Abstract
On a sunny day, the entrance guards of the Changchun Film studio see two people approach the studio’s front gate. They look familiar because they both used to be popular Shanghai movie stars before the Campaign against The Life of Wu Xun. Just their difference in size—one overweight, and the other skinny—is enough to remind many of their long-time successful partnership in slapstick comedies. But both stars have disappeared from the silver screen since the campaign. Working in different cities, the partners, formerly close, have not even seen each other for quite some years, let alone appeared together at a film studio. The guards’ faces show both cheerful surprise and doubt. One of them hides his excitement and asks in stern voice: “Where are you from? Who are you looking for?” The two former stars look at each other, smile knowingly, and reply together in verse:
We are looking for cinema,
And cinema is looking for us (wo men)
If you ask what our names are,
(Han:) I am Han Lan’gen.
(Yin:) And I am Yin Xiucen.
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Notes
Fang Song, “TV Documentary on The Man Unconcerned with Details,” in Dianying chuanqi (Film legends) (2006).
Qizhi, Mao Zedong shidai de renmin dianying (People’s cinema during the Maoist era) (Taipei: Xiuwei zixun keji gufen youxiangongsi, 2010), 96.
Di Wu, ed. Zhongguo dianying yanjiu ziliao (Research materials of Chinese cinema): 1949–1979, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2006), 220.
Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonghe juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Comprehensive records) 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 6.
English translation in Peter Kenez, Cinema and Soviet society from the revolution to the death of Stalin (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001), 219.
For details of the plan, see Bo Chen, ed. Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 401–02.
For more details of these frictions, see Mercy Kuo, Contending with contradictions: China’s policy toward Soviet Eastern Europe and the origins of the Sino-Soviet split, 1953–1960 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001);
Lengxi Wu, Shi nian lunzhan: 1956–1966 zhong su guanxi huiyilu (Ten years of debate: A memoir on the Sino-Soviet relationship from 1956 to 1966) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1999).
Huang Dai, Jiusiyisheng: wo de “Youpai” li cheng (Surviving all perils: My experiences as a Righitst) (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 1998), 27–58.
Binyan Liu, A higher kind of loyalty: A memoir by China’s foremost journalist (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 62–77.
Zedong Mao and Tse-Tung Mao, Selected works of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. V (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), 332–421.
Zhucheng Xu, “Yang mou: 1957 (Open scheming: 1957),” in Jingji lu: jiyi zhong de fan youpai yundong (A thorny road: Memoirs on the Anti-Rightist Campaign), ed. Han Niu and Jiuping Deng (Beijing: Jingji ribao chubanshe, 1998), 269.
Fangzao Yao, “‘Dianying luogu’ da fengbo (The great disturbance of the ‘gangs and drums at the movies’),” in Jingji lu: jiyi zhong de fan youpai yundong (A thorny road: Memoirs on the Anti-Rightist Campaign), ed. Han Niu and Jiuping Deng (Beijing: Jingji ribao chubanshe, 1998), 394.
See the film title list in Jingliang Chen and Jianwen Zou, eds., Bai nian zhongguo dianying jingxuan (The best of centennial Chinese cinema), vol. 2, 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006), 361–66. I do not count some of the listed films because they are too short to be considered feature-length.
The couplet is quoted in Yi (***) Chen, “Wo ye xiangdao dianying de wenti (I am too thinking about the film issue),” Wenhui bao (Wenhui daily), January 23, 1957. The deficit amount is quoted from Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: faxing fangying juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Distribution and projection), 3 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 24.
Producing films in the remote mountainous area of Yan’an, early CCP film artists and workers relied exclusively on a mobile film projection team to show films to soldiers and peasants. See Zhuqing Wu, Zhongguo dianying de fengbei: Yan’an dianyingtuan gushi (A monument of Chinese cinema: Stories of the Yan’an film group) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2008), 116–32. The Northeast Studio had 17 mobile projection teams showing films for peasants and soldiers in 1948. See Renmin ribao (People’s daily), June 22, 1948, 2. There were about 100 mobile projection teams in 1949. The number reached 1076 in 1953. See Renmin ribao (People’s daily) March 1, 1950, 3; January 12, 1954, 3.
Bo Chen, ed. Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: faxing fangying juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Distribution and projection), 3 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 806.
Jihua Cheng, Shaobai Li, and Zuwen Xing, Zhongguo dianying fazhanshi (A history of the development of Chinese cinema), 2nd ed., 2 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1963; repr., 2005), 222.
Yang Zhou, Zhou Yang wenji (Collected works of Zhou Yang), 5 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984), 408. Yang Zhou, “Rang wenxue yishu zai jianshe shehuizhuyi weida shiye zhong fahui juda de zuoyong (Let literature and art play a huge role in the great task of socialist construction),” Renmin ribao (People’s daily), September 25, 1956.
Zedong Mao et al., The secret speeches of Chairman Mao: From the hundred flowers to the great leap forward, Harvard contemporary China series (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1989), 168.
Quotes are taken from Zhou Dajue’s poster “lun ‘jieji’ de fazhan (On the development of ‘class’),” printed in Han Niu and Jiuping Deng, eds., Yuan shang cao: Jiyi zhong de fan youpai yundong (Wild grass: Remembering the anti-rightist campaign) (Beijing: Jingji ribao chubanshe, 1998), 166–71. A number of other posters aired the same view. See, for example, the posters written by Shen Dike and Qian Ruping in the same book.
Jieying Zhong, “Wo yu Luo Lan zai dafengchao zhong (Luo Lan and I in the big unrest),” in Jiyi (Remembering), ed. Xianzhi Lin and Dening Zhang (Beijing: Gongren chubanshe, 2002), 62, 64.
Zheng Zhu, 1957 nian de xiaji: cong baijiazhengming dao liang jia zhengming (The summer of 1957: From a hundred schools to two schools) (Zhengzhou: He’nan renmin chubanshe, 1998). 299.
Shu Ding, “Beida zai 1957 (Beijing University during 1957),” http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wk_wzdetails.asp?id=4279.
Liu, A higher kind of loyalty: A memoir by China’s foremost journalist, 76. Translation slightly revised according to the original Chinese version; Binyan Liu, Liu Binyan zizhuan (An autobiography of Liu Binyan) (Hong Kong: Xingguang Press, 1990), 97.
Xianzhi Pang and Chongji Jin, Mao Zedong zhuan:1949–1976 (Biography of Mao Zedong: 1949–1976) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2004), 696.
552,877 is the post-Mao official figure, which some argue is an underestimation. See Henry Yuhuai He, Dictionary of the political thought of the People’s Republic of China (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2001). 115.
Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), 2 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 637.
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© 2014 Zhuoyi Wang
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Wang, Z. (2014). From “a Hundred Flowers” to “a Poisonous Weed”: Dangerous Opportunities for Satirical Comedies, 1955–1958. In: Revolutionary Cycles in Chinese Cinema, 1951–1979. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378743_4
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