in his books on cinema with an attempt that classificating how cinematic images and signs works. This classification is inspired by Bergson’s theses on movement and on Pierce’s signs system. Here is a good discussion about framing.
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. 25-43.
Deleuze proposes us not only new concepts through films but also what the world is. It’s a further discussion on Bergson’s theses on movement.
Kawin, Bruce. How Movies Work. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 158-159.
There is a clear explanation of relationship between play within a play and the “inner frame.”
Krips, Henry. Fetish: An Erotics of Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1999. 160-170.
Appropriating Karl Marx’s idea of fetish for doing cultural critics and having some discussions on cinematic framing.
Miklitsch, Robert. "Godard/Auden/Martini: Framing the Annunciation Scene, Richard Howard’s ’Vocational Gyidance’." Perspectives on Perception: Philosophy, Art and Literature. Ed. Mary Ann Caws. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. 95-122.
An anthology of aestheics and cognition that contains some discussions on cinematic framing.
Persson, Per. “Chapter Three: Variable Framing and Personal Space,” Understanding Cinema: A Psychological Theory of Moving Imagery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 101-142.
The whole chapter three focuses on how framing works in movies.
O’Neill, Edward R., “Apprehending Deleuze Apprehending Cinema,” in Film-Philosophy, vol. 2 no. 2, January 1998. <http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol2-1998/n2oneill>. (Retrieved on 2007-12-13.)
Here is a good explaination and critic about Deleuze’s discussion on framing.
Totaro, Donato. “Gilles Deleuze’s Bergsonian Film Project,” March 31, 1999.
<http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/9903/offscreen_essays/deleuze1.html>.
(Retrieved on 2007-12-13.)
Comprehensive introduction of Deleuze’s theory of film. This paper noted Deleuze’s discussion on framing.
There are many similar symbolic implications of her crossing over boundaries between having actual emotion and performing in the film. For example, she is seen in the framework between the balcony and the living room when Old Chow threatens to reveal their secrets. What is more interesting is that she collapses under the stair since the process of Chow’s dying is too nasty and makes her lose all the security of staying at where she might think is the final imaginary “stage.”
Lee’s careful mise en scène can be found in many shots. On the scene of Mr. Yee and Wong’s first time dating, to highlight the idea that Wong’s seducing of Mr. Yee is just a performance, he arranges for Wong to stand on a few steps higher in front of the door at “her house”. It is obvious that Wong’s background is a door in dark brown colour and provides cinema audiences an illusion of Wong being in a frame. The contrast between Wong as a performer and Mr. Yee as her audience is constructed. What is even more interesting is that Mr. Yee climbs a few steps and symbolically joins the show. Lee provides a good hint that Mr. Lee is good at performing as well, as Wong later tells his superior that Mr. Lee is familiar with tricks of “manipulating emotions with acting” (假戲真做). What is most interesting is that, on the following scene, after Wong fails to bring him into the house, she opens the door and becomes the focus of her comrades, at the same time she is in a frame (of a door). Once again, the contrast between the performer (Wong) and the audience (her comrades) is highlighted. There is only one difference from the previous scene, the audience does not “join the show” as Mr. Lee, instead, Wong turns on the light – what precise metaphor showing that of “the show is over.”
While idea of performance is relevant, actual emotion is significant as well. The metaphor of the poison pill is also notable, since the pill appears two times: It appears for the first time when Wong defines herself as Mr. Yee’s fake lover (performer); and it appears for the second time just after Wong defines herself as Mr. Yee’s true lover (actual emotion bearer). Wong’s refusal to take the pill symbolically concludes the whole story: Wong’s self actualization is completed when she eventually gives up playing the role of agent. She stops performing and frees herself with her actual emotion.
In the final scene, Mr. Yee’s sitting of Wong’s bed giving a tragic sense of floating signifier that subverts the reality and fictional play within a play. Given that the very place on the bed is somewhere Wong has trickily chosen to sit on when Mr. Yee “comes from Naking,” as Mr. Yee does not want to tell others where indeed he has left for. The very place is not somewhere Wong has chosen to sit innocently, when she has chosen to sit there with conspiracy to maximize her acting effects to stimulate Mr. Yee sentiment of her. What is tragic is that the very place where Wong has trickily chosen to sit of becomes the very signifier that Mr. Yee relies to memorize her. When it is tragic, it is also a powerful expression of Mr. Yee’s true love. It provides a clear conclusion that Mr. Yee loves Wong in his deep down.
The floating signifier here is interesting: Mr. Yee’s image in the frame of the mirror is inspiring. The inspiration is full of complexity that include a series of crossing over between actual emotion, which is represented during close-up shots of his red eyes with tears to roll out, and performance, which is depicted during long-shots of the dialectic relationship between his back, his mirror reflection, and Mrs. Yee.
IV. Conclusion
In Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, the applications of framing, particularly “inner frame” in his term which is the same as “the frame in frames” in Deleuze’s term, are not only frequent but also significant when there is a theme of play within a play in the film. Although Lee’s unique mise en scène is modest and in a low profile, compares to many Asian film makers. Lee’s work employs a spectacular subtlety when he demonstrate a paradigm of co-operation of the framing arrangement and a theme of play within a play. The framing successfully highlights the ambiguity between actual emotion and performing of Wong, the heroine.
When Wong struggles between her identity displacement between being a patriotic agent and a lover of a betrayer, Mr. Yee, her actual emotion and performing are spectacularly represented by Lee’s art of framing.
The assassination, which is originally sponsored by Kuang, leader of a patriotic drama group, appeals to Wong who likes acting, although Kuang has announced that the plot they set up to kill Mr. Yee is by no means a performance. Kuang giving up provoking audience’s nationalist awareness through drama makes perfect sense, since he is interested in performance just because of a politically pragmatic reason. However, the reason Wong’s giving up drama due to the enjoyment of performing. She goes undercover to seduce Mr. Yee and is supposed to acting a Mr. Yee’s lover; however, she loses control on herself and ends up falling in love with him. She loses her stage of performing and loses her ground to keep being the agent. She loses her direction of life while what she only has is Mr. Yee’s love. It is a struggle between Wong’s enjoyment of being loved by Mr. Yee and her enjoyment of performing.
When Wong’s enjoyment of performing is highlighted by the director’s framing, Lee does not confine himself with maintaining the ambiguity between actual emotion and performance. He highlights Wong’s and Mr. Yee’s final actual emotions at the ending.
By giving a positive depiction of actual emotions of love, Lee successfully avoids letting his film become a deconstructionist postmodern work, which would ridiculously distort Eileen Chang’s origin as a modern short story. Both Wong and Mr. Yee achieve a true love experience although they pay a huge price. The achievement at the end guarantees the nature of being a modern rather than a postmodern story of the Chang’s origin. Lee has not distorted it by exaggerating the framing and the plot into Wong’s eternally performing with a everlasting losing her grounds of real life and confining herself on a stage of performance and being as cold blood as a assassin should be. Lee is loyal to the Chang’s origin.
Bibliography
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1991. 13-15.
Gilles Delueze creates in his books on cinema with an attempt that classificating how cinematic images and signs works. This classification is inspired by Bergson’s theses on movement and on Pierce’s signs system. Here is a good discussion about framing.
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. 25-43.
Deleuze proposes us not only new concepts through films but also what the world is. It’s a further discussion on Bergson’s theses on movement.
Kawin, Bruce. How Movies Work. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 158-159.
There is a clear explanation of relationship between play within a play and the “inner frame.”
Krips, Henry. Fetish: An Erotics of Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1999. 160-170.
Appropriating Karl Marx’s idea of fetish for doing cultural critics and having some discussions on cinematic framing.
Miklitsch, Robert. "Godard/Auden/Martini: Framing the Annunciation Scene, Richard Howard’s ’Vocational Gyidance’." Perspectives on Perception: Philosophy, Art and Literature. Ed. Mary Ann Caws. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. 95-122.
An anthology of aestheics and cognition that contains some discussions on cinematic framing.
Persson, Per. “Chapter Three: Variable Framing and Personal Space,” Understanding Cinema: A Psychological Theory of Moving Imagery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 101-142.
The whole chapter three focuses on how framing works in movies.
O’Neill, Edward R., “Apprehending Deleuze Apprehending Cinema,” in Film-Philosophy, vol. 2 no. 2, January 1998. <http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol2-1998/n2oneill>. (Retrieved on 2007-12-13.)
Here is a good explaination and critic about Deleuze’s discussion on framing.
Totaro, Donato. “Gilles Deleuze’s Bergsonian Film Project,” March 31, 1999.
<http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/9903/offscreen_essays/deleuze1.html>.
(Retrieved on 2007-12-13.)
Comprehensive introduction of Deleuze’s theory of film. This paper noted Deleuze’s discussion on framing.