DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i08.011

Pages: 1553-1559

Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛) purposefully juxtaposes square framing, square lens, widescreen, rectangular framing, and circular framing in I Am Not Madame Bovary (我不是潘金蓮). Inspired by Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan’s square 1:1 aspect ratio in Mommy, influential film crew members, including the award-winning photographer Luo Pan (羅攀) and director Feng Xiaogang, confirmed that they deliberately use both the square framing and widescreen as their unique designs for Northern Chinese or Beijing grievance. This research article highlights cinematic metaphors of the square lens and square framing to signify the peg on which to hang the female protagonist Li Xuelian’s legal pursuits or litigation in Beijing.The literal denotation of the English-language phrase “peg” refers to “a small stick or hook that sticks out from a surface and from which objects, especially clothes, can hang.” The metaphorical connotation of the phrase “peg” means “a reason for discussing something further .” In other words, the peg can perhaps metaphorically represent the cinematic peg to hang the female protagonist Li Xuelian’s Beijing grievance on, especially because it appears whenever Li Xuelian travels northward for her Beijing lawsuit. This peg, which the square framing and square lens represents, happens to be a square peg unfitted to the round hole, which symbolizes Li Xuelian’s vagina, womb, birth canal—namely, the female fertility/birth organs and the factual reason to motivate Li Xuelian’s ten-year-long litigation.