Chinese Film Industry and Transnational Cinema - Coursework Example

Chinese Film Industry and Transnational Cinema Introduction Cinema and national identity are always interlinked. A film reflects the social, cultural and economic aspects on national level. Techniques of filmmaking are based on the targeted audience based on their nationality and culture. However, today cinema is more of transnational form than mere national level medium of entertainment. Today Asian movies including the Chinese and Indian cinema is making prominent place in the European and American markets. These movies are even holding high ranks in the ladder of popularity giving high competition to the national level movies. This paper focuses on Chinese film history and the transnational cinema. Chinese film history It was in August 1896 that China screened its first film. In the next year, screening took place of films produced by Edison. In 1898, Edison dispatched photographers to China to shoot some scenes of a documentary titled China Honour Guard. Films were launched in Bejing in January 1902 when films with out of the ordinary titles like Black People Eat Water Melon were screened along with other short comedy movies. The first Chinese film, The Battle of Dingjinshan, was produced in 1905 by Ren Jingfeng and it was adapted from a Bejing opera. The Bejing Grand Theatre was renovated in 1907 so that films can be projected. In the same year the first custom built cinema, Ping’an Movie, was opened and it was financed by foreign investors. It was however believed that 1913 was the year when Chinese film industry first began to develop with The Difficult Couple produced by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan. It was a growth of an infant industry but Chinese films were heavily influenced by foreign culture. During the 1920s, Chinese filmmakers received training from American technicians and so for the next two decades America’s impact on Chinese films was clearly apparent. The 1920s was an era of political and cultural movements in China. However, the film industry in Shanghai was mostly untouched by such fervent events and was more connected with the then social and economic conditions in the city. Initially, most films were made by educational organizations and the Commercial Press but soon the film industry was taken over by the capitalists. The First World War had a positive impact on the economy of China leading to film companies focusing on big budget movies. By the mid-1920s, there was emergence of more than 180 film companies and they all concentrated on making movies as the expectation of high returns was immense. Although many small sized companies failed to succeed, the larger studios made films to cater the interests of the general mass. During the late 1920s, Chinese film industry went through a phase of low quality films being made in large numbers because of the growing commercialism. Such movies were enjoyed by large number of spectators for their pornographic and convoluted plots. However, the intellectuals refrained from going to the theatres that screened Chinese movies and their preference level increased for foreign movies, especially Hollywood (Pang, 2002, pp.21-22). It was in 1931 that China saw its first “talkie” since before that films which were made were silent. During the 1930s, Chinese film industry experienced rapid developments. Every year 60 films were made in Shanghai. During this phase, after the invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese, a new genre of films arrived “that dealt with resistance to invasion, imperialism and feudalism and a burgeoning sense of national identity”. In the years between the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the Cultural Revolution that continued from 1966 to 1976, “603 feature films and 8,342 reels of documentaries and newsreeps were produced” (Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, 2004, p.5). During this time, the Chinese film industry was entirely owned by the government. Every activity including production, screening and studio jobs were controlled by the state. Any jobs that were associated with filmmaking were for entire life. Also, it was the government that decided which foreign movies would be allowed to be screened within the country. The 1948 Chinese movie Spring in a Small Town has a depth that was rare in the post-war era. It is a movie based on love triangle between a wife, husband and the wife’s former lover. The story revolves around Yuwen who is tied to a depressing marriage to Liyan who perpetually remains sick and depressed. The depression has been caused by destruction of his home during the war. The film takes a turning point when Yuwen’s old friend and former lover Zhang returns in her life. Yuwen who has an extremely dissatisfactory married life inadvertently gets attracted to Zhang and from then on the story is about how the lovers struggle to come out of their past feelings when the present gives no hope. This movie was made in the aftermath of China’s war with Japan and the Chinese civil war in 1945. When Japan captured Manchuria, production of films reduced to a large extent and this movie was made after regeneration of film production in the country. This movie has been highly influenced by the films made in Europe during the post-war era. When the movie was made, it was a transition period between old China and new China, and therefore the film posed questions on the uncertain future of the country but could provide no concrete answers. For instance, Liyan’s destroyed home symbolized the past ruins which cannot be recovered and dwelling over it can only lead to despair and depression which was the fate of Liyan. New Hollywood and Transnational Cinema Although Hollywood is mostly accepted as American by its counterparts across the globe, in reality it does not represent any specific national culture. According to Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, “Hollywood cinema is a world industry, just as much as it is a world language, a powerful, stable, perfected system of visual communication” (Behlil, 2008, p.213). Indeed, most of the Hollywood film studios are owned by foreigners. For instance, the Twentieth Century Fox was purchased by the Australian business tycoon Rupert Mudroch in 1985, MCA which is the parent company of Universal Studios was taken over by the Japanese Matsushita Company in 1990, Seagram’s was purchased in 2000 by the French company Vivendi, and so on. In 2000, the chairman of Warner Bros. stated “we do not want to be viewed as an American company. We think globally” (Behlil, 2008, p.213). The extension of Hollywood moves beyond America making them transnational, as its films are featured in most countries across the world either by its leading distribution companies or their subsidiaries. One of the largest distribution companies is United Pictures International which is based in London and is owned by Paramount and Universal (Behlil, 2008, p.213). Rush Hour 3 is a 2007 Chinese film which is an adventure movie based on martial arts. It is the final part of Rush Hour series featuring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. In the third part of the tri-series, Detective Carter and Inspector Lee meet when an assassination attempt made on the Chinese ambassador, Han, failed. Han was under the protection of Inspector Lee. The rest of the story focuses on Lee and Carter’s attempt to find the people who were responsible for the attempted assassination. This film is a fine example of a movie that not only appeals the Chinese audience but also the global audience. It is a high quality movie with spectacular visuals. The locations chosen for the movie were one of its main attractions like Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Las Vegas. The characters of this movie travel the world and action depicted has been world class. Rush Hour 3 is an exemplary instance of Chinese language films going global and attracting large audiences across nations. National film industries and transnational films Hollywood is essentially transnational since films are made for all cultures and the directors make the movies wherever production takes place. United Nations defines transnational cinema based on four criteria, “size, their oligarchic nature, having a large number of foreign subsidiaries and branch offices, and their origins are in developed countries” (Behlil, 2008, p.214). Moreover Hollywood studios have always recruited skilled people from many countries. The association between cinema and national identity is an interesting topic since it gives rise to questions regarding the position of nationalism and national culture in the realm of globalization of cinema. For instance, with the growing popularity of transnational cinema, especially those made by Hollywood studios, has paved the way for attrition of national film industries as global culture dominates films across the world (Semati & Sotirin, 1999, p.176). The fate of national level films remains uncertain when Hollywood’s influential position in the world market is considered in the context of local film industries. With rapidly growing popularity of Hollywood’s presentation of Western “megaculture”, the market demand for local films becomes limited and also local films lose their appeal with regard to social, cultural and economic terms. Therefore, the economic strength of local film industry becomes unstable especially because Hollywood films are sold in the global arena at reduced prices. A bulk amount of costs is recouped by Hollywood films in the local American market. Moreover, Hollywood’s capacity to produce high quality films limits the market of narrow definition of culture in local films. In addition to this, Hollywood’s place in the global market and its immense popularity among all social and cultural regions indicate that it is no longer framed by narrow local culture, and Hollywood studios no longer represent specific national culture (Semati & Sotirin, 1999, p.178). Chinese movies are rapidly capturing the definition of being transnational since the dawn of the twenty first century. The Chinese movies like Ang Lee’s hu cang long (2000) received extraordinary appreciation from the American audience and also in many other countries. This movie and many others have redefined the framework of Chinese filmmaking. Such movies go beyond the cultural tastes of the Chinese and make their position among “both popular and elite audience” (Klein, 2007, p.189). Today, Chinese films that are made to appeal the global audience are distributed both in Asian and Western markets. These films even garner economic returns that equal the level of Hollywood movies. In China, the concept of national cinema is becoming obsolete as Chinese films are increasingly becoming transnational. Conclusion The growing popularity of Chinese cinema in the global arena has led to many Chinese filmmakers winning major international film awards in recent years. Such globalization of Chinese film industry has resulted in the country earning huge amount of foreign capital and also Chinese film companies are collaborating with foreign companies. Globalization of Chinese film industry to this extent poses the question whether Chinese films today are made specifically for global audience or whether the films still retain the Chinese traditional culture. References Behlil, M., 2008. Hollywood Face to Face with the World: The Globalization of Hollywood and its Human Capital. In J. Kooijman, P. Pisters & W. Strauven, eds. Mind the Screen. Amsterdam Univ. Press, pp.209-217 Klein, C., 2007. Kung Fu Hustle: Transnational production and the global Chinese-language film. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Vol.1, No.3, pp.189-208 Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. 2004, History of the Chinese Film Industry, [pdf] Available at: https://www.dfat.gov.au/fta/acfta/submissions/cfta_submission_6se05.pdf [Accessed May 7, 2014] Pang, L. 2002, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Semati, M.M. & Sotirin, P.J., 1999. Hollywood’s Transnational Appeal: Hegemony and democratic potential? Journal of Popular Film & Television, Vol.26, No.4, pp.176-188 Read More