The Comet Of The Film Industry - Shen Xiyu Research

The period of 1930 s is the most exciting and most changeable “golden decade” of the Chinese film industry.A large number of film-related people gathered in Shanghai to create an original tradition of Chinese film industry.But after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War,those people lost their homes in Shanghai and had to escape to northern Shanxi,Hankou,Chengdu,Chongqing,Kunming,even Hong Kong.In the vivid field of film industry,each person would concentrate on their own business.Some would rely on groups and develop a certain “tendency”,while some would merely live for pure art and maintain the independence of their personal views of art.Some of them may have experienced transforms of ages and regimes and have gained their own voices during their long life.While others may have always been lonely and homeless and died in a young age burying somewhere far away from home.The “left” film-related people in the time of the Republic of China,as a group and a part of the big time,may seem glamorous because of later historical compilation.However,for the “left” individuals,life would most likely be torturing.But this ten years had shaped Shen Xiling?s life.He owned profound literary accomplishment and lively temperament as a poor scholar,as well as a pioneer youth?s passion and a theater director?s discreetness.As a professional in the film industry,he aimed at pointing out defects of the time instead of following tendency,and he devoted all himself to film-making.However,Shen was so abused that he was drived to leave the film industry three times because of comtempt of starcompany and the harsh film inspection system.Shen was often called “freak” by his friends,while he was so shy that he just stayed silence with a smile on his face.Xia Yan regarded him as “weak and always compromising to difficulties”.His films were always cut repeatedly and consequently misjudged by others.We can?t imagine what kind of courage could help him get rid of these abuse.When he was finally recognized by everyone because of the film “Cross Street”,he had already stepped into the end of his life.Shen was neither a star of his time,nor a famous master of film industry.He was hardly mentioned when we talk about “left” operas or films.In 1938,after the retreat,Shen made his last film “Children of China”,and then died of a cold as well as chronic pulmonary disease at the age of 36.What a short life! His works are still scattered with no one to sort them out.In my opinion,Shen Xiling is a lively individual among the big time,and what I pay attention to is his dream,his difficulties,and his life.At the same time,I hope to inspect the dynamics of his age by starting from studying his life.We know that the true history is often concealed by later historical writting,but I believe that the change,the beauty,the trend and the hardship of that time showed in Shen?s life could be certainly discovered by sorting out related historical data.