In 1992, after having directed two striking films (Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern) that set him at odds with the Chinese
Government, Zhang Yimou released TheStory of Qiu Ju, an unexpectedly repentant specimen. The film may have compromised Yimou’s
relationship with his viewers, but it also seems to have subversively addressed
the compromises that Yimou had to make in order to remain a filmmaker.
The nature of the relationship between an author and the
reader or consumer of his work is explored by Jean Paul Sartre in his essay, What is Literature?. In it, Sartre contends that “literary objects
exist only in the concrete act of reading,” and that any meaning tied to any
text is actually contained within the individual who is creating or consuming
the text, and that the texts on their own are merely black squiggles on a page. Through shared language, the author entreats
the reader to “create meaning” out of the text, thus the author uses their
freedom to create a text to entreat to the reader’s freedom to engage with the
text and create meaning.
Sartre explains, “The writer appeals to the reader’s freedom
to collaborate in the production of his work…. The work of art is a value
because it is an appeal.” The reader,
freely choosing to open the text and engage with it is “asserting that the
object has its source in human freedom.”
Thus the effective relationship or dialectic between an author and a
reader is one of mutual respect and freedom.
Sartre felt that authors who failed to respect the freedom of the reader
(citing and criticizing Pierre Drieu la Rochelle) decimated the potential for
reader engagement or reader meaning-making.
So how was Zhang Yimou, who was reportedly under pressure to
paint authority and government in a more positive light if he wanted to remain
in his profession, to avoid becoming an irrelevant sycophant like Drieu la
Rochelle? If he felt, like Sartre, that
the meaning in his films was actually constructed by the audience, then perhaps
The Story of Qiu Ju is his way of
entreating the audience to understand the necessary pitfalls of working within
an imperfect system, and even to forgive them in him and his work. It was, perhaps an extension of the act of
faith that Sarte described: “The bad novel aims to please by flattering,
whereas the good one is exigence and an act of faith.”
The film centers around the determined Qiu Ju, played by
Yimou’s perennially favorite actress Gong Li.
Loosely based on the novella, The
Wan Family Lawsuit, by Chen Yuan Bin, the film follows Qiu Ju, a determined
country wife, as she doggedly follows every channel legally available to her in
order to satisfy her need for justice, which is (to her) an apology from her
village chief. Only, Qiu Ju’s version of
justice is impossible to enforce and is not even comprehended by most of the
well-meaning government bureaucrats depicted in the film. Repeatedly the courts rule that the chief
must provide pecuniary retribution, which he offers with demeaning vitriol, and
which Qiu Ju feels morally compelled to decline. Ultimately she has pursued vindication to
such a length that the chief is imprisoned for his crime even after Qiu Ju has
forgiven him and is earnestly seeking his good favor again. The film regularly depicts the incongruence of
Qiu Ju’s enceinte rube amidst the bustle of the modern city. Her character is clearly as much comedic as
tragic, especially for a Chinese audience.
She is in many ways more of a child than an adult.
In view of the Confucian thinking that would underpin a
Chinese encounter with the film, the fact that neither Qiu Ju nor the Chief
seem interested in restoring harmony renders both of their approaches to the
conflict as silly. When Qiu Ju insists
to her husband that she doesn’t care what others in the village think of her,
rather than the admiration for integrity that an American Audience might incur,
a Chinese audience would have been more likely to see her behavior as
needlessly reckless, contributing to her tragicomic end as the siren wails,
symbolically asking Qiu Ju, “What have you done?”
What meaning might Yimou have been hoping that his audience
might make of this work? Especially of
his ambiguous ending as the film freezes, unresolved, on Qiu Ju’s face as she
pursues the vehicle with the arrested chief?
It seems that perhaps Yimou was asking questions with this film about
impossible situations and hoping that his audience would recognize that they
were unanswerable, as Yimou found himself in an impossible situation, and felt
that his work would be compromised or destroyed no matter how he chose to
proceed. Yimou continued to make films
in China within the parameters of government pressure, and complied well enough
to be given government commissions (including the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony).
Though in interviews has consistently tried to distance himself from government
influence.
The film itself seems to be a disclosure of the necessity
for recognition of limits and for compromise – for working within the
constraints of an imperfect system in order to work at all. The film very mindfully portrayed every
individual except Qiu Ju, the chief, and the city taxi driver as gracious and
amenable. The only conflicts that were
allowed to surface in the film were between Qiu Ju and the chief (technically
this involved Qiu Ju’s husband, but he was prepared to let it rest long before
Qiu Ju was), and between Qiu Ju, her sister-in-law Meizi, and the city taxi
driver. The conflict with the taxi
driver plays out like the other, larger conflict in miniature. For his petty misconduct, Meizi chases him
into the unknown, subjecting her family (Qiu Ju) to angst, and her efforts
prove fruitless – more harm than good is done.
By representing Qiu Ju’s futile, sometimes bull-headed
attempts, Yimou is clearly crafting some meaning. Whether Qiu Ju’s zeal is intended to be
symbolic of Yimou’s own in his past is essentially an opportunity for guided or
“directed creation.” The viewer can
finish what Yimou has begun – but whether they draw a line connecting Qiu Ju
with Yimou’s earlier films depends on what information the viewer brings with
them to their viewing.
Existing government systems did not allow Qiu Ju to pursue
or achieve her definition of justice, and when she worked within those systems,
the result was a disappointment, but she was still willing to persist. Is Yimou asking whether it will prove a
similar disappointment if he seeks after artistic freedom in a similarly non-ideal
system? He interestingly asks the
question without answering it, allowing the audience their own creation of
answer and meaning.
Sartre claimed that a “literary object has no other
substance than the reader’s subjectivity.”
Citing Raskolnikov’s hatred of the police magistrate who questions him
in Tolstoy’s Crime and Punishment he
claims, “Raskolnikov’s [hatred of the magistrate] is my hatred which has been
solicited and wheedled out of my by signs, and the police magistrate himself
would not exist without the hatred I have for him via Raskolnikov. That is what animates him, it is his very
flesh.” We see this authorized existence
and fleshing out of the chief morph before our eyes as Qiu Ju experiences a vulnerable
crisis and is rescued by the Chief’s efforts.
Prior to that point, the chief is only ever represented (by presence in
a scene or by description of other characters) as being stubborn and
prideful. Suddenly his character becomes
infinitely more complex by doing something out of character. Viewers are invited to forgive the chief
along with Qiu Ju. At this point harmony
is restored, except for the avalanche Qiu Ju’s previous, rather naïve legal
actions set in motion. The chief is
arrested and harmony is obliterated, and Qiu Ju’s “what have I done?” face
becomes the film’s signature moment.
It is possible that this film is an entreaty (to the freedom
of the viewer) to consider the complexity and imperfections of the systems
under which they and Yimou alike strive to function and create. The film carefully points no antagonistic
fingers. Everyone is likeable and
agreeable (to Qiu Ju) by the end of the film, and what remain are mistakes, not
sins. It may be that Yimou was hoping to
invite his viewers to apply a similar compassionate judgment to both his past
and future work as he endeavored to change gears and comply with government
pressure.
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