EAST 350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Actuality Film, Fourth Wall, Tom Gunning
15 May 2018
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Lecture 2
January 16, 2018
8:32 AM
1930s Shanghai Part I: Cinema as Modernity
The birth of the real Chinese film industry happened around the 1920's
In the 1920's - along with the introduction of film watching and film making, the idea of Chinese
nationalism was also being born
Early cinema (1900's cinema)
• Films made in Hollywood around this time tended to have an impact a decade later in China due
to distribution problems
• A characteristic of early film is that if it's not an actuality film then there is no fourth wall.
Griffith's film; Chinese Blossom was intended to be an 'anti-racist' film to counter the previous film he
had made which basically praised the KKK called Birth of a nation
This racial baggage is a part of the introduction of film in China, Griffith became the paradigm for how
you make a film, he was a key figure in the growing sense of whether or not film is something that
includes Chinese people and how.
He and his films were key in developing this new sense of what you expect out of a film when you watch
it and the sophisticated techniques for telling it, such as cross cutting (two different scenes understood
to be happening at the same time instead of consequentially), this is film making guided by script. People
start to think of scripts as novels; as what holds the film together.
By the 1930's we get scripts made in different languages by different studios.
Tom Gunning - Cinema of attractions doesn't die out, but rather emphasis is shifted.
The Magician 1900 film by Edison
• The whole point of the film is to use editing tricks to make things disappear
In shadow magic, the films shown to the Chinese people were actuality films rather than trick films, this
goes to shows that the attraction of film lies in realism.
Laborer's love - 1922
1920's film, first production of a studio film in China called Ming Xi. It attempts to tell a story, it was an
attempt at a longer film narrative. There's a kind of growing sophistication in the film language in terms
of narrative
• English text in film was there at that time, this emphasizes the international phenomenon film had
become.
• This film shows the development of the fourth wall as a convention, however, there is a quality of
watching the fruit seller in the beginning that is still very presentational. Watching him cut his fruit
is still a spectacle in a sense.
• two little stalls are presented to us in isolation at first, so we have no idea how close they are in
relation to each other before they are shown to be side by side
• There's a formal interpolation of the audience's gaze into the fourth wall as the characters seem
to talk to the camera rather then themselves.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The birth of the real chinese film industry happened around the 1920"s. In the 1920"s - along with the introduction of film watching and film making, the idea of chinese nationalism was also being born. Griffith"s film; chinese blossom was intended to be an "anti-racist" film to counter the previous film he had made which basically praised the kkk called birth of a nation. People start to think of scripts as novels; as what holds the film together. By the 1930"s we get scripts made in different languages by different studios. Tom gunning - cinema of attractions doesn"t die out, but rather emphasis is shifted. The magician 1900 film by edison: the whole point of the film is to use editing tricks to make things disappear. In shadow magic, the films shown to the chinese people were actuality films rather than trick films, this goes to shows that the attraction of film lies in realism.
