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The national paradigm: Chinese cinema and the building of the Nation


The State and cinema: propaganda and censorship

Chinese cinema at war (1937-1945)

Nationalism in the post-war (1945-1950)

The question of a national cinema is central during the period. But what lies behind this question? Can culture –such as movie – serve a political goal? How the State tried to implement its vision of Nation? How this vision was the same or different from the one supported by the society? The war against Japan, then the Civil war, had a deep impact on the National narrative in Chinese cinema;

Historical context: the Quest for a Nation

1911: the Wuchang uprising (October 10, 1911) leads to the abdication of Emperor Puyi on February 12, 1912: this is the end of the Imperial State.

On 10 March 1912, Yuan Shikai was sworn as the second Provisional president of the Republic of China in Peking. Sun Yat-sen visited the senate on April 1 and announced the removal of his Provisional president status.

May Fourth, 1919

In reaction to the Peace talks at Versailles, 3000 students in Beijing protest against the arrangement made between the Western powers and Japan against China and ask for:

  1. the abolition of all privileges of foreign powers in China, such as extraterritoriality
  2. the cancelling of the “Twenty-One Demands” with the Japanese
  3. the return to China of the territory and rights of Shandong, which Japan had taken from Germany during World War I.

The movement grows with the participation of the Chinese entrepreneur.

Reading:

Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement, Intellectual Revolution in Modern China, Stanford (CA), Stanford UP, 1960

Pickowicz Paul, « Melodramatic Representation an the May Fourth tradition of Chinese Cinema », in Ellen Widmer et Te-wei Wang, From May Fourth to June Fourth : Fiction and Film in Twentieth-Century China, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2009

Widmer Ellen et Wang Te-wei, From May Fourth to June Fourth : Fiction and Film in Twentieth-Century China, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2009

1927: Tchang Kai-shek and the Guomindang st the Central Governement in Nanjing.
Tchang Kai-shek launches a terror against GMD ancient allies, the PCC.

Beginning of the Nanjing decade (1927-1937).

19 September 1911: Invasion of Mandchouria by Japan

28 January 1932: Japanese war on Shanghai

7 July 1937: Japan attacks China.

1945: Victory and Liberation

1946-1949: Civil war between GMD and PCC.

I. The State and Cinema

Cinema was long considered as a popular entertainment without any other interest. The first ones to openly show an interest in cinema were some members of the cultivated elite who were aware of the moral and educational aspect of the films. They were the first ones to try to regulate films as well as to reflect upon their educational usage.

Some filmmaker too understood the usage of film as an educational and political tool. Such was Li Minwei (Lai-Man-wai 1893-1953): a member of the Tongmenghui, he offered to film Sun Yat-sen in his political and military activities.

See:

A page of History 《建國之頁 Jianguo zhi ye, (1941): a documentary made by Li Minwei in 1941, using the film shots made between 1921 and 1928 by Li Minwei: Sun Yat-sen Northern Expedition, Sun Yat-sen funeral, Sun Yat-sen monument in Nanjing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAxlgJB8dUY

During the Nanjing decade:

The State did not support financially the private film industry. However, the usage of film as propaganda tool was already on and in 1934, Zhongyang dianying sheying chang (中央電影攝影厂Central Studio) was set in Nanjing. It produced several hundreds of propaganda films and newsreels: on the war against communists , on national event such as sport events.

Cultural propaganda, in favor of the Nationalist ideology as also implemented through the Association of educative chinese cinema (Zhongguo jiaoyu dianying xiehui 中國教育電影協會) created in July 1932. All the movie industry was represented in this Association.

The propaganda cinema really increased during the war: the Nationalist state used all the cinematographical structures it had put together to develop propagandistic film: it was then a movie about resistance against Japan.

See below: war and cinema

Reading:

International and Wartime Origins of the Propaganda State: The Motion Picture in China, 1897-1955. By MATTHEW DAVID JOHNSON. University of California, San Diego, 2008. 485 pp. Primary Advisors: Joseph W. Esherick and Paul G. Pickowicz.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/68d099m6

Another aspect of State control during the Nanjing decade was censorship. More moralistic than political up to 1934, censorship then became harsher. The National Film Censorship committee was dissolved and a new committee, placed directly under the supervision of the Guomindang and the Central Propaganda Department was organized in early 1934: this was a clear shift towards political censorship. Films were inspected twice, once in script form and once after production.

Reading:

Xiao Zhiwei, Film Censorship in China, 1927-1933 (Cultural Control, Nationalism), PHD, University of California, San Diego, 1994

Wang Chaoguang, « The politics of filmmaking : an investigation of the Central Film Censorship Committee in the mid 1930s », Frontiers of History in China, 2007, 2 (3), p. 416-444

II. Chinese cinema at war (1937-1945)

Between 1932 and 1937, in a context of heavy censorship, patriotism becomes one of the main current of Chinese cinema.

During the war, this current continues : outside of the occupied zone, in Hong Kong and Chongqing but also, although in a more subtle way, in Shanghai during and after the « Orphan Island » (1937-1941).

1. A seminal moment : the Shanghai war (1932)

2. The war of Resistance against Japan (1937-1945)

1. A seminal moment: the Shanghai war

On the morning of 28 January 1932, Japanese troops launched an attack on Shanghai. The real cause was the Japanese military's determination to expand its influence into Shanghai after the September 1931 invasion of Manchuria. To their great surprise, however, and contrary to widespread views on the technological disadvantage of the Chinese army, Chinese troops, with the full support of the Shanghai residents, offered a staunch resistance. In a battle that lasted 33 days, the Japanese were unable to take the city. In May 1932, the Chinese and Japanese governments, pressed by the International Powers, accepted to sign a ceasefire.

In many ways, the battle of Shanghai introduced elements that would become the characteristics of modern wars: aerial bombing of cities and destruction of civilian areas, heavy civilian casualties and urban guerrilla warfare. For Shanghai and the Chinese people, the event was shocking and destructive.

Casualties among Chinese are still subject to debate. According to the most recent studies, 4000 soldiers were killed and more than 7000 were wounded (which accounts for 18% of the total Chinese armed forces in the Shanghai area) while at least 6000 civilians were killed and 230 000 were displaced due to the exodus into the International Settlement. Economic destruction was even worst. 80% of housing and 70% of commercial shops and industrial buildings in the zone were either entirely or partially destroyed.

Reading:

Jordan Donald A., China’s trial by fire: the Shanghai war of 1932, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2001

Because it was in Shanghai, the media (press, movie, maybe radio) were on the frontline : photos, woodcuts prints, films were made during and just after the war to document it.

Shanghai war was a mediatic event, filmmakers and companies were in front row to produce patriotic films.

Newsreels:

Many newsreels on the Shanghai war, including one made by a foreign correspondent, were released between June and October 1932. Most successful was: The Bloody Battle of Shanghai against Japanese (Shanghai kangri xue zhanshi上哈抗日血), produced by the Huizhong company) that was screened 29 days in June, the first month of its release, at the Fu'an Theater.

Feature films

All for the Country (Gongfu guonan 共赴国), is a fiction movie made at Lianhua. Collectively written and filmed between February and April 1932, during the event itself, it was released in Shanghai in August 1932 in an open-air theatre in the Black Cat night club. The movie described the life of a Zhabei family during the battle and the human and material sacrifices they endured. The film critic praised the meticulous, although reconstituted, description of the civilians' life during the war. They liked the fact that the movie showed some aspects of the war that were never filmed before – like the interior of the Zhabei houses.

Battle of Shanghai (Shanghai zhanshi 上海), was released by Mingxing, a few days earlier in August 1932, met with a relatively good success as it was screened for seventeen days during the first month of its release. It also used excerpts from newsreels showing some film stars in action on the front lines or helping at hospitals.

While patriotism was high, moviegoers and companies in Shanghai had to struggle against a heavy censorship

Japanese / western censorship : In Shanghai, the Shanghai Municipal Council put a ban on the movies about the war as it worried about Japanese reaction. The only theatres where the movies were screened in Shanghai were located in the Chinese city.

Governemental censorship : While the government first welcomed the development of patriotic films, things started to change the ceasefire with Japan was signed in May 1932: China committed itself to prevent further anti-Japanese propaganda. As early as June 1932, the Central Department of Propaganda issued a new rule: the production of films “with a revolutionary content about the war against Japan” was forbidden under the pretext that these productions might endanger the peace effort. In reality, it was also a way for the government to implement a political censorship. According to these regulations, any mention of Japan or Japanese or of the war was prohibited.

Until 1934…

However many Chinese film makers, sought strategies to get around censorship. For instance, instead of “Japanese”, they used such words as “enemy” or “invader”, but they still mentioned and showed in detail the attack on Shanghai.

TO WATCH: Little Toys (Xiao Wanyi 小玩意), by Sun Yu.

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=209

It was released October 10, 1933, in one of the movie palaces of the town, the Carlton, located in the International Settlement. The battle of Shanghai is shown in the film, with a mixt of reconstitution and few shot from newsreel. But the Japanese are only named as “the enemy”.

1934-1936: Political censorship at its highest

With the change in the state censorship, there was less and less room for the direct expression of patriotic views. Filmmaker became allusive, using metaphorical stories or displacement in time or space.

TO WATCH: The Road (Da Lu 大路), Sun Yu, 1934

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=137

The movie was first screened in January 1935. Sun Yu set his story “somewhere inland” in the countryside. A troupe of young workers is building a road. They are compared, in the booklet that was distributed in the movie theatre, to “the soldiers who are facing fire at the front lines”. At the end of the movie, the enemy’s attack on this young and courageous China comes, as in Shanghai in 1932, from the air. The description of the attack with an airplane flying over the busy team of workers, surprising and killing them in their daily activities, but also the resistance of one of young workers, wounded to death, cannot but resonate with the memories of the 1932 attack in the mind of Shanghai people.

See also:

Blood bath on the Wolf mountain (Langshan diexue ji 狼山喋血), Fei Mu, 1936, a metaphorical story of a village being attacked by wolfs.

The Heroine in Besieged City (Gucheng lienu古城烈女), Wang Cilong, 1936, as an example of displacement in time.

1936-1937: National mobilization against the threat:

After 1936, with the Union of PCC and GMD, Chinese cinema is going to mobilized to awake patriotism.

2. The war of Resistance against Japan (1937-1945)

After Japanese invasion, there were several centers of production: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chongqing, occupied Manchuria, Yan’an and Taiyuan

Manchurian cinema : the Japanese constructed studios in Mandchuria in order to produce films design to advocate the Great Asia.

Yan’an and Taiyuan : in the Communist zones, there was a project of producting documentary shorts and feature films. Because of the lack of material, few films were really produced but this project helped to train many people of the film industry who joined the Communist.

Shanghai:

As Japanese occupied Shanghai, cinema became a touchstone of the Chinese filmmakers’ national conscience. Cinema had to be entertaining, while still being considered Chinese: producer needed to find a balance between national conscience and profit. Filmmakers and producers who stayed in Shanghai felt that they were participating to a war effort against Japan even if they could not do it openly.

In 1938, in a booming film industry context, entertainment +patriotism became a successful formula with the costumes dramas

TO WATCH:

Story of Mulan (Mulan congjun , Xinhua, Bu Wancang, 1939) 

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=166

After 1941: when all Shanghai fell in the Japanese army, a tighter control was exercised on the production by Japan who united all the previous private Shanghai studios into one big production complex. Filmmakers and producers chose to shot neutral entertaining films rather than pro-Japanese films, a form of negative patriotism.

Hong Kong:

In Hong Kong, before Japanese 1941 invasion stopped the production, many Shanghai artists in exile tried to continue the battle of cinema in a place still relatively free. There was a lot of exchange between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chongqing.

TO WATCH:

Orphan Island paradise (Gudao tiantang 天堂), 1939 : produced in Hong Kong, by Cai Chusheng, with the financial support of the Central Studio.

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=147

TO READ :

Fu Poshek, « The Ambiguity of Entertainment: Chinese Cinema in Japanese-Occupied Shanghai, 1941 to 1945 », Cinema Journal, Autumn, 1997, vol. 37, n° 1, p. 68-70

Fu Poshek, Between Shanghai and Hong Kong, The Politics of Chinese Cinemas, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003

Chongqing: Under GMD leadership, the State Studios were actively producing patriotic films. The Central Studio (Zhongyang dianying sheying chang) was a governmental structure where some leftists filmmakers made also movies.

The films were propagandistic, patriotic films.

Some were a mixed of documentary and fiction, there goal was to mobilize the mass against Japanese invasion.

TO WATCH: The Great Wall (Re xue zhong hun 血忠魂), Yuan Congmei, 1938

http://www.cinearchives.org/recherche-avancee-424-808-0-0.html

NOTE: This film was shown in France in 1938. With famous Shaghai movie star such as Gao Zhanfei and Li Lili, it uses many newsreel shots and describes the atrocities of Japanese invasion in a very graphic way.

After 1943 because of conflicts between GMD and CCP and because of the lack of material, fewer films were made.

During the war, State structures, in Chongqing under the GMD, but also in occupied Manchuria and in Shanghai after 1941 under the Japanese, became the most important movie producing structures. The private industry lost its supremacy. It will never recover it in Mainland China.

III. Nationalism in the post-war period (1945-1950)

Like the society, post war cinema was split, depending on the production structures (private/public) and their political agenda (GMD/CCP). Nationalism is no more a common feeling, but a question, in a society more and more corrupted where there are competing visions of the new Nation. Hopes for a better future nurtured during the war lead to many disillusions among the artistic community. This is well described in the two biggest hit of the period

TO WATCH:

Eight thousands li of clouds and moon (八千里路云和月 Ba qian li lu yun he yue), Shi Dongshan, 1947

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=128

The Spring river flow East (Yi jiang chun shui xiang dong liu 一江春水向), Cai Chusheng, 1948

https://archive.org/details/the_spring_river_flows_east-part1

During this period, the Communists are stronger in the private studios and own few studios in the North. The building of a new National narrative, based on the war against Japan heroism, the depiction of the evils of the “old society”, the condemnation of the nationalist party and supporters became frequent.

TO WATCH

Along the Sungari River (松花江上 - Song hua jiang shang), Jin Shan, 1947

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=187

The White haired girl (Bai mao nü 白毛女), Wang Bin, 1950

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=126

Crow and sparrow (乌鸦与麻雀- Wu ya yu ma que), Zheng Junli, 1950

http://www.bniao.org/BN/Films?ID=205



Last update Wednesday 17 June 2015 by A. Kerlan Stephens