The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club is a movie that spans "three generations"...and "vividly portrays both Chinese culture and the immigrant experience in America. The Joy Luck Club also "reflects upon the complexity of being a woman...the relationships she experiences with others, with society, her heritage, and ultimately with her own self." PerformanceAssociates

I attended this movie at the Scotts Valley Cinema with seven members of The Women's Group (TWG).  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as the movie drew us in.  Our group became the cast and the story transferred to our personal experiences.  It was an evening of fun with my dear friends that I will always cherish.

Now that I am taking the Fundamentals of Non-linear Film Editing from Professor Reine-Claire Morrisson at CSU Monterey Bay, I reviewed The Joy Luck Club film and have an increased appreciation, awareness and understanding of the role editors play in creating indelible works of art.

I now see how important the editing subtleties are in good movie making.  For example, a  white swan feather is waftily painted upon the screen as the credits roll and the dialog begins the opening scene.

This movie contains subtitles because about 1/3 of the dialog is spoken in Chinese when the characters recall events in China that led to their ultimate immigration to the US.  One such event is the untimely pre-arranged marriage of one of the women to a complete stranger.

At that time in China, it was the custom to have your daughter's marriage arranged by the town marriage brokers.  They were experts at making correct matches.  A girl's destiny was known as early as the age of four that she would marry someone unknown to her when she became 15 years old.  She felt betrayed by her mother because she felt that she was given away.

Meanwhile back in the US in the modern 1950s era, the woman's great granddaughter is experiencing the same feelings of abandonment by marriage to a virtual stranger, albeit under different circumstances.

The editor uses several devices such as jump cuts, short, long and wide shots, slow pans and overhead angle shots that move the story forward. These devices also serve to illustrate and gently weave together the approximately 16 stories that are found in the misty recollections of ancestral life in feudal China that connect the Americanized offspring of these women.

There are scenes of violence in The Joy Luck Club: rape, revenge and a baby's murder by his mother. These all are depicted with a great deal of thoughtful editing.  For instance, the fourth wife gained this shameful status as a direct result of being raped by the King and subsequently being thrown out of her family's graces. This forced her to go to her rapist for shelter and become less than a concubine. The editor uses lighting effects and subtle hues to show her plight as a victim and long shots of her face showing internalized screams during the rape scene.

The King's second wife is the undisputed Queen and places a pearl necklace gift around the throat of the fourth wife's 9 year old child by her deceased husband.  The fourth wife refuses to accept the gift, but the second wife demands that the child accept and say thank you to her or face her anger.  The girl decides to disobey her mother and obeys the second wife, her new mother.  This scene builds tension as the editor focuses our attention on the necklace.

The pair go to their quarters and the mother smashes the pearls.  As they shatter in slow motion, we see the shattering but hear no sound.  This is effective editing.  The mother apologizes to the girl by attempting to tell her how they got in this situation.  However, the daughter reveals that she was told the truth of their circumstances previously.  They tearfully bond as the camera slow pans across their faces.

There is a powerful connection made by the editor regarding that scene in China and a seemingly simultaneous scene in modern America. The audience is transported to another century in America with the editor's use of fading to a picture scene depicting a bustling city's activities and street sounds that lead our eyes to an upper apartment where the connection scene occurs.

This time, the mother and daughter discuss the unhappiness in the daughter's marriage to a controlling, unemotional mismatch of a husband. The editor focuses our attention on the daughter's husband's precious vase that is perched precariously on a rickety table.

After their conversation regarding the daughter's unhappiness in the marriage, she goes down the long, spiral staircase that is shot overhead.  I think the editor stretched this shot using some type of timing device because it felt as if she were descending into a never-ending unknown. The placement of that foreshadowed, overhead angle was just brilliant!

She reaches her destination and argues with her empty husband.  He warns her to consider her options carefully for he does hold the financial upper hand.  We never hear the conclusion, although it is implied when we fade back to the slowly falling and shattering shards of the vase.

The distraught couple looks up, not seeing what we see. The mother has broken the spell of an unbalanced house for her beloved daughter. The editor has shaped the vignette's perspective of events throughout the centuries and cultures. This crafting is barely discernable to the viewers.

This movie has tremendous symbolism and wonderful culture that is all edited together to give us a glimpse into the inner workings of the ties that bind women and men, families and Chinese people.  I loved this movie, The Joy Luck Club and want my large family to see it with me.  I also want a family viewing of "Soul Food".  Both these films are delicious treats and great for understanding the mission and importance of the editor.

One more thing:  Here are some of the great links I discovered to enhance my comprehension of this subject.  I regard some of these as scholarly sources for my research.

http://www.spinfinder.com/search/h-search.html
http://www.EditorsNet.com/sendthisarticle
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0082934
http://tcm.turner.com/SPECIAL_THEME/99/02/editing3.htm
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/Htm/Features/film_editing_in_nonlinear.htm
http://hotbot.lycos.com/?MT=film+editors%2B1930&SQ=1&TR=30169
http://www.unc.edu/~kennethl/filmsite/the_rest.html
http://cinemanow.com/watch/watch-individual-watch.asp?movieid=52&channelid=1&genre%5Fid=-1
http://santacruz.about.com/citiestowns/caus/santacruz/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monterey.com%2Fmc5%2Fmc5d.html
http://santacruz.about.com/citiestowns/caus/santacruz/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenick.com

Sincerely,

Charmaigne Scott

Visit my sites linked below and see my coursework so far, listen to some music and check out my little video.  Everything there is consantly under revision. Such is the nature of the web.

Bye, for now.

cs

http://home.csumb.edu/s/scottcharmaigne/world/
http://www.charmaignescott.com

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