Chapter 5 Originality
Subtitle of this chapter: As I told them, Comrade Wallace is a Scottish!
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"Famine Orphans......" The master of the film pronounced the name, and Mr. Griffith looked at the inscription again, "For 4114 Irish Girls?" ”
Famine Orphans, Chinese Famine Orphans, was the second film from DreamWorks in 1921. This is an epic film based entirely on real history and tells the tragic story of young women during the Great Famine in Ireland in the nineteenth century. ”
"It is available in both silent and sound versions, both directed by film master David Griffiths, and written by Mr. Yuen Yanqi. The main characters are played by Hollywood actresses such as Lillian Dietrich, Dorothy Kiss (Lillian's sister), Eva Hunter (Eva Chandler's stage name), Marlene Dietrich, Pearl White (translated into Chinese as White Pearl), and Luois Brooks. (Author's note: The last three are all female stars from the silent film era to the sound film era.) )”
"Famine Orphans was a sensation in the United States and the world at the time, earning nearly $30 million at the North American box office alone, with a shooting cost of $3 million (this figure is doubtful, some say it cost less than $1 million)."
What is this concept? Based on the average ticket price of $2 at the time, it was equivalent to 15 million people entering the theater to watch the movie, and the population of the United States in 1921 was only 100 million. This broke Griffith's own $10 million box office record for "The Birth of a Nation," but the record was soon broken by DreamWorks itself. ”
"Since 1845, potato late blight has swept through Ireland, where potatoes are the staple food, causing the largest famine in Irish history. By 1852, the population of Ireland under British rule had plummeted by nearly two million over the course of seven years, or a quarter of the population! In addition to starvation, the number of sick and sick also included about a million Irish who had emigrated to the country due to famine. ”
"Ireland was still under British rule, and Britain was at its peak in the Victorian period, having completed the Industrial Revolution, and was recognized as the world's factory. Britain is a world leader in colonies, political systems, economic development and other aspects, and is a huge colonial empire with nearly a quarter of the earth's land and nearly a quarter of the population. Britain is a symbol of prosperity, development and civilization of that era, and its national power is among the best in the world. ”
Even four years before the Great Famine, in order to open the door to China, Britain did not hesitate to send warships from India to launch the First Opium War. And at this time, the United Kingdom was fully committed to hosting the first World Expo in human history. However, they remained indifferent to the unprecedented famine in Ireland, allowing the devastation to spread and the Irish people to be left with corpses. ”
By 1848, the Irish mainland had been ravaged by the terrible Great Famine for more than three years, and the death toll of the famine was close to one million, one-fifth of whom died in poor conditions in workhouses. The workhouse was overcrowded and the environment was harsh, with typhoid, cholera, scurvy and other diseases. The Earl of Grey, then Minister of State for the Colonies, decided to send the girls from the Irish workhouse to Australia. He hoped that the project would kill multiple birds with one stone: young girls would be saved from famine and live in a new land; The already overcrowded workhouse conditions could be alleviated, and after decades of exile as a penal colony, Australia was in dire need of young women to reproduce, work and care for the household. ”
"In 1848, the first ship to transport Irish girls arrived in Australia. Between 1848 and 1850, 4,114 Irish women were sent to Australia. Most of them are between the ages of 14 and 20, and after months of rough seas, they arrive in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide to say goodbye to their suffering homeland and welcome an unknown fate in a foreign land. ”
In this project, the girls come from workhomes, and at least one of their parents has died, or they have been abandoned and living on the streets. The selected girl must be young, single, obedient, healthy, and immune to smallpox. They are known in Australian accounts as "famine orphans". ”
"There were also a large number of Irish people fleeing famine to North America, and the poor crossed the Atlantic on the cheapest ships, which were in very poor condition, providing only a small amount of water, food and space for passengers, and often with deaths as high as 30 per cent. Compared to their compatriots who traveled to North America, the orphan girls of the Famine were much luckier on their journey. Thanks to close oversight by government agencies such as the Irish Poor Law Commission in Dublin, the London Colonial Land and Immigration Commission and the Australian authorities, as well as years of experience transporting convicts to Australia, orphan girls die less than one per cent on long voyages. ”
"However, the arrival of the orphan girls has sparked strong hostility among the local population of Australia......"
"The Orphan Girl of Famine has been an artistic and commercial success. It cemented David Griffith's place in the history of world cinema, and at the same time catapulted DreamWorks, which had only made two films, into the largest and most successful film company in the world at the time. The bigger impact was that the film led to a surge of anti-British sentiment in the United States, and relations between the United States and the Commonwealth countries (mainly Britain and Australia) deteriorated rapidly. ”
Even after Pearl Harbor, there was still a large part of the United States that only agreed with President Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan, rather than being an ally of Britain to fight the two Axis powers of the Third Reich and Italy. In order to comply with popular will, President Roosevelt also declared war on all the Axis powers, but had to postpone his military deployment in Europe. ”
"Doodoo, increase S-value by 40%, enter the high-alert zone of 90% ......"
"Given that this script is original to the host, the S-value is reduced by 20%."
That's right, this "Famine Orphan Girl" is actually our original script by Master Yuan!
He didn't do nothing in the past two months, eating and waiting to die all day long to engage in the Sino-American and German triangle relations, but racked his brains to conceive this movie, which will later be called "super tear gas", and as he expected, "Famine Orphan Girl" set off a wave of anti-British frenzy in the United States and even the world!
Well, it's not that Yuan Yanqian doesn't want to copy it, the problem is that he can't copy it!
When it comes to films that stir up anti-British sentiment, there is a "Braveheart" in later generations, and the protagonist in question, William Wallace, is Scottish. Of course, this is not appropriate.
The Irish themselves, on the other hand, have never made a film about the famine in Ireland, not even very little. Even James Joyce, known as the greatest writer in Irish history, wrote Ulysses as a stream of consciousness.
By the way, this article is now being serialized in the American magazine Little Review. And because of the publication of "Ulysses," "Little Review" was about to be convicted by the New York City government of publishing obscene works
There was no way, Master Yuan, a Cyris, had to take matters into his own hands and help the Irish to recall their history of suffering.