Film in the Qing Empire and the Republic of China (1896–1949)
This article covers filmmaking in the Qing Empire (1616–1911) and in the Republic of China (1912–1949) up to the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Qing Empire
The history of film in China begins with Europeans and Americans who presented their new entertainment art in the concessions and at the same time captured exotic images from everyday life of the Chinese population for their home audience. The first film screening took place on August 11, 1896 in Shanghai. Films by the Lumière brothers were shown in the Xu amusement park of the French concession . The film medium was not even a year old at the time. Other pioneers of the film medium active in China were z. B. Charles Pathé and James Ricalton.
The history of Chinese film begins in 1905 in the Beijing Fengtai Photo Studio with the filming of the Beijing Opera " The mountain Dingjun " (Ding jun shan) with the then star of the Beijing Opera Tan Xinpei . The cinematic preservation of traditional theater dominated the early development of Chinese film until the 1920s.
Republic (1912-1949)
The fall of the emperor, the founding of the republic, the advance of western modernism and colonialism and intellectual currents like the May Fourth Movement shook the country and accelerated the development of Chinese cinema. Shanghai developed into the center of Chinese film , where a commercial entertainment cinema emerged in the 1920s, which was often based on Western genres. In addition, there was soon an intellectual, socially committed cinema (shehuipian), which in terms of personnel and topics was closely linked to the development of modern Chinese spoken theater . A pioneering role is played by Zhang Shichuan and the Mingxing studios he co-founded in 1922 . An important early shehuipian was the “Innocent Spirit in the Opium Den” (Heiji yuanhun), which he realized as early as 1916 , in which patriotic and socially critical views were expressed on the basis of the story of a family destroyed by opium. Other important figures from the early days of Chinese film are Li Minwei, the founder of the Minxin film company , the authors Hong Shen , Zheng Zhengqiu and Tian Han , and the actor Ouyang Yuqian .
The seizure of power across the country by the Kuomintang (KMT) under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek affected Chinese cinema from 1929 with the first censorship measures. The ideology of the nationalists, which focused on social harmony, did not tolerate any representation of social grievances by the intellectuals, who were often left-wing or Marxist, or criticism of the appeasement policy towards Japanese imperialist policy in China. Nevertheless, in 1930 with the first Chinese sound film "Singer Red Peony" (Genü hongmudan) , produced in collaboration with Pathé , at least the technical development continued. In constant conflict with the KMT censorship and police, which culminated in murders and in 1934 the burning of the Yihua studios, the independent filmmakers were gradually driven underground or the communist base of Yan'an . Under these life-threatening circumstances, Cai Chusheng's films like “The Fisherman's Song” (Yu guang qu, 1934) could only hint at social issues and express them indirectly through editing and editing. This film, produced by the important film company Lianhua , won the first international film award for a Chinese film at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1935. Other important figures in Chinese film of the 1930s were the producer Luo Mingyou , the directors Bu Wancang , Sun Yu , Wu Yonggang , Cheng Bugao , Fei Mu , Yuan Muzhi and Shi Dongshan and the actors Hu Die , Jin Yan , Zhao Dan , Ruan Lingyu , Zheng Junli and Li Lili . Also, Jiang Qing , wife of Mao Zedong and the subsequent central figure of the Cultural Revolution , appeared to 1937 in several film productions as an actress under the name Lan Ping .
The outbreak of open warfare between Japan and China and the occupation of Shanghai by Japanese troops in November 1937 put an end to the history of the independent Shanghai studios. The following years are marked by war propaganda. In the Japanese-dominated area, when the Manchurian Film Company was founded, huge studios were created in Changchun , where imperialist propaganda films such as New Land (Xin tu) were shot. In the communist base of Yan'an, the Yan'an film group was formed in 1938 under the leadership of Yuan Muzhi, which produced propaganda for the liberation struggle of the communists with very limited financial and technical means. Mao Zedong's Yan'an speeches from 1942 were decisive for the future of film art, as well as all other arts in China. There, under the principle of so-called socialist realism, art was reduced to a propaganda function and the independent existence of aesthetic values was denied. With this commitment to a didactic purpose, any deviation from the official line could be punished if necessary.