A Window To Our Times China’s Independent Film since the Late 1990’s Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophischen Fakultät der Christian-Albrecht-Universität zu Kiel vorgelegt von Yi, Sicheng Kiel 2006 Erstgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Gudula Linck Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Hans Jürgen Wulff Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: Durch den Prodekan Prof. Dr. Norbert Nübler Zum Druck genehmigt am: Contents Introduction: 1 Motivation 1 Topic and Structure of this Study 2 State of Research 3 Methodological Implications 4 1 Fiction Film -- The Forerunner Generation. 7 1.1 The concept of generations 7 1.2 Fiction-Film of the fifth generation 8 1.2.1 Thematic Concerns 9 1.2.1.1 Reappraisal of History 9 1.2.1.2 Political Commitment 11 1.2.1.3 Concern for the National Minority Cultures 12 1.2.1.4 The Gender Concern 12 1.2.2 Narrative Structures 15 1.2.3 The Visual 16 2 Fiction Film -- Contrasting the Fifth and the Sixth Generation 19 2.1 The Political and Economic Circumstances in which the 6th Generation Came into Being 19 2.2 The Artistic Nourishment of the 6th Generation 20 2.3 The Ritual of Naming 21 2.3.1 From the 5th to the 6th 21 2.3.2 Disordered Naming and Self-naming 22 2.3.3 In Their Own Words 24 2.4 The Shadows over the 6th Generation: Be Limited by the System 27 """ 2.5 The Paradox of Being Independent: Seeking for Possibilities of Self- expression 29 2.5.1 To Dialogize with the System 29 2.5.2 To Dialogize with Market and Mass Culture 30 2.5.3 To Dialogize with Cinema History 33 2.5.4 To Dialogize with the Reality of Today’s China 35 2.6 In Closing 38 3 Television Documentaries of the 80’s and Early 90’s 42 3.1 The Coming into Being of the First Wave of Chinese Documentaries 42 3.2 Paradigms: Documenting Reality vs. Constructing Reality 44 3.3 TV Documentaries among Fiction, News and Special Report 47 3.4 In Closing 52 4 Independent Film Movement since the Late 1990’s 55 4.1 Access 55 4.1.1 The Times 55 4.1.2 Vocabulary 56 4.1.3 An Incomplete Filmography 57 4.2 Artists 59 4.3 Concerning DV: the Diffusion of Power, Quantity of Works, Scale of Film Crew, Budget 61 4.4 Thematic Concerns 64 4.4.1 The Meaning of Local Narrative 64 4.4.2 Self-Recognition and the Morality Trap 65 4.4.3 Gender 66 4.5 Presentation and Dissemination 67 4.5.1 Western Film Festivals 68 4.5.2 Localization of the Film 70 4.5.3 Discs 73 4.5.4 Dialogue 73 4.6 New Trends 76 4.7 In Closing 77 5 Jia Zhangke and his Films -- A Case Study of a Fiction Filmmaker 78 5.1 Self-understanding 78 5.2. Interpretation 84 5.2.1 General 84 5.2.2 Xiaoshan Hui Jia (Xiaoshan Going Home) 87 5.2.3 Xiao Wu 88 5.2.4 Zhan Tai (Platform) 91 5.2.5 The significant effect of music and Pop songs 93 6 YUNFEST -- A Case Study Concerning Contemporary Chinese Independent Documentary since the End of the 90’s 96 6.1 In the context of the development of contemporary Chinese film 96 6.1.1 The Significance of DV Revolution 97 6.1.2 Multivocality: Reality, Utopia and Nostalgia, Collective Memory 99 6.1.3 Networking 104 6.1.4 YUNFEST: A Successful Scene of Dialogue and Dissemination 105 6.2 Highlight Documentaries of YUNFEST 2005 113 6.2.1 General 113 6.2.2 Seeking for social truth: Before the Flood (Yan Mo, 2004) 116 6.2.3 Seeking for Private Reality: The Men (Nan Ren, 2003) 121 7. Conclusion 129 Annex 131 1. Bibliography 131 2. Filmography of the Late 90’s Filmmakers 136 3. Index of Subjects and Glossary 141 4. Index of Filmmakers 146 5. Index of Films (fiction and documentaries) 151 6. Index of Persons 159 Zusammenfassung in deutscher Sprache 161 Introduction Motivation When I came for the first time to Germany, it was thanks to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which supported me and my fellow students of the East Asia Institute for Visual Anthropology (EAIVA, Yunnan University) to participate in the Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival (GIEFF) 2000. My first documentary film Qing, the Newspaperman was selected for the student film competition and awarded “honourable mention” at GIEFF 2000. Afterwards, I co-produced two more documentaries. Although I always knew that documentary filmmaking is my destiny, I have been interested in social science and humanities, too. Before I took part in the Visual Anthropology curriculum at the EAIVA, I had graduated with the B.A., specialized in Chinese Literature at Yunnan University. During my graduate study, I had the opportunity to read many books on social scientific theories, methodologies and paradigms, which helped me building up a solid basis on social science and humanities. At EAIVA, Barbara Keifenheim guided me into the field of Visual Anthropology, which occurred to me as if it would be a perfect combination of artistic creation and scientific research. Thereafter, I was encouraged to go back and forth between the practice of documentary making and the scientific reflection of ethnographical fieldwork research: As an anthropological filmmaker, I have to work in a shared field situation in order to observe an anthropological issue, that is to say, what happens to the protagonist and impacts myself, as neutral and scientific as possible, and then represent and reconstruct what I document embodied in form of documentary film. Without scientific thinking and methodologies, one anthropology filmmaker can never go further. This may explain, why I came to Kiel University as lecturer for modern Chinese language in order to simultaneously pursue a PhD dissertation on film. Meanwhile, I came to realize that in Germany as well as in whole Europe, there has been developed a strong interest in Chinese films, but there is still a lack of 1 historical or theoretical introductions from a native researcher’s perspective. That is how it turned out, that I wanted to write my dissertation about contemporary Chinese Independent Film Movement taking place in Mainland China since the end of the 90’s. As a native filmmaker as well, I am a part of this movement too, naturally, I hope this study would help me in finding my self-understanding as a documentary filmmaker. Topic and Structure of this Study In order to comprehend the New Documentary Movement, it has to be seen in the present context of filmmaking, including fiction, which itself cannot be isolated from the current socio-political context in general: That is the synchronic and horizontal situation. At the same time, it is necessary to investigate, how it came into being, historically: That is the diachronic and vertical line. Eventually, the original motive turned out to be the following arrangement of my study, in which I focus on the so called Independent Film Movement since the end of the 90’s, both on fiction and documentary films equally, since being “independent” from the official system and institutions is their most outstanding common characteristic. The fourth chapter is the heart of this study dwelling on various characteristics of the respective independent filmmakers and their films, their thematic concerns and their ways of representation and dissemination. In order to deepen the understanding of the independent film movement since the late 1990’s, the fifth and sixth chapters are case studies regarding respectively fiction and documentary films: Chapter 5 concentrates on Jia Zhangke, one of the most outstanding independent fiction filmmakers, while Chapter 6 centers on a very successful independent documentary film festival serving as platform to showcase and disseminate documentaries within China, the Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival (YUNFEST). The first three chapters concern the forerunners in both, fiction and documentary domains, during the 80’s and 90’s. Both phenomena came into being after the Cultural Revolution had been officially terminated in the end of 2 the 70’s. Then China has been opening up and launched the nationwide reform. Chapter 1 concentrates on the so called 5th Generation which had become famous first through Western Film Festivals and had a big part in Western interest in Chinese filmmaking. Chapter 2 serves for contrasting the 5th Generation with the newcomers, labelled the 6th Generation, which initiated the movement of independent feature films outside the official system and institutions. Chapter 3 focuses on the simultaneous development of documentary filmmaking which happened in the first place within the central and local Television Stations. State of Research Since more than twenty years, Chinese films have been travelling in various Western Film Festivals. Meanwhile, internationally there is a huge amount of articles written about the China’s cinematic scene since the 80’s, specifically concerning the so called 5th and 6th Generations. Among the books, academic thesis, critiques, and translations, most of them were concerning individual or a group of filmmakers, and interpreted from the perspective of political discourse. About the current situation, we can only find articles in the respective film festivals brochures, in film distributor’s press commentaries, in film magazines, in the respective announcements of the various daily newspapers, and, last but not least, fragmental resources in internet. As far as I know, there has never been presented in the West, neither a study concerning both fiction and documentary filmmaking from comparative perspective, nor an inquiry into the socio-political background of the development of the whole contemporary Chinese film -- seen from inside.