Shanxi Cinema Study During The Republic Of China(1919-1949)

Bingzhou Cinema,the very first cinema in Shanxi Province,was founded in the year of 1926.In the following years,the number of cinemas in Shanxi started gradually increasing so that going-to-cinema slowly became a significant component of the public activities of the people in Shanxi.As research object of this thesis,cinemas in Shanxi Province during the period of the Republic of China are to be researched based on the bottom-up approach from the perspective of micro-to-macro method with the expectation that the development trajectory and regional traits of Shanxi cinema in the Republic of China will be summarized by lining up the historical details.Taking Shanxi newspaper articles,literary and historical documents as well as regional studies of Shanxi Province as the primary reference,and the governmental publications of Shanxi as the secondary,this thesis will analyze research materials from two angles: the perceptible physical form,like cinema theater's allocation and their architectural appearances,whose phenomenon will shed light upon the hidden cultural logic and the social culture of cinema theaters including ideology,governmental regulation,management right,community and public activities inside the theater etc.Besides the endeavor of presenting the topography of Shanxi cinema during the Republic of China in a way of reproduction,this thesis meanwhile focuses on the reasons why the cinema theater as a new type of entertainment places failed to fully develop in Shanxi Province ever since,as well as the functions of the government in infiltrating and controlling the public space of cinema theaters by examining the cinema in Shanxi of the Republic of China.