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Copyright by Yi Lu 2016 Copyright By Yi Lu 2016 The Dissertation Committee for Yi Lu certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Commercial Renaissance of Chinese Cinema: Movie Industry Reforms, Chinese Blockbusters, and Film Consumption in a Global Age Committee: ___________________________ Thomas Schatz, Supervisor ___________________________ Sung-sheng Chang, Co-Supervisor ___________________________ Shanti Kumar ___________________________ Lalitha Gopalan ___________________________ Michael Curtin Commercial Renaissance of Chinese Cinema: Movie Industry Reforms, Chinese Blockbusters, and Film Consumption in a Global Age By Yi Lu, B.A; M.A; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree(s) of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2016 Dedication For my parents Acknowledgement This project would not have started without the inspiration of my supervisor Prof. Thomas Schatz. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Schatz for his years of thoughtful, patient guidance, and support. He not only helped me grow intellectually through many hours of discussion, but also have set the standard of excellence as a scholar, mentor, instructor, and role model. Prof. Schatz has gracefully devoted time and energy to edit many drafts of the project, offer numerous insightful suggestions, and guide me through every stage of the writing process. I also wish to thank my co-supervisor, Prof. Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, for her guidance, patience, and unfaltering support during the dissertation writing process and my graduate study. I have benefited greatly from her seminars and scholarships, and every formal and informal discussion with her. I would also like to thank the members of my doctoral committee, Professors Shanti Kumar, Lalitha Gopalan, Michael Curtin, for their helpful comments and suggestions on this project. Their friendship and contribution to my intellectual development have been absolutely invaluable and will forever be appreciated. I am grateful to the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin for its consistent support of my graduate studies. Years of Teaching Assistantships followed by Assistant Instructor positions have allowed me to remain financially afloat, a vital condition for the completion of any dissertation. Finally, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my parents for their love and support throughout my life. Thank you both for giving me strength to chasing my dreams. v Commercial Renaissance of Chinese Cinema: Movie Industry Reforms, Chinese Blockbusters, and Film Consumption in a Global Age By Yi Lu, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Thomas G. Schatz Co-supervisor: Sung-Sheng Yvonne Chang Abstract In the 2000s, Chinese film industry, the most important propaganda apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party, was transformed into a commercial culture industry and became the second largest film market in the world. This project is a formal, cultural and industrial analysis of the transformation of the Chinese film industry and the corresponding changes in production culture due to a new wave of movie industry reforms starting in the late 1990s. By placing Chinese cinema in the world scene within globalization, this dissertation addresses the following research questions: How did the Chinese state undertake movie industry reforms and accelerate them in the 2000s? How did industrial transformation and commercialization influence filmmaking practices in terms of mode of production, genre, and narrative? To what extent were Chinese practitioners impacted by these state-directed reforms and shaped by market forces? To what extent did Hollywood’s commercial films influence Chinese cinema? With an integrated framework combining political economy, cultural studies, media industry studies, and film studies, Commercial Revitalization of Chinese Cinema considers China’s movie industry reform and industry transformation as culture phenomena. Three case studies of the industrial transformations in this project reveal China’s unique approaches to reviving its national film industry and building film as a type of soft power. It also illustrates an interesting media reform model substantially different from that of vi Hollywood and other national cinemas. I argue that China’s political economy and its special political, social and cultural histories are determinant in enabling the movie industry reform to develop a hybrid culture industry model that combines China’s experience in SOEs (State-Owned Enterprises) reform and Hollywood’s commercial film business model. As a result of industry transformation and structural changes, the emerging Chinese blockbuster production became a dominant mode of production, which localized and transformed generic and aesthetic conventions found in other film cultures as a dynamic interaction between global and local cultural exchanges. vii Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: Commodification of cinema: Film debates in the cinematic field…………39 Chapter 2: Corporatization and conglomeration of socialist film studio system: the case of China Film Group Corporation……………………………………………………………85 Chapter 3: The malling of the movies: The rise of the multiplex in Urban China….130 Chapter 4: Auteurs, orientalist spectacle, and narrative in Chinese blockbusters…...162 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………208 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….222 viii Introduction With the enormous changes of the last 30 years or so, the state-controlled Chinese film industry has been transformed and effectively reborn in a new era of economic reform. This transformation process demands serious scholarly attention to charting the industry’s transition from a socialist propaganda apparatus into a commercial film industry, and to assessing film practitioners’ struggles and a changing production culture. The contemporary Chinese film industry has been consistently neglected by film historians and scholars in the United States; therefore, the purpose of this study is to begin to redress this neglect with an analysis of the industrial aspects that have affected and reshaped film production and culture in contemporary China. I examine the Chinese film industry’s transformation from the late 1990s through the first decade of the 2000s, situating it in the context of economic reforms and media globalization. More specifically, the aim of this dissertation is to examine China’s economic reform of the movie industry, identifying the key factors that have enabled the successful restructuring of the industry and the steadily increasing competitiveness of Chinese commercial films in the early 2000s. China’s movie industry reforms demonstrate a unique interplay of China’s political, social, and cultural factors, providing an illuminating case study of media reform. In 1978, China entered into a new period of social, cultural, and historical development, due to the economic reforms and open-door policies launched by Deng Xiaoping. China's transition from a planned to a market economy with its special political, social, and cultural trajectories have determined its distinctive approach to reforming the 1 movie industry, which has always been treated by the Chinese government as its most important propaganda apparatus. Therefore, we witnessed a slower transformation over almost 20 years within the film industry as compared to other industry sectors. In other words, even though the Chinese state announced the beginning of the movie industry reform in the early 1980s, the industry’s centrally planned economy did not experience significant changes in the 1980s and 1990s, due to the state’s conservative attitude towards media. It wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that the state eventually enacted film deregulation plans because of many factors. This deregulation has fostered the rapid growth of the domestic film market and Chinese cinema in the 2000s. However, its uniquely Chinese approaches to reviving its national film industry have not yet been systematically examined. In particular, the course of the movie industry reforms and the contours of the Chinese blockbuster boom in the new millennium are as yet not well researched and understood. My dissertation specifically addresses the following research questions: How did the Chinese state undertake movie industry reforms and accelerate them in the 2000s? How did industrial transformation and commercialization influence filmmaking practices in terms of mode of production, genre, and narrative? To what extent were Chinese critics and intellectuals impacted by these state-supported reforms and shaped by market forces? To what extent did Hollywood’s commercial films influence Chinese cinema? I argue that China is in the process of forming an alternative commercial film industrial model that is administrated by the Chinese state. This model displays unique Chinese characteristics that demonstrate a combination of China’s own reform experiences in other state-owned industry sectors and international media practice, including media conglomeration and modern enterprise structures. Influenced by China’s 2 political economy and supported by the Chinese state, China’s commercial mode of film production has replaced the socialist film mode of production and become dominant within the film industry. In the course of this industrial transformation, Chinese
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