CHAPTER FOUR
BETWEEN FORGETTING AND THE REPETITIONS OF MEMORY: FEI MU’S AESTHETICS OF DESOLATION IN SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN
Heroism has strength but no beauty and thus seems to lack humanity. Tragedy, however, resembles the matching of bright red with deep green: an intense and unequivocal contrast. And yet it is more exciting than truly revelatory. The reason desolation resonates far more profoundly is that it resembles the conjunction of scallion green with peach red, creating an equivocal contrast. I like writing by way of equivocal contrast because it is relatively true to life.1 Like wartime cartoonists, poets, dramatists, and other artists who traveled inland to promote the cause of resistance, the Chinese film industry was also displaced to the Nationalist interior during the War of Resistance. The Nationalist government-owned Central Film Studio (Zhongyang diangy- ing sheyingchang 中央电影摄影场) and China Motion Pictures Studio (Zhongguo dianying zhipianchang 中国电影制片厂) were relocated to Chongqing, where the government encouraged the production of docu- mentary and feature films to promote the war effort. However, political instability, inflation, supply problems, and inadequate means of distribu- tion made it difficult to create high-quality films, and both Central Film and China Motion Pictures were forced to suspend filmmaking activities between 1941 and 1943.2 Although film studios in “Orphan Island” (gudao 孤岛) Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Manchuria operated throughout most of the war, working under the watchful eye of Japanese censors, filmmakers in the occupied regions were unable to produce films that explored in depth the experiences of ordinary people in wartime.
1 Eileen Chang, “Writing of One’s Own,” p. 17; Zhang Ailing, “Ziji de wenzhang,” p. 285. 2 See Yingjin Zhang’s discussion of the Nationalist government’s wartime operations in the hinterland in his Chinese National Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 92–94. Also, see Jay Leyda, Dianying: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China (Cam- bridge: MIT Press, 1972), pp. 114–158. For scripts of films produced in the Nationalist interior during the war, see Zhang Junxiang 张骏祥, ed., Dianying 电影 (Films), in Lin Mohan, ed., Zhongguo kangri zhanzheng shiqi dahoufang wenxue shuxi, vol. 18 (Chongqing: Chongqing, 1989). 170 chapter four
By the end of the war, Chinese audiences were eager for new films about the War of Resistance. In his study of postwar film in China, Paul Picko- wicz describes the tense mood in postwar Shanghai where a riot broke out at the Strand Theater in June 1946 when customers angrily protested the screening of yet another old Charlie Chaplin movie.3 Similarly, local newspapers expressed frustration and asked why there were no new Chi- nese films.4 In fact, the expanding civil war had brought about delays in the government’s nationalization of Japanese-controlled studios and the relocation of Central Motion Pictures to Shanghai and Beijing. In 1946, the Nationalist government completed its takeover of Japanese film facilities, and several private studios, including Wenhua 文华 and Kunlun 昆仑, were established or revived from the prewar period.5 By late 1946 and early 1947, film production had dramatically increased,6 and a string of celebrated postwar epics, including Cai Chusheng 蔡楚生 (1906–68) and Zheng Junli’s 郑君里 (1911–69) The Spring River Flows East (Yi jiang chun shui xiang dong liu 一江春水向东流; 1947) and Shi Dongshan’s 史东山 (1902–55) Eight Thousand Miles of Cloud and Moon (Baqian lilu yun he yue 八千里路云和月; 1947), were released. The final few years before the CCP’s victory witnessed an explosion of filmmaking in what would be remembered as China’s second “golden age”7 of cinema. Not only were these films tremendously popular among postwar audiences, but they would also leave an indelible mark on the Chinese collective memory.8
3 Paul Pickowicz, “Victory as Defeat: Postwar Visualizations of China’s War of Resis- tance,” in Wen-hsin Yeh, ed., Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 366. 4 See ibid. 5 See Du Yunzhi’s 杜云之 discussion of Nationalist government-owned and private studios in postwar China in his Zhonghua minguo dianying shi 中华民国电影史 (History of Film in the Republic of China; Taipei: Xingzhengyuan wenhua jianshe weiyuanhui, 1988), Chapters 14, 15, and 16. 6 See Zhang Yingjin, “The postwar film market: Hollywood versus native film,” in Chi nese National Cinema, pp. 95–97. 7 Teo regards prewar film of the early 1930s as a “golden age” of modern Chinese film, and Leo Ou-fan Lee argues that the postwar period was another golden age. See Stephen Teo, Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions (London: British Film Institute, 1997), p. x. See also Leo Ou-fan Lee, “The Tradition of Modern Chinese Cinema: Some Preliminary Explorations and Hypotheses,” in Chris Berry, ed, Perspectives on Chinese Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 1991), p. 6. 8 Following its release in October 1947, The Spring River Flows East broke records at the box office. See Zheng Junli 郑君里, “Weishenme paishe Yijiang chunshui xiang dong liu” 为什么拍摄一江春水向东流 (Why I made The Spring River Flows East), Renmin Ribao, Sept. 23, 1956. The popularity of these films and their central role in shaping China’s col- lective memories of the War of Resistance is also evidenced by the many re-releases and remakes of postwar film classics. Following its release in 1947, The Spring River Flows East