China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy

by Paul G. Pickowicz

Overview

Leading scholar Paul G. Pickowicz traces the dynamic history of Chinese filmmaking and discusses its course of development from the early days to the present. Moving decade by decade, he explores such key themes as the ever-shifting definitions of modern marriage in 1920s silent features, East-West cultural conflict in the movies of the 1930s, the strong appeal of the powerful melodramatic mode of the 1930s and 1940s, the polarizing political controversies surrounding Chinese filmmaking under the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in the 1940s, and the critical role of cinema during the bloody civil war of the late 1940s. Pickowicz then considers the challenging Mao years, including chapters on legendary screen personalities who tried but failed to adjust to the new socialist order in the 1950s, celebrities who made the sort of artistic and political accommodations that would keep them in the spotlight in the post-revolutionary era, and insider film professionals of the early 1960s who actively resisted the most extreme forms of Maoist cultural production. The book concludes with explorations of the highly cathartic films of the early post-Mao era, edgy postsocialist movies that appeared on the eve of the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989, the relevance of the Eastern European “velvet prison” cultural production model, and the rise of underground and independent filmmaking beginning in the 1990s.

Throughout its long history of film production, China has been embroiled in a seemingly unending series of wars, revolutions, and jarring social transformations. Despite daunting censorship obstacles, Chinese filmmakers have found ingenious ways of taking political stands and weighing in—for better or worse—on the most explosive social, cultural, and economic issues of the day. Exploring the often gut-wrenching controversies generated by their work, Pickowicz offers a unique and perceptive window on Chinese culture and society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442211797
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/28/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Paul G. Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor of History and Chinese Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and inaugural holder of the UC San Diego Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Sorrows and Joys of Chinese Filmmaking: Political and Personal Contexts
Chapter 1: Shanghai Twenties: Early Chinese Cinematic Explorations of the Modern Marriage
Chapter 2: The Theme of Spiritual Pollution in Chinese Films of the 1930s
Chapter 3: Melodramatic Representation and the May Fourth Tradition of Chinese Cinema
Chapter 4: Never-Ending Controversies: The Case of Remorse in Shanghai and Occupation-Era
Chinese Filmmaking
Chapter 5: Victory as Defeat: Postwar Visualizations of China’s War of Resistance
Chapter 6: Acting like Revolutionaries: Shi Hui, the Wenhua Studio, and Private-Sector Filmmaking,
1949–1952
Chapter 7: Zheng Junli, Complicity, and the Cultural History of Socialist China, 1949–1976
Chapter 8: The Limits of Cultural Thaw: Chinese Cinema in the Early 1960s
Chapter 9: Popular Cinema and Political Thought in Early Post-Mao China: Reflections on Official
Pronouncements, Film, and the Film Audience
Chapter 10: On the Eve of Tiananmen: Huang Jianxin and the Notion of Postsocialism
Chapter 11: Velvet Prisons and the Political Economy of Chinese Filmmaking in the Late 1980s and
Early 1990s
Chapter 12: Social and Political Dynamics of Underground Filmmaking in Early-Twenty-First-Century
China
Additional Work on Chinese Cinema

Editorial Reviews

This is the book on Chinese cinema that we have been waiting for.Few people have as deep and wide-ranging an understanding of Chinese film culture as Paul Pickowicz does. Admirably combining vigorous research and penetrating analysis, he provides us in this important book with an insightful, richly nuanced, and thought-provoking representation of the multivalent relations between popular cinema, social change, and political violence in China’s recent history. Creatively organized around influential filmmakers, controversial films, or historiographical themes, and written in an engaging style, this is a 'must-read' for anyone interested in twentieth-century Chinese culture and society. Poshek, Fu

From the Publisher

This is the book on Chinese cinema that we have been waiting for. Few people have as deep and wide-ranging an understanding of Chinese film culture as Paul Pickowicz does. Admirably combining vigorous research and penetrating analysis, he provides us in this important book with an insightful, richly nuanced, and thought-provoking representation of the multivalent relations between popular cinema, social change, and political violence in China’s recent history. Creatively organized around influential filmmakers, controversial films, or historiographical themes, and written in an engaging style, this is a must-read for anyone interested in twentieth-century Chinese culture and society.

Fu Poshek

This collection of essays by one of our preeminent scholars of Chinese film history has given us a panoramic study of different facets of Chinese filmmaking and filmmakers: from early films made in 1920s Shanghai through each of the subsequent decades all the way to the sociopolitical dynamics of today's underground filmmaking. Each of the twelve chapters takes on a specific issue or theme and relates it to the historical context in which it arose. Altogether they form a cohesive framework and argument in which the author's passionate commitment to Chinese cinema and Chinese culture is felt on every page.

Leo Ou-fan Lee

China on Film is a kaleidoscope of history, film, politics, and personalities that scans a tumultuous landscape across nearly a hundred years. The range is marvelous. We consider overarching questions, but they are always brought to life in charming, concrete detail. We meet some major figures in culture and politics but bohemians and underground loners, too. We get our feet in China’s earth but sense world currents as well. Our guide is a specialist insider, yet enough of an outsider that he can walk past taboos. As with any good kaleidoscope, this one sparkles at every turn.

Perry Link

China on Film is a kaleidoscope of history, film, politics, and personalities that scans a tumultuous landscape across nearly a hundred years. The range is marvelous. We consider overarching questions, but they are always brought to life in charming, concrete detail. We meet some major figures in culture and politics but bohemians and underground loners, too. We get our feet in China’s earth but sense world currents as well. Our guide is a specialist insider, yet enough of an outsider that he can walk past taboos. As with any good kaleidoscope, this one sparkles at every turn.

Perry Link