by Cook, James A. ,Goldstein, Joshua,Johnson, Matthew D. ,Schmalzer, Sigrid
Film historians refer to this episode as the Yihua Incident and it is typically seen as one of the key moments in what I am calling the myth of leftist film. In China’s official film historiography, this incident is presented as epitomizing the repressive nature of the Nationalist regime and as evidence of the hostile environment under which leftist filmmakers operated. But this interpretation begs more questions than it answers. If the Nationalist government was unhappy with Yihua Film Studio, why didn’t the authorities shut it down or send the police to arrest the filmmakers responsible for making subversive films? If the films identified by the vandals were indeed “leftist” in nature, why did the government censors approve them for general release in the first place? And if the government was behind the vandalism, why did the perpetrators of the incident have to wear masks and flee the scene?
Part of the answer lies in the factionalism and institutional rivalry within the Nationalist government centered in Nanjing. Between 1928 and 1930 the Nanjing regime developed policies to assert its authority over film production and exhibition, culminating in the establishment of the National Film Censorship Committee (NFCC) in early 1931. However, different government agencies competed for control over film censorship. The personnel makeup of the NFCC reflected this contestation: four of the censors came from the Ministry of Education, three from the Ministry of Interior and one was a GMD Party representative from the Bureau of Propaganda. This structure was inefficient because the censors answered to three different government departments. The ministries paid, promoted, and disciplined their own representatives on the NFCC, so the censors felt pressure to be loyal to their home ministries and had little motivation to work together. As a result, censors from the Ministries of Education and Interior often defied requests and directives from the GMD’s Ministry of Propaganda.2
The GMD’s lack of control over the NFCC was typical of the early years of the Nanjing decade; the GMD Party’s control over the government apparatus was incomplete. Many people working for the government did not necessarily embrace the GMD doctrine or political agenda. As far as the NFCC was concerned, while the GMD representative was ferreting out political heresy, the representatives from the two ministries were more interested in sniffing out films in violation of codes of moral decency and foreign films portraying China in an offensive manner. On several occasions, the censors from the two ministries overruled the GMD representatives’ objection to issuing exhibition permits to films of suspect political orientation. GMD loyalists were furious with the NFCC and frustrated with their inability to control the agency.
In early 1933, a GMD report alerted the central authorities to the infiltration of the film industry by Communist/leftist intellectuals. The report identified a dozen films by title as examples of Communist influence and blamed the NFCC for failing to take the necessary measures to suppress them. Interestingly, the list includes several films not on the Yihua vandals’ list while at the same time omitting several titles mentioned in that list; in other words, even within the right wing, there was a great deal of uncertainty and disagreement over which films were leftist.3 Nevertheless, both wanted to place film censorship firmly under GMD control. As political pressure to crack down on leftism mounted, the NFCC responded with a memo to major film studios in Shanghai, which read, in part:
Because film has a tremendous impact on the minds of people, it is crucial to choose the right subject matter. Our country is plagued by problems within and without and social mores are declining. It is up to film to play the role of moral pillar. . . . Our film industry is quite aware of its responsibility and most recent productions have fulfilled their social obligations. But occasionally, there are a few films that go too far (jiaowangguozheng). They either exaggerate reality, or advocate class struggle—both errors have grave consequences. We want to call your attention to this problem. Please be careful in the future.4
The memo’s mild, nonthreatening tone suggests that the NFCC censors believed that politically subversive films were few and that the nature of their offense was an issue of excess, not deliberate political opposition. It was in this context that right-wing GMD elements decided to take the matter into their own hands, resulting in the Yihua Incident.
Hence, I would argue that the Yihua Incident sheds light on the divisions within the Nationalist government, divisions that actually gave filmmakers greater maneuvering space, if not legal protection. The vandalism against Yihua Film Studio was the work of extremists and was not endorsed by the official establishment, which is why the perpetrators had to hide their identities and flee the scene. The ransacking happened in the context of a power struggle within the Nationalist government over who should control film censorship. Indeed, in many ways the real target of the vandalism was not Yihua Film Studio but the NFCC, for the calculated result of the incident was to put enormous pressure on the NFCC, thereby justifying its takeover by the GMD. Within a few months of the incident, the NFCC was dissolved and reorganized. The new Central Film Censorship Committee (CFCC) was under the direct and complete control of the GMD. Yet, as we will see, even full GMD control over censorship did not make the lines of what constituted political heresy any more clear-cut than before.
The Ambiguities of Meanings
The battle for control of film censorship between ministry bureaucrats and GMD loyalists ended in the latter’s victory. The GMD Ministry of Propaganda appointed all the CFCC censors and the new administrative structure guaranteed that they would toe the Party’s line. But ironically, while the new CFCC paid more lip service to cracking down on leftist filmmaking, no substantial changes resulted from the organizational shake-up. In fact, if we look at what the government censors actually attacked in the 1930s, we find that they were far more concerned with censoring sexually suggestive content or superstitious elements from films and that political content was far less often their focus (Figure 8.3).
High-ranking party officials repeatedly condemned the commercial orientation in the film industry and urged filmmakers to be socially responsible. The campaign against martial arts and ghost films is an example of the official cultural policy. At the All China Film Producers’ Conference, the GMD ideologue Chen Lifu advised that a film should be “seventy percent educational and thirty percent entertaining” (san fen jiaoyu, qi fen yule). Shao Yuanchong, the Minister of Propaganda, reminded conference participants that “the film enterprise is really an educational venture. . . film should not aim at catering to the [low] tastes of urbanites.”5
Figure 8.3 A still from the 27 hour long film series The Burning of Red Lotus Temple (Huo shao Hongliansi, dir. Zhang Shichang). The 19 silent films of this series were released by the Mingxing film company between 1928 and 1931 and no copies survive, but this image captures magical special affects where several warriors battle with flying swords. Films with such special effects and magical spectacle were extremely popular in Chinese cities in the 1920s and 1930s but often criticized by elites and the target of censorship.
Indeed, in the vast majority of cases the cuts and revisions that the censors made were not related to the films’ political orientation but rather to their perceived indecency (Figure 8.4). For instance, censors required the director of Goddess (Shennu, dir. Wu Yonggang, 1934) to delete a scene where a prostitute and a man walk toward a hotel together because it was “too suggestive.” (Figure 8.5, see website) The director of Fallen-flower Village (Feihuacun, dir. Cai Chusheng, 1934) had to delete a scene that showed a pair of pants falling off a bed and another that showed a girl undressing.6 Three scenes from The Reunion (Haitang hong, dir. Zhang Shichuan, 1936), were ordered cut: two depicted gambling and a third showed a character coughing blood, an act the censors deemed distasteful.7 For the purposes of writing a visual history it would be wonderful if frames from these deleted scenes could be featured here for analysis, but of course this footage was removed and destroyed—every historical approach is limited by it source materials. These examples show that political subversion was not the ma
in focus of film censorship; ninety percent of the films denied exhibition permits by the government in 1932 were for reasons having to do with sex and violence, not political heresy.8
Figure 8.4 The images removed from films due to state or self-censorship in the Republican era are lost to history, but this still from The Empress of Sport (Tiyu Huanghou, dir. Sun Yu, 1934), with actress Li Lili showing off her shapely and extremely healthy legs (she plays a track star in the film) is typical of the limits of risqué displays of the female body of the time period.
Here was the irony: the director of the newly formed CFCC, Luo Gang, observed that the very government policies that discouraged cheap entertainment flicks and encouraged films to be socially relevant and educational directly contributed to the leftist tendency of many films. This was because, as Luo himself noted, it was nearly impossible to realistically depict social issues without touching on the class dimension of modern Chinese society.9 Luo realized that the majority of filmmakers were not underground communists, but simply filmmakers who wanted to make socially responsible films.
No wonder then that GMD censors had great difficulty in defining what constituted a leftist film. Many examples illustrate how confused the issue was. A 1933 issue of the Communist publication International Literature, published in Moscow, praised Spring Silkworms (Chuncan, dir. Cheng Bugao, 1933) and Dawn in the Metropolis (Duhui de zaochen, dir. Cai Chusheng, 1933) as leftist films,10 but the GMD censors did not consider these films politically problematic and never mentioned them as leftist.11 In fact, government censors selected several films that are now labeled as “leftist” by Communist film historians as fine examples of Chinese filmmaking and sent them to international film festivals. For example, the Nationalist government submitted six films for a 1933 Italian international film festival: Three Modern Women (San ge modeng nuxing, dir. Bu Wancang, 1933), The Dawn of Metropolis (Duhui de zaochen, dir. Cai Chusheng, 1933), Night Life (Chengshi zhi ye, dir. Fei Mu, 1933), Wild Rose (Wo de ye meigui, dir. Sun Yu, 1932), Freedom Flower (Ziyou zhi hua) and a documentary entitled The Spectacles of Beijing (Beiping daguan).12 With the exception of the documentary, all five feature films have been labeled “leftist” by post-1949 Chinese film historians.13 Similarly, for a 1935 film festival in the USSR the CFCC censors submitted two feature films, one of which, The Song of Fishermen (Yu guang qu, dir. Cai Chusheng, 1935) is now lauded as a classic example of leftist filmmaking. In 1937 the League of Nations’ Education Film Commission invited China to submit materials for inclusion in the Encyclopedia of World Cinema project; two of the four films selected, Song of the Fishermen and Big Road (Dalu, dir. Sun Yu, 1934) are now considered classic leftist films.14 (Figure 8.6, see website) Moreover, many supposedly leftist films received government awards and endorsements: in 1936, the Nationalist Central Propaganda Committee honored seven films, two of which are now dubbed leftist;15 in 1937, in another government-sponsored film award, the winners of Gold, Silver, and Bronze for Best Domestic Film were all written or directed by people now considered leftists by Communist film historians.16 High-ranking Nationalist government officials not only endorsed “leftist films,” but also supported the studios that produced them. The GMD’s cultural tsar, Chen Lifu, even helped director Bu Wancang, who was responsible for several alleged leftist films, to raise CN¥ 30,000 to start his own film studio!17
How do we explain the GMD’s endorsement of supposedly leftist films? One might argue that perhaps the censors missed or misinterpreted leftist content and let it pass; but if the official censors could not detect subversive messages in these films, what was the likelihood that ordinary moviegoers at the time interpreted these films as politically oppositional? Many surviving filmmakers from the 1930s have portrayed themselves as antagonistic toward the former GMD government and have tried to explain the GMD authorities’ approval of their films as their having outsmarted the censors and cleverly manipulated the system, but the consistent high visibility of so many supposedly leftist films under the GMD regime undermines the claim that these films were politically oppositional. Perhaps a closer look at historical context will help us grasp more clearly why GMD rhetoric and policies regarding film censorship were so inconsistent.
Walking the Diplomatic Tightrope: When Patriotism is Unpatriotic
The GMD central government viewed film as a crucial tool for mobilizing public support for China’s resistance to imperialism and it often encouraged filmmakers to inject patriotic spirit in their films, but for the GMD such patriotism could be a double-edged sword. In September 1931 the Japanese Army attacked and invaded Manchuria; the NFCC quickly issued a memo encouraging major film studios to make inspirational films to rouse patriotism in their audiences.18 Patriotism did indeed sweep the Chinese public in the wake of the Japanese attack, but as street demonstrations, boycotts of Japanese goods, and, in some cases, mob attacks on Japanese nationals escalated, the Japanese responded with further saber-rattling. On January 28, 1932, the Japanese attacked Shanghai, causing enormous loss of life and property. One of the incidents that triggered this attack involved a Chinese newspaper editorial. The editorial used the word “unfortunately” to express disappointment that an assassination attempt against Emperor Hirohito had failed. The Japanese considered this editorial an affront and demanded that the Chinese authorities shut down the newspaper office.19 If an editorial article could be used by the Japanese as an excuse to bully China, the potential for films with anti-Japanese messages to cause an international incident was even greater.
What was the GMD to do? The GMD soon found itself trying to dampen the very patriotism it had fanned. Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly argued that until China was ready to confront Japan militarily, China had to appease the Japanese and avoid providing them any excuses for further attacks. But Chiang’s appeasement policy was roundly criticized by both the Communists and by his political rivals within the GMD. They accused him of submitting to Japanese aggression and failing to defend China. In this context, patriotic films purported to fan anti-Japanese sentiments suddenly went from being lauded by GMD officials to being deemed inconsistent with, or even oppositional to and subversive of, Chiang’s appeasement policy. In 1934, the CFCC told major film studios to tone down the nationalistic rhetoric in their films.20
Moreover, the censors also felt depictions of Chinese life that focused on social ills might inadvertently strengthen Japanese claims that China’s backwardness—its ineffective government, suffering peasantry, and lack of political unity—justified their invasion. Rather abruptly, precisely the kind of socially-conscious depictions encouraged by earlier NFCC and CFCC policies were now discouraged; representing China’s darker side could help the Japanese to present themselves as potential liberators of a “backwards” China. Such films went from being seen as important tools of reform to being deemed potentially subversive of GMD efforts to protect China’s national sovereignty and gain international respect (Figure 8.7, see website).
The film Humanity (Rendao, dir. Bu Wancang, 1932) is a case in point. The film initially received enthusiastic endorsement from government officials because it dealt with problems in the countryside. In an annual review of the Chinese film industry, a member of the NFCC stated that Humanity represented the best in Chinese filmmaking and regarded it as a “classic.”21 In 1934 Humanity was nominated to represent China at the Milan International Film Festival. However, as Japanese criticism of the GMD government’s failure to address China’s rural bankruptcy intensified, the film’s depiction of rural life—with its reference to disease, famine and starvation—seemed to give credence to Japanese claims. As a result, government censors retracted their earlier praise and removed the film from the list of candidates bound for Milan.22
The GMD government’s cultural policy constantly shifted to accommodate the changing political situation. It became nearly impossible for either filmmakers or government officials to determine whether a film was politically correct with any sense of certainty because what was advocated at
one moment could be deemed inappropriate soon thereafter. In this situation, no one could be on the right side of the political spectrum all the time. The constant vacillation in government policy may have increased the risks of censorship for some films, but at the same time, government censors also understood that the problems they had with many films were due to political circumstances rather than to the intrinsic qualities of the films in question. Hence, as we have seen, the government rarely rigorously went after filmmakers for making politically inappropriate films. If the GMD censors rarely found the films produced in 1930s Shanghai to be politically offensive, then how is it that historians in the twenty-first century have come to believe these dusty celluloid reels to be rife with leftist anti-GMD images?
The Origins of the Leftist Cinema Myth
Although the term “leftist cinema” did appear in official GMD documents in the 1930s and was occasionally used in fan magazines,23 written accounts of Chinese film history published before 1949 hardly mention leftist cinema. In one of the earliest accounts of Chinese film history, Gu Jianchen in the 1934 China Film Year Book makes a passing mention of the infiltration of the film industry by Communist writer Tian Han and a couple of films scripted by leftist writers, but has no further discussion of a leftist cinema movement. In the 1940s, a film industry insider, Jiang Shangou characterized 1930s film as focused on social activism and reform, but never used the term “leftist” in his discussion.24 The manufacturing of the leftist cinema myth did not begin until the late-1950s and picked up momentum in the 1960s. The circumstances under which this myth was created and subsequently evolved were intimately connected to factionalism and power struggles in Communist China.
