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Film analysis, need 600 words.
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Course: CHINA AND THE WORLD
CHINESE CULTURE THROUGH FILM
The chosen film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_(2002_film
In this assignment you will examine Chinese thinking and culture as reflected in Chinese
film. You will select one film from the approved list (below). Each student selects a different
film so choosing your film quickly is advantageous. Your purpose in viewing the film will be to
glean insight into Chinese thinking and culture. Your observations might extend from the
insignificant and mundane behaviour traits of everyday life such as etiquette and food habits to
the refined arts of society. You might observe aspects of Chinese thinking, beliefs, art, morals,
laws, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by humans as members of society. Each
society has a body of norms governing behaviour and other knowledge to which an individual is
socialized, or encultured, beginning at birth.
In your analysis, you should not be distracted by individual personality traits that might
be universal in nature and not unique to Chinese society. And you should realize that you are in
College, so while it might be permissible to tell me about the colour red or chopsticks, you
should not expect to receive much recognition for such observations. Aspects of human conduct
that can be associated with the deeper culture, are more likely to lead to a better grade. And
please do not observe something like Chinese opera and then do Internet about Chinese opera. If
I want a history lesson on Chinese opera, I would have asked for it. There is a direct relationship
between Internet research and lower grades in this assignment.
Share your insights into Chinese culture by writing a summary of your observations. You
should also include a paragraph describing the film’s impact upon you and your understanding of
China. Your paper should be typewritten or word-processed. Word length: approximately 600
words (2 or 3 pages).
*Important Note: The film report is not to be a film review. Some students make the mistake of
getting caught up in the story line and telling me what the movie was about. Remember, you are
watching the movie to obtain insight into the unique features of Chinese culture. This assignment
is not about the movie per se. Here are several good examples from previous student reports:
1.
2.
3.
“The film also shows the Chinese superstition towards ghosts. In one scene, the
housekeepers are frightened by the third mistresses’ ghost and panic when…..”
“The main theme of the film is that of traditional Chinese hierarchy within the family
structure based on Confucianism: the master of a house possesses the exclusive right to rule
the house, and everybody is expected to follow his order……Next to the master is his
mistresses, usually based on the order of their wedding………..This is one reason why the
master prefers the third mistress more than the second who could only give birth to a useless
daughter.”
“Another point which is identified with Chinese culture is the clothes a bride wears. The suit
and a veil the bride wears are of red colour, the symbol of happiness in China…..also, the
bride could only visit her family three days after the wedding.”
4.
“I think this is an example of Daoist culture, the balance of Yin and Yang…” So please do
not give me a movie review or critique the film like a film reviewer. The biggest mistake
students make in this assignment is looking up movie reviews on the internet. Such reviews
almost never contain the kind of information being graded in this assignment. This is the
best way to get an “F”. Each semester a few students receive an “F” because they have
consulted movie reviews rather than simply watching the movie and making cultural
observations. Suggested Approach For Film Assignment
I suggest you begin with a brief paragraph that summarizes the story line.
Following this, you might use some headings such as:
❖ Rules/Laws Customs
❖ Behavioural Traits
❖ Beliefs
❖ Arts
❖ Morals
❖ Food/Etiquette
❖ Political Culture
❖ Contrast with Western Culture (highly recommended inclusion)
❖ Contrast with older Chinese culture (if your movie has a modern focus)
❖ Contrast with modern China (if your movie has an historical focus)
With respect to the above, remember you are looking for aspects of culture that are somewhat
unique to Chinese culture (or perhaps other Far Eastern cultures like Korea). If you choose to tell
me about someone’s particular behaviour or personality, you should indicate how this reflects the
culture, otherwise the comment will be deemed to have low value.
You should end your paper with a summary.
Please do not begin your paper, as one student did, with “In ancient China, more than twenty
years ago….”.
Your professor might be sensitive to your suggestion that life “20 years ago” constitutes some
sort of ancient history.
Hope this helps!
CHINA AND THE WORLD MOVIE LIST BACKGROUND
The Cultural Revolution officially ended in 1976, the year Mao died and a coup d’etat led
to the arrest of the Gang of Four. The cultural thaw began in 1978. The ensuing years of the late
seventies and early eighties were dubbed by some the “Beijing Spring”. Outside of official
control, poetry magazines and art exhibits flourished – there was even a new genre of fiction
known as “scar literature”, which dealt with the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. By the mideighties, China’s artists and intellectuals were caught up in something called the “culture craze,”
in which the concept of culture, rather than ideology or politics, became the focus of talk about
China’s distinctive history and heritage.
In cinema, the real departure from the artistic strictures of Maoism (forty years of
propaganda films about the Revolution) came when Chen Kaige, and his classmates from the
Beijing Film School, burst onto the scene. The rise of this Fifth Generation coincided with the
“culture craze” and reflected its preoccupation with the true meaning of Chinese history and
culture.
In the 1990s and since, the serious work of filmmakers, novelists and artists (and the
public attention such work usually receives) is being eclipsed by the new pop culture of
television soap operas, sex tabloids, kung fu videos, soft rock and the commercial media of Hong
Kong and the West. The famous Fifth Generation is giving way to the modernist Sixth
Generation with film makers such as Director Wang Xiaoshuai (e.g. So Close to Paradise) and
Jia Zhangke (Still Life, The World Platform), whose style couldn’t be more different from the
smooth, formal beauty of fifth-generation greats Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. These directors
focus more on modern China with bare-bone shoots in city streets and cramped tower block
apartments with mostly non-professional casts.
Many of the Sixth Gen films have been banned outright over the past few years, owing to
taboo subject matter, including alcoholism, extramarital infidelity, homosexuality and mental
illness — any depiction of religion, sexuality or anti-government sentiment is still off limits by
the censors. Many of the films rely on international funding and smuggled outside the country
for editing and distribution.
One reviewer describes the Sixth Gen approach as a shift “toward open hostility for a
system that has left the post-Mao citizenry contemptuous, afraid, uncertain and above all restless.
If there’s one theme coursing through many of the new generation of Chinese independent films,
it’s the notion of being trapped in an intense present. Reluctant to look back, hesitant to look
ahead, resolved to dwell in a bleak, quotidian, centralized reality, inside over-compartmentalized
cities, the characters in Sixth Gen films differ from the dysfunctional souls of recent American
independent film in that they’re starved for capitalism rather than consumed by it — though
they’ve learned to air their dirty laundry like the Americans.” (Andy Bailey in “On The Scene”)
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