Introduction to early Chinese cinema and writing about film sample notes

Hu Die (Photo credit: Hong Kong Movie Database)

Cinema and National Traditions, 1896-1929

Introduction: Early cinema

p13-4 
Cinema as attractions 1896-1921
Cinema as narration 1922-1926
Cinema and speculations 1927-29

p15 tracing cinema to shadowplays and national traditions

Cinema as attractions

Early exhibition: teahouse, tent and theater
Early audience: class, gender and motivation 
Early production: Yaxiya, Huanxian and Zhang Shichuan
 
p19 Yaxiya and Zhang Shichuan

Commercial Press: popular education and national culture
 
p20-21 Commercial Press motion picture department

'Modern plays' as genre attempts: the three earliest long features

p22 Yan Ruisheng, Hongfen kulou and Haishi

From top: film still from Yan Ruisheng; poster for Yan Ruisheng; film still from Hongfen kulou, and poster for Haishi

Cinema as narration

Mingxing: between entertainment and education

Feature films: from attractions to narrations

p24-5 Laborer's Love

p25-6 Orphan Rescues Grandfather

Family drama: a 'Chinese' genre

The butterfly connection: conservatism and commercialism

The May Fourth connection: Hong Shen and Hou Yao

p28 Lonely Orchid 

p30 'women's problems'


Important themes in recommended reading:

Cinema and Speculations

p 34-41 Genre considerations: opera films, comedies, martial arts films, and films of immortals and demons

[p37 Shaw Brothers founded Tianyi in Shanghai in 1925

p40 Romance of the West Chamber exported to Europe in 1929]

p44 Dream of the Red Chamber poster

p47 The importance of Southeast Asia (Nanyang)

p51 China Film School and Hu Die
   
Critical Issues

p53 Learning the film basics 

p55 Shadowplay theory

Conclusion: a growing sense of nationalism   

Writing about the movies

Why write about the movies?

p4 "Writing about a film can allow use to enjoy it (and other films) in ways we were incapable before. If watching and understanding is one of the pleasures of the movies, writing and explaining can be another exciting pleasure."

"Although the difference between taking and writing about a subject is a crucial one, writing about a film is, in one sense, simply a more refined and measured kind of communication, this time with a reader. Our comments can be about the performance of an actor, the excitement elicited by specific scenes, or just common question about what happened, why it happened, or why the film made the answers to these questions unclear."

"Writing about film is a careful and more calculated step beyond this first impulse of discuss what we have seen."

p5 "When we understand the same movie very differently, trying to explain that understanding can be charged with all the energy of a good conversation."

"Analyzing our reactions to themes, characters, or images like these can be a way not only of understanding a movie better but also of understanding better how we view the world and the cultures we live in."

Your audience and the aims of film criticism

The screening report

The movie review

The theoretical essay

The critical essay


Opinion and evaluation

p17 "When you write about the movies, personal feelings, expectations, and reactions may be the beginning of an intelligent critique, but they must be balanced with rigorous reflection on where those feelings and expectations come from and how they relate to more objective factors concerning the movie in question."