Abstract
1959 and 1962 saw two important CCP conferences that mirrored each other. Both conferences were unexpectedly prolonged and both achieved the opposites of their original objectives. The former intensified ideological struggles and protracted the GLF. The latter completed the CCP’s U-turn away from the campaign and significantly relaxed the political atmosphere.
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Zedong Mao. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui (Long live the thoughts of Mao Zedong) 1958–1960. (Wuhan: Gang’ersi Wuhandaxue zongbu, Zhongnanminyuan geweihui xuanchuanbu, and Wuhanshiyuan geweihui xuanchuanbu, 1968), 248–49.
The number of Rightist Deviationists is quoted from Rui Li, Lushan huiyi shi lu (A record of the Lushan Conference) (Zhengzhou: He’nan renmin chubanshe, 1994), 329.
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Even Peng Dehuai saw hope and wrote to the CCP’s Central Committee to request rehabilitation. His request was denied for imaginable political calculations. But Liu Shaoqi’s oral report at the Seven Thousand People Conference had already made clear that Peng’s “problem” was not writing the letter, which the CCP’s Central Committee now acknowledged was correct “in many concrete issues,” but his “plot” to “usurp the Party.” Zhang, Bianju: qiqianrendahui shimo (Change in the situation: The beginning to end of the Seven Thousand People Conference), 137, 271. Roderick MacFarquhar, The coming of the cataclysm, 1961–1966, The origins of the Cultural Revolution (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press and Columbia University Press, 1997), 163–64.
Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zhipian juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Film production) (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2006), 167–68.
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), 462–63, 65, 70. According to Xu Sangchu’s memoir, Xia was criticized behind closed doors for his remarks. See Sangchu Xu and Zhai Di, “Fengyu shiqinian: fang Xu Sangchu (Trails and hardships of the seventeen years: An interview with Xu Sangchu),” Dangdai dianying (Contemporary cinema), no. 4 (1999): 81.
See a list of the film titles in Huangmei Chen and Fangyu Shi, eds., Dangdai zhongguo dianying (Contemporary Chinese cinema), 2 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 1989), 429–33.
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), 47. Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), vol. 1, 471.
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Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonggang juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Records of the overall development), vol. 1, 475–77, 79–80. Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zhipian juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Film production), 172–73. Di Wu, ed. Zhongguo dianying yanjiu ziliao (Research materials of Chinese cinema): 1949–1979, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2006), 315–36.
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Yibo Bo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu (A review of certain major decisions and incidents), 2 vols., vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1993), 1004–05.
Chen, Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zhipian juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Film production). 175. zz Laogui, Muqin Yang Mo (My mother Yang Mo) (Wuhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 2005), 150.
Zhongwas offered a new job with the Association of Chinese Film Artists. See Mingyuan Chen, Zhishifenzi yu renminbi shidai (Intellectuals and the RMB era) (Shanghai: Wenhui chubanshe, 2006), 137–38.
Xun Lu, Lu Xun quanji (Complete works of Lu Xun), 18 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005). 190–200.
Zhen Zhang, An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 161–69.
Jizhou Yan, Wangshiruyan: Yan Jizhou zizhuan (Gone with the wind: An autobiography of Yan Jizhou) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2005), 88–89.
Bo Chen ed., Zhongguo dianying biannian jishi: zonghe juan (Annals of Chinese cinema: Comprehensive records), 2 vols., vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2005), 35.
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). The fulfillment was only partial because the book exclusively glorified those Shanghai filmmakers who enjoyed high political status at the time of 1962. Some of the most active advocates of the re-evaluation, such as Shi Hui, Lü Ban, and Wu Yonggang, had been designated as Rightists. The book either barely mentioned them or portrayed them as “backward” or “reactionary elements.”
Xiaoning Lu, “Zhang Ruifang: modelling the socialist Red Star,” in Chinese film stars, ed. Mary Ann Farquhar and Yingjin Zhang (London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2010), 98–99.
Krista Van Fleit Hang, “Zhong Xinghuo: communist film worker,” in Chinese film stars, ed. Mary Ann Farquhar and Yingjin Zhang (London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2010), 108.
Duoyu Li ed., Zhongguo dianying bainian (One hundred years of Chinese cinema) (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 2005), 324.
Harry Levin, “The wages of satire,” in Literature and society, ed. Edward W. Said (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 1.
For a description of the wave of adaptations, see the interview with Fu Jinhua in Haipeng Song, “TV Documentary on Third Sister Liu,” in Dianying chuanqi (Film legends) (2006).
Scholars have persuasively argued that the Zhuang is a largely state-created nationality. See, for example, Katherine Palmer Kaup, Creating the Zhuang: Ethnic politics in China (Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner, 2000).
For a detailed summary of the criticism published in 1962, see Eddy U, “Third Sister Liu and the making of the intellectual in socialist China,” The journal of Asian studies, 69, no. 1 (2010): 75–76.
Liang Zhang, Qing ai bu lao (Ageless affection) (Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 2005), 119–66.
Sihe Chen, Zhongguo dangdai wenxueshi jiaocheng (A course in the history of modern Chinese literature) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1999), 49–50. Li Shuangshuang has received much attention in Chinese and English scholarship. In particular, Richard King has done an in-depth research revealing how Li Zhun, writer of the original tale of Li Shuangshuang and the script of the film adaptation, made its plot as “malleable” as possible to strike a fine balance during the changing political times from 1959 to 1962;
Richard King, Milestones on a golden road: Writing for Chinese socialism, 1945–80 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2013), 71–92.
Interview with Yan Jizhou in Rong Li, “TV documentary on Yan Jizhou,” in Dianying chuanqi (Film Legends) (2007).
For a complete list of the award winners, see 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), 1135–36.
Qing Jiang, “Guanyu dianying wenti (On the film Issue) (May 1966),” in Fandong yingpian Wu Xun Zhuan Liao Yuan pipan cailiao (Criticism materials of reactionary films The Life of Wu Xun and The Ablaze Prairie) (Beijing: Beijing dianyingxueyuan jinggangshan wenyibingtuan hongdaihui, May 1967), 19.
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© 2014 Zhuoyi Wang
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Wang, Z. (2014). From Disaster to Laughter: Making Comedies in a Changing Political Landscape, 1959–1963. In: Revolutionary Cycles in Chinese Cinema, 1951–1979. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378743_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378743_6
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