Recording The "Zeitgeist Of The Times" By Film Images

The film production in liberated areas is believed to be dominated by the ideology of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The works are limited to documentaries and news materials due to supply shortage and dire conditions, thus leaving the films undervalued. In fact, there is much more to the films in liberated areas than people think. After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in1937, a large number of left-wing artists and writers, who later became the first Yan’an-based film makers, including actor Yuan Muzhi and photographer Wu Yinxian, moved from large cities in KMT-controlled areas to the Communist-ruled Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. With these literary and art workers at the core, Yan’an Film Troupe of the Eighth Route Army’s General Political Department was established in1938, signaling CPC’s entry into the film industry. With simplest equipment, the troupe documented how the Party and the masses struggled arduously to live and fight, using the visualized tool to support the wartime publicity.The Rectification Movement of Literature and Art in1942was a watershed moment for the art and literature in Yan’an, when Mao Zedong delivered the well-known "Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art", detailing CPC’s ideological norms in literary and art circles as well as the room for art creation. Since then, the art creation in liberated areas became closely linked to policies on the revolution. In the beginning, the film troupe consisted of only some dozen members who produced hardly anything more than a film titled "Yan’an and the Eighth Route Army". While drama, fine arts, literature and music in China underwent fundamental changes, the film in Yan’an remained relatively stable. However, the filmmakers in liberated areas, guided by the spirit of the Talks, abided by Mao’s idea to "follow a path that unites workers, peasants and soldiers" and undertook the responsibility to establish "a native discourse system of a modern nation state", thus having their news-documentary films serve the then political struggles.In early years, due to the lack of conditions for shooting feature films in liberated areas, the focus was placed on news documentaries, which reflected the spirit of the Talks. In1946when the material conditions improved, Chen Boer embarked on shooting a feature film titled "Labour Heroes in Border Regions" in response to the need for vigorously publicizing labor heroes and models in liberated areas. This was the first-ever independently made film in liberated areas, aiming at integrating film, the people and the Communist philosophy. The effort was interrupted for varied reasons. However, the unfinished film and "Yan’an and the Eighth Route Army" are both worth commemoration.The CPC-led film production began with news documentaries in liberated areas in1930s and1940s. This trend continued into the Second Sino-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, when the majority of films were news documentaries recording the turbulent times. They were produced under extremely poor conditions but with high historical values, including not only those shot in Yan’an area where the CPC Central Committee was based, but also the ones made by the New Fourth Army in the Anti-Japanese base areas of Central China. After the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in1945, the CPC-led film industry experienced a rapid growth as Yan’an Film Studio, Northeast Film Studio and Beijing Film Studio were founded. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in1949, those studios followed Yan’an Film Troupe’s practice, shooting mainly news documentaries branded by their techniques and style of making "visualized political comments". This year marks the70th anniversary of Mao’s "Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art" However, the ideas and propositions on art and literature stated in the Talks are never outdated as they continue to exert great influence on today’s society and social values. Hereby we are urged to transform our mentality, and to explore new underlying meanings, values and significance of those films to pave a way for modernizing the present-day mainstream films in China.