Two stars in the Milky Way
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Two stars in the Milky Way |
| Original title | Yinhe shuangxing ( 銀漢 雙星 ) |
| Country of production | China |
| original language | Mandarin |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | original 12 acts with a playing time of 100 minutes, each containing 86 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tomsie Sze |
| script | Chu Shih Ling , based on the novel by Chang Hen Shui |
| production | United Photoplay Service, Lianhua Film |
| camera | K. Chow |
| occupation | |
| |
Two stars in the Milky Way is the German title of the Chinese silent film melodram Yinhe shuangxing , which Tomsie Sze realized in 1931 for the Lianhua Film Company in Shanghai based on a script written by Chu Shih Ling based on the novel by Chang Hen Shui . The novel was based on the biography of the Chinese actress Ruan Lingyu , who was one of the most famous film actresses of her time. She starred in 29 silent films .
action
Li, a country girl, is discovered for the film and becomes a star. But her relationship with Yan, a famous actor, ends tragically: Yan does not tell Li that he has long been married. The lovers break up in the feudal tradition of arranged marriage. The back stage story takes place in Shanghai in the 1920s against the background of the making of a sound film.
Li Yueying has a talent for singing, but lives secluded with her father Li Xudong on the outskirts of Shanghai. He used to be a musician and composer himself in the South Seas and taught her to sing. On a spring day, film people from the Galaxy film company come to the area to shoot an outdoor location for a film. The director happens to hear Li sing and is impressed by the beauty of her voice. He invites her to test recordings in the studio, where the studio giants are looking for a leading actress for their new sound film. She performs with the studio musicians and makes such a good impression on everyone that she is offered the leading role in a costume drama from the Tang era .
The first time she steps in front of the camera, she is fascinated by the male lead actor Yang Yiyun. Soon the pair of screens will become one in real life too. Everyone who interacts with them, their father, co-workers, and friends, think the relationship is promising and think they are an ideal couple. The studio people are particularly satisfied with the relationship, as they can use it advantageously for advertising purposes. The situation changes when Yiyun feels increasingly unhappy, which Yueying interprets as dissatisfaction with the relationship. Almost no one realizes that they already have a wife whom they had had in a marriage arranged by their parents without loving her. He begins to avoid Yueying, which hurts because she cannot understand it. Finally she declares, bitterly disappointed and discouraged by his apparent indifference to her, to have to resign from the engagement for health reasons, and returns home with her father.
One day Yiyun happened to come to the area where his lost love and her father lived and, while standing in front of the house, heard her voice from one of the upstairs rooms, where she was singing a sad ballad. At first he just wants to go inside and explain everything to her, but finally he comes to the realization that the hopelessness of her situation would only increase the misfortune. That's why he goes quietly without seeing her again.
background
Two stars in the Milky Way was the first feature film from the Lianhua studio in Shanghai. Ke Zhou was responsible for the photography . The film provides a unique look behind the scenes of the lively Shanghai film scene, which is little known outside of China and which formed the center of the development of Chinese cinema. The subtitles are in Mandarin and English.
The German title Two Stars in the Milky Way is actually misleading, because as the English title Two Galaxy Stars makes clear, a film company called “Galaxy” refers to two extremely human stars rather than real astronomical stars in the middle of our galaxy .
The film was still shot in silence, but with accompanying music on records, which also contained the out-of-sync singing of the leading actress. However, these are no longer preserved.
reception
The cinema had quickly become a leading form of entertainment in China. Sound films from the West had already been shown in Shanghai and other major cities by the early 1930s; Chinese film production itself was on the cusp of the sound film, which the audience was already impatiently awaiting.
Game director Tomsie Sze (1902–55) was very much oriented towards Hollywood and was considered the perfect craftsman and most innovative director of his time in China. The “film within the film” aspect of the plot also contributed to the great success, giving the Chinese audience an insight into the production of feature films.
Re-performance
The culture broadcaster Arte showed the film in its German premiere on June 19, 1997 on television. The Chinese-born composer Cong Su , who lives in Germany, wrote new accompanying music for a chamber music ensemble.
Two Stars in the Milky Way was shown on Sunday, August 21, 2016 at 9:00 p.m. at the International Silent Film Days 11-21 . August 2016 (32nd Bonn Summer Cinema) in the Arkadenhof of the University of Bonn . Stephen Horne and Günter A. Buchwald provided the musical accompaniment .
Günter A. Buchwald and the Weimar silent film pianist Richard Siedhoff shared the accompaniment at the screening in the Munich Film Museum on Sunday, September 4, 2016 .
literature
- Lisa Funnell, Man-Fung Yip: American and Chinese-Language Cinemas: Examining Cultural Flows. Routledge Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-91025-1 , p. 25.
- Richard J. Meyer: Wang Renmei - The Wildcat of Shanghai. Hong Kong University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-988-8139-96-5 , p. 16.
- Horst Schäfer, Walter Schobert: Fischer Film Almanach. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1998, p. 364.
- Jörg Schöning, Stefan Drößler (Editor): International Silent Film Festival 11.-21. August 2016, 32nd Bonn Summer Cinema. Program booklet. Bonn 2016.
- Ulrike Strauch: Culture in Bonn: 32nd Bonn Summer Cinema. The International Silent Film Festival in the Arkadenhof of Bonn University from August 11th to 21st will show rarities. In: Bonner General-Anzeiger. August 7, 2016, online at general-anzeiger-bonn.de
Web links
- Two stars in the Milky Way in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Two stars in the Milky Way. (as Two Galaxy Stars ) at chinesemirror.com (English)
- Two stars in the Milky Way. in the lexicon of international film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Program booklet p. 29 and chinesemirror.com ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ cf. film museum munich
- ↑ cf. "Many Western sources discussing this film translate" Yinhan "as" Milky Way, "which of course is our galaxy. But nowhere in the print I viewed does an English name for the studio appear, and it seems to me that a film studio would more likely be named "Galaxy" or "Galactic" Pictures than it would be "Milky Way" Pictures. “ Bei chinesemirror.com ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ cf. film museum munich
- ↑ Program booklet p. 29 and chinesemirror.com ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/konzerte
