Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution (East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology, Culture)

224 Pages·2004·2.15 MB·English

by  Chris Berry

EAST ASIA
HlSTORY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY, CULTURE
Edited byEdward BeauchampUniversity of HawaiiA ROUTLEDGE SERIES
EAST ASIA: HISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY,
CULTURE
EDWARD BEAUCHAMP, General Editor
ENGINEERING THE STATEThe Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist
China,1927–1937David A.Pietz
JAPANESE DIRECT INVESTMENT IN CHINALocational Determinants and
CharacteristicsJohn F.Cassidy
SHOKO-KENA Late Medieval Daime Sukiya Style Japanese Tea-HouseRobin
Noel Walker
FROM TRANSITION TO POWER ALTERNATIONDemocracy in South
Korea, 1987–1997Carl J.Saxer
HISTORY OF JAPANESE POLICIES IN EDUCATION AID TO
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES,1950s–1990sThe Role of the Subgovernmental
ProcessesTakao Kamibeppu
A POLITICAL ECONOMY ANALYSIS OF CHINA’S CIVIL AVIATION
INDUSTRYMark Dougan
THE BIBLE AND THE GUNChristianity in South China, 1860–1900Joseph
Tse-Hei Lee
AN AMERICAN EDITOR IN EARLY REVOLUTIONARY CHINAJohn
William Powell and the China Weekly/Monthly ReviewNeil L.O’Brien
BETWEEN SACRIFICE AND DESIRENational Identity and the Governing of
Femininity in VietnamAshley Pettus
NEW CULTURE IN A NEW WORLDThe May Fourth Movement and the
Chinese Diaspora in Singapore, 1919–1932David L.Kenley
ALLIANCE IN ANXIETYDétente and the Sino-American-Japanese TriangleGo
Ito
STATE AND SOCIETY IN CHINA’S DEMOCRATIC
TRANSITIONConfucianism, Leninism, and Economic DevelopmentXiaoqin
Guo
IN SEARCH OF AN IDENTITYThe Politics of History as a School Subject in
Hong Kong, 1960s–2002Edward Vickers
PITFALL OR PANACEAThe Irony of US Power in Occupied Japan, 1945–
1952Yoneyuki Sugita
THE RENAISSANCE OF TAKEFUHow People and the Local Past Changed
the Civic Life of a Regional Japanese TownGuven Peter Witteveen
iii
THE PROSPECTS FOR A REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MECHANISM IN
EAST ASIAHidetoshi Hashimoto
AMERICAN WOMEN MISSIONARIES AT KOBE COLLEGE, 1873–
1909New Dimensions in GenderNoriko Kawamura Ishii
A PATH TOWARD GENDER EQUALITYState Feminism in JapanYoshie
Kobayashi
POSTSOCIALIST CINEMA
IN POST-MAO CHINA
The Cultural Revolution after the
Cultural Revolution
Chris Berry
ROUTLEDGE
NEW YORK & LONDON
Published in 2004 by
Routledge
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New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group.
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Copyright © 2004 Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be printed or utilized in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now know or hereafter invented,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berry, Chris.
Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural
Revolution/by Chris Berry.
p. cm. —(East Asia, history, politics, Sociology, culture)
Filmography: p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 0-415-94786-3 (Print Edition) (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Motion pictures—China—History.
2. Motion pictures—Political aspects—china.
I. Title.
II. Series: East Asia (New York, N.Y.)
PN1993.5.C4B47 2004
791.43’0951–dc22
2003026390
ISBN 0-203-50247-7 Master e-book
ISBN 0-203-57793-0 (Adobe eReaderFormat)
This book is for my parents
Contents
Chapter One Introduction: Toward a Postsocialist Cinema? 1
Chapter Two Writing on Blank Paper: The Classical Cinema 22
before 1976 as a Didactic Paradigm
Chapter Three Entering Forbidden Zones and Exposing Wounds: 66
Rewriting Socialist History
Chapter Four Postsocialism and the Decline of the Hero 87
Chapter Five A Family Affair: Separation and Subjectivity 99
Chapter Six Ending it All: Bitter Love 115
Chapter Seven Afterword: Foreigner Within, Foreigner Without 131
Notes 136
Bibliography 163
Filmography 176
Appendix 177
Index 205
Acknowledgments
This book is derived from my UCLA doctoral dissertation. I received valuable
feedback and encouragement from all the members of my committee: Janet
Bergstrom, Peter Wollen, Lucie Cheng, and John Horton, and particularly from
the chair, Nick Browne. Nick Browne and Janet Bergstrom were also my
teachers at UCLA, and their rigorous, precise, engaged, and questioning
scholarship has been an inspiring model that I have sought, however imperfectly,
to live up to. I am eternally in their debt.
In China, the China Film Archive made films available for me to view, as did
my employer, the China Film Corporation. My colleagues in the Film
Corporation answered a lot of “stupid foreigner” questions, and I am grateful for
all their help. In particular, I would like to thank Shan Dongbing, Li Jiexiu, and
Lai Qiuyun. Professor Cheng Jihua’s assistance was vital to the completion of
my dissertation, as was Chen Mei’s, and I am eternally grateful to both of them.
Chen Mei also kindly answered many translation questions, as did Ding Xiaoqi. I
would also like to thank Terumi Inoue and Koji Kato for their help with Japanese
names. In addition to those named above, there are others who asked not to be
named, but to whom I would also like signal my thanks.
Finally, the dissertation that this book is derived from was not originally
designed for publication. It was my intention to use the privilege of the doctoral
project to work on something I considered of scholarly importance but maybe
with too limited a readership for publication. I am therefore both grateful and
surprised that Routledge have proved me wrong. I thank the person or persons
unknown who drew my work to their attention, and also my editor, Kimberly
Guinta for her patience and help.
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION: TOWARD A
POSTSOCIALIST CINEMA?
“The overriding concern of post-Mao Chinese society and culture is
not postcolonialism, but postsocialism.”
—Zhang Xudong
The immediate object of this study is a group of eighty-nine relatively neglected
feature films made in the People’s Republic of China between 1976 and 1981,
eighty-one of which have been available for viewing. All or part of each film is
set during what is now known as the Cultural Revolution decade of 1966 to 1976.
Although the focus of the study is on cinematic discourse, discourse is
understood as a practice that participates in the constitution, maintenance, and
transformation of society and culture. Both China and Chinese cinema have
undergone significant change since 1976, transforming China into a postsocialist
society and culture and Chinese cinema into a postsocialist cinema. Examining
the themes, characters, audience address, and narrative structures of the films in
comparison with the cinema of the 1949 to 1976 Maoist heyday contributes to
answering some questions about that change. I argue that these films constitute
the first cinematic site where postsocialist Chinese culture is constructed in a
significant and sustained manner. To support this claim, I also detail the
discursive features of the Maoist cinema, which functions as backdrop against
which these films are distinguished. Exploring these questions also entails
thinking about what distinguishes postsocialism from socialism in these films,
and how the appearance of these films relates to the larger social and cultural
transformation.
Further details about the films are given in the appendix. The aim was to include
all films made in the wake of the Cultural Revolution that represented that period
in some way. The 1981 cut-off date was clear. That was the year when the script
Bitter Love was criticized in the first major attack on a cultural target since
Mao’s death, and it severely inhibited further production of films reexamining
the 1966 to 1976 decade. Although the period has been represented again in
movies such as Xie Jin’s Hibiscus Town (1986), they have not appeared in such
numbers or with such common themes, character types, plots, and styles as in the
years prior to the criticism of Bitter Love.