Continuation Of Traditional Context And The Introduction Of Modernism

Film criticisms of the left-wing in the1930s reflect the exploration of Chinesemodernism made by left-wing film critics under the leadership of the CommunistParty of China. Based on the theory of western modernism represented by Marxism,their political ideal is directly embodied by strong revolutionary demands. However,with Chinese traditional culture as the major conceptual origin of left-wing filmcritics’ spiritual connotations and criticisms, their film criticisms are significantlycharacterized by the integration of traditional context with the modernism due to theapplication of Marxism and other modernism. The way of modernism’s survival anddevelopment manifested in left-wing film criticisms under the continuation andintegration of traditional context is mainly explored in this paper.This paper includes four parts. Part one, The establishment of modernrevolutionary perspective. The “revolutionary” appeal in the left-wing film criticisminherited the element of “violence” in the traditional Chinese revolutionary ideas, andcontinued the attempts to explore the road to China’s future made by scholar officialsand intellectuals since the middle period of the Qing Dynasty. Considering theinternational and domestic environment of China, the left-wing film critics putforward the appeal of “national revolution against imperialism and feudalism”, whichwas fairly consistent with the mainstream of revolutionary demands made by thenational government. the female is the victim and recipient of over two thousand-yearfeudalism in China. Therefore, advocating the revolution of women became animportant manifestation of the “anti-feudal” revolutionary appeal in the left-wing filmcriticism. When dealing with “Women’s Liberation”, an issue left over by the MayFourth Movement, the left-wing film critics suggested combining women’s issueswith the social problems.“Revolution” thus became the only way out for women’sliberation. In the process of revolutionary speeches, women’s gender identity wasgradually blurred and disappeared in the words of “revolution”. Part two, Theleft-wing film critics emphasize the humanization of traditional context in theiracknowledgement of film functions. In the left-wing film criticism, the left-wing discourse, which took the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary demands asthe core value, was gradually established through “the argument on Chinese andwestern culture” in the1910s,“the issue of China’s nature” in late1920s and thedebate between the left-wing critics and those who supported “the soft film theory” inthe1930s. The thought “Writings are for conveying truth” in the traditional literaryview was the idea source for the left-wing discourse to achieve the right of speech.The integration of Marxist view of literature and art with the traditional contextshowed in their comments on film functions demands that it is an important missionfor films to educate, enlighten and inspire the mass, which endows “the mass” withrevolutionary and political priority and has great effects on the future direction of theChinese films. The left-wing discourse mainly took film practitioners as its disciplineobjects, who, in the face of its anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary demands,responded positively. However, the left-wing film criticism, as a result of too muchemphasis on revolution, ignored the restriction of the objective environment oncreation, and film practitioners voiced different opinions on this matter. Part three,The integration of Marxist view of literature and art with the traditional context isembodied in the course of the construction of left-wing film criticism theories. Anoutstanding achievement of China’s left-wing film criticism in the1930s was theconscious construction of the film criticism theory. When constructing the theory ofcriticism, the left-wing film criticism mainly developed in terms of three perspectives,namely the critical criteria of combining contents and forms, the understanding of thefunction of criticism and the reflection on critics’ accomplishment. During this period,“words, symbols and meanings” advocated in the traditional Chinese literary viewbecame integrated with the Marxist literary view. However, seen from the concretecriticism practice, there was an obvious gap between criticism texts and theories. Theroot cause lied in that the practice of the left-wing film criticism emphasized too muchon film themes, showing the feature of “emphasizing contents but ignoring forms”.Part four, encounter of tradition and modernism in film ontology criticism. Althoughduring the development of film criticism, the left-wing film criticism in the1930stook on the feature of “emphasizing contents but ignoring forms”, the characteristics of films, as a kind of modern art, made the left-wing film critics pay attention to theunique technological needs of films. During this period, the left-wing film criticismalso attempted to criticize films and film phenomena from the perspective of ontology.In the process of criticism, the left-wing film critics focused on directors, scripts andfilm sounds. When analyzing these elements, ideas in the traditional Chinese literaryview such as “the style is the man”,“moving people by emotion” and “artisticconception” became very important theoretical supports, and they were also combinedwith the realistic theories in the Marxist literary view.