Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I ON THE CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL MARGINS
- 1 Continuity and Subversion
- 2 Allegorical and Realistic Portrayals of the Cultural Revolution
- PART II IN SEARCH OF TRADITION IN THE MIDST OF MODERNIZATION
- PART III THE THIRD-WORLD INTELLECTUAL IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
1 - Continuity and Subversion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I ON THE CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL MARGINS
- 1 Continuity and Subversion
- 2 Allegorical and Realistic Portrayals of the Cultural Revolution
- PART II IN SEARCH OF TRADITION IN THE MIDST OF MODERNIZATION
- PART III THE THIRD-WORLD INTELLECTUAL IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Filmography
- Index
Summary
In an interview, Chen Kaige explains his view on the relationship between the Cultural Revolution and Chinese tradition:
If you insist that my films have a critical edge, I prefer to perceive them as cultural critique, critique of Chinese culture. Take the Cultural Revolution as an example: I have always believed that it was closely linked to traditional Chinese culture. … On the surface, the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate culture. In reality, what it eliminated was only artistic objects from the past. At an ideological level, the Cultural Revolution can be perceived as a repetition, continuation, and development of traditional culture. … In the final analysis, what has our cultural system offered us? In my opinion, pretending that we are a great nation with five thousand years of civilization has simply become a joke. Every Chinese must look back, examining our way of thinking thoroughly. Furthermore, some of us must do this for the Chinese nation.
Although Chen associates his critical attitude toward traditional Chinese culture with that of unspecified Taiwan scholars, his notion of Chinese culture is certainly distant from that in Taiwan New Cinema works roughly contemporary with his own. In Hou Xiaoxian's films, for example, traditional Chinese culture is often idealized as a bygone patriarchal structure to which the filmmaker reveals a nostalgic attachment. This patriarchal structure is portrayed as disrupted and threatened by Taiwan's repeated experiences of colonization and massive industrialization. In Edward Yang's films, values of traditional Chinese culture in Taiwan's initially agricultural society are portrayed as suffering and fading, overwhelmed by rapid industrialization and commercialization.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001