“Directors in Chinese Cinema”;
When evaluating the topic on Chinese cinema, it is possible to identify the ideological discussion between the two deviating semantic systems. Such beliefs suggest clear and discrete variances in the comprehension and assessment of the Chinese cinema. The variance is limited mostly to Occidental and Oriental conceptual insights of China’s reality. The Western viewpoint is that of the 6th Generation functioning like the independent cinema that liberates the suppressed people of China. The directors of the 6th generation are shown to work contra-mainstream, therefore, they are seen as representing the cultural manifestations of the anti-establishment and anti-government trends (Braester, 2015). In China, the critics contend that such movies from directors of the 6th generation do not signify the real China, but rather signify the ideals of the western culture. Hence, there is a struggle to acquire audience of the movies. The 6th Generation’s expression has changed since their rise during the early 90s. The movies I have selected to depict the features of sixth generation films are In the Heat of the Sun by Jian Weng, Sozhou River by Director Lou Ye and Mr. Six by Guan Hu. I analyze the movies while emphasizing on the way they portray issues associated with modernization in present China.
There is a difference between the 5th and 6th generation directors in Chinese cinema. The ‘Fifth Generation’ denotes the group of directors that produced movies representing a specific creative occurrence in the history of cinema in China (Chen, 2012). The era of such type of directors was between the 1980s and the 1990s. Polished following the Cultural Revolution, the 5th generation comprises of directors like Wu Ziniu, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Yimou, and Huang Jianxin. According to Braester (2015), the directors from this generation made films that corresponded to the historical times, which included the first sound movies, silent movies, and movies from the late 40s through to the Cultural Revolution era.
In addition, the different generations can be defined is by emphasizing on the aims of the directors. As such, the 1st generation, depicted as May Fourth era directors were intellects worried about the cultural and social reforms in the Republican period. On the other hand, the 2nd generation, with their movies classified as Socialist Realism, integrated the heroic celebrations of the socialist states with conviction of life in the pre-revolutionary era. For the 3rd and 4th generations, the primary emphasis was on melodrama and the produced movies coherent with or strengthening the ideologies of the state. For the 5th generation, which involved movies produced after the Cultural Revolution, proceed with the traditions of national critique and social commentary, although from the vantage points of an extremely diverse historical time (Chen, 2012).
The Sixth Generation of directors signifies a group of highly autonomous directors that started directing from the 1990s (Edwardes, 2010). At times, they are referred to as the ‘urban generation’ due to their emphasis on the culture of the city. Zhang Yuan is the largely recognized Sixth-Generation style founder, who had a third feature Beijing Bastards with low budget, minimal characters, non-professional actors, semi-underground life style, and improvised script, but ended up becoming a representative piece of the 1990s new urban cinema.
The frequently unplanned focus and style regarding the social issues established a cinema verité with an extremely diverse environment from the Fifth Generation’s national epics. The themes often seen in 6th generation movies like divorce, substance abuse, homosexuality, drifting youths, and small crooks usually made it hard to pass by the censorship of that time when the fifth generation films were made (Edwardes, 2010). In addition, a majority of the 5th generation movies were originally seen by overseas audiences and were made unavailable to China’s general public (Chen, 2012).
In China, the cinematic accounts regarding the memories of the Cultural Revolution were filled with the demonstration of trauma (Nie, 2009). Nonetheless, the setting transformed in 1994 when In the Heat of the Sun by Jiang Wen was published and showed the Cultural Revolution using warm and sunny pictures. There is a difference between the 5th generation movies and that of Jiang Weng. The dissimilarity between the two age of directors regarding writing the CR past lies in quintessential differences in the assessment of history. The 6th generation movies like Jiang Weng’s In the Heat of the Sun regarding the Cultural Revolution present typical patterns. They initially involve the victims experiencing suffering, then retreat to the love of the family or the love of a female character as shelter. After the individual identifies its mistakes and corrects the injustices, they end up being saved and they are capable of resuming a contented life. The director’s faith in the development of history and the leadership of the Party is evidently established in the presentation. Nonetheless, contrastingly, while revealing the CR as a type of crime, in their movies, the directors from the 5th generation decline to portray reasons of having faith in the progression of history or the leadership of the Party. Their cinematic stories usually articulate hesitation and loss during trauma, while thoroughly seeking the causes of the CR calamities (Nie, 2009). In addition, they decline to construct happy or liberating finales; rather, they often leave unanswered questions. Regardless of the diverse critiques towards the Cultural Revolution, one can correctly assume that the CR-themed movies before 1994 were all centered on the perceptions of the CR involvements as traumatic.