Chinese Cinema Essay Research Paper Term Paper

Chinese Cinema Essay, Research Paper

Term Paper Chinese Cinema

The history of film is an important one today. Many people in our society today may see film as simply a form of entertainment, but it is indeed more than that. Film is a medium of expression that is unlike no other. It can tell many tales of many different types of people throughout history. Film is also a good reflection of culture. The art of film can often be seen imitating life and telling the story of a nation and their peoples. China is one such country with a celebrated history of film.

Chinese cinema is often divided into six generations. The term generations is used to make it easier to group the different phases of Chinese film history, but they are not completely different from one another. A particular generation may share something in common with the previous generation, while also passing something onto the next generation. In a sense, the history of Chinese film can be said to have gone through a sort of evolution from its beginnings to the present.

The first and second generations of film began during the 1890 s and continued through the beginning part of the early 1900 s. These two generations of Chinese film are often seen as the pioneers for Chinese cinema. Many of these films consisted of operatic shorts and short comic skits. Eventually the Chinese would go on to make full length film features. The first film length Chinese film ever made was created in 1921 and was entitled Yan Ruishe. Some years later a new trend in film began. Many dancers ad stage performers began to move from the stage to the screen. This may have seemed like a good fit at the time, but many of the dancers-turned-actors were not successful. One actress who was successful was Ruan Lingyu. Unfortunately she committed suicide in 1935. Stephanie Donald tells us that in her suicide note, she was in despair at gossip about her private life (4). It s interesting to see that even in the early stages of film in China, there were the same types of problems that celebrities often face in modern day Hollywood. It seems that any culture tends to have a fascination with the lives of the celebrities of their time.

The third generation of Chinese film shows an evolution with regards to the way the camera is used and how the films are edited. These changes mirror the camera tyle of Hollywood of the time. According to Donald some of these techniques are, two- to three-head dialogue sequences to introduce and develop story lines, jump cuts, and cuts on action to keep several narrative strands in place without losing momentum or suspense, and dream sequences or flashbacks (5). Two figures who best represent the third generation of Chinese film are Sang Hu and Shui Hua. Some of Sang s films include Joys and Sorrows of Middle Age and A Make-Believe Couple. The latter movie focuses on a woman s hairdresser looking for a wealthy wife and a young single mother looking for a wealthy husband. The film is a comedy, which has many tones of Hollywood running through it. Shui Hai s best-known work is The White-haired Girl, made by 1950 and Land, made in 1954. Shui s film s often had very political themes. For example the movie, Land, deals with the story of land reform in the 1930 s. Both Sang and Shui manage to deliver strong films, while staying with the policitcal constraints of their period.

The fourth generation of Chinese filmmakers is made up of men who were trained before the Cultural Revolution. Although they were trained long ago, many of these filmmakers have not made their first feature films until the last 20 years. Xie Jin is one of the more prominent names of the fourth generation of film. Some of his achievements include twenty-one films, several filmmaking awards, and a career that has spanned three decades. Donald describes his film as, melodramatic epics of personal suffering, and particularly successful examples of the wound (shang hen) genre, stories of individual tragedy and eventual triumph that deal with the experiences of the Cultural Revolution in cathartic and personalized narratives (7). Although Xie Jin has enjoyed a certain level of success, Xie and his fellow filmmakers of the fourth generation are often overlooked because of the fifth generation. The irony is that the fourth generation is often seen as having paved the way for the fifth generation. The benefactor of this student-teacher relationship is clearly the fifth generation because of the exposure they have received.

The fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers refers to the first group of students to graduate from the Beijing Film Academy since the Academy reopened after the Cultural Revolution. The most prominent of the fifth generation of filmmakers is Chen Kaige who has made such films as Yellow Earth, Farewell My Concubine, and The Blue Kite. The fifth generation of filmmakers also has its share of women involved. One of these female filmmakers is Peng Xiaolian who has made such films as Me and My Classmates and A Family Portrait. Peng is considered to be one of the better filmmakers of her generation, but is often overlooked in favor of her male counterparts.

Politics have shaped nearly every generation of Chinese film. In fact most of the major studios that have been active since the 1950 s have had to submit every treatment and screenplay to the China Film, Broadcaast and Television Bureau (CFTB)