In response to the question posed in class: “In Up the Yangtze, when do you find yourself becoming more or less aware of the message or messenger,” I would like to focus on the message.
The message is fairly clear in the beginning. The dam is characterized by the ironic cruises that commercialize thousands of years of Chinese history. The employees of the ships are shown as catering to the Americans shamelessly. For example, the rules that they can’t talk about politics, and they have specific criteria for how they can describe passengers. The viewer is supposed to view the dam as bad and the influence of capitalism as detrimental.
The message is complicated though with the contrasting views of the life of the young girl and the prosperity of the cityscape. The teenagers in the city are portrayed as being slightly older that the young girl and maybe even working in the same capacity as her. They seem to be living a better life than her too. This gives the reader the impression that they are supposed to support the capitalist influence. But, then this is contrasted with the millions of people that are losing their jobs, such as the young girl’s family and their farm. So, at this point in the movie it is unclear about which way the viewers should lean.
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I strong agree Adrienne's sentence that "So, at this point in the movie it is unclear about which way the viewers should lean". Because the movie does not have specific message for audience, we can evaluate free messages which is based on each audience's opinion and point of view. Because of the unclear nature about this movie, the audience can discuss each opinion about the movie without they are prepossessed with any existent message.
ReplyDeleteFor instance about Jerry, this movie shows us both of his character. He has blind criterion about the passengers about income because of his confidence without foundation. On the other hand, the film shows his suffering that he tends to look down on people because of his middle-class background. Then the audience can consider him much more easily by their own opinions. If the movie shows just his one-side character to audience, they would be easy to tend to think either point of view.