Film-Making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981

Author(s): Paul Clark

Source: The China Quarterly , Jun., 1983, No. 94 (Jun., 1983), pp. 304-322
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and
African Studies

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/653884

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Film-making in China: From the Cultural
Revolution to 1981

Paul Clark*

It is difficult to be objective about the Cultural Revolution. Difficulties

were encountered during the event itself (which is variously defined as
the years 1966-69 or, less usefully, the whole period 1966-76) by its
proponents and its victims. With the reversal of the political fortunes of
the victims, objectivity seemed even more unlikely. But as 1976 (or 1969)
moved further into the past, even in China a more measured assessment
of the significance of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath began to
be made at all levels (both official and unofficial) of the political public.
Placing the history of film-making in the Cultural Revolution in
perspective suggests that the events of those years were less anachronistic
than commonly assumed immediately after the leadership changes of late
1976. Many strong continuities - in personnel, cinematic subjects and
styles, and the expectations placed on films by the leadership - indicate
that the period from 1966 to 1976 was a time when many of the problems
of film in China were brought into sharp relief. These problems,
however, had existed before 1966 and persisted, despite many obvious
changes, after 1976. While such issues as the relationships between art
and life and between art and politics are illuminated by a study of the
Cultural Revolution years, they were not fully addressed during those
years. In some respects these issues were made more complex by the 11-
year experience, with consequences for film-makers and cultural leaders
that persisted into the 1980s.
The issues and pressures raised during the Cultural Revolution applied
to all art and literature. They had a particular impact on film, however,
because of two characteristic qualities: its origins and its popularizing
potential.
Notwithstanding the argument that it was a " foreign" artistic
medium prevalent throughout the world, beyond Western Europe, film
has been slow to gain acceptance as something other than an imported,
alien medium in China. The closest equivalent is spoken drama (huaju).
All other modern artistic forms introduced in China over the last 100
years have stronger resemblances to indigenous Chinese forms. The
foreignness of the film medium in China was confirmed and reinforced,
particularly for Yan'an-based revolutionaries, by the association of film-
* Grateful acknowledgement is made to Mr John Morgan of the New Zealand Embassy,
Beijing, and an NCR Foundation East Asian Scholarship for making possible a research
visit to China in September-December 1980, when much of the material for this article was
gathered. They are not, of course, responsible for the views expressed here. An earlier
version of this paper was prepared for the Ombre elettriche Chinese film retrospective,
Turin, February-March 1982.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 305

making and film exhibition before 1949 with the most foreign parts of
Chinese society. Given the necessity for relatively large amounts of
capital and high levels of technical specialization in film, it was not
surprising that, geographically, film was centred on Shanghai, Hong
Kong and Beijing. Exhibition tended to be confined also to treaty ports
of the coast and riverine hinterland. Socially, the people who made the
films were also a distinct group of westernized intelligentsia somewhat
isolated from the rest of Chinese society. Film audiences before 1949
appear also to have been similarly distinctive, at least until the 1940s. As
in many other countries, perhaps three out of every four feature films
shown on Chinese screens before 1949 were foreign-made.
Despite this association of film with some of the features of pre-
Liberation life most abjured by the Communist Party leadership, film
could not be taken lightly for it was the artistic form potentially most
accessible to the greatest numbers and range of people. In this sense film
is a popular art. Before 1949 Kuomintang interest in film-making
reflected a recognition of its potential as a mass medium for education
and mobilization. Communist Party interest and intervention in film
production, starting in the 1930s, stemmed from similar concerns. After
1949 film, the " foreign " medium, became Lenin's " the most
important art," even if Lenin had only meant newsreels. Given this
interest in film as a medium, the large-scale, capital-intensive nature of
production continued to make it perhaps more vulnerable than other arts
to intervention from outside.
For the historian of Chinese culture the Cultural Revolution can be
seen as a period when two themes of 20th-century Chinese cultural
change - the question of national forms, and the social role of literature
and art - were particularly highlighted. As suggested by the above
discussion, these two themes have a particular application to Chinese
cinema. Reducing the themes somewhat crudely in the 11 years from 1966
to 1976 attempts were made to create a new type of fiction film heavily
influenced by indigenous operatic conventions, and stronger than usual
efforts were made to make film accountable to the purposes of those in
power. Neither theme disappeared after 1976.
This article will examine some of the continuities over the 15 years
since 1966, and between that period and the years before 1966. In this
way it is hoped that the events of the Cultural Revolution will gain
perspective and its legacy become clearer.

From 1966 to 1969

In 1966 fiction film (gushi pian) production in China came to a halt.

The subsequent hiatus lasted until 1969 when the studios began to be
reconstituted prior to resuming production. During these four years what
was considered the old, bankrupt line in Chinese film art was repudiated
by those in control of cultural policies. New notions of what film should
be like were presented by the same sources, but mostly as a mere adjunct
to their concentration on stage yangban xi (model performances).

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306 The China Quarterly

The difficulties in which film-makers found themselves in 1966 were

not unprecedented. The relative prosperity of film-making in the early
1960s was broken in 1964 by the criticisms levelled against two films,
Beiguo jiangnan (Jiangnan in the North) and Zaochun eryue (Early
Spring in February). No other films had received such sustained
attention since Wu Xun zhuan (The Life of Wu Xun) in 1951. As in the
earlier case, the 1964 critique sprang from what the two films were taken
to represent in artistic creation. Both films in artistic terms were
somewhat more sophisticated than usual, a feature which drew attention
to their effectiveness and content from suspicious cultural commissars.
Beiguo jiangnan, which told the story of collectivization in a northern
Hebei village, was criticized on two main counts. It was said to reflect the
influence of Zhou Gucheng's "universal morality and aesthetic"
theories by playing down class struggle, and it raised " middle
characters " (zhongjian renwu) to prominence in the story. Both these
features were currently being debated in literary circles. Zaochun eryue,
based on a 1929 short novel by Rou Shi, told of a would-be
revolutionary's personal and social difficulties encountered in the small
town to which he withdraws as a teacher. The film was attacked for
propagating bourgeois individualism, humanitarianism (rendaozhuyi)
and class harmony. It raised, according to its critics, the whole question
of how to adapt May 4th works in socialist China. More broadly, the
criticism of the film was one more round in the continuing struggle
between those who narrowly interpreted Mao Zedong's Yan'an literary
line and those who gave more weight to the pre-Yan'an May 4th literary
movement. '
In the sense that the start of the Cultural Revolution was also a
struggle between these two literary lines, the criticism of Zaochun eryu
prefigured later events. The attack on the two films ended after a f
months in November 1964. In mid 1966, at the start of the Cultur
Revolution, however, the four proponents of the alleged " black lin
in literature and art included Xia Yan, who had adapted other May 4
works for the screen, and Yang Hansheng, writer of Beiguo jiangna
These two men, along with a third " black liner " Tian Han, had be
the most prominent progressive playwrights in 1930s Shanghai.2 T
attack on these figures continued the earlier criticism of 1930s " bl
line " literature expressed at the Forum on Army Literature and A
Work. A particular target was the two-volume history of Chinese film u
to 1949 by Cheng Jihua, with Li Shaobai and Xing Zuwen. The boo
1. For typical critiques of Beiguo jiangnan see Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 30 J
1964, p. 6; 15 August 1964, p. 5; 30 August 1964, p. 7; 6 September 1964, p. 7. A ludicro
parallel with the Wu Xun zhuan campaign was the sending of an investigation team to
district in which the film is set. Wu Xun had actually lived in the district investigated
Jiang Qing and others in 1951. The Renmin ribao prefaced the Beiguo jiangnan report
admitting the problems of investigating the settings of fiction; Renmin ribao, 15 Novem
1964, p. 5. Typical articles on Zaochun eryue can be found in Renmin ribao, 15 Septemb
1964, p. 6; 22 September 1964, p. 5; 8 November 1964, pp. 6-7; 11 November 1964, p. 5.
2. Zhou Yang was an exception in the four, having been a critic of many in 19
Shanghai Leftist literary circles, and an eager proponent of Mao's Yan'an Talks in t
1950s.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 307

argument that progressive film-makers in the 1930s had mapped out and
started in the socialist, popularizing direction outlined by Mao at the
Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art was seen by the book's critics as a
questioning of the significance of Mao's Yan'an pronouncements.3
By 1966 an increasing number of films were publicly criticized for their
alleged peddling of bourgeois ideology. Da Li, xiao Li he lao Li (Big Li,
Little Li and Old Li), a 1962 comedy which poked fun at a factory
manager's reluctance to take part in a physical fitness campaign, was
included in the attacks. Comedy films like this had first appeared after
1949 during the 1956 to 1957 "Hundred Flowers" period, and had been
treated with much suspicion by cultural authorities. Xin juzhang daolai
zhi qian (Before the New Department Head Arrives), drawn from a stage
play, for example, had been roundly condemned in 1957, along with its
director, Lii Ban, who did not make another film before his death in
1976. The attack on Da Li, xiao Li he lao Li indicated that comedy
remained a particularly suspect film genre.4
One film of the dozen or so singled out for criticism in 1966 is of
special interest. Buye cheng (City without Night, 1957) perhaps
warranted the charges hurled at it.5 The film traces the career of a
Shanghai " national capitalist " from the 1930s to the 1950s. So little
time is spent on the hero's repentant acceptance of the new political
order at the end of the film that the conversion is unconvincing and does
not eradicate the impressions of material comfort presented throughout
the film, including scenes from after 1949. Buye cheng was almost
unique among those films criticized in 1966 in that it was not re-released
in the late 1970s.
In part, the 1966 Cultural Revolution attack on film circles arose out
of a personal vendetta. Jiang Qing and others apparently had long
harboured animosity towards people like Xia Yan and Yang Hansheng
with whom they had worked in Shanghai in the 1930s. Animosity was
tinged with fear of embarrassment should past failings be exposed. The
homes of the actor Zhao Dan and the director Zheng Junli were
ransacked in search of potentially incriminating documents. Zheng Junli
died later in prison.6
Factors other than personal animus, however, are needed to explain a
complete halt to the production of fiction films for more than four years.
Reference should be made to the nature of film in China and the twin
themes (of national form and social purpose) prominent in Chinese
cultural history before 1949.
The Cultural Revolution attack on the foreignness of film would seem
surprising given the passage of almost two decades for a socialist Chinese
cinema to establish itself. But many of the leading personnel in film-
3. See, for example, Renmin ribao, 19 April 1966, p. 6; Jiefangjun wenyi (Liberation
Army Literature andArt), No. 10 (May 1968), pp. 17-23.
4. For a critique of Da Li, xiao Li he lao Li see Dazhong dianying (Popular Film), No. 6
(June 1966), pp. 34-35.
5. See, for example, Wenyi bao (Literature andArts Gazette), No. 7 (July 1965), pp. 19-
34.
6. Evidence on these events was presented in December 1980 at the trial of the " gang."

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308 The China Quarterly

making had learned their art before 1949 and indeed before Yan'an. Th
influence of western, specifically American, film art on these artists was
condemned in the Cultural Revolution, as it had been in the Wu Xun and
Anti-Rightist campaigns of the 1950s. Zaochun eryue, drawn from
May 4th novel, was said to lack " national style " (minzu fengge).7 Th
characteristic of film in China had been perpetuated ironically in th
1950s when a new foreign model replaced American films. The
pernicious influence of the new Soviet model, in its " modern
revisionist " guise, was also condemned after 1966.
The emphasis on the revolutionary modern operas in the late 1960s
was itself a commentary on this ambiguous attitude to film art in China.
Because film could reach much larger audiences it would seem a more
suitable medium in which to promulgate a revolution in culture. But film
circles were distrusted for personal and ideological reasons, so the
revolution was conducted in the theatre in an indigenous performing art,
opera, and in an opera-influenced imported form, ballet. Ironically more
people have seen the revolutionary model performances (yangban xi) on
film than on the stage.
The second factor which helps explain what happened to film-making
after 1966 is also related to the nature of the medium. Given its industrial
dimensions, film in any society is vulnerable to outside interference. In
China, at a time when specialists were subject to deep suspicion, film was
even more prone to intervention.
While stage arts luxuriated in half-a-dozen model works, fiction film
production ended, just as it had virtually done in the period 1951-53
after the Wu Xun campaign. The personnel of the film studios spent
their time at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution at meetings and
political study. Later many staff members were dispersed, some going to
prison, others returning home, and others employed in manual labour at
May 7th Cadre Schools and elsewhere. Until 1969 the only new films
produced in China were documentaries. A mere handful of fiction films
made before 1966 were shown occasionally.8 Some other pre-1966 films
were screened as " negative teaching materials " (fanmian jiaocai).
These included Wu Xun zhuan, resurrected after 15 years. In mid 1967
came official acknowledgment that the May 1951 People's Daily
editorial, which had formally begun the anti-Wu Xun campaign, had
indeed been written by Mao Zedong himself.9 Mao in these years became
China's star of the screen.

From 1970 to 1976

In October 1970 the long silence from the fiction film studios was
broken by a celluloid version of the revolutionary model opera, Zhiqu
7. Ironically some Japanese critics see May 4th adaptations like Zaochun eryue as
creating a Chinese cinema style; interview with Yang Yanjin, Shanghai, December 1980.
8. These included Dilei zhan (Mine Warfare), Didao zhan (Tunnel Warfare), and
Nanzheng beizhan (Fighting North and South), 1952 version; Renmin ribao, 6 January
1970, p. 4; 9 January 1970, p. 4; and interview with Sun Daolin, Shanghai Film Studio,
December 1980.
9. See, for example, its publication in Jiefangjun wenyi, No. 7 (June 1967), pp. 20-22.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 309

Weihushan (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy), made at the Beijing

studio.10 For the next six years the resumption of film-making was under
the control of Jiang Qing and her allies in cultural leadership. This
leadership changed at the end of 1976. But the continuities between this
period and film-making before and after it should not be
underestimated.
One such continuity was in personnel. Here again the specialized
nature of film art meant that barefoot film-makers were not possible and
that Jiang Qing had little choice but to rely on experienced directors and
other artists. These film workers remained active after 1976. The films
which they made in the early 1970s were also not unique. They had
antecedents from before 1966, and had a pernicious influence on film-
making through to the end of the 1970s.
But the first efforts at restoration of the film industry concentrated on
the model theatrical works. Tiger Mountain was heralded as a new kind
of film which avoided the naturalism, formalism and fragmented shots
which were said to characterize bourgeois and most earlier Chinese films.
Instead the " three prominences " (san tuchu), a concentric emphasis on
the work's positive characters, heroes and single main hero, were
brought out by the motion picture camera. The aim in these films was to
reflect the ideological and artistic achievement of the original operas,
while raising the theatrical production to a higher plane. " These
instructions from Jiang Qing allegedly helped solve the problem of
transferring Hongse niangzi jun (The Red Detachment of Women) from
stage to screen. Two earlier attempts at the Beijing studio were said to
break the continuity of the original, by turning eight scenes into 20 or to
magnify the negative characters when the ballet was mechanically
transferred to film.12
Of course, Chinese film-makers had considerable experience in filming
stage performances, particularly opera. But strictures placed on them
regarding the model works were considerable. The film of the model,
dance version of Baimao nii (White-haired Girl), that classic in the canon
of post-Yan'an Forum literature, took one-and-a-half years to make.13 It
was directed by the veteran film maker Sang Hu, who had begun his
career in Shanghai during the Anti-Japanese War. A more typical film
artist, given an opportunity to practise his art even if in this restricted
form, was Xie Tieli, who in 1972 directed the model opera Haigang (On
the Docks), a joint production of the Beijing and Shanghai studios, and
later filmed two other model performances, the operas Dujuan shan
(Azalea Mountain) and Longjiang song (Song of the Dragon River). Xie
was too young to be associated with the factional rivalries of 1930s
Shanghai literary circles or with the Lu Xun Academy of Art in Yan'an

10. Renmin ribao, 30 September 1970, p. 2.

11. This formula is cited, for example, in reviews in Renmin ribao, 4 November 1970, p.
4 and Guangming ribao (Enlightenment Daily), 12 July 1972, p. 3.
12. Renmin ribao, 6 February 1971, p. 4; Chinese Literature, No. 9 (September 1971),
pp. 99-111.
13. Interview, Shanghai Film Studio, December 1980.

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310 The China Quarterly

which Jiang Qing distrusted.'4 The same was true of Li Wenhua, th

director of the first fiction film in several years, Zhencha bing (T
Scout), which was made in 1973. Li had been director of photograph
for Zaochun eryue. 5
By 1974 a number of new fiction films began to appear. They included
an adaptation of Hao Ran's novel Yanyangtian (Bright Sunny Skies),
and a story of industrial production struggles, Huohong de niandai
(Fiery Years). Two films completed in 1966 were released in early 1974
Zhan hong tu (Fighting the Flood), about collective response to natur
disaster, and Qingsong ling (Green Pine Ridge), on class struggle ov
ownership of a cart.16
The relatively narrow range of subject-matter is reminiscent of the first
films made by the newly-established state studios between 1948 and 1951
when China's socialist cinema was being set up. At least to the cultur
leadership, a new beginning was being self-consciously made over 2
years later. The 1974 films had a new theoretical basis, the " three
prominences." The simplicity which this opera-devised creed imposed on
film art also had parallels with the earliest post-Liberation features, in
which a simple " socialist realism " was followed. What the insistence
on the " three prominences " ignored was the experience of the
intervening years during which a richer, somewhat more variegated film
art had been outlined. Of course similar stylization of plot and characters
can be found in many of the fiction films made in the 1950s and early
1960s. The problem was perhaps not the "three prominences"
themselves as much as the demand that all films, fictional dramas or
stage performances, be made according to this prescription.
This emphasis can also be seen as an attempt at finding a national style
(minzu xingshi) for film art, to which frequent reference had been made
in the 17 years before 1966 without much concrete result. What better
source for a modern, time- and space-free medium like film than the
modernized versions of time- and space-free Chinese opera? Certainly
the acting and use of the camera in many of the new fiction films made
between 1973 and 1976 reflected the strong influence of operatic
conventions, such as, the liangxiang striking of a pose. At this stage a
Film Research Group was set up in the Literature and Art Research
Academy (Wenxue yishi yanjiuyuan) of the Ministry of Culture,
apparently as part of the efforts to establish a new basis for Chinese
film.17 But the effort was an artificial one, imposed upon film. Most
film-makers seem to have resisted the attempt.
By 1973-74 some other experienced film workers had returned to the
studios. Shanshan de hongxing (Bright Red Star), for example, was
jointly produced by two successful directors of the 1950s and early 1960s,
14. Xie Tieli's career is outlined in Dazhong dianying, No. 1 (January 1979), pictorial
page opposite p. 17.
15. Cheng Jihua, in an interview in Beijing, November 1980, claimed that Zhencha bing
(The Scout) was the first new fiction film.
16. The release of these new films was reported in Renmin ribao, 20 January 1974, p. 1.
They are described in Chinese Literature, No. 4 (April 1974), pp. 102-104.
17. Interview at Beijing Film Academy, Zhuxinzhuang, Beijing, November 1980.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 311

Li Jun (maker of Nongnu (Serfs)) and Li Ang.'8 They were joined by

newly-trained younger artists. Some of these were graduates of the film
section of the May 7th Art College (Wuqi yishu daxue), established in
1966 at Zhuxinzhuang in suburban Beijing. This college provided
graduates mostly for the Beijing Film Studio, which, along with the
Changchun studio, seems to have been a particular stronghold of the new
cultural leadership.19 A shortage of trained personnel, however,
hampered film-making into the following decade.
Just as the influence of Jiang Qing and her allies in politics and other
fields was being undermined by the mid 1970s, the control this faction
sought to impose over film-making was also being challenged. The events
of 1975 were at once a reflection of the destructive influence of the
" gang of four " and of their increasing weakness. The latter may have
encouraged more hysterical efforts at control. In that year they launched
an " anti-guild " (fan hangbang) movement in film circles. A particular
target was the newly completed film Haixia (Haixia), the story of the pre-
and post-Liberation experiences of an orphan girl in a south China
fishing village, made at the Beijing studio. The need for an " anti-
guild" campaign seems to have sprung from a realization that film-
makers would not remain docile producers of model films. The
movement was aimed at wiping out the so-called " cliquish system of the
director as central figure." Before the Cultural Revolution (and after
1976) directors did much of the planning for a film: often finding the
story, helping produce the script, and working out costs and
responsibilities. Such powerful, older generation directors were a threat
to the influence of the " gang " and their proteges in film circles as
production was getting under way again.20 Sang Hu's earlier direction of
the film version of White-haired Girl in 1971-72 had been circumscribed
by " collective " decision-making2' In 1975 Haixia had been made by a
production team under Xie Tieli's leadership.
Critiques of Haixia, objecting to its failure to emphasize the " three
prominences," are said to have been written by Jiang Qing and Zhang
Chunqiao to provide ammunition for their supporters in the Ministry
of Culture. Ministry officials reportedly made several visits to the studio
in an attempt to put pressure on the makers of the film. The producers
showed the film to Zhou Enlai and made a higher appeal to Mao
Zedong, who decided in late July 1975 that copies of Xie Tieli's letter
complaining of Ministry pressure should be given to members of the
Politburo. Even with the film's release soon after this, criticism of it did
not cease.

It should be noted that all of the reported criticism of Haixia in 1975-

18. Both had been criticized during the Cultural Revolution.

19. Interview at Film Research Institute of Ministry of Culture, Literature and A
Research Academy, Beijing, November 1980.
20. The Haixia episode is described, among other places, in Renmin dianying, No.
(January 1978), pp. 12-15; Renmin dianying, No. 2-3 (February-March 1978), pp. 30-
Renmin dianying, No. 5 (May 1978), pp. 16-17.
21. See Sang Hu's article on the film translated in Chinese Literature, No. 7 (July 197
pp. 96-99.

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312 The China Quarterly

76 seems to have come not from the Beijing studio itself, but from
outside, in the Ministry of Culture. This may be a function of the post-
1976 sources available. Nevertheless, such cases as Haixia suggest tha
the followers of the cultural triumvirate headed by Jiang Qing were not
strong among the people actively involved in film production.
Notwithstanding other changes, another continuity with the later period
is shown by complaints of obstruction from above, from the Ministry
and local agencies, made in 1979 as the whole system of film production
was re-examined.
The dispute over the merits of Chuangye (The Pioneers), completed at
the Changchun Film Studio in early 1975, is another indication of the
apparent weakness of the " gang." Again the conflict reached the
highest levels, with Mao Zedong issuing perhaps his first rescript about
Chinese film since his 1951 Wu Xun editorial. The statement was
published widely after Mao's death. His directive on Chuangye, in
contrast to the Wu Xun attack, was a picture of moderation. " Do
nitpick," Mao wrote, "And to list as many as 10 accusations against
going too far. It hampers the adjustment of the Party's current policy
literature and art."22

From 1976 to 1981

This adjustment of policy in many ways continued beyond the events

of October 1976 into the 1980s. The arrest of the " gang of four " was,
of course, followed by a repudiation of the cultural policies and
autocracy ascribed to them. Replacing Jiang Qing's " start from the
political line " (cong luxian chufa) was another slogan, " start from
life" (cong shenghuo chufa). This represented a repudiation of the
implication inherent in Jiang Qing's heroes and heroines that literary
creations could effect change in the economic base. Now the process was
restored to the more orthodox direction, although the question remained
of how film should reflect life. Indeed many questions in the period of
adjustment were only partly answered. Again the continuities from the
earlier period help explain these difficulties. Such continuities, in the
larger context of Chinese society, were a reflection of the problems that
intensified and were not addressed during the 11 years before late 1976.
Scripts were at a premium with the re-orientation of film-making after
October 1976. In China the time from initial story to released film tended
to be almost two years, somewhat longer than it took to bring new short
stories, poetry and spoken drama to readers and audiences. Thus, for at
least the first two years after the fall of the " gang," a high proportion
of the over 60 new fiction films were drawn from old (pre-October 1976)
scripts.23 As a result audiences and film-makers voiced complaints, not
22. English translation from Chinese Literature, No. 1 (January 1977), p. 1. The
directive is dated 25 July 1975.
23. The script of Baoziwan zhandou (Battle of Leopard Valley), for example, based on a
1964 play about a Nanniwan-type production movement in the War of Resistance, had
been drafted in 1973. It went through 10 revisions in four years, the last extending from
March 1977 to January 1978; Renmin dianying, No. 4 (April 1978), pp. 14-17. For another
example, see Renmin dianying, No. 8 (August 1978), pp. 13-14. In early 1979 there were

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 313

publicly expressed during the previous half-decade, about the films

produced in 1977 and 1978. The dull predictability of plot, the falseness
of characterization, exaggeration of acting, tedious pacing of exposition
(all objects of complaint in the 1949-66 period when they were grouped
under the labels " generalization " and " formula-ism ") were now put
under the rubric of " gang-ness " (bangqi).24
Such charges were levelled at the first major post-1976 project, the two-
part film Dahe benliu (The Great River Rushes On). The film covers 20
years in the history of a Henan village from 1938, when the destruction
of the Huanghe dykes in the face of Japanese invasion forces the
villagers to flee, to 1958, when the village collective takes part in regional
efforts to control the river. Part One follows a villager, Li Mai (played by
Zhang Ruifang, whose performance in the 1962 film Li Shuangshuang
(Li Shuangshuang) contributed much to its popular success), in her
refugee flight to Xian, her participation in underground communist
work, her post-war return home with the villagers and their expulsion of
the local landlords. Part Two, a less unified story, features the first
appearance in a Chinese fiction film of actors impersonating Mao
Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who each visit the region's water-conservancy
project.
Despite the epic quality of its diaspora and return theme and some
noteworthy stylistic strengths, Dahe benliu was not received well by
critics and audiences in general when it was released in early 1979. Film
leaders had regarded the film as a big budget block-buster to mark the
restoration of film-making after the " 10 years of catastrophe." The
considerable publicity given the film before its release was soon replaced
by criticisms of its similarity - in plot, characterization and exposition -
to films made in the early 1970s.25 This should not be surprising, for the
script of Part One of Dahe benliu had been written in 1975. A script by
the creator of Li Shuangshuang, Li Jun, and a heroine played by the star
of the 1962 film did not guarantee success. Clearly the recovery of film-
making from the heightened intervention of the Cultural Revolution
years would take longer than the other arts.
At the same time as Dahe benliu was proving a disappointment,
discussion began in earnest on the political reasons for the difficulties of
Chinese cinema. This analysis coincided with similar efforts in the whole
literature and arts field, and indeed among the political public in general.
This " second Hundred Flowers " was linked with another problem in
Chinese life, generational tensions, at a time when older artists and other
figures were returning to their former careers after a 10-year hiatus.
While younger film-makers do not appear to have been demoted to make

only 40 or so trained script writers in the then seven fiction film studios; Renmin ribao, 12
March 1979, p. 3. To fill the film gap a great many pre-1966 films were re-released in 1977-
79.
24. See, for example, Renmin dianying, No. 8 (August 1978), p. 13; Renmin dianying,
No. 9 (September 1978), pp. 2-3; Renmin dianying, No. 1 (January 1978), p. 14.
25. See, for example, Dazhong dianying, No. 3 (March 1979), pp. 4-5; Renmin ribao, 31
January 1979, p. 3. For another view, see an article by [Wang] Jinguo in Dianying wenhua
(Film Culture), No. 1 (April 1980), pp. 49-56.

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The China Quarterly

room for more experienced colleagues, there seem to have been grounds
for complaint by the young. Between 1977 and 1979, for example, less
than half the 140 acting graduates sent to film studios had a chance to
perform. In one studio most of the over 20 young actors abandoned
acting within two years. Older directors appeared to be assisted by more
skilful cinematographers and other technical personnel than younger
directors enjoyed.26
One such young director at the Changchun Film Studio, Peng Ning,
and a young colleague, He Kongzhou, contributed a key-note article to
the discussion of the systemic problems of Chinese cinema. In January
1979 People's Daily published their " Artistic democracy and film art "
under the heading " What's wrong with the movies? " (" Dianying
weishenme shangbuqu? "). This and " How to make movies better "
(" Zenme ba dianying gaoshangqu ") became column heads for
continuing discussion of the issues over the subsequent four months.
Peng and He addressed problems broader than mere films. They
emphasized, in both a reiteration and reinvigoration of the discussions
which had begun in mid 1978, that art could serve politics in a variety of
ways. The independent creativity of film artists and the artistic
peculiarities of film should not be sacrificed to a simplistic insistence that
art equalled politics.27 Similar complaints of " too many mothers-in-
law " (popo duo) and numerous " obstacles " (guanka) through which a
film had to pass were also voiced elsewhere.28 Excerpts from speeches
made by Zhou Enlai to forums of literature and art workers and film
scenarists in July 1961 were published widely for the first time in January
1979. The thrust of Zhou's words was against caution and bureaucratic
inhibition.29
Part of this discussion in 1978-79 of the relationships between film art
and politics included a reassessment of the experience of the previous 30
years. Li Shaobai, co-author with Cheng Jihua of the history of Chinese
cinema which had been criticized at the start of the Cultural Revolution,
outlined two waves of film production increases and two periods (the Wu
Xun and anti-Rightist campaigns) of production stoppage in the 15 years
after 1949. The simple message was that such political intervention in
film-making (both associated, the article did not point out, directly with
Mao) was bad for the art and its audiences.30 The case was put more
bluntly almost a year-and-a-half later by the actor Zhao Dan, on his
deathbed, in People's Daily in October 1980. In a bitter tone, under the
heading " Rigid control ruins art and literature," Zhao noted that talk
of " strengthening the leadership of the Party " usually meant more

26. Dazhong dianying, No. 4 (April 1979), p. 3; Renmin ribao, 12 March 1979, p. 3.
27. Renmin ribao, 21 January 1979, p. 3; also in Dianying yishu (Film Art), No. 1
(January 1979), pp. 28-33.
28. See, for example, Renmin ribao, 14 May 1979, p. 3; Renmin ribao, 17 December
1979, p. 3; Dazhong dianying, No. 10 (October 1979), pp. 4-7.
29. Dianying yishu, No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 1-14, esp. p. 9. For a partial English
translation, see Chinese Literature, No. 6 (June 1979), pp. 83-95.
30. Renmin ribao, 14 May 1979, p. 3.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 315

uninformed interference in what artists were trying to do.31 The mere fact
that this article was published seemed to suggest in late 1980 that
progress had indeed been made. But editorials at this time in the two
main film periodicals, Dazhong dianying (Popular Film) and Dianying
yishu (Film Art), on the need for systemic reform, indicated that there
had been little concrete adjustment in film production practices.32
If the system producing the films had not changed much, many of the
films released in 1979-80 did represent artistic change. Some of these
films also contributed to the assessment of the immediate past by
presenting aspects of life in the Cultural Revolution on the screen. The
influence or aftermath of the Cultural Revolution was a major
explanatory device in many of the new type of love story (aiqing
gushipian) which formed a high proportion of the new films.
Tamen zai xiang'ai (They're in Love (Beijing Film Studio, 1980)) is a
good example of the new genre. It contrasts the present-day experience
in love of three brothers, children of a high-ranking cadre, a typical
family background in many such films. All three sons have suffered
because of the Cultural Revolution. The oldest, a doctor, broke with his
doctor fiancee over political differences. The middle son was confined to
a wheelchair after being thrown down the stairs in their palatial home by
Red Guards. With time on his hands, he has taught himself foreign
languages and does scientific translations. In the course of the film he
inspires his schoolteacher girlfriend to overcome her feelings of
inadequacy at work and in love. The youngest brother fell into bad
company during the Cultural Revolution and has continued to be a
"teddy boy " (afei), using the taxi he drives to impress his ambitious,
money-grasping girlfriend. Films like this represent a recognition of the
destructive effects of the Cultural Revolution on the younger generation.
Near the end of the film, preparations for the joint engagement party of
the two older brothers are interrupted by the arrival of their younger
brother, carrying his new-born child. His plaintive " I was wrong "
(" Wo cuole "), was greeted by at least one young Beijing audience with
hysterical laughter.
Aiqing yu yichan (Love and Inheritance (Xian Film Studio, 1980))
presents a rather more subtle understanding of the impact of the Cultural
Revolution, again on the family of a very comfortable high cadre, in this
case a director of an ophthalmology institute. The doctor's son resembles
the youngest brother in Tamen zai xiang'ai, and he too is pursued by a
grasping young woman, who is perhaps a new character type in Chinese
cinema. The boy's sister, thinking that her medical work requires the
obliteration of all else in her life, struggles to ignore her feelings for a
young naval officer whom she had first met as a Red Guard. This
misunderstanding is remedied and they are engaged. Her father also
realizes that he cannot prevent his children from falling in love. The

31. Renmin ribao, 8 October 1980, p. 5. For an English translation, see Chinese
Literature, No. 1 (January 1981), pp. 107-111.
32. Dianying yishu, No. 12 (December 1980), pp. 1-3; Dazhong dianying, No. 12
(December 1980), p. 1.

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316 The China Quarterly

brother is abandoned by his friend when, on the death of his father, she
discovers that the doctor's considerable savings have been left to the state
for medical research. The children's inheritance consists simply of a
draft research paper and the much-used surgical implements that the
doctor and his late wife were left in Yan'an by a deceased colleague. The
message of the film is that the difficulties of present-day young people do
not arise merely from their own actions in the Cultural Revolution and
after. Parents who devoted their all to the revolution and modernization
may have not given enough attention to the proper upbringing of their
own children.
The effects of the Cultural Revolution on human relationships are the
subject of two notable serious films, not love stories, from 1980.
Kunaoren de xiao (Bitter Laughter (Shanghai Film Studio, 1979)) was
made by a young team of film-makers under directors Yang Yanjin and
Deng Yimin. Until the forced joy of a fireworks and flower-filled
denouement, the tone of the film is overwhelmingly sombre. It tells of
the struggle of a Shanghai journalist in 1975 with his conscience, faced
with writing only good news instead of exposing abuses. The struggle
almost causes the break-up of his marriage, his wife being concerned for
the future of their small daughter, before he sides with the truth and is
taken from his family by the police.
Bashan yeyu (Night Rain on the River (Shanghai Film Studio, 1980)),
also set in the Cultural Revolution, follows a ferry voyage through the
Yangzi river gorges by an assorted group of passengers, including a poet
under guard. In the course of the film one of the guards, a young
woman, begins to realize the injustice of her journey. The film ends with
the poet free, tramping the hills above the river with his long-lost little
daughter, who happened to be on the boat. As unconvincing as a brief
outline suggests, the film has considerable power. The symbolic qualities
of the ship's journey are not wasted, and the sombre tone is nicely
punctuated by the antics of an elderly passenger, anxious to avoid
trouble, who insists on having model opera broadcast on the radio and
ostentatiously reads political tracts. The film won several awards in the
spring of 1981, including a prize for the scenarist, Ye Nan.
The most interesting of the new films which reassessed the past covered
a longer period than the films already discussed here. Its view of the
immediate past was also somewhat more subtle than other new films.
Tianyunshan chuanqi (Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Shanghai Film
Studio, 1980)) was directed by Xie Jin, who in the early 1960s had made
the original Hongse niangzi jun (The Red Detachment of Women) and
Da Li, xiao Li he lao Li (Big Li, Little Li and Old Li). Released on the eve
of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee resolution of mid
1981 which officially set out the mistakes made after 1957, the film tells
in flashback of the unjust condemnation of a young engineer as a
" Rightist " in 1958 and his subsequent sufferings in the Tianyun
mountain region. Twenty years later his remorseful former fiancee, now
a leading official in the district and the wife of a cadre who had ensured
the engineer spent two decades in disgrace and hardship, seeks to right

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 317

past wrongs, even if doing so destroys her marriage. The portrayal of the
husband in the film is a strong indictment of a type of cadre, even those
who suffered under the " gang of four," who uses the system for
personal vendetta and refuses to admit mistakes. An intriguing aspect of
the film is the importance of personal feeling in the story. The engineer is
sustained by his wife's love and sacrifice. His former fiancee is motivated
at least as much by personal regret and obligation as by concern for
abstract justice in her determination to restore the engineer's name. Her
husband is similarly determined not to reopen the case.
Clearly Tianyunshan chuanqi, in terms of its content, was the most
significant Chinese film released in the five years after 1976, and came
closest to being a film equivalent of the "literature of the wounded"
(shanghen wenxue) which emerged in those years. The work won several
awards in the spring of 1981, including being one of three " best films"
selected by the annual Dazhong dianying readership poll.
The fortunes of another new film, scripted by the twin brother of the
prize-winning writer of Bashan yeyu, seemed a further indication in late
1980 of the distance which had been travelled by Chinese film-making
after October 1976. Jinye xingguang canlan (The Stars are Bright
Tonight (PLA August First Film Studio, 1980)) was written by Bai Hua,
a 50-year-old People's Liberation Army writer, who, like the film's
director, had taken part in the 1948 Huai-hai campaign, which is the
setting of the film.
As a work set in the civil war or the 1940s, the film has a long
cinematic pedigree, from the first products of the new, state-owned
studios in the early 1950s to the reworking of these war stories under
" gang " auspices in the early 1970s. But Jinye xingguang canlan differs
from its predecessors in a manner which places it closer to the love story
films made after 1978. Instead of presenting a panorama of the
campaign, the film concentrates on the more intimate experiences of
three young soldiers and a peasant girl who stumbles into their midst.
The film incorporates selfless sacrifice and romantic love to make it
somewhat different from war films made earlier.
The combination did not appeal to some viewers. In July 1980 a short
criticism of the film was published in People's Daily, in the interests, the
editors noted, of presenting both sides. Chen Yi, who had participated in
the 1948 campaign and had been head of the Culture Section of the PLA
General Political Department until condemned as a " Rightist " in
1957,33 objected that the film distorted the significance of the Huai-hai
campaign by being too centred on the personal concerns of a small group
of participants.34
The response in defence of Bai Hua's film was a determined rejection
of both Chen Yi's assertions and what they were seen to represent. As
one speaker at a round-table discussion on the film organized by
Dazhong dianying noted, when he read Chen's article, he thought,
33. Wenyi bao, No. 5 (March 1958), pp. 23-24.
34. Renmin ribao, 30 July 1980, p. 5. For Bai Hua's response, see Renmin ribao, 3
September 1980, p. 5.

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318 The China Quarterly

"Here we go again! " (you laile). He argued that such critiques

indicated that recent changes had not been unanimously effected.
Another speaker, in unconscious anticipation of later developments,
asked what parts of the film could be called " anti-Party " or " anti-
socialist." Jinye xingguang canlan was defended as a valid presentation
of wartime experience and as a " healthy " film for young people to see.
The latter conclusion was reinforced by endorsement from the
Communist Youth League.35
This flurry of controversy in 1980 and its resolution seemed to give
cause for optimism. But Peng Ning and He Kongzhou in their seminal
article of January 1979 had warned that some leaders regarded the
current policies of " openness " (fang) as a merely temporary expedient
not as a means for cultural growth. Events in 1981, ironically involving a
film co-written and directed by Peng Ning himself, indicated that the
prediction had some accuracy.
In late April Jiefangjun bao (Liberation Army Daily) published an
article by a " special commentator " (teyue pinglunyuan) on the script
of a recently completed film, Kulian (Bitter Love), written by Bai Hua.
This criticism of Bai Hua (Peng Ning, who co-authored the film, was not
named at this stage) was the first public criticism of a writer or artist by
name since the Cultural Revolution. Bai Hua had been sent in the 1957
anti-Rightist campaign to work as a fitter in Shanghai, returning to the
army, but not publication, in 1964. He had been formally rehabilitated in
1978.36 In April 1981 the army-published newspaper criticized Bai Hua's
portrayal in Kulian of an artist's experiences in the Cultural Revolution.
The hero of the film flees Kuomintang rule before 1949, later returns to
China after success abroad, but in the Cultural Revolution is prevented
from pursuing artistic creativity. He flees society to a wilderness area. On
the point of being brought the news that the " gang of four " is gone, he
dies in the snow, having stamped out a huge question mark.37
During the two years before 1981 presentations of the destruction of
the Cultural Revolution had been common in films, usually with a
contrast being made with the present day. But Bai Hua was said to have
failed to draw a clear enough distinction between the 10 years after 1966,
the Kuomintang period and, by implication, the present time. The
comparison which the artist in the film makes between life under the
" gang " and his memories of Kuomintang times, the Jiefangjun bao
critic argued, was a confusion of socialism and capitalism. In his
frustration and despair one character laments, " There is nothing to like
about this socialist motherland. It all makes one fear and loathe it." The
35. Dazhongdianying, No. 10(October 1980), pp. 1-5.
36. For a brief outline of Bai Hua's life, see Shikan (Poetry Magazine), No. 7 (July
1981), p. 7. A writer in the Hong Kong magazine Qishi niandai (The Seventies), No. 145
(February 1982), p. 13, claims Bai Hua was sent in 1961 to script-writing work at the Haiyan
Film Studio in Shanghai.
37. The film ends, however, as it begins, with a flight of wild geese in the form of the ren
(human) character. The Hong Kong magazine Zhengming (Debate), No. 44 (June 1981),
pp. 82-98 reprinted the script of Kulian, originally published in Shiyue (October), No. 3,
1979. Colour pictorial presentation of Kulian, a usual preliminary to forthcoming release
of a fiction film, was made in Dazhong dianying, No. 9 (September 1980).

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 319

artist's daughter asks him, " You love this country of ours, and in
bitterness cannot bear to leave it. . . . But does it love you? "38
Apparently the implications of these words were too strong for some
leaders, particularly in the army, at a time when assessments of the
Cultural Revolution were being reconsidered, for fear that total
condemnation of those years might cloud the picture of the period before
and after that event. With concern growing among older Party and army
leaders at the post-1976 alienation of youth, the artist's alienation in
Kulin was especially alarming. The Jiefangjun bao critic made direct
comparison between the Xidan " democracy wall " writings and the
spirit of Kulian.
It should be pointed out, however, that the initial criticism of Bai Hua
seemed relatively moderate compared to the anti-Rightist campaign or
Cultural Revolution accusations against writers and artists. Bai Hua's
script was not condemned as anti (fan) socialist, but as " expressing
hostility towards " (chouhen) communism and socialism, apparently a
less severe charge. Moreover the criticism in April was not followed up
directly by other major newspapers, as was typical in the past. The
Jiefangjun bao writer even hoped that Bai Hua might " understand his
mistakes in method, clear up his ideology, and hereafter write works of
use (youyong) to the socialist nation and people." In early May the
Beijing wanbao (Beijing Evening News), in response, it said, to readers'
concern, published a report on Bai Hua's situation in Wuhan from his
local Party committee. He was said to be writing as usual.39 Later the
same month Bai Hua was among 35 recipients of awards for poetry
written in 1979-80 announced by Shikan (Poetry Magazine).40
Despite its gloss of moderation, the April army criticism of Kulian
provoked a lot of unpublished concern among film-making and other
literary circles. The response of the Party leadership indicated a degree of
uncertainty about how to assert control over unruly artists.
At a forum on film script writing in early May Central Committee
General Secretary Hu Yaobang's reported remarks implied that the
concern expressed over the criticism of Bai Hua had come as something
of a surprise to the Party. Hu spoke of the need to allow such counter-
criticism, and of the need to avoid putting an issue like Kulian, however
well-founded the case against it, in every newspaper and magazine at
once. Care should be taken also to distinguish between a writer and his or
38. The April article was reprinted in the Hong Kong magazine Dongxiang (Direction),
No. 32 (May 1981), pp. 10-13.
39. Beijing wanbao, 8 May 1981, p. 3. The criticism of Kulian had provoked protests by
students at Beijing and Fudan Universities. What the reports on Bai Hua's condition did not
describe was his film script project of the summer of 1981. Set in the Spring and Autumn
period (722-418 B.C) and drawn from the Annals of Wu and Yue ( Wuyue chunqiu), the new
film idea contrasts the careers of two loyal ministers to Goujian, the king of Yue. After
helping expel the forces of the Wu state, one minister, Fan Li, withdraws from public life,
acknowledging loyalty to himself over that to his king. Wen Zhong, on the other hand, sees
loyalty to the state as outweighing the insults he must bear to remain in the court of the king
of Yue.
40. Shikan, No. 7 (July 1981), p. 7. His poem was one of eight prizewinners classified as
" political lyrics " (zhengzhi shuqingshi). Titled " Chunchao zaiwang " (" The spring tide
is in sight "), it had been published in Renmin ribao, 17 March 1979, p. 6.

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320 The China Quarterly

her work. It would seem that attacks like those on film-makers in 1966
would not be repeated. Hu Yaobang concluded by arguing that the
criticism of Kulian could be brought to a speedy end, in one or two
phrases.41
Hu Yaobang may have hoped the controversy would end before the
Sixth Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee in late June
passed its resolution on " Certain questions in the history of our party
since the founding of the People's Republic of China." The resolution
was widely publicized as the official and sufficient summing up of 32
years. Other assessments of Mao, like the insistent comparison in Kulian
of the cult of Mao with the worship of idols, were clearly not welcome.
Indeed Hu Qiaomu, at a conference on problems on the ideological front
called in August by the Party Central Committee Propaganda
Department, emphasized that the earlier Third Plenum resolution on
liberalization should not be used as an excuse for " bourgeois liberalistic
tendencies " (zichanjieji ziyou qingxiang) which had gained the attention
of the Party media during the summer. In a long speech most notable for
highly critical remarks on Mao's Yan'an Talks, which did not sit well
with the rest of Hu's speech, Hu Qiaomu argued that Kulian's
presentation of a one-sided view of the Cultural Revolution showed that
a lot of people held similar attitudes. The portrayal of the Cultural
Revolution in films was of particular concern, for films had great
influence especially on the young and, in Hu's view, lacked the means to
explain subtleties allegedly possessed by other literary forms.42
The Kulian criticism dragged on through 1981. It was revived in the
public media by a widely republished article in Wenyi bao (Literature
and Arts Gazette) in October. The writers were Huang Gang, best
described as a hack film critic since the 1950s and the writer Liu Baiyu, a
deputy chairman of the Writers Association and head of the Culture
Section of the People's Liberation Army General Political Department.
The April and October articles on Kulian were thus both closely
associated with the army and its discontent with the liberalizing trends
of the previous three years. The October article was a harsher repetition
of the first critique six months earlier.43
As 1981 drew to a close, however, it was clear that the Party leadership
wanted to put the Kulian business behind them. In the National Day
issue of Hongqi (Red Flag), the Party's theoretical journal, an article
titled " Films should contribute towards developing socialist spiritual
civilization " put Kulian in the broader context of film's social purpose
as perceived by the Party.44 Bai Hua made a further " self-criticism " in
late November in the form of a letter to the editors of Jiefangjun bao and
Wenyi bao, the two journals which had published the major critiques of
41. Excerpts from Hu's speech were reported in Zhengming, No. 46 (August 1981), p.
16.
42. Hongqi (RedFlag), No. 23 (1 December 1981), pp. 2-22.
43. The article was reprinted in Renmin ribao, 7 October 1981, p. 5. Peng Ning was now
named as co-author of Kulian. A reported change of People's Daily editors was linked with
the earlier non-publication by the newspaper of the April Jiefangjun bao article.
44. Hongqi, No. 19(1 October 1981), pp. 29-33.

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 Film-making in China: From the Cultural Revolution to 1981 321

Kulian. The letter received widespread publicity in December.45 In his

letter Bai Hua wrote that he was wrong to confuse the fate of writers and
artists in feudal society since the time of Qu Yuan with artists' problems
under " Leftist " mistakes in the new China. In so doing he had ignored
the strength of the Party and people during the " 10 years of chaos "
and exaggerated the power of the " gang of four." The parallels drawn
between worship of Mao and of feudal idols were also wrong, Bai Hua
confessed. These mistakes, likely " to cause those people who had
doubts about the Party and the socialist enterprise to feel more
hopeless," Bai Hua ascribed to his " contradictions in world outlook."
By the end of 1981 those cultural and propaganda officials, notably in
the armed forces, who wanted to continue and deepen the criticism of
Kulian could see little support for the campaign. On 1 December Hongqi
published Hu Qiaomu's August speech, mentioned above, with its
emphasis that the Kulian problem should be solved within literary and
art circles themselves. Addressing a closing session of a 10-day
conference on fiction film production, Party chairman Hu Yaobang on
27 December declared that the Bai Hua episode had been satisfactorily
settled.46
That a film should have been chosen in 1981 for the first attack on an
individual writer since the Cultural Revolution was at once a sign of
film's continuing importance and its vulnerability. But the continuities in
these respects should not obscure significant discontinuities.
Generational changes, particularly in Chinese urban society, over the
previous 15 years were reflected in changes in Chinese film-makers and
their audiences. By the early 1980s younger film artists were beginning to
occupy a more important place in the art industry, a natural transition
delayed by the 10-year hiatus after 1966. Film audiences seem to have
changed in a parallel manner, with people under 30 years of age forming
a higher proportion of total audience than before or during the Cultural
Revolution. The new films were a response to these changes, with their
frequent reference to young people's experiences in the recent past.
Kulian offered a view of patriotism which did not mesh with the Chinese
leadership's hopes of appealing to nationalism as a means of overcoming
youthful alienation.
This brief study has sought to outline some features of the history of
Chinese film making from 1966 to 1981. It has tried to make clear the
significance of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath not as an
anachronistic episode best condemned and forgotten but as a period
which raised issues that had existed before 1966 and persist today. The
issues of the sinification of film and of the social function of film art
were persistent throughout the almost two decades covered in this report.
They remained as pertinent in 1981 as they had been three generations or
15 years earlier.

45. See Renmin ribao, 24 December 1981, p. 4. The letter, dated 25 November, was
published the previous day in Jiefangjun bao, and in the January 1982 issue of Wenyi bao.
46. Guangming ribao, 30 December 1981, p. 1. Attention in the media by this time had
turned to concern at the strong emphasis on love in films and literature of recent years.

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322 The China Quarterly

As a postscript, it is instructive to trace the continuum of the career of

one Chinese film-maker, the director Xie Tieli. In 1958 Xie was assistant
director to Zhang Shuihua in the making of Linjia puzi (The Lin Family
Shop), an adaptation of Mao Dun's short story. The film was later
criticized for presenting a sympathetic view of the bourgeoisie. In 1963
Xie directed another adaptation of a May 4th work, Zaochun eryue
(Early Spring in February), attacked on the eve of the Cultural
Revolution and since selected, along with films like Linjia puzi, by
Japanese and other critics as representing a Chinese style of cinema. Xie
Tieli returned to work in 1972 to direct the screen version of the most
modern of the modern Beijing operas, Haigang (On the Docks). Xie's
1975 Haixia was condemned by the then cultural leadership. Dahe benliu
(The Great River Rushes On), his attempt at an epic to mark the
restoration of Chinese cinema after the fall of the " gang " with the
writer and star of Li Shuangshuang, was a disappointment because its
story and presentation still looked " gang-like." Xie Tieli's 1980 feature,
Jinye xingguang canlan (The Stars are Bright Tonight), with a script by
Bai Hua, caused initial controversy but was shown extensively after
public endorsement. Xie Tieli's latest film was released in the latter half
of 1981. Zhiyin (Intimates (Beijing Film Studio, co-directors Chen
Huaiai and Ba Hong)) is unusual in being set among ruling circles in the
Yuan Shikai years of the early Republic. Whether it would serve, like its
predecessors, as a barometer of the status of Chinese film and the arts in
general, remained to be seen.

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