“When you go to China you don’t even need to open your mouth. They already know you’re an outsider.” What do you think of this quote? Why do you think Lindo believes this? Daily Journal11 November 2015

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While Waverly was a prodigy and grew up to be successful in her career, Jing-mei (or “June”) has had more difficulty. Her parents also wished for her to be a “genius,” as if hard work alone could make it happen. Using Jing-mei Woo’s chapter “Best Quality”, discuss the differences between the daughters of the members of the Joy Luck Club. What does the dinner scene between Waverly and June say about each of their characters? How is their behavior influenced by family and culture? Movie: 1:50:00

At the end of the book, June says that she understands the part of her that is Chinese. What do you think she means? Do you think this is real or melodramatic? Why?

Suyuan Woo is the only member of the Joy Luck Club who does not have her own voice in this book—she died a few months before the story begins. Why do you think the author made that choice? Why is it significant that her daughter is the main narrator, and that it is the story of her lost daughters in Kweilin that serve as a beginning and end to the book?

How would you rate the scenes you have seen of this film? What specifically do you think is well-done and what specifically do you think was not well- done?

CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an "A+" grade. Critic Gene Siskel, singled out the script and performances, praising the film for presenting images of Asian-Americans outside the narrow range of childhood violinists and spelling bee winners, opining that its main accomplishments were its depiction of how the brutality of the lives of women in China could continue to influence the lives of their American daughters, and its ability to allow audiences to relate to a large group of Chinese-Americans as individuals. Siskel picked it as the seventh of the top ten movies of 1993, while Roger Ebert picked it as the fifth of his own top ten movies of 1993.CinemaScoreGene SiskelRoger Ebert Ty BurrTy Burr from Entertainment Weekly graded it a C+ and wrote that the film "covers primal issues of abandonment, infanticide, motherly love, and self-respect, pounds you with pathos [and] is extremely faithful to the novel". Burr found the story "exhausting" and preachy, he criticized the "cringingly bald, full of self-help blather" dialogue, and deemed male characters as "perfidies". However, he found the acting "generous [and] intelligent", and picked the segment of Rosalind Chao and Lisa Lu as "the only one that feels genuinely cinematic [yet] too late to save the movie".Entertainment Weekly David DenbyDavid Denby from The New Yorker called the film "a superb achievement" and praised the director's "impressive visual skills". However, Denby criticized the film writing, "[I]ts tone is relentlessly earnest, its meanings limited or wanly inspirational, and my emotions, rather than well[ed] up, remained small." Moreover, he deemed men in the film as "caricatures" and the mothers' attempts to "teach [their daughters] the lesson of self-worth" as inadequate and pretentious.The New Yorker Film critic Emanuel Levy graded the film a B+, calling it an "emotionally heart-rending study of generational gap–but also continuity–between Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters" and a visually well-done propaganda for "cultural diversity". However, he also found it too long with "too many stories and [..] flashbacks" and too mainstream and broad to be an art film, especially when it was screened in "prestigious film festivals." [Emanuel Levy Matt Hinrichs from DVD Talk rated the film four and a half stars out of five, commenting, "Despite the cultural and gender-specific nature of the story, [..] there are a lot of overriding themes explored here (such as the daughters fearing that they're repeating their moms' mistakes) that have a universal scope and appeal."DVD Talk

Throughout their stories, the women in The Joy Luck Club and their daughters exhibit many signs, at different moments, of both strength and weakness. When Lena St. Clair is describing her relationship with Harold, she claims that “I think I deserve someone like Harold, and I mean in the good sense and not like bad karma. We’re equals.” Knowing what you do about Lena and Harold’s relationship, do you think that’s true? Does a thought like this represent strength or weakness on Lena’s part? What are some other moments of strength and weakness, both major and minor, that you can identify in the women in this book?

In Rose Hsu Jordan’s story, “Half and Half,” a terrible tragedy befalls her youngest brother Bing while she is watching him. At first she is fearful that her parents will be angry with her, but instead her mother relies on both her Christian faith and Chinese beliefs in ancestor worship. Rose says the following: “I think about Bing, about how I knew he was in danger, how I let it happen. I think about my marriage, how I had seen the signs, I really had. But I just let it happen. And I think now that fate is shaped half by faith, half by inattention.” What does she mean by this? Do you agree with her? Do you think that Rose’s mother, An-mei, truly lost her faith that day when they lost Bing?

Discussion When Jing-mei’s aunties tell her about her sisters, they insist that she travel to China to see them, to tell them about their mother. They are taken aback when Jing-mei responds. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. She was my mother.” Jing-mei thinks that the reason this upsets the aunties is that it makes them fear that they may not know their own daughters either. How does this exchange set the stage for the stories that follow? To what extent do you think that Jing-mei is right? How well do any of the mothers and daughters know each other in this book?

Filming Dialogue 1) Don’t try to memorize the whole thing!! Just shoot short pieces and edit them later. 2) Don’t try to actually have a conversation! Just shoot lines and edit them later!

Film Expressions FRAME = The smallest unit, one single image ANGLE = the perspective of the camera

Filming Dialogue (and in general) 3) Rule of 1/3s Joy Luck 00:41: :00 Salon, Apartment and Dinner scene 01:25:00 – Rose meeting the parents

What is the rule of 1/3?

4) More on Filming Dialogue Easy and Effective!! 3 camera angles 1 – Wide angle taking in both people 2- “Over the should” shots Joy Luck 01:25:00 Rose meets parents

5) One more thing… Easy and Effective EDITING of cuts!! What is a cut? A change of camera angle, lens, or frame. TIPS: Small changes in cuts are bad! Drastically change angles Drastically change framing Changes that are too small create “jump cuts” and make the audience uncomfortable.

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