by Cook, James A. ,Goldstein, Joshua,Johnson, Matthew D. ,Schmalzer, Sigrid
In a sense, such images had always been a staple of Communist Party propaganda. What made them different in the context of the Leap was that the claims for productivity and the all-conquering power of human will were so exaggerated. This was also the case for depictions of everyday prosperity, which were either unsustainable (as in the case of commune canteens where commune members ate as much as they wanted at no cost), or staged. Professional actors were enlisted to star in “true” stories.12 Hastily produced documentaries, like Hubei’s Ten-Thousand Catty Field (Hubei wan jin tian, Science Education Film Studio, 1958) or King of Early Rice (Zao dao wang, Central News Film Studio, 1958), depicted grossly exaggerated harvests as genuine local accomplishments (see Figure 12.10).13 The reality of such claims, though dubious, was uniformly confirmed in the rest of the state media, which likewise led the way in portraying and circulating new exaggerations, fictions, and half-truths.
Celebrity Workers: Huang Baomei, from Labor Model to Movie Star
Creating images of prosperous communes and incredible feats of production was one way in which propagandists attempted to persuade people to throw themselves into frenzied production. Another way, foreshadowed in Song of the Reservoir, was to create charismatic model individuals for audiences to emulate. In keeping with the logic of Leap-era filmmaking, the more realistic the models, the better; the stories needed to sell as plausible reality rather than mere fantasy.
One well-publicized film that not only based its story on the embellished exploits of a real-life worker, but also starred that person as themselves in the title role, was Huang Baomei (Tianma Film Studio, 1958). Huang was an actual employee of Shanghai’s Number 17 National Textile Mill, who earned a reputation for outperforming other workers in her unit even when using old, out-of-date equipment, and for sharing her ultra-efficient production techniques freely rather than guarding them for the sake of personal glory. In the filmed version of her story, Huang and her coworkers are pitted against several rival teams in a friendly contest to see who can produce the most. Huang surprises everyone by sharing her techniques with her competitors. Her teammates, though initially taken aback, are so inspired by her sense of fairness and selflessness that they work hard enough to win the contest. The Number 17 National Textile Mill workers win the prize, after which Huang and her comrades are presented on the screen transformed into the fairy maidens (xiannü) of folktales—a plot twist supposedly suggested by the mill’s manager (see Figure 2.11, website).
Like the Ming Tombs reservoir project, the Shanghai Number 17 National Textile Mill provided a concrete setting and sense of reality that audiences could grasp. Parts of Huang Baomei’s story were also plausible. She was, in fact, a national labor hero whose achievements had been first recognized in 1954. It also helped Huang’s stardom that she was young, healthy-looking, and graceful—in this respect she was not unlike other entertainment celebrities in socialist China, a point made more apparent when Huang’s face appeared on the cover of Shanghai Film Studio Pictorial when her film was first being promoted (see Figure 12.12). Huang’s charisma, though, was further embellished by the way in which the state media machine swung into action to bring her story to audiences. The film Huang Baomei was directed by the well-regarded filmmaker Xie Jin, who surrounded her with a cast of professional actors while adding entertaining subplots and special effects.
Figure 12.10 Staging and displaying Hubei’s ten thousand catties—a photograph from the film set. From: Shang ying huabao [Shanghai Film Studio Pictorial], no. 10, 1958.
Like the fictional Gao Lanxiang of Song of the Reservoir, Huang was depicted as a selfless, humble person with unswerving devotion to the cause of meeting national production goals (and, in Huang’s case, superhuman production abilities). This use of charismatic, real-life figures to inspire audiences was not new. “Model” (mofan) workers had long been a staple of PRC popular and visual culture, and indeed represented a distinctive component of socialist culture around the world. These heroic personalities fulfilled important propaganda functions by embodying values and behaviors that state leaders expected of their citizens. To be a model worker indicated that one possessed personal qualities that could be explicitly linked to goals of national development. In addition, model workers were invariably depicted as utterly normal people who achieved exceptional things almost entirely due to their extraordinary commitment to the PRC and Communist Party, thereby serving to communicate the message that anyone was capable of contributing to these causes. Films like Huang Baomei, however, carried the rewards of model worker-dom to a new level. In being encouraged to compare their own lives with those depicted on the screen, audiences were not only goaded to activism, but also encouraged to dream that maybe they too could become a “star” during the Leap.
Film as Industry: Production, Distribution,and Exhibition
Having looked at the form and messages of Leap-era cinema, we now turn to another key feature of the propaganda apparatus—the film industry itself. As with other media, such as radio, the press, visual arts, literature, and performance, cinema was a form of cultural production which was managed by the Communist Party’s internal propaganda institutions. During the 1950s, propagandists used their political power to make state culture an inevitable feature of individual leisure time; when people weren’t working, state-created news and entertainment was often the only form of media available. While not all culture produced by the state was dry and boring, the messages could become monotonous, in the sense that every cultural product was required to be “about” some aspect of Communist Party policy. Such was the case during the Great Leap Forward. By 1958, Party leaders demanded that all culture should be “adapted to the needs of technical transformation, and [should also] serve economic construction. The fundamental goal is accelerating the development of society’s productive forces . . . cultural work cannot depart from the party’s general line.”14 Cinema was no exception.
Figure 12.12 Real-life model laborer and cinematic star Huang Baomei on the cover of Shanghai Film Studio Pictorial. From: Shang ying huabao [Shanghai Film Studio Pictorial], no. 8, 1958.
As we have seen, from mid-1958 onward studios were increasingly engaged in the propagation of pro-Leap optimism. Significant numbers of studio employees, including directors and screenwriters, were “sent down” to the countryside in order to study conditions there and participate in rural cultural work as observers and entertainers (see Figure 12.13, website). Conversely, central cultural organs like the Beijing Film Studio were suddenly inundated with local officials transferred there in order to learn how to produce films in their own provinces.15 In both cases, the idea was to maximize the appeal and distribution of motion pictures beyond China’s cities and wealthier regions.
Filmmaking during the Leap was not only supposed to be far-reaching, but also quick and efficient. For many studio workers, and particularly those involved in the more physically demanding aspects of production, the sheer pace of shooting became a source of resentment and fatigue.16 Approximately one hundred low-budget, rapidly shot “satellite films” (weisheng pian, yet another reference to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite) were filmed during the early years of the Leap.17 Budgets were small, and crews might be given only two to three days to prepare for shooting an entire feature film.18 Studios competed against one another for bragging rights over who was faster or more prolific; Changchun Film Studio, which could already claim the first true Great Leap Forward film in Song on the Reservoir, was known for being the most enthusiastic in this regard. As one prominent film critic remembered, “it was a movement . . . it wasn’t acceptable if you weren’t producing satellites (fei fang bu xing), because producing satellites was the goal.”19 Filmmakers who did not pick up the pace risked their careers. The conspicuously highbrow and deliberate director Shui Hua (1916–1995) fell from favor, at least in part, as a result of his inability, or unwillingness, to adapt to the Leap’s new demands.20 Getting the message out trumped concerns over cinematic quality.
Promoting the Leap depended on distribution as well as on production. In March 1958 a national meeting of distributors and projectionists was convened by the national Ministry of Culture, and attendees were briefed on their responsibilities to advance the Great Leap Forward by “broadening the propagandistic and educational uses [of film],” and “playing a close supporting role in the high tide of agricultural production.”21 A subsequent conference for film industry leaders was convened in May, during which participants drew up plans for each province, municipality, and autonomous region (excluding Tibet) to establish a studio capable of producing newsreels and documentaries.22 In each case, the goal was the same: dramatic increases in screenings and audiences nationwide.
Much of the pressure for effective distribution was placed on projection units—film projector operators and on-site propagandists employed by specific theaters, cadres’ and workers’ leisure clubs (julebu), schools, and mobile film teams (liudong dianying dui) operating in rural and sparsely populated areas. Employees were expected to ensure that films reached the widest audiences possible, and that films were properly understood by those who watched them.23 In northwestern Xi’an, for example, theater staff organized recreational “film criticism groups” to encourage filmgoers to reflect on what they had seen, and identify the main political messages. Theaters also handed out leaflets that introduced the main character and highlighted key plot points, while monitoring public opinion concerning specific films. All of this was part of a larger process by which propagandists attempted to gauge whether or not state culture had been effective (youxiao) in transmitting meanings intended by filmmakers and higher-level Ministry of Culture officials.24
It is important to point out that messages were not always transmitted successfully. In other words, propaganda did not always work to achieve the goals to which it was applied. Two of the main obstacles were projection teams who shirked propaganda work and the attitudes of audience members themselves.25 Making culture serve politics was difficult, in the sense that not all propagandists or filmgoers necessarily shared preconceived notions of what a film should mean, or how ambiguous scenes should be interpreted. Even in Leap-era China cultural consumers, particularly in cities, had some choice over what they wanted to consume, and not all state-sanctioned films (theaters also screened a considerable number of foreign imports) were equally popular, or distributed on a national basis.26 Some cultural officials suspected, perhaps rightly, that audiences might be drawn to films for reasons which had little to do with “correct” politics at all. Finally, theater owners were also expected to generate profitable box office returns, creating pressures which favored exhibiting films with popular appeal rather than those which were, like the films we have discussed thus far, explicitly tied to contemporary policies.27
Audiences and Filmgoing Practices
While audiences did not necessarily like all of the pro-Leap films they encountered, film as a medium was made more available for public consumption in 1958 than at any other previous point in the history of the PRC. Both urban and rural areas were targeted for cinematic expansion. At a March 1958 “great leap” meeting for workers’ union projectionists, for example, those attending were explicitly instructed to establish better working relationships with work units underserved by the cultural system, and to seek the largest possible audiences.28 While attendances did indeed increase over the course of the year—Beijing projectionists noted a 124 percent increase over 1957 attendance numbers—these film workers found themselves working around the clock to keep pace with the frenetic rhythms of Great Leap Forward social mobilization.
During the earliest days of the Leap there were very few films like Song on the Reservoir. The new emphasis on voluntarism was primarily promoted not through film, but by exhibiting cheaply and rapidly produced slides such as those urging workers to “chase England and catch up to America” in steel output. By June 1958 the situation had changed, and over fifty newsreel theaters (xinwen yingyuan) had been opened in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Shenyang, Changchun, Xi’an, Jilin, Tangshan, and Shijiazhuang, for the purpose of employing newsreels, documentaries, and scientific films in propagating the party’s Leap-era “general line” concerning national development.29
In the countryside, efforts to “expand the exhibition network”—to deliver more filmic images to more people—were even more dramatic. Film was still a rarity throughout much of rural China and reaching these areas was one of the overriding goals of the Great Leap Forward. Implementing such plans was, of course, far more difficult than simply drawing them up. In Shaanxi Province, personnel in many projection units possessed “great enthusiasm” but lacked concrete solutions.30 Obstacles to their exhibition work included lack of equipment, lack of reliable transport and, often, lack of electricity. In some areas, local film institutions hoping to fulfill their new assignments, resorted to all-night screenings (tong xiao chang) or daybreak screenings (ji jiao chang), which kept projectors running around the clock (see Figure 12.14, website).31 In many cases county-level film equipment providers were unable to keep pace with rural demand. Other challenges came from within the propaganda system. Urban projection units, upon receiving their rural assignments, typically greeted the news with disdain. Indeed, many simply “squatted” in larger towns and cities, hardly ever venturing into the countryside, while others disregarded the new orders entirely.32
Despite these limitations, it is difficult to underestimate the degree to which the spread of film into rural society represented a substantial, qualitative shift in cultural life for those targeted by the state’s efforts to create a truly national cinematic apparatus. According to one experienced projectionist, films shown at the outskirts of urban centers (cities, county seats) during the early 1950s would almost always draw a sizable crowd of rural onlookers who would often travel considerable distances for the spectacle.33 For rural audiences, film became perhaps the most important channel for receiving national news, given that illiteracy and a scarcity of printed media remained common conditions throughout the countryside (see Figure 12.15).
Nonetheless, several important limits to film’s power over rural imaginations and cultural life remained. First, while rural attendance increased dramatically from the late-1950s onward, considerable differences between urban and rural conditions remained. In addition to being fewer in number, countryside screenings almost invariably took place outdoors to huge audiences. For a single film to draw 3,000 to 4,000 attendees was not uncommon, and people sat on both sides of the screen. In such contexts, it was not only the films but also the spectacle of the associated environment—vendors of food and other goods, large crowds of strangers, and so on—which constituted a vital part of the experience. While it might be too much to say that film literally competed for attention alongside these other attractions, it is clear that watching the film was only one of several activities that together made up “filmgoing” (kan dianying). Talking, eating, meeting potential romantic partners, getting together with one’s friends and family, or just watching the general excitement (kan renao) were also important draws for audience members.
Figure 12.15 Reconstruction of a rural screening ground, Shaanxi Province. From: Christian Hess, Sophia University, 2005. Used with permission.
In short, while anecdotes concerning film projection reveal the intensity with which propagandists attempted to transform people’s ordinary leisure into a forum for state-sanctioned messages, they also belie the persistence with which financial and human limits constrained this official cultural project. Preexisting distributions of infrastructure and economic resources favored urban areas with respect to cultural resources such as film equipment and screenings. Audiences attended films but did not always take away the intended messages or even pay attention during the show. Nonetheless, the earliest months of the Leap were awash in new sights and sounds. Documentary-style features blurred the line between fiction and reality, while the saturation of theaters and rura
l threshing grounds with utopian imagery infused everyday life with increasingly outrageous calls for, and claims regarding, the participation of ordinary people in this sublime moment of social change.
Conclusion: Propaganda as State-Sanctioned Reality
Great Leap Forward production targets remained in effect for approximately three years (1958–1960); then, from 1960–1962, the country was plunged into a catastrophic famine and economic failure induced by those very policies. As the famine receded, economic recovery became the guiding principle. Over these years, from around 1962–1966, the visionary economics of the Leap were replaced by the carefully calculated, step-by-step process of balanced central planning. Rather suddenly, many early Leap policies and creations were out of step with the party’s vision and corrective measures were deemed necessary. One of these measures included removing from active circulation many of the feature-style documentaries and similar films produced between 1958 and 1961. An internal report published on May 23, 1962 by the Shanghai-based Tianma Film Studio shows that beginning in that year, both central and local cultural institutions had ordered a review of films produced since 1958, including many which concerned “actual life.”34 Of the twenty-four Leap-era films reviewed, only eight were cleared for continued circulation, while eight were suggested as candidates for additional editing, and the remaining eight were slated for immediate and permanent withdrawal. The comments of Tianma Studio’s leaders, addressed to the central Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Film Industry Management, provide a fascinating insight into beliefs concerning what had “gone wrong” during the Leap.
