Wang Xiaoshuai's film Beijing Bicycle is ultimately a film about the effects of "modernization" in China. I'd like you to read this essay and discuss the film's narrative and what you feel is the implied meaning of the film as a whole. Choose one scene and analyze the scene fully and cinematically and tell me why you chose the scene and what is the scene's relationship to the film as a whole.
Perhaps the most pivotal scene in beijing byciclye is during the delivery in which the bike is stolen. The sequence begins with Guo entering a large building to make a dilivery and ends with him finding that his bike has been stolen. This sequence is important to the film as a whole because it sets up the main conflict of the film. I chose this scene because I personally see it as the most crucial scene in the entire film in regards of narrative relevance. The cinematography is effective in this sequence. As the delivery boy is whisked away into the shower room of the building, he is filmed at a low angle. Especially during his shower. This is to imply the shower’s importance to his character. He now feels empowered by the circumstances of his life which will contrast with the way that the scene ends. His feeling empowered by something as simple as a shower is crucial to the understanding of this character and it makes the viewer immediately sympathize with him. Soon after this he exits the shower and everything turns awry. He realizes that there has been a mixup and proceeds to exit the building only to be told that he must pay for the shower. He is poor and obviously cannot afford the shower. The editing picks up here as the intensity increases. Now, he is filmed at eye level. This lack of anj angle makes him neutral once again as he has lost that feeling of power that he had in the shower but is still one of the working class, so he is neither in power nor is he at a lack of power over others in the film. Eventually, the correct recipient of the package shows up with his back to the camera, he occupies a significant amount of onscreen space which draws attention to him immediately. Also he acts kindly to the delivery boy who is just about to be thrown out of the building. This is a trademark of Chinese cinema in which the wealthy or ruling class cannot be shown in a bad light. As the boy leaves the building and returns to his bike, he discovers that it is gone. Here he is filmed at a low angle again but he has now lost everything. This is done to draw attention back to the previous low angle and create a juxtaposition between the two shots. This also places emphasis on the gravity of the events that have just transpired. This use of a low angle is reminiscint of a scene Citizen Kane in which a low angle is used for the opposite effect than it is traditionally used for. (The scene in which Kane is in the empty office with newspapers all around his feet after suffering a crushing defeat)
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Deletesame. just made fun of that!
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ReplyDeleteBeijing Bicycle is about the effects of modernization and the migration of workers from the countryside into the city and the struggles that they have in city life. In the scene where the main character starts working for the courier company this is expressed cinematically. The first shot of the scene shows the rack of bikes, a tilt moves over them and they look very organized like the structured society that the story takes place in. The electronic, computer generated music helps with this feeling as it gives the scene a strange tone and fake feeling. Next, there are wesandersonesque shots of the uniforms worn by the couriers. Each shot in the sequence is uniform and symmetrical and the pans are very smooth. There are also centered shots of the individual parts of the bike which dramatize it, much like the taxi cab in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”. This scene is important because it sets up the importance of the bike which will eventually cause all of the drama in the rest of the movie. The camera moves back and forth as the boss does showing his importance. The extended period of time during which this scene takes place, both the importance of the bike and the boss are established cinematically.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the implied meanings of the film is that people who appear to be well-off may simply be acting out a lie. This is made clear with the character of Jian. While he appears to be wealthy, because of his clothes and his schooling, his father is not able to buy him a bike because he is too poor to do so. They also live in the part of town where that live in mass housing.
ReplyDeleteThe scene I have chose is where Mantis and Guei are sitting inside of Mantis' store. Mantis informs Guei that Qin, the woman previously thought to be a rich city girl, was only a maid, and that her employers have fired her. This scene, as well as a prior scene in which Qin looks through the store as if she has lost something and is found and chastised by her employers, connect to one of the film's main concepts. These scenes demonstrate that class boundaries are hazy and that one's social distinctions are not what other people may assume. Guei and Mantis had assumed throughout the film that she was rich, and that she spent all day trying on clothes, but they find out that she was simply wearing the clothes of her employer. The clothes reveal that Qin, like Jian, attempted to present himself as wealthier than she truly was with possessions and her outward appearance, but the reality of the situation was much less glamorous.
Modernization is a large theme in Wang Xiaoshuai’s Beijing Bicycle. Guo is a mail carrier in Beijing and he needs his bicycle to do his job, while Jian needs the bicycle to hang out with his friends and be cool. The importance of the bicycle is shown throughout the film, particularly in the scene where Guo and Jian are shown in a montage, giving the bicycle back and forth as they take turns with it. The importance is shown with shot composition, such as when they are waiting for the bike, they are shown in open long shots, but when the bicycle comes into frame there is less empty space, signifying the way the bicycle completes them both. When they are both in the frame with the bicycle, the bicycle is always between them, as the center of attention and the reason they are drawn together, forced to see each other so frequently. This ritual is expressed through the editing. As the montage goes on, the shots get shorter and shorter, making it less of a big deal each time they make the trade-off. However, the quickness of the pace also keeps them distant from each other, only trading off the bike and never having any conversation until the end of the montage.
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