Luise Rainer, The Good Earth

as O-LAN

Won: Academy Award - Best Actress

"A product of its time" -- it's something I come across often when I read up on any of the films and/or  performances of classical Hollywood. It's usually used dismissively, sort of like, "Yeah, what they did there was pretty offensive, but what can you do? It's just a product of its time." Now, I've been immersed in enough movies from this era to know what to expect--that it was a racially insensitive time, and thus the characters of color presented in these films are intrinsically racist depictions. But this doesn't change the fact that The Good Earth was vexing to watch. Normally the presences of ethnic characters acted as decorative flourishes as opposed to any portrayal of substance or real-life. Yet here was The Good Earth, the first film of the era I've seen to boast "ethnic" lead characters and an entirely "ethnic" cast--so what was normally just the occasional spoonful of racism now becomes a big 'ole full-course meal of it. And as a staunch enthusiast of naturalism in the films I watch, you can imagine how frustrating it was for me to not only sit through The Good Earth but to also separate from its performances my apprehension towards the film's (personally) offensive racist representations. It didn't matter to me how honorable these characters actually were--no level of honor justifies the cultural appropriation of billions of people through yellowface, slanted eyes, and buck teeth. And at the heart of the film is the Academy Award winning performance of Luise Rainer, whose O-Lan has proven to be a tough piece of work for me to evaluate.


I expect a certain level of believability when watching performances. I loved Katharine Hepburn in Morning Glory because I believed her to be a naïve ingénue, I loved Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson because I believed her to be an entrancing and headstrong harlot, and I loved Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey because I believed her to be the dizzy blonde she was playing. For me at least, there are core competencies to every performance that have to be convincing--otherwise, what's the point in trying to tell the story to begin with if you can't get your audience to buy what they're seeing? Irving Thalberg, when pressed as to why he decided against having Chinese actors like Anna May Wong take on the lead roles in his film, said: "I'm in the business of creating illusions." Thus, if I'm to evaluate Rainer on the sole basis of how well she achieved the illusion of a Chinese peasant woman, it goes without saying that she does a rather poor job. Oriental attire, slanted eyelids, and being made up to look emaciated a Chinese woman does not make. What's worse, when she speaks, you hear a European accent (not that a pure American accent or an accent of broken English would have made things better). The point I'm trying to make is that it's all a really inharmonious packaging of sight and sound. I didn't buy her as a Chinese woman, which is an issue given that "Chinese woman" is the most basic aspect of who O-Lan is.

But that said, because O-Lan isn't just your typical one-dimensional supporting character, because she's a full-fledged lead character, there's more to her than just a Chinese woman. So I can't solely base her performance on how much I bought her as Chinese. She's certainly more than that--she's a timid woman who has suffered under abuse, she's a deeply submissive, under-appreciated, long-suffering wife, and she's a resilient fighter. Rainer tackles all of these attributes with some gusto. At times it seems like Rainer's in a daze, which makes sense given O-Lan's passive nature. She sort of looks like a zombie the way she drags herself across the screen. I took some issue with the way she delivered her lines--it sounds rather forced and stagey. For instance, the scene in which O-Lan stares off and recites her dreams about presenting her son to the people at the Great House is awkwardly theatrical in the way she presents herself and took me back to the early days of sound acting. Rainer doesn't have the airy, organic quality to her that I enjoyed so much in The Great Ziegfeld. Instead, she's a lot more mechanical in the way she moves and the way she speaks. Other parts in the film, such as when she's telling her children how to beg for money, or when she tells her husband not to sell the farm or reveals that her newborn is dead--they're all pretty heavy moments and yet I found her to have overdone it or taken on a peculiar lethargic way of speaking in which she says. her. lines. slowly. with. deep. emphasis. to. evoke. drama. But in actuality, O-Lan doesn't really speak all that much, and a lot of the time Rainer is required to take up some silent acting. That's where I feel she really shines, and that's what ultimately saved the performance for me. Rainer's got a very expressive set of eyes, and she's able to convey so much facially. She does so powerfully and with seemingly no effort at all. Often times I would catch a close-up of her and notice those eyes, and with a simple glance you really feel the weight of all of life's cruelties on this character. I was impressed with the scene in which O-Lan discovers the bag of jewels and is subsequently caught by soldiers--the way she displays shock and fear is fierce and robust yet completely soundless. Same goes for the later scene where she breaks down in her garden--Rainer can handle emotion so deeply and it's such a sight to see. Her silent expressiveness is just sublime, and I probably would have liked the performance a lot more overall if it were a completely silent one. But ultimately, I found this performance to be very volatile in quality. Visually and sonically, the performance was totally unconvincing to me, and yet inside the wrapping is a quiet storm to it that packs a punch. This isn't the worst Best Actress winner out there and it's hardly the most offensive Asian representation I've seen. Realistically there was probably no chance a caucasian actor could have scored more from me than what I give Rainer here...but alas, I could tell she did the best she could.

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