Juan Monroy — Outline: Mainland China Cinema

1 Post World War II World
- 1.1 The Age of Three Worlds
  - 1 First World
  - 2 Second World
  - 3 Third World
- 1.2 China is a mix of…
  - 1 Second World State-Run Economy
  - 2 Third World Underdevelopment
2 1949 Chinese Revolution
- 2.1 Formation of People’s Republic of China
  - 1 October 1, 1949
  - 2 led by Mao Zedong
  - 3 organized vast mainland into a centralized nation
- 2.2 Soviet style
  - 1 government
  - 2 economy
- 2.3 Land Reform
  - 1 transfer ownership from private to public hands
  - 2 equalize the wealth gap between peasants and landlords
3 Fourth Generation of Cinema Cinema
- 3.1 Leadership of PRC
  - 1 Chairman Liu Shaoqui
  - 2 Party Secretary General Deng Xiaoping
- 3.2 Chinese cinema was like Socialist Realism
  - 1 narrow
  - 2 dogmatic
- 3.3 Like Soviet Cinema, policies governing cinema
  - 1 strict government censorship
  - 2 phases of liberalization
4 Cultural Revolution
- 4.1 Decade of Cultural Repression, 1966–1976
  - 1 resulted in stunted economic growth
  - 2 film industry also suffered
- 4.2 Mao Zedong instituted “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”
  - 1 aided by the People’s Liberation Army
  - 2 purged Mao’s enemies
  - 3 seized newspapers
  - 4 called on students to form a youth army, the Red Guard
- 4.3 Mao soon controlled Beijing and attacked…
  - 1 intellectuals
  - 2 artists
  - 3 bureaucrats
  - 4 any semblance of western thinking
5 Teachings of the Cultural Revolution
- 5.1 Little Red Book
  - 1 quotations from Chairman Mao
  - 2 carried everywhere in China
  - 3 billions of copies distributed
- 5.2 Peasant Reeducation
  - 1 uneducated peasants were considered ideal revolutionary citizens
  - 2 city dwellers were sent to farms
  - 3 citizens were supposed to return to cities to reeducate their urban peers
- 5.3 Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four
  - 1 closed down the film industry
  - 2 all foreign films and pre–1966 films were banned
  - 3 movies at theaters were mostly newsreels
- 5.4 “Revolutionary Model Performance”
  - 1 film versions of fictional stage plays
    - Peking Opera
    - Traditional Ballet
    - Revolutionary Military Subjects
  - 2 films were screened incessantly
  - 3 only ideological acceptable fiction form
  - 4 compare with Socialist Realism
6 End of the Mao Era
- 6.1 Deng Xiaoping instituted polices of mild reform
  - 1 Free Enterprise Programs
    - sale of agricultural produce
    - joint ventures with international companies
- 6.2 End of the Cultural Revolution
  - 1 Beijing Film Academy reopened 1978
  - 2 Pre–1966 Chinese films were re-released
  - 3 Foreign films once again imported
  - 4 Film production climbed from 19 (1977) to 125 (1986) films
7 Fifth Generation of Filmmakers
- 7.1 First class of graduates from Beijing Film Academy
- 7.2 trained in Mao’s writing but autonomous in thinking
- 7.3 exposed to many foreign films
- 7.4 assigned to work in film studios in the Chinese provinces
8 Films of the Fifth Generation
- 8.1 Similar to European art cinema
  - 1 psychologically deep
  - 2 complex narratives
  - 3 heavy symbolism
  - 4 vivid imagery
- 8.2 Films were inaccessible to peasant audiences
  - 1 80% of the population could not understand Fifth Generation films
  - 2 films did not do well financially
  - 3 officials in 1986–87 demanded more accessible, profitable films
9 Timeline of the Fifth Generation
- 9.1 1978
  - 1 Beijing Film Academy reopens
- 9.2 1982
  - 1 Filmmakers from reopened Beijing Film Academy graduate
- 9.3 1983
  - 1 One and Eight
  - 2 The Candidate
- 9.4 1984
  - 1 Yellow Earth
  - 2 Secret Decree
  - 3 The Big Parade
- 9.5 1985
  - 1 In the Wild Mountains
  - 2 Army Nurse
  - 3 Swan Song
  - 4 The Black Cannon Incident
  - 5 On the Hunting Ground
  - 6 The Dove Tree
- 9.6 1986
  - 1 Old Well
  - 2 The Stand-In
  - 3 The Horse Thief
  - 4 The Last Day of Winter
- 9.7 1987
  - 1 Far From War
  - 2 The Drum Singers
  - 3 Red Sorghum
  - 4 King of the Children
  - 5 The Sun and the Rain
- 9.8 1988
  - 1 Evening Bell
- 9.9 1989
  - 1 June: Tiananmen Square Massacre
10 End of the Fifth Generation
- 10.1 Government’s 1989 violent repression of pro-democracy movement
  - 1 Tiananmen Square massacre (1989)
  - 2 put an end to liberalized Fifth Generation filmmaking
  - 3 most Fifth Generation Filmmakers left for other countries
- 10.2 After 1989, Chinese cinema would exist in an international Asian scene
  - 1 Hong Kong
  - 2 Taiwan