La terre chinoise

"The Good Earth" is a great movie that you don't hear much about anymore. There are a lot of big disasters and events, but it is also a non-passionate love story. All of this happens in a little over two hours, which is short by today's standards. The special effects and costumes are very good for the time period. I am surprised that Luise Rainer received an Oscar for such a limiting role. She basically only has three emotions: submissive, hungry, and heart-broken. The performances by the Asian and Asian-American actors are terrific.

The classic Buck novel gets the epic Hollywood treatment. It features beautiful cinematography and includes an impressive scene of a locust invasion. However, the film is too melodramatic and the acting is hammy. The characters are not well developed and it turns into a soap opera and goes on much too long. Muni, certainly a capable actor when given a role suited to his talents, seems miscast here, looking silly in Chinese makeup. Rainer, looking like Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice," plays Muni's wife as pathetic and depressed, almost shell-shocked, a one-note performance that won her a second consecutive Best Actress Oscar before she faded to obscurity.

This is one of those movies where you ask the question, "What else can go wrong?" The principle characters, played by Paul Muni and Louise Rainer are wonderful in their roles, even though they are not Asian. This is a story of the struggles of the people of the earth to make do. As farmers everywhere can attest, the harvest is never a done deal, and so many factors can destroy it. Here there is a sense of fortune, which is part of the Chinese culture. Pearl Buck lived in China and knew the ways of the people. Things are cyclical, so when the man prospers, it is fortune and wise living that works. Like so many men, as his wife ages, he begins to seek greener pastures, but, again, he is defying fortune. Soon there is a deconstruction of the fabric of his family, having to do with a sense of betrayal by his son. This is a magnificently filmed production with very fine acting by all involved. It's a benchmark film from a very fine book.

This is a bit long (2 hours, 20 minutes) but it had a a lot of the famous Pearl Buck novel in it. In other words, a lot of ground to cover. It was soap-operish at times but had some visually dramatic moments, too, capped off by a locust attack at the end of the film. That was astounding to view. Considering this film is about 70 years old, the special-effects crew on this film did a spectacular job. Paul Muni and Luise Rainer were award-winning actors in their day and they don't disappoint here, both giving powerful performances. The only problem is credibility as all the Asians are played by Caucasions and some of them, like Walter Connolly, just don't look real. I'd like to see a re-make of this movie with all-Asian actors, not for PC reasons but to simply make the story look and sound more credible.

I watched this movie with some curiosity. I wanted to see if 1) Paul Muni could play Chinese and 2) Luise Rainer deserved her Oscar. I came away from the film thinking YES! Having seen Muni in only one film where he was quite hammy, I expected the same type of performance here. I was happily proved wrong. Although some might criticize him as being too childlike and stereotypically simple in the Hollywood idea of Asians, I thought he was just right in the role. Keye Luke, if he'd been given the chance to play a lead role, might have played him in much the same manner. I was particularly impressed by the camera work and the use of crowd scenes, especially during the sacking of the palace where O-Lan was once a slave. The graphic and grim atmosphere of the firing squad and the drought made this an epic quite unlike others of the same time where it was all glitz and glitter. I watched this film from beginning to end enthralled. I can't say the same for the "epics" of today.