From The Life of Wu Xun to the career of Song Jingshi — Crisis and adaptation of private studio film-making legacy: 1951–1956

Abstract

ABSTRACTCurrent literary studies frequently assume that early PRC cinema is monolithic and univocal. Historical research has started to reveal the complex and shifting divisions in both the cultural leadership and film-making ranks in early PRC, but offer little in-depth textual analysis to expand our understanding of the films beyond the prevailing assumption that all of them are identical. This study seeks to introduce a fluid understanding that departs from the conventional homogenization of this cinema. It calls for a turn to user-centered study of discursive cases, and analyzes the film Song Jingshi (1957) as a key case showing how conflicts and compromises among multiple agendas rendered early PRC films ambivalent and polysemous. The film Song Jingshi was meant to be a coherent part of the campaign against The Life of Wu Xun (1951) and other private studio productions. But because various groups had high, competing stakes in the outcomes of this production, the film was forced into a long and painful revision process, in which rival interests produced contradictory interpretations of and inserted contending voices into the text. When examining this multipartite struggle, I particularly focus on how former private studio artists, constituting most of the film crew, actively adjusted and strategically defended their private studio film-making legacy.