SINS OF THE CITY

The creation of the Central Film Bureau in Beijing in 1949 led to Chinese Communist Party supervision of all aspects of mainland film production, from the selection of screenplays onwards. Two national screen-writing bodies were established and their scripts allocated to the three new state studios Northeast (later Changcun), Beijing and Shanghai, and the private studios, including Kunlun and Wenhua. After severe criticism by Mao in 1951 of Kunlun release The Life of Wu Xun 1950 and increasing central regulation, the private studios began to fold and to be absorbed into the state studios. From 1950, the state also took control of all imports of foreign films.

The state promoted films depicting the nobility of rural life, opera and literary adaptations, war and revolutionary subjects; the city appeared as the locus of vice and degradation, a foil to the virtues of the countryside. Films focused centrally on city life waned, although audiences were urban in the majority. Psychological dramas also disappeared in favour of tales with a social function and imperative, peopled by archetypes and role models. Imported films from Hong Kong leftist companies, which derived their approach from Shanghai cinema of the 1930s, were popular as they better suited established tastes than mainland productions, and were also of interest in providing a window into capitalist life.

In histories of Chinese film, ‘early cinema’ has generally been used to refer to film production before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Shanghai was the pre-eminent centre for film production in this period, but was associated with decadence, promiscuity and European, American and Japanese imperialism. Cultural critic Ackbar Abbas underlines this tension between the status of Shanghai and the nation:

Shanghai’s strength as a cosmopolitan city was always based on China’s weakness as a nation. As such, there was always an underlying tension between national culture on the one hand, which could only be constructed as anti-colonial resistance, and Shanghai cosmopolitanism on the other.

With the creation of the People’s Republic of China, Shanghai was identified with international capitalist culture, and seen as too intellectual and too self-indulgent. It continued as an industrial centre but its cultural life was targeted for elimination.

City without Night aka The City that Never Sleeps (Bu ye Cheng) 1957 All ages
12 noon Wednesday 2 May / Cinema A / Live electronic subtitling

35MM, 105 MINS, B. & W., MONO, CHINA, MANDARIN / DIRECTOR: TANG XIAODAN / SCRIPT: KE LING / CINEMATOGRAPHY: ZHOU DAMING, MA LINFA / CAST: SUN DAOLIN, SHI WEI, LIN BIN, HAN TAO, ZHENG MIN / PRODUCTION COMPANY: JIANGNAN FILM STUDIO / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: CHINA FILM ARCHIVE

Set in the 1940s, City without Night follows the fortunes of Zhang Bohan who returns from studies in England to put his father-in-law’s textile factory back on track. To overcome competition from foreign textile imports he advertises products ‘made in China’, appealing to nationalist sentiment to sell his goods. As the profits increase, Zhang gives no thought to the workers’ lot. When his fortunes change with the waning of Kuomintang influence, he moves to selling American textiles. After the Communists come to power in 1949, he tries to avoid paying taxes and skirts regulations on working conditions for employees. His daughter pushes him to admit his mistakes and because of this the government lets him off lightly. The film was produced when the government was taking over remaining private industry. During the Cultural Revolution, it was denounced as inappropriate viewing.

Sentinels under the Neon Lights (Nihongdeng xia de Shaobing) 1964 All ages
2.00pm Sunday 27 May / Cinema A / Live electronic subtitling

35MM, 115 MINS, COLOUR, MONO, CHINA, MANDARIN / DIRECTORS: WANG PING, GE XIN / SCRIPT/ORIGINAL STORY (PLAY): SHEN XIMENG / CINEMATOGRAPHY: HUANG SHAOFEN / MUSIC: LU QIMING / CAST: XU LIN’GE, GONG ZIPEI, MA XUESHI, YUAN YUE / PRODUCTION COMPANY: TIANMA FILM STUDIO / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: CHINA FILM ARCHIVE

Two soldiers patrol Shanghai streets in 1949, immediately after the People’s Army have expelled the Kuomintang forces from the city. They are seduced by its nightlife, their minds ‘polluted’ by contact with vice and capitalism. One of them falls for a beautiful woman who turns out to be a Kuomintang agent, the other quits the army after being censured for staying out late at night. They realise where their duty lies when the sister of one of them is attacked by thugs, and they uncover a Kuomintang plot to plant a bomb on Nanking Road during the Spring Festival. Shen Ximeng’s successful play and this adaptation reflected military commanders’ fears for their forces in the period after the liberation. The Red Guards later criticised the film for showing the two soldiers succumbing to temptation before reforming.

Stage Sisters (Wutai Jiemei) 1965 All ages
2.00pm Saturday 26 May / Cinema A / Live electronic subtitling

35MM, 107 MINS, COLOUR, MONO, HONG KONG, MANDARIN & CANTONESE / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: XIE JIN / PRODUCER: DING LI / SCRIPT: LIN GU, XU JIN / CINEMATOGRAPHY: ZHOU DAMING, CHEN ZHENXIANG / MUSIC: HUANG ZHUN / CAST: XIE FANG, CAO YINDI, LI WEI, DENG NAI, SHANGGUAN YUNZHU / PRODUCTION COMPANY: SHANGHAI FILM STUDIO / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: CHINA FILM ARCHIVE

Xie Jin’s Stage Sisters 1964 dates from the final year of mainland Chinese cinema production before a severe period of restriction. Xie trained in the theatre before starting work at the Shanghai studios in the early 1950s. His films explored central woman characters and new roles for women in Communist society — notably in Red Detachment of Women 1960. One of the ‘Third Generation’ filmmakers who worked through the height of socialist regulation, he came to prominence again in the 1980s with The Legend of Tianyun Mountain 1980 and Hibiscus Town 1986. Stage Sisters remains his masterpiece. It follows two Shaoxing opera singers who perform in small towns throughout the 1930s. The women soon find themselves in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation and they each choose different paths. Losing touch with each other, they only meet again in the new era after 1949. State control and censure of films showing the interior life and psychology of their characters had further increased in the early 1960s. As a result, this film was banned and Xie Jin was denounced for his ‘bourgeois humanism’. Film historian Gina Marchetti has described Stage Sisters as ‘an aesthetic crucible that ground together Hollywood classicism, Soviet socialist realism, Shanghai dramatic traditions and indigenous Chinese folk opera forms’. An iconic sequence shows the two ‘stage sisters’ entering neon-lit Shanghai with superimposed images creating a metaphoric parallel between the women’s lack of confidence and the mirage of city lights.

SINS OF THE CITY