Modern City And Plural Culture

The 1930s is the gold age of Chinese cinema. In this decade, with many classic works produced, Chinese cinema entered the sound period, and developed into a new cultural industry from a simple entertainment. It is this period that Chinese cinema gained power and reached achievement. Therefore, the 1930s marked the unique coordinate in Chinese film history.With application of different theories, this paper seeks for the simple and effective narrative method, and tries to describe Chinese film in the 1930s in a comprehensive way, so as to generalize its historical background and main features.In the first chapter, the rise up of Chinese film industry in the 1930s and its social background will be introduced. Apparently, the Chinese film in the 1930s was bred in the modern urban culture, a whole set of independent and integrated film culture was developed by the internal immigrants; while, with those filmmakers, the audience, who began the reading of films on different standpoints for various purposes with various attitudes, made their impact on the film in the 1930s as well.In the second chapter, the overall form and style of Chinese film in the 1930s will be illustrated from three perspectives:the transform of cinema of attractions with strong flavor of early cinema to narrative film, the tradition of melodrama, and foreign film's influence.In the third chapter, several political powers in Chinese film in the 1930s will be combed, with their major activities and theoretical features summarized; meanwhile, the corresponding values, their contradictions and similarities will be examined through the analysis of specific movies. It's easy to find out that the Chinese film in the 1930s was situated in pluralist values, different ideologies in and out of movies were in constant inter-influence and coalesce, that's why the Chinese film in the 1930s was featured in diversity. And it is the reality stated in the first chapter that caused such feature formation: the modern urban culture, the complex identities and mobility of filmmakers and audience.In a word, a diverse textual system with the core narrative of melodrama was formed in the Chinese film in the 1930s. Such system not only absorbed different film techniques, forms and styles from other national films, but also provided medium for different ideologies. It exhibited its powerful influence and declared its nature of modernity as an entertainment industry as well as a new cultural and political discourse.