Abstract
In the spring of 1950, a young man in rustic dress rushed into the art section of the Film Bureau, located in a former Beijing upper-level hotel. He came for new personnel registration. Regarding himself as a “rustic CCP” (tu balu) for having spent more than a decade in the CCP-controlled rural areas, he still had no idea why the CCP recently assigned him a post in the “cosmopolitan film” (yang dianying) industry.1 His name, Guo Wei, did not have the slightest connection to Chinese cinema until then. When a registration cadre asked if he had any previous experience in filmmaking, he bluntly replied: “I have never even seen a movie camera.”2
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Notes
Wei Guo, “Wo zenyang zoujin yingtan de damen: huiyi wo de laoshi Shi Dongshan (How I entered the gate of film industry: Remembering my mentor Shi Dongshan),” in Shidongshan yingcun (Remembering Shi Dongshan and nhis films), ed. Li Daoxin Zhao Xiaoqing (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2003), 405.
Jihua Cheng, Shaobai Li, and Zuwen Xing, Zhongguo dianying fazhanshi (A history of the development of Chinese cinema), 2nd ed., 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963; repr., 2005), 11.
Shuli Zhao, Zhao Shuli wenji (Selected works of Zhao Shuli) (Beijing: Gongren chubanshe, 1980), 1723.
Liqun Qian, 1948: tiandixuanhuang (1948: The sky is black and the earth is yellow) (Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998), 236.
Hanbin Deng, “Sanliwan: dui nongcun hezuoshe zhi minjian ke’nengxing de zhenmi shuxie (Sanliwan village: Meticulous writing on the grassroots possibilities of agricultural cooperation),” (2005), http://ows.cul-studies.com/Article/literature/200503/972.html.
Shuli Zhao and Shu-li Chao, Sanliwan village, trans. Gladys Yang (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1964), 193–97.
Huamin Gao, Nongye hezuohua yundong shimo (A history of the campaign for agricultural collectivization) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1999), 42.
Zedong Mao and Tse-Tung Mao, Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. V (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), 135, 38.
For details of the changes of Mao’s view during this period and his clash with Deng, see Yibo Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (Reflections on certain major policy decisions and events) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), 326–75.
Dongshan Shi, “Guanyu jinhou yige shiqi nei dianying de zhuti he gongzuo de judian (On the subjects of films and the focus of film work from now on),” Renmin ribao (People’s daily), July 6, 1949. Dongshan Shi, “Muqian dianying yishu de zuofa (Present methods of filmmaking),” Renmin ribao (People’s daily), August 7, 1949. Dagong, Zai juying zhouhui shang ting Shi Dongshan baogao ceji (Listening to Shi Dongshan’s talk at a weekly meeting of film and stage play artists), Shidongshan yingcun (Remembering Shi Dongshan and His Films), vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2003), 50–52.
Gang Huang, Zai dianying gongzuo gangwei shang (At the post of film work), (Shanghai: Xinwenyi chubanshe, 1952), 59.
The criticism of Shi’s articles and speeches has led scholars to believe that Shi was not credited for directing New Heroes and Heroines. See, for example, Tony Rayns and Scott Meek, Electric Shadows: 45 Years of Chinese Cinema, BFI dossier (London: British Film Institute, 1980), Biography (bio). B8. Shi’s name in fact appears in large font in opening credits of the film as the scriptwriter and director. For directing this film, Shi won a special Honorary Director Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1951 and, posthumously, a 1949–1955 Excellent Film Award issued by the Ministry of Culture in 1957. Articles written at the time of the release of the film all credited it to Shi.
Guo Wei emphasized in an interview: “[Taking Mount Hua by Strategy] would have been a film about a group of indistinguishable characters if I had not shot it as a thriller. When making revisions, I realized that I must solve the problem [of the original film] by turning it into thriller.” See Hairuo Zeng, “TV Documentary on Taking Mount Hua by Strategy,” in Dianying chuanqi (Film Legends) (2005). Guo mentioned “revisions” here, because he shot Taking Mount Hua by Strategy twice. Inspectors of the Film Bureau considered the first version of the film an artistic and technical failure. They ordered Guo to revise it heavily. Shi Dongshan offered Guo much-needed support and helped him with the revisions. See Guo, “Wo zenyang zoujin yingtan de damen: huiyi wo de laoshi Shi Dongshan (How I entered the gate of film industry: Remembering my mentor Shi Dongshan),” 430–31.
Xuexing Zhang, “Ping Guan lianzhang (A review of Platoon Commander Guan),” Wenyi bao (Literary gazette), 4, no. 5 (1951): 18.
Yulu Ke, “Ping dianying Guan lianzhang (A review of the film Platoon Commander Guan),” Wenyi bao (Literary gazette), 4, no. 5 (1951): 20–21.
Qizhi, Mao Zedong shidai de renmin dianying (People’s cinema during the Maoist era) (Taipei: Xiuwei zixun keji gufen youxiangongsi, 2010), 97–98.
See, for example, Hairuo Zeng, “TV Documentary on Blooming Flowers and the Full Moon,” in Dianying chuanqi (Film Legends), (2004).
Literary scripts are, as Paul Clark explains, “hybrid literary versions of what will be or has been filmed.” (Paul Clark, “The Film Industry in the 1970s,” in Popular Chinese literature and performing arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1979, ed. Bonnie S. McDougall and Paul Clark (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 189.) Publication of literary scripts was popular in early PRC because it satisfied the need of those who wanted to watch a film but did not have a chance to watch it in the movie theatre.
Tushou Chen, “1959 nian dongtian de Zhao Shuli (Zhao Shuli during the winter of 1959),” in Bujin weile ji’nian (Not only for commemoration) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2007), 530.
Di Wu, ed. Zhongguo dianying yanjiu ziliao (Research materials of Chinese cinema): 1949–1979, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2006), 411–12.
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© 2014 Zhuoyi Wang
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Wang, Z. (2014). From Revolutionary Canon to Bourgeois White Flag: Blooming Flowers and the Full Moon (1958) in the Maoist Campaigns. In: Revolutionary Cycles in Chinese Cinema, 1951–1979. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378743_3
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