The Good Earth

Plot synopsis:
The story begins on Wang Lung's wedding day and follows the rise and fall of his fortunes. The House of Hwang, a family of wealthy landowners, lives in the nearby town, where Wang Lung's future wife, O-Lan, lives as a slave. However, the House of Hwang slowly declines due to opium use, frequent spending, and uncontrolled borrowing. Meanwhile, Wang Lung, through his own hard work and the skill of his wife, O-Lan, slowly earns enough money to buy land from the Hwang family, piece by piece. O-Lan delivers three sons and three daughters; the first daughter becomes mentally handicapped as a result of severe malnutrition brought on by famine. Her father greatly pities her and calls her "Poor Fool," a name by which she is addressed throughout her life. O-Lan kills her second daughter at birth to spare her the misery of growing up in such hard times, and to give the remaining family a better chance to survive. During the devastating famine and drought, the family must flee to a large city in the south to find work. Wang Lung's malevolent uncle offers to buy his possessions and land, but for significantly less than their value. The family sells everything except the land and the house. Wang Lung then faces the long journey south, contemplating how the family will survive walking, when he discovers that the "firewagon" (the Chinese word for the newly built train) takes people south for a fee.
In the city, O-Lan and the children beg while Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw. Wang Lung's father begs but does not earn any money, and sits looking at the city instead. They find themselves aliens among their more metropolitan countrymen who look different and speak in a fast accent. They no longer starve, due to the one-cent charitable meals of congee, but still live in abject poverty. Wang Lung longs to return to his land. When armies approach the city he can only work at night hauling merchandise out of fear of being conscripted. One time, his son brings home stolen meat. Furious, Wang Lung throws the meat on the ground, not wanting his sons to grow up as thieves. O-Lan, however, calmly picks up the meat and cooks it. When a food riot erupts, Wang Lung is swept up in a mob that is looting a rich man's house and corners the man himself, who fears for his life and gives Wang Lung all his money in order to buy his safety. Meanwhile, his wife finds jewels in a hiding place in another house, hiding them between her breasts.
Wang Lung uses this money to bring the family home, buy a new ox and farm tools, and hire servants to work the land for him. In time, the youngest children are born, a twin son and daughter. When he discovers the jewels O-Lan looted from the house in the southern city, Wang Lung buys the House of Hwang's remaining land. He is eventually able to send his first two sons to school (also apprenticing the second one as a merchant) and retains the third one on the land. As Wang Lung becomes more prosperous, he buys a concubine named Lotus. O-Lan endures the betrayal of her husband when he takes the only jewels she had asked to keep for herself, the two pearls, so that he can make them into earrings to present to Lotus. O-Lan's morale suffers and she eventually dies, but not before witnessing her first son's wedding. Wang Lung finally appreciates her place in his life, as he mourns her passing.
Lung and his family move into town and rent the old House of Hwang. Wang Lung, now an old man, wants peace, but there are always disputes, especially between his first and second sons, and particularly their wives. Wang Lung's third son runs away to become a soldier. At the end of the novel, Wang Lung overhears his sons planning to sell the land and tries to dissuade them. They say that they will do as he wishes, but smile knowingly at each other.

Tags: avant garde, cruelty, murder, violence, romantic, revenge

Review:
Many of today's audiences may find little to enjoy in such a combination, or they may be embarrassed by it, but I revel in it, as cinema such as this, which is delivered with such heart and good will is, especially in these times, nothing short of a gift.The issue of non-Chinese playing Chinese characters has already been discussed on these pages, but I can only add: please, viewers, consider the film within the era that it was produced.
The roles are filled by actors who are able to get inside their characters without ever giving the impression that they are `performing,' and their performances are all the richer for it.The story begins on the wedding day of Wang Lung (Paul Muni), a kind and gentle farmer.
(Yeah right, A PEARL!!) Luise Rainer was the beautiful star who had won the Best Actress Oscar the year before for her small role (and what a waste of an oscar) in "The Great Zigfield".
Making a Chinese story with occidental players even if they are of the caliber of Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Charley Grapewin, and Walter Connolly among others.Perhaps it's partly because the story was written by a westerner, Pearl Buck who got a Pulitzer Prize for her novel in 1932.
That's what you see in The Good Earth, China very big and very full of people, more than she can deal with at times.The Good Earth tells the story of Wang Lung (Paul Muni) as a young man who purchases a wife from a large house where she was a slave.
The woman O-Lan (Luise Rainer) bears him two sons and sees him through all the good times and bad they have, drought, famine, revolution, and a climatic locust plague.Luise Rainer won the second of two consecutive Oscars for portraying O-Lan. She may have set some kind of record in that it has to be the leading player Oscar performance with the least amount of dialog.
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 book like the movie is called " The Good Earth." It relates the story of Wang Lung (Paul Muni) a simple Chinese farmer who begins his day with a trip to the 'Great House' where he has taken a slave woman called O-lan (Luise Rainer) and made her his wife.
The Great O-Lan. The Good Earth is a film about love, marriage, family, and the land that you live on.
But more precisely its about faithfulness to those institutions and bedrocks of society as shown through O-Lan and her farming family in China.A wonderful story by Pearl Buck, Great direction by Sidney Franklin and Victor Fleming [uncredited], very good acting headed by Paul Muni, great cinematography by Karl Freund, and special effects 20 years ahead of their time make this a classic.However as good as those elements to this film are the reason The Good Earth is one of the 100 greatest films of all time is O-Lan. O-Lan, O-Faithful O-Lan. How you linger in my memory.
In our modern-day PC culture, it seems downright distasteful to see actors like Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, and Charley Grapewin done up in yellow face to play Chinese farmers (Rainer's bald-faced German accent is especially humorous).
Though it might not pass today's standards of cultural sensitivity, "The Good Earth" makes a solid attempt at a thoughtful and intelligent peek into Chinese culture.Muni and Rainer play the husband and wife of an arranged marriage who struggle together to eek out an existence in a harsh climate.
Muni is good too with a showier role, even if he seems much less authentic as a rural Chinese peasant.The film also makes some interesting and relevant commentary about what wealth and affluence do to people.
It's a testament to something I've always believed, which is that if you take away a person's problems, he's just going to invent new ones to replace them, no matter how comfortable he is or how much material wealth he has.Rainer became the first person to win back-to-back acting Oscars when she received the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in this film.
An epic movie from Old Hollywood about Chinese farmer Wang (Paul Muni), his wife O-Lan (Luise Rainer), and their struggles with famine, locusts, and greed.
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.
To me, the story is so engrossing the length of the film doesn't even occur to me - I would have liked the ending to be longer, because "Olan, you are the earth" told the entire reason for the story of true love and devotion, to the extreme.....I'm not even bothered by the question so many people asked of why Paul Muni ("Wang Lung") and Luise Rainer ("Olan") were cast instead-of Asians - I had never seen Ms. Rainer in any film, and have no idea why her Hollywood career faded.
Now, I'm not even concerned about that - the STORY, the ultimate entirety of the film's huge scenes and huge cast dismisses any negative comment I could think of, or read.Walter Connolly ("Uncle") and Charlie Grapewin ("Old Father") were perfectly cast and played their roles with great skill.
Buck whose years spent in China as a child of Missionary parents that provided her with deep insights into the Chinese culture and its philosophy, this film adaptation is brilliantly done, both in technically artistry and acting.Wang Lung is a humble farmer grateful for the basics of life: to survive off of his land and to be newly wed to Olan, a servant to a rich and powerful family in the village area.
The Good Earth is based on an excellent story by an excellent author (Pearl S Buck) but what no one seems to notice or care about is that the film's stars were deliberately Caucasian.
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..
Although there are faults, THE GOOD EARTH manages to hold the viewer's interest in a lengthy film because of George Sidney's smoothly competent direction and the performances of PAUL MUNI, as the naive farmer Wang Lung, and to a lesser extent, LUISE RAINER as O-Lan, his peasant wife.
KEY Luke is fine as the eldest son and TILLY LOSCH makes an interesting, exotic creature as Lotus, the dancer.But the story itself is a bit depressing, since it deals more with the hardships and bitter struggle against nature that all farmers have to endure than it does with any reward they have for their efforts.The big crowd scene at a palace where Rainer almost gets shot as a looter is handled very effectively and, of course, the plague of locusts swarming across the fields is something spectacular to watch.
Paul Muni does a good job and Luise Rainer won a second oscar for this movie..
Buck's famed eponymous novel, is a thudding novelty, and if it were to be made today, surely would come in for backlash of blatant white-washing, Caucasian actors comprise the main cast, playing indigenous Chinese people who uniformly articulate an American English, and distinctive in their exaggerated "Oriental-looking" eye makeup and other trappings.Directed by Sidney Franklin, his penultimate director credit, since he would sink his teeth into a more eminent career as a producer soon after, THE GOOD EARTH is a major player in the Oscar race, nabbing five Oscar nominations and wins its star Luise Rainer, her second and consecutive Oscar win, and would become the longest-lived recipient in the acting branch (she passed away in 2014 at the age of 104), a record now has been challenging by Olivia de Havilland, also a two-time leading actress winner, who is three-months shy of her 101 birthday at the time of writing.It takes some suspended disbelief for audience to accept it incongruous premise, but THE GOOD EARTH is an epic story presented by stunning mise en scène commendably recreating a rural China in the soil of California lot, and a state-of-the-art special effect team conjuring up elemental forces such as tempest, famine and locust plague, all to awe-inspiring effects.
The story unfolds chronologically about a simple-minded farmer Wang Lung (Muni) who marries an obedient servant girl O-Lan (Rainer), in due days they will have three children and sail through the vagary of natural disasters and unexpected fortunes extending over two decades, during which Wang would derail from his humble roots when he is subjugated to wealth and lust, yet, O-Lin, whose heart-of-gold integrity, wisdom and forbearance, avert their family from fall apart at the seams.Pearl S.
Buck's story is an encomium of woman, O-Lin, incarnated with all the traditional virtues Chinese people regard from a woman, a wife and a mother, not to mention in the whole time, it is O-Lin who acts as a linchpin (willing herself to chop their ox during the famine, refusing to sell their land at any rate) when Wang Lung succumbs to indecision or desperation and it is her potluck, after a within-an-inch-of-her-life incident (a striking set piece of mob anarchy shot by an uncredited Sam Wood), revivifies their future during the rigors of famine and mendicancy.
By contrast, Wong Lung, far from a good-for-nothing, but pales in comparison as a human being too often, is lead up to the garden path by his scoundrel uncle (Connolly), who, against all odds, doesn't get a payback he deserves, family is still family, a rotten philosophy needs some upgrading.Two leading performances are fine but not great for this reviewer's money, Paul Muni is a top-notch thespian, but still, playing a Chinese is a big stretch with all due respect; Luise Reiner (who has an uncanny resemblance of Celeste Holm in here), is more sympathetic than electrifying in a saintly role.
At least, several Chinese-American actors are hired, but if one wants to detect any sign of consanguinity between sons and their father, it is a lost cause, in other sense, THE GOOD EARTH is an impressive adaption triumphant in its scale and aesthetic ambition (which means it is in dire urgent for a BluRay refurbishment), its central story might taste stale, but its visual undertaking merits plaudits, plus, Hollywood actually withholds their exploitative guideline in an ethnological portrait, that is not a cinch looking back 80 years later..
At the time of making "The Good Earth" in 1937, Hollywood was just eight years into the modern day of sound movies, or "talkies." So, to put a great book about China on film, MGM would have to use white actors in its lead roles.
The classic locust sequence is still impressive even by today's standards, and there are some shots I don't know how director Sidney Franklin filmed.Luise Rainer, terribly miscast as the strong, useful Olan, gave an odd performance.
'The Good Earth' was another film that appeared in my recommended for you section, and immediately intrigued me with its subject matter, hearing good things about it, loving classic films, because it looked interesting and likewise with the cast (Paul Muni being the most familiar actor to me).It was certainly well worth the watch and lived up to its "good" name, and actually was close to being great.
The characters feel real and the acting throughout is hard to fault.Luise Rainer's very moving performance is one of 'The Good Earth's' biggest strengths, conveying emotions while saying little and those emotions are telling, easily the most deserving of her two back-to-back Oscar wins.
"It is better to be the hammer than the anvil" is a standard fortune that Irving Thalberg evidently took to heart.Thalberg hammered most of Pearl Buck's considerable knowledge of Chinese culture out of his adaption of her Pulitzer Prize-winner, "The Good Earth." Along with three writers and four(!) directors, he reduced her novel to the skeleton of its rags-to-riches plot, and the result is an epic soap opera with some of the best makeup in Hollywood history, subtly creating creased eyelids for Western actors (though nothing was going to make audiences believe Muni or Rainer were Asians).
What's more, in contrast to the movie, the novel's O-lan does not give her husband the jewels she found (or stole) to help their family, he discovers them, takes them and uses them to turn their fortunes around.Softening the character of O-lan probably made the film more successful at the box office, but also reduced the story to a concoction about as authentic and gratifying as a fortune cookie -- invented by an Asian-American, probably also in California..
So much praise has already been poured on this classical epic that it's difficult to find anything else to say, except to underline the marvelous acting by Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, a Chinese farmer and his wife, a former slave, humble peasant people but still totally convincing in their so thoroughly genuine characters..
One usually associates such spectacles with much later films, with special effects or later still, CGI.A few tongue-in-cheek critics have nicknamed this adaptation (which I have not read) of Pearl S Buck's hefty novel, 'the lychees of Wrath' and the human condition set against nature and the landscape is every bit as dramatic as Steinbeck's dust-bowl classic, but, of course, here set in China, though the bulk of The Good Earth was actually shot in Utah and California.Whilst we are never left unsure that these are American actors playing Chinese people, it's done quite sympathetically and well, so it never intrudes, with actress Luise Reiner earning an Oscar, with cinematographer Karl Freund deservedly winner of the other award from the Academy.As far as I could tell, I couldn't buy this DVD as a normal region 2, or at least at a reasonable price, so mine is a Korean release.
Magnificent film with brilliant casting of Paul Muni and Luise Rainer as Chinese farmers based on the Pearl Buck classic.This masterpiece deals with the concept of the importance of land.
Two years later, a similar theme was etched, with the equally epic "Gone With the Wind."Despite being wholesome, encouraging her husband to keep his land and being the dutiful wife to the extreme, wealth changes all that when Muni takes a second wife, only to have scandal wreck his name with his youngest son and the woman.Rainer, who won her second Oscar for this movie, is phenomenal as O-Lan. Her face is etched in pain in an extremely moving performance.
The relationship between him and his wife, played by Luise Rainer, is the main thread of the story(besides the land itself) and despite the obvious non-Chinese actors it does a pretty good job of displaying the country and it's people.
Pearl S.Buck was a brilliant author that was a first American lady won Nobel prize in literature in 1938 and received her prize with Enrico Fermi an Italian Physit.She wrote this romance in 1931 which was a second one after her first novel (East wind and West wind) in 1930 and her beginning in literature was fantastic upon her premier novels.she won in 1935 (Pulitzer prize) in literature on her eternal novel (The good earth) which made a brilliant panorama on the life of Chinese peasant (Wung Lung) and his wife (O-Lane) and their efforts to face the hardness of hard positions in their earth to reach for their big fortune by their shoulders.Paul Muni succeeded in this role as Chinese peasant that he prepared himself in this role upon his sittings with Chinese people in San Francisco in their town to be Chinese exactly as a real and true.Shara Reiner succeeded in her role as (O-Lane) by this brilliant evidence that she won An Academy Awarded as a best actress in 1937..
Paul Muni gives an adept performance as a Chinese farmer living off of the earth, even if by the end of the film the make-up artists decided to stop trying to make him look Asian at all.
Hard-working Chinese farmer Paul Muni (as Wang Lung) takes Chinese slave Luise Rainer (as O-Lan) for a wife, and the two undergo great success and even greater tragedy.
It is because of Paul Muni and Luise Rainer's superb performances that allow the audience to suspend their disbelief and accept these two actors as Asian without hindering the authenticity of the film.Paul Muni puts on another stunning performance, this time as a simple farmer, Wang Lung, who is trying to survive during a drought with his slave for a bride, O-Lan, and children.
Yes, you have to overlook the fact that many of the actors are about as Asian as apple pie (though to be fair, the makeup department probably got them as close as anyone could to looking the part), but the funny thing is that the mixed bag of ethnicities in the cast quickly becomes lost in a grand, sweeping, brilliantly filmed and acted epic story of a Chinese peasant farmer and his family.Muni, who was in a sense the male Meryl Streep of his day, scores big as Wang Lung.
Sidney Franklin's "The Good Earth" has achieved classic status thanks to a timeless story and superb acting, especially from Luis Ranier, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of O-Lan. Rainers performance is so complete, she is nearly unrecognizable.
Buck "The Good Earth" tells the story of a poor Chinese farmer's going from rags to riches.The poor farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni) marries a spare slave,Olan (Luise Rainer)from the powerful local Hwang family.
The Good Earth is a 1937 film directed by Sidney Franklin and starring Paul Muni and Luise Rainer.
In the central, we have the family of Wang (Paul Muni) who marries a kitchen slave O-Lan (Luise Rainer who won Oscars for the Best Actress) from the Great Hall.
and should have stopped an hour earlier.Paul Muni, the great chameleon actor of the 1930s, plays our hero Wang Lung in this film, a Chinese immigrant farmer who marries a former slave girl and would eventually have three children by her.