Week 11, March 20th Asian and Third World Cinema Eastern Europe

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Week 11, March 20th Asian and Third World Cinema
Eastern Europe

• Readings Thompson Bordwell, Chapter 18
  Postwar Cinema beyond the West pp 391- 414
  Chapter 25 New Cinemas and New Developments
  Europe and the USSR since the 1970s pp 605- 632
  Chapter 26 Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle
  East and Africa since the 1970s pp 633648.

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Screening

• Rashomon (1950) and Ran (1985) Akira Kurosawa
  The man who left his will on film (1970) Nagisa
  Oshima Yellow Earth (1984) Chen Kaige Farewell
  my Concubine (1992), Chen Kaige Red Sorghum
  (1988) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Zhang
  Yimou. A Short Film about Killing (1988) Krzystof
  Kieslowski Three Colours Blue (1993) White
  (1994) Red (1994) Krzystof Kieslowski

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Japanese Cinema

• Jidai-geki historical films
• Gendai-geki contemporary films
• Influence of
• Kabuki
• Noh Drama
• Japanese painting

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Akira Kurosawa 1910-1998

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Influence

• The first Japanese film director to win
  international acclaim, with such films as
  Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai
  (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Kagemusha (1980),
  and Ran (1985).

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• Rashomon (1950) won the Golden Lion at the 1951
  Venice Film Festival, and an Academy Award for
  best foreign film
• Seven Samurai. (1954)
• Dersu Uzala (1975)
• Kagemusha (1980)
• Ran (1985) Oscar. Another 25 wins 15
  nominations

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Human beings are unable to be honest with
themselves. They cannot talk about themselves
without embellishing. This script "Rashomon"
portrays such human beings - the kind who cannot
survive without lies to make them feel they are
better people than they really are. It even shows
this sinful need for flattering falsehood going
beyond the grave - even the character who dies
cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the
living through a medium. Egoism is a sin the
human being carries with him from birth it is
the most difficult to redeem. This film is like a
strange picture scroll that is unscrolled and
displayed by the ego." (from Something Like an
Autobiography by Kurosawa)
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Ran (1985) 160 min

• The story was inspired by Samurai legends of the
  daimyo Mori Motonari, as well as on the
  Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.
• 'Ran' is the Japanese word for chaos, riot,
  dissension.
• Japanese Sengoku-era warlord Hidetora Ichimonji
  (Tatsuya Nakadai) abdicates to his three sons,
  and the two corrupt ones turn against him.

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Major themes

• Ran is a relentless chronicle of base lust for
  power, betrayal of the father by his sons, and
  pervasive wars and murders that destroy all the
  main characters.Stephen Prince The Warrior's
  Camera. Princeton University Press 1999 284
• A warning to the destructive power of war.
• Despotic power leads to self-destruction.

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War

• "When I read that three arrows together are
  invincible, that's not true. I started doubting,
  and that's when I started thinking the house was
  prosperous and the sons were courageous. What if
  this fascinating man had bad sons?"Akira
  Kurosawa

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War 2

• All the technological progress of these last
  years has only taught human beings how to kill
  more of each other faster. It's very difficult
  for me to retain a sanguine outlook on life under
  such circumstances." Akira Kurosawa

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King Lear

• What has always troubled me about 'King Lear'
  is that Shakespeare gives his characters no past.
  ... In Ran, I have tried to give Lear a history."
  Akira Kurosawa
• In place of Lears daughters, Goneril, Regan and
  Cordelia, Lord Hidetora has three sons, Taro,
  Jiro, and Saburo. In both, the warlord foolishly
  banishes anyone who disagrees with him as a
  matter of pride in Lear it is the Earl of Kent
  and Cordelia and in Ran it is both Tango and
  Saburo.

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King Lear 2

• The conflict in both is that two of the lord's
  children ultimately turn against him, while the
  third supports him, though Hidetora's sons are
  far more ruthless than Goneril and Regan. Both
  King Lear and Ran ultimately end with the death
  of the entire family, including the hapless Lord.

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Characteristics

• Visually expressive
• Slower pacing
• Somewhat didactic moralistic
• Mood and atmosphere heightened with
  Sentimentality occasionally evident
• Action and dynamic use of cinematography
• Theatrical traditions of noh (No) drama and
  kabuki plays.

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The Chinese 3 Cinemas

• The history of Chinese-language cinema has three
  separate threads of development
• Cinema of Hong Kong
• Cinema of China
• Cinema of Taiwan.

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Origins

• Motion pictures were introduced to China in
  1896. The first recorded screening of a motion
  picture in China occurred in Shanghai on August
  11, 1896, as an "act" on a variety bill. The
  first Chinese film, a recording of the Beijing
  Opera, was made in November 1905.

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1st golden period of Chinese cinema

• However, the first truly important Chinese films
  were produced beginning in the 1930s, with the
  advent of the "progressive" or "left-wing"
  movement, like 's Spring Silkworms (1933), Sun
  Yu's The Big Road (1935), and Wu Yonggang's The
  Goddess (1934). These progressive films were
  noted for their emphasis on class struggle and
  external threats (i.e. Japanese aggression), as
  well as on their focus on common people, such as
  a family of silk farmers in Spring Silkworms and
  a prostitute in The Goddess

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The 2nd Golden Age, late 1940s

• The film industry continued to develop after
  1945. Production in Shanghai once again resumed
  as a new crop of studios took the place that
  Lianhua and Mingxing had occupied in the previous
  decade. In 1946, Cai Chusheng returned to
  Shanghai to revive the Lianhua name as the
  "Lianhua Film Society."This in turn became which
  would go on to become one of the most important
  studios of the era, putting out the classics,
  (1948), The Spring River Flows East (1947), and
  Crows and Sparrows (1949).

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The Communist era, 1950s-1960s

• The number of movie-viewers increased sharply,
  from 47 million in 1949 to 415 million in 1959.
  Movie attendance reached an all-time high of 4.17
  billion entries in that same year. In the 17
  years between the founding of the People's
  Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution,
  603 feature films and 8,342 reels of
  documentaries and newsreels were produced,
  sponsored mostly as Communist propaganda by the
  government

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Cultural Revolution

• During the Cultural Revolution, the film
  industry was severely restricted. Almost all
  previous films were banned, and only a few new
  ones were produced, the most notable being a
  ballet version of the revolutionary opera The Red
  Detachment of Women (1971). Feature film
  production came almost to a standstill in the
  early years from 1967 to 1972. Movie production
  revived after 1972 under the strict jurisdiction
  of the Gang of Four until 1976, when they were
  overthrown.

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mid-late 1980s

• Beginning in the, the rise of the so-called
  Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers brought
  increased popularity of Chinese cinema abroad.
  Most of the filmmakers who constitute the Fifth
  Generation had graduated from the Beijing Film
  Academy in 1982 Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang,
  Chen Kaige, and others.

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Key Chinese films in the 80s 90s

• Rejection of traditional methods of storytelling
  and opted for a more free and unorthodox
  approach.Zhang Junzhao's One and Eight (1983) and
  Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) in particular
  were taken to mark the beginnings of the Fifth
  Generation. The most famous of the Fifth
  Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou,
  went on to produce celebrated works such as
  (1987), Ju Dou (1989), Farewell My Concubine
  (1993) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991), which
  were not only acclaimed by Chinese cinema-goers
  but by the Western art house audience

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Yellow Earth (1984)

• Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist
  soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect
  folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he
  stays with a peasant family and learns that the
  happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist
  the songs he finds are about hardship and
  suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises
  to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has
  been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women
  have under Communist rule and who wants to join
  the Communist Army.

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Farewell My Concubine. A classic Chinese love
story, of the warlord, Xiang Yu and his beloved
Yu Ji. Locked in battle, he tries to send his
mistress to safety but she refuses, saying she
would rather die by his side than live without
him.
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Sixth Generation

• The recent era --the return of the amateur
  filmmaker as state censorship policies have
  produced an edgy underground film movement
  loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation.
• Films are shot quickly and cheaply, a
  documentary feel, with long takes, hand-held
  cameras, ambient sound c.w. Italian neorealism
  and cinéma vérité Not the often lush productions
  of the Fifth Generation.

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Chen Kaige Farewell my Concubine (1992),
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Krzysztof Kieslowski(1941-1996) Three Colours
Blue, White Red
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• A distinctive voice in Polish cinema, known for
  his uncompromising moral stance, Kieslowski first
  came to attention in the early 1970s for his
  incisive (often shelved) documentaries and shorts
  on the political reality of life in Poland.

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• His features of the late 1970s explored the
  relationship between the personal and the
  political with style, directness and a raw edge
  of realism, making him a key figure in the
  'cinema of moral unrest'.

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Blue (1993.)

• Juliette Binoche won the Cesar Award and the
  Venice Film Festival Award as Best Actress for
  her role in the first film of Kieslowski's
  acclaimed Three Colors trilogy. She plays a woman
  who becomes entangled in a mysterious web of
  passion and lies after she digs into the past
  life of her recently and unexpectedly deceased
  husband.

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White (1994, 92 mins.)

• The second part of Kieslowski's trilogy is also
  the wittiest of the three. Zbigniew Zamachowski
  stars as a Polish man whose life disintegrates
  when his new French bride (Julie Delpy) deserts
  him after only six months. Forced to begin anew,
  he returns to Poland and plans a clever scheme of
  revenge against her.

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Themes

• Kieslowski often deals with illness, loss and
  death, but deep pools of humor float beneath the
  surfaces of his films. There is a sequence in
  "White" (1994) where his hero, a Polish
  hairdresser, is so desperately homesick in Paris
  that he arranges to be sent back to Warsaw,
  curled up inside a suitcase.

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• His friend at the other end watches the airport
  conveyor belt with horror The bag is not there,
  it has been stolen by thieves who break the lock,
  find only the little man, beat him savagely and
  throw him on a rubbish heap. Staggering to his
  feet, he looks around, bloody but triumphant, and
  cries out, "Home at last!"

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Red (1994.)

• Kieslowski's striking conclusion of his trilogy
  stars Irene Jacob as a model, separated from her
  lover, who is brought by accident into the life
  of the aging Jean-Louis Trintignant, a retired
  judge and electronic peeping Tom. As Jacob's
  character slowly uncovers her lover's secret
  life, she discovers that her own past is
  inevitably linked to her destiny.

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• Irene Jacob as Valentine, a woman in Geneva
  whose car strikes a beautiful golden retriever.
  She nurses the dog back to health and returns it
  to its owner, a retired judge (Jean-Louis
  Trintignant), who tells her she can keep it. He
  is beyond worrying about dogs.

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• He occupies his days intercepting the telephone
  calls of his neighbors, and he watches them
  through his windows almost like God--actually,
  just like God--curious, since they have free
  will, what they will do next. After a lifetime of
  passing verdicts, he wants to be a detached
  observer.

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• Kieslowski made most of his early work in Poland
  during the Cold War, and because his masterpiece
  "The Decalogue" consists of 10 one-hour films. He
  has still not received the kind of recognition
  given those he deserves to be named with, such as
  Bergman, Ozu, Kurosawa, Fellini, and Bunuel.

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• Columbia University professor and film critic
  Annette Insdorf, who knew Kieslowski well and
  often translated for him, says, It's rare that
  you say about some film director, 'What a good
  man.' But he was. Very by-the-way, emotional,
  very non-sentimental, dry in his wit and in his
  bearing, but he really made an impression.

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Free will?

• Her book, Double Lives, Second Chances The
  Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski, provides the key
  to his work in its title. Kieslowski almost never
  made a film about characters who lacked choices.
  Indeed, his films were usually about their
  choices, how they arrived at them, and the close
  connections they made or missed.

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sources

• Film History An Introduction. Kristin Thompson
  and David Bordwell. Second edition. New York
  McGraw-Hill, 2002.
• The Oxford History of World Cinema. Geoffrey
  Nowell-Smith (ed). Oxford University Press, 1999.