Organizational Hegemony in the Hong Kong Cinema
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J arvie, lan. Window on Hong Kong: A bocwtoy- snonai, mia ana KODert 3iam. Linrmniting- cat Study of the Hong Kong Film Industry Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the ORGANIZATIONAL HEGEMONY IN and Its Audience. Hong Kong: Cenb-e for Media. London: Routledge, 1994. East Asian Studies, 1977. Skeldon, Ronald (ed). Reluctant Exiles? Migra- Lai, Linda Chiu-Han. "Nostalgia and Non- tionfrom Hong Kong and the New Overseas THE HONG KONG CINEMA sense: Two Instances of Commemorative Chinese. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, Practices in Hong Kong Cinema in the 1994. Early 1990s" In Fifty Years of Electric Shad- Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra ows. Ed. Law Kar and Stephen Tea. Hong Dimension. London: BFI, 1997. Kong: Urban Council, 1997. 90-97. Tea Yu-Ming and Lao Tuen-Yu. "Global Ex- HECTOR RODRIGUEZ Lao, Sing Hing. DinyingFuBeihingJap (Movie port of Hong Kong Television: Television & Metaphors). Hong Kong: Cosmos Broadcasting Limited." Asian Journal of Books,1991. Communication 5.2 (1995): 108-121. Law, Kar. "Certains Trend of the Hong Kong Turner, Matthew and Irene Ngan. Hong Kong Movie Culture of the 1960s and 1970s" In Sixties: Designing Identities. Hong Kong: Culture and Society in Hong Kong. Ed. Hong Kong Art Centre, 1995. Elizabeth Sinn. Hong Kong: Centre for Wong, Cindy. "Doing Fieldwork on Chinese 'inema historians have often noted creative personnel to the party's cause, and East Asian Studies, 1995.316-323. Vietnamese in America." 15.2 Amerasia the close linkage between the Hong (iii) establishing and maintaining contacts Li, Cheuk-To. Rinyupian. Hong Kong: Subcul- (1989): 179-185. 'Kong film industry and China's with other Hong Kong social movements tural Press, 1996. -. "Ritual Revisited" In Moving the Image: national politics throughout the 1950s and and organizations outside the film industry. Leung, Grace and Joseph Chan. "The Hong Asian Pacific Americans in the Media Arts. Sixties. Many production, distribution, and I describe the pursuit of this agenda as a Kong Cinema and its Overseas Markets, Ed. Russell Leong. Los Angeles: Visual exhibition companies were aligned with work of "organizational hegemony." The 1950-1995" In Fifty Years of Electric Shad- Communications, 1991. either the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political dimension of the Hong Kong cin- ows. Ed. Law Kar and Stephen Teo. Hong -. "Chinese Outside Chinatown: A Chinese or its Taiwan-based rival, the Guomindang ema does not only (to my mind not mainly) Kong: Urban Council 1997.136-152. Community in South Florida." Chinese (GMD). While neither political organization consist in the thematic contents of indi- Liechty, Mark. "Kathmandu as Translocality: America (January 1991): 49-66. was officially registered in Hong Kong, vidual films so much as in the organiza- Multiple Places in Nepali Space." In The -. "Communities Through the Lens: Grass- their sympathizers nonetheless continued tional context of their production and dis- Geography of Identity. Ed. Patricia Yaeger. roots Video in Philadelphia as Altema- to operate in the British colony, seeking to semination. One of the purposes of my ac- Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1996. 98- tive Communication Practice." Unpub- enlist supporters, to acquire control over count is to produce an explanation of this 130. lished Ph.D dissertation/ Annenberg cinematic institutions, and sometimes to ex- fact. Leung, P.K. Heung Gong Diklawhan M.anfa School for Communication, University of press their partisan views in public forums. A full explanation of the activities of (Hong Kong Popular Culture). Hong Pennsylvania, 1997. This essay develops a broad institutional politicized film companies and film work- Kong: Joint Publications, 1993. Wong, Cindy and Gary McDonogh. "Con- analysis of the salient organizational ers in Hong Kong calls for a detailed exami- McDonogh, Gary and Cindy Wong. "Orien- suming Cinema: Space, Media and Ex- mechanisms that linked Chinese political nation of the socicultural environment of talism Abroad: Hong Kong Readings of perience in Hong Kong Audiences." parties with the Hong Kong film industry the territory during the period of colonial the World of Suzie Wong." In Classic Paper presented at the Society for Cin- from 1949 to approximatelyl970. administration. This environment included Whiteness. Ed. Daniel Bernard!. Forth- ema Studies, 1999. Although partisan cinema workers of- the depoliticization of public culture fos- commg. Yau, Esther Ching-Mai. "Ecology and Late ten endeavored to promote thematic con- tered by the British colonial government, Ma, Eric Kit-Wai. Dinsi Yumanfan Yingting Colonial Hong Kong Cinema: Imagina- tents congenial to their own ideological the patriotic sentiments of many Hong (Television and Identity). Hong Kong: tions in Time." In Fifty Years of Electric standpoints, the principal aims of political Kong people, the political interests of the Breakthrough Press, 1996. Shadows. Ed. Law Kar and Stephen Teo. activities in Hong Kong were fundamen- People's Republic of China (PRC) regime, Naficy, Harrud. The Making of Exile Cultures: Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1997. 100- tally organizational in nature, geared not and the profit orientation of Hong Kong's Iranian Television in Los Angeles. Minne- 114. only to the dissemination of propaganda commercial film industry, all of which fac- apolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993. Zha, Jianying. China Pop: How Soap Operas, messages but also towards the consolida- tors circumscribed the scope of political Salzman, Mark. Lost in Place: Growing up Ab- Tabloids, and Bestsellers are Transforming a tion of an enduring institutional presence in activities and to some degree influenced the surd in Suburbia. New York: Random Culture. New York: The New Press, 1995. the colony. While propaganda was hardly formulation of their objectives. I propose to House, 1995. an irrelevant concern, it was on the whole situate the impact of Chinese political par- Sinn, Elizabeth (ed.). Culture and Society in subordinated to the threefold tactical task ties on the Hong Kong cinema in relation to Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Centre for East of (i) securing managerial power over a this complicated societal arena. Asian Studies, 1995. range of cinema institutions, (ii) winning Volume 19, No. 1 106 Post Script Volume 19, No. 1 107 Post Script r COLLECTIVISM ciples of a good society, Mao Zedong him- filmmakers thus helped to enhance the hu- lectuals their role within the proletarian Left-wing activities in Hong Kong dur- self had argued in 1919 that small com- man resources of the leftist film industry in revolution. ing the late 40s were sometimes underlain munes could not only provide small-scale conjunction with more formalized institu- Similar networks of associational pub- by a value orientation which may be de- models for the changes to be wrought on tional mechanisms. Although he would lie spheres helped to create artistic move- scribed as a broadly socialist rather than the entire nation but also help to initiate never become a member of the CCP/ Zhu's ments, organize seminars to criticize "poi- specifically Marxian framework. The Film such changes. The slogan "from small institutional connection to the mainland sonous" films and to promote social aware- Collectivization Movement of 1948 had groups to a great alliance" (xiao zuzhi da was intensified by his appointment as Spe- ness, promote, and publish artistic and po- aimed to establish a management structure lianhe) encouraged the formation of com- cial Delegate to the National Political Com- litical manifestoes in the Hong Kong film collectively controlled by the film workers munes as paradigms of a new socialist so- mittee (Sek 43). industry of the 30s and 40s. Membership in themselves. Underlain by an Utopian com- ciety as early as 1919 (Dirlik 180). The creation Leftist activities in the Hong Kong film those cultural movements was broadly in- munalist aspiration to bridge the gap be- of small anarchist communes was partly a industry may be fruitfully understood as a elusive. Many participants were filmmak- tween labor and management, the move- response to the deeply felt marginality of local manifestation of a broader social phe- ers without official Chinese Communist ment proposed that the people who actually scholars and artists in modern China. If it nomenon in modern China: the rise of Party affiliation or extensive knowledge of made films should also make key company was difficult to change the society at large, drama societies, student associations, study Marxist theory but with a general sympa- decisions, in order thereby to eliminate ex- the formation of local communes could at groups, political societies, and scholarly thy for progressive and patriotic goals. As- ploitation and individualism by encourag- least provide a concrete small-scale model journals in the universities and urban cen- sociational networks were not only or even ing the sharing of technical expertise and for a future world. In the case of Hong ters following the fall of the Qing dynasty primarily cemented by a shared commit- the rule of the majority. The Film Collectiv- Kong, communalism arguably provided a in 1911. These manifold groups, which may ment to Marxist or socialist ideals, but also ization Movement was therefore underlain Utopian paradigm of a future socialist soci- be defined as "assodational public spheres/' by interpersonal networks formed in drama by a political commitment to radical egali- ety for film workers in a colonial environ- were not so much centralized, disciplined societies and educational institutions.