Lecture 9 – April 11
This week – our final lecture on documentary films about China both by Independent Chinese film makers and those working outside the country.
PLEASE READ THROUGH THE POWERPOINT USED IN THE LECTURE ATTACHED BELOW and GO THROUGH ALL THE LINKS ON THIS WEBLOG> NOTE THE NEWLY POSTED REQUIRED READINGS> SOME OF THE LINKS BELOW WERE NOT HIGHLIGHTED IN THE LECTURE.
see powerpoint jmsc-0044-documentaries-week-9-april-11-08-for-web.ppt
Among films to be considered this week
The work of Wu Wenguang – said by some to be the father of Chinese independent documentary film making.
A review of his work may be found at
http://www.cidfa.com/modules/review.php?rid=36
Wu’s effort in 2005 on the Village Democracy Documentary project is particularly note worthy. This was an effort to empower villagers with cameras to document their own stories.
More on this project may be found on the following University of California site
http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=63699
and at
http://www.cidfa.com/modules/project.php?pid=4
One of our graduate students has surveyed Wu as well as other film makers. Her Master’s Project thesis is available below and should be read by all students:
canaves-masters-paper-china-film-eclectic-shadows-2007.doc
More from Zhao dayong — “Living on Nanjing Road”
In his lecture several weeks back guest expert David Bandurski discussed his personal experience with Zhao and his filmmaking among minority peoples in Yunnan Province. This week we discuss and show an excerpt from Zhao’s 2004 film shot in Shanghai observing the life of the city’s poor and often homeless bottle collectors.
More on “Nanjing Road” may be found athttp://www.asiaticafilmmediale.it/2007/uk/schede/STREET_LIFE/index.php
Other film makers which are worthwhile considering but we probably won’t have time for are Wang Weikai and Ou Ning.
Two follow-ups from our last lecture.
We will address a few more aspects of Yang’s “Blood of Yingzhou District” (2006) Students are advised that the instructor has several copy of this film for borrowing if they wish to analyze it further.
Note the following. The background below is provided by the Woodrow Wilson International CENTER for Scholars in Washington D.C. They held an “Environmental Film Festival” screening in March 2007.
See also the differing reactions to this film. Although the film won the Academy Award in 2007, the reception by
Chinese reviewers was mixed See: http://www.danwei.org/film/is_yingzhou_a_bad_film.php
There are an estimated 650,000 cases of AIDS in China. The film focused on one unique aspect of the spread of the disease in China; namely, rural farmers (mainly in Henan, Hubei, and Anhui provinces) who became infected from unhygienic blood-selling businesses. In the late 1980s, such businesses traveled to rural areas giving many poor farmers 50 Yuan and some food in exchange for extracting platelets. Blood from multiple donors would be removed, mixed with the blood of other donors, and then pumped back into their bodies after the platelets had been removed. This enabled the farmers to give blood again more quickly. Thus whole villages became infected very rapidly and many children were orphaned or infected.
Finally as time permits we will also consider the film introduced in excerpts last time and discussed with our guest speaker:
Yung Chang’s “Up the Yangtze” (2007)
As in most of our selections – Yung Chang’s film is notable for its strong characters.
The success of most documentary films, indeed all films, is determined by the filmmaker’s ability to
get us to empathize in some way with a few main characters or at least be fascinated by them
Watch this space for further updates.
