Lecture 7 – March 14

Documentaries about China and by Chinese film makers Part 1    

Note remember the second “compare and contrast” critical essay is due today. 

SEE THIS WEEKS POWERPOINT BELOW and read the other notes and references:

Lecture 7 Powerpoint

In this lecture, we start by discussing early documentary films by foreign film makers about China. 

 Lecture will be confined to post 1949 China.     We move on to introduce independent Chinese film makers.

            Film and Film makers to be considered this week and next:

          Michelangelo Antonioni      Chung Kuo or Cina (1972)                                                                                      

              Ruby Yang    Blood of Yingzhou District    (2006)             

               Hu Jie    In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul (2004)      

                Tammy CHeung,  Zhou Hau,  Zhao Dayong, CHen Wei jun, Wu Wenguang

                Note influences on CHeung and Zhou of American Film Director Frederick Wiseman in sense of unnarrated, observational form, no interviews.

Foreign Film makers about China

Felix Greene,  Carma Hinton – Gate of Heavenly Peace (1998), Morning Sun (2004) see also Long Bow Projects

Lerner, From Mao to Mozart, Williams China In Red, Lewis China from the Inside, Thomas Tankman                 

     Later in this lecture  David Bandursky of JMSC’s CMP gives us an introduction to independent Chinese film makers.  David has worked with a number of film makers in mainland China.  

 Readings: 

   See Barnouw pages 248-251

  also

 “China Images Abroad: The Representation of China in Western Documentary Films,” by Merrilyn Fitzpatrick
                                                  The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs © 1983  Contemporary China  Center, Australian National University    

                                                  Available on line at www.jstor.org                                                                                    

NOTE: No class “Good Friday”  Easter Weekend

FURTHER LECTURE NOTES IN DEPTH:

1. Antonioni

About the film:Michelangelo Antonioni
Chung Kuo or Cina

Italy 1972 Color 35mm  240minutes
Producer
Michelangelo Antonioni
Photography
Luciano Tovoli
Music
Luciano Berio
RAIRAI is the Italian state television network.  Antonioni directed the film and the narration is written by the director and the sound track features his voice.    Doc finally screens in

Beijing.
(Film / International)(’Chung Kuo’ by Michelangelo Antonioni)
From: Variety  | Date: December 20, 2004  | Author: Shen, Ada  
 
BEIJING The notorious 1972 four-hour documentary “Chung Kuo” (China) by Michelangelo Antonioni screened publicly for the first time in Beijing to packed audiences last week, 32 years after being commissioned and then banned by the Chinese government.Nearly 2,000 people attended the two screenings of “Chung Kuo,” filling the academy
theater to capacity. The screenings were part of a 17-film retrospective of Antonioni’s
works at the

Beijing

Film

Academy in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Culture
and Cinecitta.    Instructors note.  When I first went to

China in 1978 and 1979, as a new television reporter, I would often complain to Chinese officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the lack of access they were granting me to various Chinese provinces.  Every visit, to every province was painfully and laboriously organized. Often camera access was refused.  I complained that my “print media” colleagues had greater access.  “Yes,” these officials said, “and it is all Antonioni’s fault.”   The images Antonioni showed to the world of China in the 1970’s seemed to embarass Chinese leaders to the degree that television and film makers like myself, years later, were treated with extreme caution and our access to

China remained limited.  We also found much later that Antonioni’s early film – once its existence was known – influenced a number of Chinese film makers.