F1512 One Hundred Years of Chinese Cinema: Subjectivity and Collective Identities

Largely ignored in the West until recently, cinema in China has a history going back more than a hundred years. Films produced and shot in Republican China up until 1949, in the Chinese People’s Republic, in Taiwan and in Hong Kong in the second half of the twentieth century, were (besides the print media - modern newspapers, magazines, books, textbooks - , radio and television) the major form of public entertainment. Even today, despite the increased popularity of Hollywood productions and the attractions of the Internet, the film industries of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan still play important roles. Being a form of artistic and creative endeavour and also  commercial enterprises, Chinese films are an important space for collective and public reflection on the history and the fate of the nation and the individual. But films are, as well, one of the most effective means of political and ideological indoctrination. Due to the specific course of Chinese history in the twentieth century, the places of subjectivity and the individual in society, the role of politics and the sacrifice of the individual for the sake of national resistance against foreign invaders or for the sake of socialist revolution, the role of female subjectivity in the course of nationalist and socialist revolution, but also the role and place of the individual in the present post-ideological stage in China are frequent topics of films from China and Taiwan.
The films (all shown with English subtitles or, in one or two cases, in English translation) to be discussed in this course include classics of social criticism, of patriotic propaganda, but also of creative enquiry into the subjective worlds of women between tradition and modernity (all of the republican era). Examples of films from the initial period of the People’s Republic will be analysed, when cinema was strongly ideological and meant to serve the end of building a new socialist and collective society. Beginning in the eighties, both on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan, a new generation of directors and screen writers entered into dialogues with tradition and history and gave visual form to topics that were until then politically or socially taboo, such as the “February 28 Incident” in Taiwan (the bloody suppression of a rebellion of native Taiwanese against the ruling Nationalist Party), the suppression of the individual and the persecution of innocent people in the “Cultural Revolution” on the Chinese mainland etc. Also, the darker side of life in China that was until then supposed to be hidden, came into the focus of film makers. On the other hand, the revival of martial arts films in Hong Kong and, later, on the Chinese mainland signalled the return of nationalist themes in film and public discourse in general.

Educational objectives
By viewing, analysing and interpreting the films, students will discover the peculiar dramaturgy and filmic language of Chinese cinematic tradition and its specific narrative conventions. Furthermore, since the films have to be situated in the socio-political background of twentieth century China, and of the contemporary situation, the course will familiarise the students not only with the history of Chinese cinema, but also with the basic currents and fundamental issues of recent Chinese history.

Teaching methods
The sessions will be devoted to analyses and discussions of the films. The students will be required to spend extra time on seeing the films to be discussed in class. They are expected to deliver short papers in class, presenting information about the production and reception of the films as well as on their directors and important actors. The stories and the relevant cinematographic traits of the films will be analysed, and, finally, students are expected to relate the films to the intellectual and political discourses of the times. The necessary knowledge of the historical background will be presented in separate introductory lectures, and, in addition, with extracts from historical sources or works on China’s modern history. The relevant texts will be available to all participants in digitalised versions.