Popular Cinema and Political Thought in Post-Mao China

More documents

Recommendations

Info

44 Paul G. Pickowiczbut even before the trial ended a flood of letters to People's daily and otherpublications, repeating the concerns of films like The legend of TianyunMountain, pointed out that the jailing of the defendants was only a partialsolution to the political problems that plagued China. 20After much delay, the long-awaited official statement on the weighty issuesmentioned above-a 30,000-charactcr document entitled "Resolution on· Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of thePeople's Republic of China"-was issued on July 1, 1981. 21 Those whohoped this Central Committee document would be as forceful as NikitaKhrushchev's famous denunciation of Stalin and Stalinism in February 1956were undoubtedly disappointed. This unprecedented public statement receivedenormous attention in the domestic and foreign press, but, on balance, itamounted to a cautious and rather self-serving evaluation of the post-1949period. Indeed, the resolution was considerably less critical than the highlypopular films discussed here.The 1981 resolution, published after the release of The legend of TianyunMountain and before the completion of A comer forgotten by lm·e and Atmiddle age, made headlines by admitting publicly what informed Chinesealready knew: First, Mao Zedong "made mistakes in his later years" and,second, the Cultural Revolution was "initiated and led" by Mao. Thoughthe resolution was the first major public attempt by the ruling elite torepudiate the cult of Mao and to reject the myth of his infallibility, it hardlyconstituted a denunciation of Mao and Maoism or raised fundamentalquestions about party rule. On the contrary, the tone was remarkably upbeat.There was virtually no criticism of Mao's role in the long period from thefounding of the Communist party in 1921 to the establishment of thePeople's Republic in 1949, high marks were given to Mao and the partyfor their work in the 1949-1956 transitional period, and, even moreastonishingly, the tumultuous years from 1956 to 1965 were characterizedas a time when "the material and technical basis for modernizing our countrywas largely established." The resolution briefly acknowledged that there were"shortcomings" in the agricultural collectivization drive after 1955, that the"scope" of the 1957 anti-Rightist movement was "too broad," and that"left" errors had been committed during the Great Leap Forward, but nomention was made of the 20 million people who perished in the massivefamine that followed the Great Leap.The 1981 resolution treated in detail only the disastrous decade of theCultural Revolution and left the clear impression that the social, political,and economic problems of the present day were attributable, in the main,to the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, the diabolical machinations ofLin Biao and the Gang of Four, and the mistakes made by Mao in his lateryears. The resolution confidently asserted that the corner had been turnedon the abuses and injustices associated with the Cultural Revolution whenthe Central Committee declared in December 1978 that socialist modernizationwas the main task of the party and people.Finally, in case anyone had misunderstood the significance of the firstassault on bourgeois liberalization waged in spring 1981, the July resolutionPopular Cinema and PoJstated in no uncertainand the Cultural Revccardinal principles": tdictatorship, the leadchegemony of Marxismresolution warned, sheweakening, breakingimperative," the Centvigilance and conductsocialism and trv to s·cultural fields." 'The basic social vie\safe to say, were signiJextraordinary benchmahighly acclaimed by m
uf G. Pickowiczailv and otherd ~f Tianyunonly a partialweighty issuesResolution onunding of the21Those whoeful as NikitaFebruary 1956ement receivedon balance, itthe post-1949han the highlynd of Tianyuny love and Atrmed Chineseer years" and,Mao. Thoughruling elite tobility, it hardlyfundamentalarkably upbeat.eriod from theshment of theand the partyd, even moree characterizedng our countrythat there were· 1955, that theoad," and thatorward, but noin the massive> decade of the;ocial, political,e, in the main,nachinations ofV1ao in his laterad been turnedemlution when1cialist modernneeof the firstJuly resolutionPopular Cinema and Political Thought 45stated in no uncertain terms that the Central Committee's criticisms of Maoand the Cultural Revolution reaffirmed, rather than questioned, the "fourcardinal principles": the correctness of the socialist road, the proletariandictatorship, the leadership of the Communist party, and the ideologicalhegemony of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. In no case, theresolution warned, should the party's mistakes be used as a "pretext forweakening, breaking away from or even sabotaging its leadership. It isimperative," the Central Committee added, "to maintain a high level ofvigilance and conduct effective struggle against all those who are hostile tosocialism and try to sabotage it in the political, economic, ideological andcultural fields."The basic social views expressed in the three films under review, it seemssafe to say, were significantly more critical than the ones contained in thisextraordinary benchmark resolution. The fact that these same films werehighly acclaimed by many film professionals and young urban film fans tellsus something about the gap between the official pronouncements of theparty and popular political thought in the early 1980s. Of course, I do notmean to suggest that the interests and thought of elite filmmakers wereidentical to the thought of the ordinary people who frequent movie houses,or to deny that, in structural terms, films and filmmakers belonged to theofficial realm. It seems to me, however, that the popularity of these filmscan be explained, in part, by the audience's obvious approval of the basicsocial views espoused. The making of serious political melodramas in theearly 1980s was not simply a matter of a few elite filmmakers suddenly andinexplicably embracing the unofficial and popular political views of urbanyouth. Nor was it a matter of renegade cultural elites patronizing and agitatingamong an apolitical and inarticulate urban mass. The process of politicalfertilization, I strongly suspect, was from both the top down and the bottomup. A central paradox of early 1980s Chinese filmmaking is that the seriouspolitical films were popular cultural artifacts produced by privileged filmmakerswho were able to work outside the mainstream of official ideology.Their state-funded work was unofficial in the sense that it represented minorityor dissenting political positions held by influential elites, including partymembers. More importantly, at least for our purposes, their work was unofficialand popular in the sense that it actively sought to represent the politicalviews of ordinary people who felt that party reform policies were inadequate.The fact that educated elites produced this work and that the state, in asense, allowed this activity to take place does not mean that these filmscannot be considered as expressions of popular political thought.At the level of raw political analysis The legend of Tianyun Mountainwas considerably more provocative than the July 1981 resolution, going farbeyond the scope of the well-received "scar literature" (shanghcng wenxue)produced immediately following the Cultural Revolution. Whereas most scarliterature dwelled on the abuses people suffered during the Cultural Revolutionand heaped blame on the Gang of Four for the sorry condition of Chinain the late 1970s, The legend of Tianyun Mountain said almost nothing
Page 1 and 2: Perry Link3Popular Cinemaand Politi
Page 4: 40 Paul G. Pickowiczexploratory cha
Page 7: Paul G. Pickowicz1 that "runs count
Page 11 and 12: ~. Pickowiczc film washad theirmove
Page 13 and 14: ~aul G. Pickowicz1e various socialn
Page 15 and 16: Paul G. Pickowiczhat her emotions c
Page 17: Paul G. PickowiczPopular Cinema and

Popular Cinema and Political Thought in Post-Mao China

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?