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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Trans-media strategies of appropriation, narrativization, and visualization : adaptations of literature in a century of Chinese cinema Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vd0s09p Author Qin, Liyan Publication Date 2007 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Trans-media Strategies of Appropriation, Narrativization, and Visualization: Adaptations of Literature in a Century of Chinese Cinema A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Liyan Qin Committee in charge Professor Yingjin Zhang, Chair Professor Michael Davidson Professor Jin-kyung Lee Professor Paul Pickowicz Professor Wai-lim Yip 2007 The Dissertation of Liyan Qin is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm: Chair University of California, San Diego 2007 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………………. …..iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………. …..iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...vii Vita……………………………………………………………………………………...viii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………...........ix Chapter 1 Introduction: The Concept of “Adaptation” and its Vicissitude in China……………………………………………………………………………………...1 Situating my Position in Current Scholarships………………………………….........3 The Intertwining of Chinese Film and Literature…………………………………...16 “Fidelity,” and the Relative Status of Film and Literature…………………………..38 Chapter 2 Appropriation as Transcultural Narrativization, 1920s-1940s……………………...60 Transnational Palimpsest: Cross-cultural Appropriation, Sinification and Hybridation………………………………………………………………………….61 Containing the Chinese Woman: Wife, Mother, and Martyr………………………..78 Social Critiques and the Chinese Rebel……………………………………………..94 iv Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………….........108 Chapter 3 Adaptation as Communist Orthodox and its Dilemmas: The Case of Xia Yan, the 1950s and 1960s………………………………………………………………………..111 Xia Yan’s Options and Their Consequences……………………………………….117 Xia Yan as a Conformist Vanguard……………………………………….118 Xia Yan as an Ambivalent Critic…………………………………….........137 Xia Yan as a Repressed Humanist………………………………………..146 Dilemmas for a Communist Intellectual…………………………………………..152 Chapter 4 History as Familial Melodrama: Xie Jin, the Early and Mid - 1980s……………………………………………………………………………………159 The “Xie Jin Mode” and Melodrama………………………………………………159 The Innocent Rightist Persecuted………………………………………………….171 The A-political Solaces: the Chinese Woman and Nature…………………………184 The End of the Melodrama Era……………………………………………………198 v Chapter 5 Constructing China: Zhang Yimou’s Adaptation of Novels in His Early Films ………………………………………………………………………………………….206 Constructing a “Chinese Culture”: Rituals, Arts and Space……………………….209 The Patriarchs and the Young Lovers：Demonization and Agency……………….220 Engaging the History of Chinese Communism Obliquely………………………...231 Visuality Foregrounded: Zhang Yimou’s Filmic Strategies……………………….243 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..249 Appendix: List of Republican-era Films Based on Foreign Literature………………...256 Character List…………………………………………………………………………..259 Filmography………………………………………………………………………. …..264 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………........271 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would never have materialized without my chair Professor Yingjin Zhang’s help and encouragements all the way, from the drafting of the initial prospectus to the revisions of each chapter. I wish to express my gratitude to him for being such a helpful and conscientious adviser. Professor Michael Davidson and Professor Jin-kyung Lee gave me important suggestions for revising the drafts. Professor Paul Pickowicz, an expert on Chinese film, offered me invaluable inspirations and support. Professor Wai-lim Yip not only provided me with academic help, but, with his Café Roma roundtable, gave interesting talks to graduate students like me. I would like to thank UCSD Center for the Humanities for a Graduate Student Fellowship in 2007, and Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS) at UCSD for a travel grant in 2006. On the personal side, I would like to acknowledge the support of my friends here in UCSD: Jiangsui He, Shih-Szu Hsu, Chunlin Li, Chunhui Peng, Elya Zhang and many others. Finally, my husband Feng Shixin and my daughter Flora gave me the motivation to work efficiently on my dissertation so that I can go back to China to be reunited with them. So this dissertation is dedicated to them. Liyan Qin vii VITA 1996 Bachelor of Arts, Beijing University, China 1996-1999 Freelancer 2002 Master of Arts, Beijing University, China 2003-2007 Teaching Assistant, Chinese Studies Program, University of California, San Diego 2006 Associate Lecturer, Literature Department, University of California, San Diego 2007 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Trans-media Strategies of Appropriation, Narrativization, and Visualization: Adaptations of Literature in a Century of Chinese Cinema by Liyan Qin Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California, San Diego, 2007 Professor Yingjin Zhang, Chair Adaptation of literature has been an important genre in Chinese films from the 1920s till now. This dissertation seeks to trace the general history of Chinese filmic adaptations of literature, and examine important moments and figures within this history, to bring out strategies filmmakers use in their adaptations, in response to and in negotiations with different cultural, political and commercial needs. With the dissertation, I hope to contribute to this still largely uncharted field in Chinese film studies, to studies of ix comparative literature and cross-media cultural translation between China, the West and Japan, and to offer insights into the cultural and political history in the periods addressed. In the dissertation, I employ techniques of literary and film studies, draw on adaptation and translation theories, and also use a cultural history perspective. Chapter 1 situates my study in current scholarships and gives an overview of what Chinese filmmakers chose to adapt and how they approach their sources. The following chapters are organized around representative figures or topics. Chapter 2 is on the Republican adaptations of foreign literature, in which I will give an overview of this genre and examine some of its recurrent motifs. Chapter 3 focuses on adaptations by Xia Yan, an arbiter of socialist films, in which I analyze Xia Yan’s choices as shown in his adaptations in the 1950s and 1960s. Chapter 4 explores adaptations by Xie Jin, the most important Chinese director in the early 1980s, to see how he uses the melodramatic mode in his films on the rightists and how that mode is specific to the period. Chapter 5 studies Zhang Yimou’s adaptations in his early films to see his change from the 1980s to the 1990s, and his strategy of foregrounding visuality. x Chapter 1 Introduction: The Concept of “Adaptation” and its Vicissitude in China We have been encountering film adaptations of literature too often. Fans of the series novel Harry Potter eagerly wait for the release of each film episode. Fans of the film series Lord of the Ring buy the whole pack of books as birthday presents for themselves. Friends quarrel among themselves which Mr. Darcy is better, the one in the BBC TV series Pride and Prejudice, or the 2005 film. The same thing has been happening in China. Adaptation of literature has been an important element in Chinese films from the 1920s, when Chinese filmmakers began their work in earnest, till now, when they routinely win international acclaim. Their literary sources range from Chinese literary classics to works by contemporary Chinese writers, from plays of Shakespeare to novels of Tolstoy. However, this is a field still very much understudied, or in some aspects, un-studied. This dissertation seeks to trace the general history of Chinese filmic adaptations of literature, and examine important moments and representative figures within this history, to bring out ways and strategies filmmakers in different periods use in their adaptations, in response to and in negotiation with different cultural, political and 1 2 commercial needs. With this dissertation, I hope to contribute to this still largely uncharted field in Chinese film studies. This dissertation also aspires to accomplish more. Filmic adaptations of literature, since they have a textual source for one to refer to, offer a convenient venue to address broader questions about culture, history and politics. The deletions, additions and other changes the filmmakers choose to make highlight their strategies in ways that may not be so obvious in films made from original scripts. Films based on the same source but made at different times, or the change of adaptation styles of the same filmmaker in different periods, can particularly highlight the dynamic of 20th-century Chinese history as well as the mutual influence between culture and history. By pursuing a comparative reading of the films and the literature they are based on, I aim to find consistent patterns across individual films and filmmakers, to account for these patterns in cultural and political terms, and thus to offer insights into the cultural and political history in the periods addressed in the dissertation. This dissertation