Romancefest 2011: Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

Here’s the second William Holden movie of Romancefest 2011 – LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING. Although I’ve always liked Holden, PICNIC was a big let-down for me and I went into this one hoping he’d redeem himself. For the first half of the film, I thought I was in trouble. But as it came to a close, it won me over.

Jennifer Jones plays a Eurasian doctor living in Hong Kong, practicing medicine at a hospital where she cares for patients including European and Chinese refugees who have fled the civil war in China. Holden is an American correspondent, estranged from his wife for several years. It’s late 1949 and the Korean War looms on the horizon as the two meet and slowly strike up a romance – Holden is enthusiastic and seemingly instantly in love, while Jones is more reserved for a variety of reasons ranging from her marriage to her work to her Chinese upbringing. Attitudes of the time and region conspire to try to keep the couple apart – it’s suggested by her co-workers that Jones shouldn’t keep her job while also pursuing a love affair, and also suggested by her family that she’d be better off not marrying a foreigner.

Those reasons are all red herrings, though, I think. The biggest obstacle Jones has to overcome is her own reluctance to open up for fear of being hurt. There’s an interesting bit of dialogue in the middle of the film where Jones explains Chinese farmers who fear the angry and jealous Gods will lie about their prosperous rice fields and yell, “Bad rice!” up at the heavens. She compares the farmers to herself, hinting that she fears that if it’s too clear that she’s happy, or in love, something bad will come along and ruin everything.

That’s a pretty insightful human observation in the middle of a strangely cold movie. The somewhat stiff tone of the flick is what kept me at arm’s length for most of the first half. Jones seemed stilted and flat. I’m not sure if that’s a misguided result of her trying to act Chinese or what. Still, it leads one to wonder what Holden would see in her, and there doesn’t seem to be much chemistry between the two.

On top of the performances, even the cinematography makes the film a little inaccessible. There are big, sweeping scenery shots, getting the fullest out of the authentic Hong Kong scenery, but there are very few intimate shots, which is strange for an intimate story. This is essentially the story of two people, but it’s shot and directed as if it’s an epic, even in quiet indoor dialogue scenes. All the sets are huge, because the camera always seems to be placed as far away from the action as possible.

The opening credits proudly advertise the fact that this movie was shot using the widescreen Cinemascope process and as the movie progressed I began to wonder if the long shots were a symptom of that fact. Reading up on the movie after it was over, I found that that was the case – in the early days of Cinemascope, apparently shooting close ups was difficult and wasn’t perfected until the technology matured a little. You could say close ups are abused these days and most mainstream films are rendered boring and stale by the uniform way they focus on medium shots and close ups. But, the other extreme is equally as off-putting.

I guess on the big screen everything is kind of relative – after all, a wide shot of a person on a giant screen still makes their face easy to see. But, it doesn’t translate as well to the small screen and I’d hate to think what this movie would look like cropped for old fashioned TVs.

Anyway, as I said at the top, the movie did grow on me as it progressed. As Jones’ character loosened up, her performance did, too (a little). And, although repetitive, the famous theme song still works its magic as it swells at the end of the film. That, plus the tragic love story, set against the beautiful scenery, elevates the material at the last second, which was enough for me.