Chapter subtitle: It's a movie!

The author apologizes: I found something wrong with this chapter when it was about to be released, so I rewrote it.

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"The last rose of summer is still blooming lonely, and all her lovely companions have withered away."

"There is no flower by her side anymore."

"Reflected on her crimson face."

"Sigh and grieve with her."

The song is called "The Last Rose of Summer", and it is a very famous Irish folk song, which can be called the Irish version of "Jasmine".

Just like the mention of Seris music, many people's ears immediately think of the melody of "What a beautiful jasmine flower". This is probably the most widely circulated Irish lyric song in the world.

It was originally called "A Young Man's Dream", but the famous 19th-century Irish poet Thomas Moore became interested in it and renamed it "The Last Rose of Summer".

And Miss Ethel Moreman deserves to be "the greatest actress on Broadway in the twentieth century", and she performed this song, which was already a bit "SAD", even more "mournful".

With poignant and ethereal singing and mournful music, the curtain gradually brightened......

The same famous DreamWorks intro, followed by the credits is the title - "Famine Ophans"

The title fades and the movie officially begins.

At sea level, the sun reveals a golden edge, and the light eventually drives away the darkness and illuminates a stained glass of color (black and white).

Mary, who holds the Son in her arms, looks compassionately at the altar below. And kneeling in front of the altar was an old priest praying, so thin that he could barely have a handful of bones, and when he saw the sunlight shining in from the window, he made a cross on his chest and stood up with great difficulty, holding on to a cane.

He staggered to the bell tower, climbed up, and with all his strength pulled the rope from which the bell hung it, and the bell rang (swayed......

Panting, the priest leaned against the railing of the bell tower and looked down at the ruined village awakened by the sound of the bells.

As he looks, the camera enters the window of a farmhouse, where three skinny girls with wide, lifeless eyes are snuggled together like three broken dolls, all starving to death......

Needless to ask, these are the three heroines.

Lillian Gish, born in 1893, plays the eldest sister, her own sister, Dorothy Gish, born in 1898, plays the second sister, and Eva Huntel (Chandler), born in 1901, plays the younger sister. (note 1)

Of course, they play roles that are much younger than their real age.

It is well known that Caucasian women develop relatively early. And according to the script, they are so hungry that even the female secondary sex characteristics are not very obvious, plus the effect of makeup and costumes, so they play teenage girls without being out of place at all.

Lillian Gish, who is now 28 years old, looks a full ten years younger on the screen, like an eighteen or nine-year-old girl.

Don't forget, she's a master at pretending. The heroine in "Broken Flowers" in 1919 is also a girl of this age.

Hearing the bell, the three sisters finally regained a little bit of life.

The eldest sister, played by "Ms. Lover", was the first to move, she hugged the two younger sisters, and encouraged them to get up from the dirty straw together with a smile and a look.

They helped each other sort out their tattered black mourning clothes, and then together they went to the backyard, where there was a grave with two rudimentary crosses.

This is a clear indication that their parents have passed away and that they have become "Famine Ophans".

The two crosses are crookedly engraved with the names of Mr. and Mrs. O'Fearghail and the year of their death, 1848.

This is a clear indication of the background of the time in which the film takes place, the Great Famine in Ireland.

To explain here, the O' in O'Fearghail is the Gaelic word for paternal surname, which means "son of so-and-so". The English variant of this surname is Farrell.

And Farrell translates into Chinese that is...... Farrell.

Our Master Yuan can also be regarded as a tribute to "Where You Don't Take the Mainland".

So, these three sisters are the daughters of the Farrell family.

They mourned silently at the grave for a while, then turned and went into the house, loaded all their belongings—a dirty quilt and a few wooden bowls—into a cart that was about to fall apart, and then pushed it out of the gate of the farmhouse with great difficulty, and into the crowd of people fleeing outside the door.

It should also be explained here that before the Great Famine, Ireland's economy was in dire straits to the point of bartering due to the vigorous exploitation of the British. So they don't have any possessions at all.

Together, they walked to the small square in front of the church.

At this time, the priest also came out of the chapel with a shabby gown coat (a pocket with an opening in the middle and things at the ends) hanging from his hunched body.

He took out small potatoes from his blanket and distributed them to the children in the stream.

Three black-clothed girls walked up to him, all with expectant expressions on their faces. The old priest smiled kindly, took a small potato from his shriveled coat, and handed it over.

The three Farrell sisters, all of whom looked surprised and grateful, carefully ate the poor little potato in one bite.

The bright morning light shone on the old priest, just like the loving Holy Father, and one could not help but hope that perhaps under the guidance of this dutiful and kind-hearted priest, these hungry people would find a way out.

I guess so!

At this moment, a dark cloud floated in the sky, and the light dimmed instantly, and when everyone subconsciously looked up at the sky, the old priest fell to the ground without warning.

A more decent-looking villager walked up, felt the priest's pulse, and shook his head at the crowd around him.

A village woman silently picked up a blanket and walked up to cover the priest.

Everyone took off their hats and bowed their heads to pay their respects to the venerable priest.

The three sisters had a look of shock, sadness, and self-reproach on their faces.

At this time, not only was the sun obscured by dark clouds, but a thick fog also appeared around the village, and the whole atmosphere of the film suddenly seemed ghostly, with a bit of horror movie meaning.

Everyone only mourned for a short while, and then walked out of the underworld like a walking corpse.

From here, it was the long shot that was later praised as "the movie version of Guernica......

"The place of "Famine Orphans" in the history of cinema is unquestionable. For those of us who are working like us, director David Griffith's use of various lens languages is still worth learning and pondering even today in the 21st century......"

"This shot starts from the perspective of the three main characters, following them as they move forward to show them seeing the tragic situation on the way to escape......

"Like the priest at the beginning, the old man who died on the side of the road......"

"The little boy who was sitting next to the overturned car couldn't cry and waited for death......"

"Crazy Mother Coaxing a Dead Baby to Breastfeed......"

"The man who committed suicide by jumping into the river after smoking a cigarette silently next to his wife and children......"

"The scenes in the fog form a poignant and eerie picture, just like Picasso's famous painting "Guernica", which shows the horror of the bombing, which makes people feel breathless. It is said that when it was first screened in Dublin, the audience was terrified, and the venue of thousands of people fell silent......"

With the three Farrell sisters, the camera is presented to a mass grave where countless crows are pecking at human corpses. From here the first long shot ends, and the second long shot begins, this time shifting to one of the crows. ”

"The crow rising in the air looks down on the flow of people below, allowing the audience to see that the escape route is paved with bones......

"This should be the first aerial shot in the history of cinema, and this surreal cinematic language brought great shock to the audience at the time......"

——Excerpt from "Ten Movies You Can't Miss: An Appreciation of "Famine Orphan Girl"

shocking, and only this word can describe the audience who have not seen this film.

Even the two crown princes beside our Master Yuan looked stupid. Not to mention those Irish "dirt buns".

The crow flew and flew and flew above a map phantom. So it "flew" from near Dublin, Ireland all the way to the center of London, England.

Finally, the crow landed next to a rice flag. This is a glaring metaphor, of course, that compares the English to carrion-eating animals that feed on the bones of Irishmen.

As soon as the camera pulls, this is a landmark building that everyone knows, that is, the Palace of Westminster by the River Thames, that is, the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben.

Through the eyes of the crow, the audience could see that a grand meeting was taking place inside.

This palatial scene and the brain-filled parliamentarians and gentlemen are in stark contrast to the picture just now.

There was an uproar in Kroger Park.

But that's not the end of it, these sanctimonious parliamentarians and gentlemen have taken the stage to give impassioned speeches.

One says there is nothing to be afraid of potato blight. Just remove all import duties on protective grain imported into the UK and Ireland to reduce the price of bread in the market. Who...... In any case, the poorest people in Britain can afford to eat staple foods other than potatoes.

One says that we in England should stick to Adam Smith's dogma, alleviate the famine in Ireland by saving ourselves, and interfere as little as possible in the functioning of the free market.

One said that the benevolent and generous Queen Victoria had given a full £1,000.

One said that Catholics in Ireland were lazy and morally corrupt, and that the famine was God's expression of displeasure against the Irish......

"Bastard!"

"Fart!"

"I'm!"

"Let them all die!"

Now the noise was louder, and after a short while, the noise became a rhythmic shout:

"Kill the British!"

"Kill the British!!"

"Kill the British!!"

Our Master Yuan looked back when he heard the sound, and secretly said in his heart, the ancients were honest and did not deceive me.

Look at these indignant Irishmen, and you know that it was not apocryphalt that the Seris revolutionary fighters shot at the actor who played Huang Shiren.

Hey, why are these Irish looking in their own direction?

He also followed everyone's gaze and saw a "Huang Shiren......

This Huang Shiren is not an actor yet, but a real British crown prince.

"Kill the British......"

Not only Yuan Yanqian knew about this matter, but most of the audience in the venue knew about it, so they all focused their attention on this direction.

Not to mention the Prince of Wales himself, even the hairs on Master Yuan, who has always been very bold, stood up. Now he knows what "a thousand people are referring to, and he dies without a problem." "That's it.

Because if you are surrounded by thousands of angry people, you will be beaten to death if you don't get sick.

But the future Edward VIII must not die on this occasion, otherwise even he will explode on the spot.

Our Master Yuan knew that he had to come forward to cool down the Irishmen present. Otherwise, if it drags on any longer, as long as there are thousands of people in the audience, the scene will be absolutely uncontrollable.

Thinking of this, he immediately said in the ear of the Prince of Wales: "Your Highness, you can also say a few words when I finish speaking!" ”

So saying, he took out a small tin box and swallowed the poor mantis alive again.

In this way, he has a lot of sound and a lot of bouncing power at the same time.

Then he came to the stage with a "gnad jump" and shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen......

"It's a movie!"

"It's a movie!!"

"It's a movie !!"

"And I'...... Let's get to know each other. I am the screenwriter of this film, Neo Yuan. ”

"I felt the same feeling you are feeling at the moment when I was writing this script......

"I myself hate the British...... whom you all hate."

"But it's a movie after all!"

"And the Prince of Wales, like all of you, is my guest here."

"So please calm down."

“PLEASE！”

As he spoke, he bowed deeply to the audience.

The British crown prince is not brain-dead, he also stood up and shouted: "I am Edward Albert...... Forget it, I'm the Prince of Wales, the next King of England. ”

"On behalf of us, the United Kingdom, I apologize to you!"

“SORRY！”

He also bent down and bowed.

"Kill him ......"

"Forget it, we still have to watch a movie."

"yes, I paid £10, and even if I kill someone, I'll have to talk about it after the movie is over."

"That's right, it's a pity not to watch such a wonderful movie."

In this way, thanks to Master Yuan's timely disposal, the situation finally calmed down, and there was no tragicomedy of "shooting Huang Shiren".

After he wiped a cold sweat and returned to his seat, the film resumed......

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Note 1: The author found a coincidence that he listened to because of the blowing. There is a "Dorothy/Lillian-Gish Award" that is awarded to outstanding people in the world who have made significant contributions to the concept of beauty and the understanding of human enjoyment and life.

The winner in 2014 was none other than Lin Huiyin's niece, renowned architect Lin Ying