THE THEME OF SEXUALITY: ZHANG YIMOU S RED SORGHUM AND JU DOU

THE THEME OF SEXUALITY: ZHANG YIMOU S RED SORGHUM AND JU DOU By Jessica Reingold History 300AA: Chinese History Through Film April 23, 2014

Reingold, 1 Zhang Yimou is a Fifth Generation Chinese director who debuted his directing career in 1987 with the film Red Sorghum. The Fifth Generation filmmakers graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982, fours years after its reopening from its closure during the Cultural Revolution and are the fifth generation of film-makers to emerge since the birth of Chinese cinema. 1 During the Cultural Revolution, many of Fifth Generation film makers, who had once enjoyed a privileged background by Chinese standards, were sent during the Cultural Revolution to the countryside, where they suffered many indignities. 2 For example, Zhang Yimou reportedly sold his own blood to buy his first camera, and was forced to use toilet water to develop film during the Cultural Revolution. 3 Because of their vastly different experience from the generation before them during the Cultural Revolution, the Fifth Generation filmmakers were not inclined to show any enthusiasm for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in their films. However, overt criticism was still taboo, so the Fifth Generation filmmakers used more subtle tactics to show their disagreements with the CCP by embedding messages within the theme of their films. 4 The shift in way the theme of sexuality is displayed in Red Sorghum (1987) to Ju Dou (1990) represent how director Zhang Yimou reflects the CCP s social rules and influence on the film industry in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, and displays how he used the atmosphere in China as means of creative growth as a filmmaker. 1980s China was lead by Deng Xiaoping who was looking to reform China and open it up to the world s economic markets. However, the CCP did not reform other aspects of country, such as censorship in the arts and media. After the Cultural Revolution, the CCP needed to continue censorship in order to continue the Party s ideological control, especially in the growing film industry after the Beijing Film Academy reopened. 5 The censorship of the film industry in the 1980s continued to follow the organizational structure of the socialist film

Reingold, 2 censorship. 6 As Zhang Yimou explains in an interview, film censorship includes script approval, and approval of the finished product and a determination on whether or not the film can be shown and distributed domestically, or if it should be only be distributed abroad. 7 Zhang Yimou explains, Chinese films are not like Western films. They are neither a commodity nor a work of art they belong in the realm of ideology. 8 Film in China is seen as a powerful medium for influencing thought. 9 An example of how important censorship was to the CCP, is the political tightening of the realm of ideology, with state-financed films that included moral-political-educational themes from 1989-1991 after the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989. 10 The Tiananmen Square protest was a massive rally by students calling for modernization and democracy that included rock concerts, hunger strikes, and eventually troops from the government that randomly fired shots in the square to end the month long demonstration for good. 11 Consequently, restricted themes in films were anything anti-government or anti-party and overly violent. 12 Therefore, one theme in which filmmakers could explore (within bounds) and use to convey messages in was sexuality, as seen with Zhang Yimou s two films that star Gong Li, Red Sorghum (1987) and Ju Dou (1990). Red Sorghum, released in 1987 and Ju Dou, released in 1990, are the first two films of Zhang Yimou s trilogy. Therefore, they are very similar. Both are set between the 1920s and 1930s in rural China and begin with a young woman, played by Gong Li, going to her new home to meet the husband she has been sold to. Both films also display sexuality as a major theme very early on in the films. While Red Sorghum breaks cultural taboos against representing female ecstasy, orgasm, and fecundity onscreen, Ju Dou extends the sexuality to include erotic close-ups of bathing and seduction shots. 13

Reingold, 3 Nevertheless, Red Sorghum, as a whole, seems to have avoided the detachment of Fifth Generation directors and also preserved characteristics of traditional popular drama. 14 Ju Dou, on the other hand, is a sign of a cross-cultural commodity fetishism, and the sexuality appeals to Western audiences as well because Zhang Yimou does not tailor it to the narrowmindedness that the general Chinese population continued to harbor even after the Cultural Revolution. 15 The difference in explicitness of sexuality between Red Sorghum and Ju Dou is shown through the way in which flirting and gazes are exchanged, and how the sex scenes are shot. Red Sorghum begins with a narrator talking about his grandma was sold to a Leper who owns a wine distillery, for a donkey. On the way to her new husband s property, the narrator s grandma, also known as Jiu'er, is carried in sedan by men who work at the wine distillery and by one man who was hired just for the occasion, who is the narrator s Grandpa. Jiu er looks through the sedan opening to see that the men who are carrying her are shirtless. Grandpa is closest to her and is the one she is most attracted to. The camera shows a close-up shot of Jiu er s face as she gazes upon the Grandpa s back and shows what she is seeing from her point of view. Grandpa seems to know that she is looking at him through the open sedan curtain so he flirts with her by calling her out, saying, Little bride, don t peep out of your sedan secretly. Talk to us! 16 Similar but less innocent scenes also occur in Ju Dou. Ju Dou begins with Tianqing returning to his uncle, Jishan s fabric dying mill. When he returns, he is informed that Jishan has bought himself a new wife, Ju Dou, who is also played by Gong-Li. The audience also learns that Jishan is notorious for torturing his wives in an attempt to produce an heir for fabric dying business. The first night he is back he hears Jishan torture Ju Dou and the following morning while Tianqing is beginning his daily work, he notices Ju Dou

Reingold, 4 preparing to bathe herself. The idea of witnessing her bathe excites him, as he looks for a peephole in the wooden wall separating them. Unaware of Tianqing watching, Ju Dou proceeds to bathe herself as Tianqing gazes at her back from the peephole. Later that day, Tianqing gazes upon Ju Dou again while she is working with the fabric and continues to watch her until she catches him and makes eye contact. This first introduction into the theme of sexuality (aside from Jishan s abuse) is much more risqué than in Red Sorghum because Ju Dou is a married woman and does not know that Tianqing is gazing upon her, whereas Jiu er is still just a bride and she gazes upon Grandpa, he knows she is looking at him. The second instance of flirting and gazes in Red Sorghum also occurs during the sedan ride. While the sedan is carried through the mysterious sorghum field a masked robber claiming to be the infamous Sanpao stops the sedan and tries to kidnap Jiu er. Jiu er makes eye contact with Grandpa to almost telepathically ask for help and Grandpa returns the eye contact to communicate that he going to help her. Grandpa tackles the robber and clears the situation of danger. Jiu er returns to the sedan, but not without thanking Grandpa. She thanks him by leaving her foot outside of the sedan, a symbol of not only her gratitude but also how his heroic display is attractive to her. Feet as a sexual symbol relate to traditional sexual values in Chinese culture that extend back past the seventeenth century when women s feet were bound. Grandpa takes a hold of Jiu er s foot to show he is attracted to her too and she pulls her foot along with his hand back into the sedan. This interaction between Jiu er and Grandpa is flirtatious and a little daring since it is in front of the wine distillery workers. However, it is not as daring as the second major encounter of gazes and flirting between Tianqing and Ju Dou. After another night of torture, Ju Dou goes to bathe herself in morning. She sees an axe mark in the side of the stair railing signifying that the noise that interrupted Jishan s abuse was

Reingold, 5 Tianqing. As Ju Dou goes to cover up the peephole, she realizes that Tianqing must care for her since he tried to stop Jishan from torturing her more during the night. Ju Dou leaves the peephole open; knowing that when she starts to prepare to bathe Tianqing will hear and go over to the peephole to watch. This time Ju Dou undresses knowing he is gazing at her and after she takes her top off she turns around to face the peephole directly, lowers her arms from her breasts and exposes her upper body to Tianqing. Although there no nudity shown, from the amount of skin that is shown in this scene it is clear that Ju Dou has completely exposed herself to Tianqing. Additional skin is not revealed in Red Sorghum and there is no implied nudity. The higher level of explicitness in Ju Dou as compared to Red Sorghum continues with the first time the two main characters in both films have sex. The first time Jiu er and Grandpa have sex and the first time Ju Dou and Tianqing have sex are vastly different. In Red Sorghum, Grandpa takes Jiu er by surprise while she is returning to the wine distillery from visiting her parents. Although frightened at first, once Ju Dou realizes it is Grandpa, she consents to consummating their affair. Grandpa creates a circle within the sorghum field and carries Jiu er to the clearing. There is a close up of Jiu er s face as she slowly descends backwards into the sunlight signifying her lying down to have sex. From above we see Grandpa kneel down in front of her, but that is it. While they are having implied sex, the scene consists of various shots of sorghum blowing in the wind until they are finished. Afterwards, all the audience sees is Jiu er on the donkey heading back to the wine distillery with a bit of a smile on her face as Grandpa sings to her from the sorghum field. In Ju Dou, when Jishan leaves for a business trip, Ju Dou tempts and entices Tianqing with phrases such as, He s not here. What are you afraid of? and when Tianqing remains shy, Ju Dou throws herself at him and caresses him until he agrees to have sex with her. 17 As Ju Dou and Tianqing are having sex, there is a close up

Reingold, 6 shot of Ju Dou s foot, a traditional sexual symbol in Chinese culture, kicking off the cloth dying wheel s lock causing the wheel to turn rapidly. As they are having sex, the camera alternates between close ups of the red fabric falling into the vat with red dye, and Ju Dou s face showing that she is enjoying the sex. Not only is Ju Dou more explicit in the fact that the audience sees the two characters embrace, but they also see the reactions of one of the characters during the sex. However, the theme of sexuality goes deeper than flirting and physical interactions. Sexuality in Red Sorghum and Ju Dou also reflects on how director Zhang Yimou s perceives the atmosphere in China particularly concerning the CCP s reforms and how they affect film industry. During 1987 when Red Sorghum was released, China was experiencing a push from students, artists, and intellectuals at the CCP to reform the country s policies further instead of limiting reform to the economic and market sectors of the country. This was before the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the idea of a more reformed country had not yet been shut down by the CCP. The theme of sexuality in Red Sorghum reflects this possible hope of more reform, and less censorship in the film industry by how Jiu er is able to be open about her affair with Grandpa. After Jiu er and Grandpa have an affair in the sorghum field, her husband mysteriously dies before she returns to the wine distillery. Later, she has Grandpa s child, which is clearly Grandpa s since she did not develop leprosy, which would have happened had she consummated the marriage with the Leper. The workers at the wine distillery do not care that she had a child with Grandpa, they are accepting of all of them despite the small amount of gossip they did talk about when Jiu er was flirting with Grandpa while in the sedan as a bride. By making the wine distillery workers open to the somewhat non-traditional family, Zhang Yimou is able to reflect the social reform happening in China, and supports the movement by intellectuals, artists, and

Reingold, 7 students to relax the CCP s standards in films with the themes of sexuality, morality and social issues. Furthermore, although Jiu er was embarrassed when drunken Grandpa exposed their affair, afterwards she realized she did not need to censor their life together from the rest of society. Red Sorghum, therefore, did adhere to some of the messages the CCP was looking to convey in Chinese films, but it also shed light on the younger generation s perception of how the country could be reformed. Through Ju Dou in 1990, Zhang Yimou was then able to update how he saw the atmosphere in China and what the CCP was doing with censorship after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP needed to reestablish its standpoint on social issues displayed in films and the censorship that goes along with Chinese films. Zhang Yimou alludes to this when Ju Dou is not allowed to be with Tianqing openly in a romantic way even after Jishan has dies. Despite the gossip in the village about how Ju Dou s son is not actually Jishan s, but is instead Tianqing s, Ju Dou and Tianqing are pressured into keeping their relationship a secret, and are even pressured into keeping it from their son, who also disapproves of his parents affair. Unlike Red Sorghum where Jiu er succeeds in dispatching her unwanted husband and having control over her sexuality, Ju Dou is is progressively less able to distance herself from Jishan and remains trapped. 18 Ju Dou is also convinced that if only she, Tianqing, and their son could leave their village, they would be able to become a functionable family, as well as not have to censor their sexuality from society. Much like Ju Dou, some of Zhang Yimou s films have been better received abroad, and have been denied by the censors in China to be distributed domestically. The difference in the explicitness of sexuality between Zhang Yimou s Red Sorghum and Ju Dou further correlates with how the censors received them and thus determined where they

Reingold, 8 could be distributed. Red Sorghum was approved in China and was the first Fifth Generation film to capture a domestic mass audience, and although Zhang Yimou claims that his alteration of making Jiu er only have one lover was not an issue of morality, because there is less explicit sexual scene between Jiu er and Grandpa and because she had not consummated the marriage between her and husband, the sexuality in the film did not get flagged by the censors. 19 The sexuality, especially with the close ups of Jiu er s foot also appeals to more traditional Chinese sexuality whereas Ju Dou s close ups of Ju Dou enjoying sex and showing her undresses demonstrates the influence of more western techniques in displaying the theme of sexuality. Ju Dou was made in the wake of the Open Door Policy, which allowed for more exchange between China and the United States. Furthermore, Zhang Yimou s decision to make Ju Dou more explicit shows how he was not afraid to introduce more graphic elements of sexuality into Chinese cinema. Zhang Yimou states in an interview, a filmmaker is a creator, a creator must have originality, be it fashionable or unfashionable. 20 Compared to Red Sorghum, the sexuality in Ju Dou was original and a step in a different direction for him as a filmmaker. Nevertheless, Ju Dou was censored by the CCP, determined unhealthy, and banned in China until he made a Communist Party-approved film on a contemporary theme. 21 Internationally, however, Ju Dou was received with open arms and in 1990 won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, the Golden Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, Best Film at the New York Film Festival, and was the first Chinese film to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, at the 1990 Academy Awards. 22 The period between the late 1980s and the early 1990s in China was a time of reform by the CCP and time of encouragement and protests by students, intellectuals and artists for more reform within the country. The CCP wanted to focus solely on economic reform and keep the

Reingold, 9 Chinese film industry as a means of spreading party support. However, Fifth Generation filmmakers, like Zhang Yimou, wanted to explore new creative avenues in film and challenge the CCP through messages within their films. Zhang Yimou in particular, was able to convey the social atmosphere in China and grow as a filmmaker through the theme of sexuality in his two films Red Sorghum and Ju Dou. At first he worked with the Chinese censorship while still subtly conveying his view of China s reforms when making Red Sorghum, but with Ju Dou he disregarded the censors and made the film sexual while still reflecting the CCP s control of social issues in China. Red Sorghum was distributed domestically because it discusses some truths and ideas with the hope they ll be accepted easily and more appealing. 23 Ju Dou was forbidden to be shown in China until the government reversed its decision in 1992. 24 In looking at Zhang Yimou s Red Sorghum and Ju Dou it becomes clear that sexuality as a theme is not only a tool to entice the audience, but is a also a way to reveal the collective unconsciousness regarding social issues in China that are ultimately tailored by the CCP. Endnotes 1 Generation Five, The Economist, June 16, 2005, http://www.economist.com/node/4078418 (accessed April 23, 2014). 2 Ibid. 3 Mary Farquhar, Zhang Yimou, Sense of Cinema, May 2002, http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/zhang/ (accessed April 23, 2014).; Generation Five, The Economist, June 16, 2005, http://www.economist.com/node/4078418 (accessed April 23, 2014). 4 Generation Five, The Economist, June 16, 2005, http://www.economist.com/node/4078418 (accessed April 23, 2014). 5 Tianhai Xie, Repression And Ideological Management: Chinese Film Censorship After 1976 And Its Impacts On Chinese Cinema (master s thesis, The Florida State University, April 8, 2012), 38. 6 Ibid. 7 Frances Gateward, ed., Zhang Yimou: Interviews (Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 43. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 36.

Reingold, 10 11 Linda Benson, China Since 1949 2d ed. (Harlow, England: Pearson Educated Limited, 2011), 60-62. 12 Gateward, 53. 13 Mary Farquhar, Zhang Yimou, Sense of Cinema, May 2002, http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/zhang/ (accessed April 23, 2014). 14 Gateward, 4. 15 Shuqin Cui, Women Through the Lens : Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003), 129.; Frances Gateward, ed., Zhang Yimou: Interviews (Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 114. 16 Red Sorghum. Directed by Zhang Yimou. 1987. New York: New Yorker Films, 1988. Youtube. http://youtu.be/415crei3zps 17 Ju Dou. Directed by Zhang Yimou. 1990. New York: Miramax Films, 1991. Youtube. http://youtu.be/p4ianzofg0w 18 Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar, China on Screen: Cinema and Nation (New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2006), 126. 19 Gateward, 8. 20 Ibid., 110. 21 Ibid., 42.; Mary Farquhar, Zhang Yimou, Sense of Cinema, May 2002, http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/zhang/ (accessed April 23, 2014). 22 David Neo, Red Sorghum: A Search for Roots, Sense of Cinema, October 2003, http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/red_sorghum/ (accessed April 23, 2014). 23 Gateward, 5. 24 Ibid., 36. Works Cited Benson, Linda. China Since 1949 2d ed. Harlow, England: Pearson Educated Limited, 2011. Berry, Chris, and Mary Ann Farquhar. China on Screen: Cinema and Nation. New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2006. Cui, Shuqin. Women Through the Lens : Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003. Farquhar, Mary. Zhang Yimou. Sense of Cinema, May 2002. http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/zhang/ (accessed April 23, 2014). Gateward, Frances, ed. Zhang Yimou: Interviews. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. Generation Five. The Economist, June 16, 2005. http://www.economist.com/node/4078418 (accessed April 23, 2014). Ju Dou. Directed by Zhang Yimou. 1990. New York: Miramax Films, 1991. Youtube. http://youtu.be/p4ianzofg0w

Reingold, 11 Neo, David. Red Sorghum: A Search for Roots. Sense of Cinema, October 2003. http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/red_sorghum/ (accessed April 23, 2014). Red Sorghum. Directed by Zhang Yimou. 1987. New York: New Yorker Films, 1988. Youtube. http://youtu.be/415crei3zps Xie, Tianhai. Repression And Ideological Management: Chinese Film Censorship After 1976 And Its Impacts On Chinese Cinema. Master s thesis, The Florida State University, April 8, 2012.