Film Criticism And Political Discipline

The political discipline is the most important characteristic of the Chinese filmcriticism between1949and1979, not only for frequent political movement havingdecisive influence on film criticism, but also for political power and ideology ofcomprehensive intervention of film criticism. The political standard is not only theultimate scale of evaluation of the content of the film, but also the essential criterionof the film ontology criticism. With the constant changes of the political contexts, thefilm criticism disciplined by politic experiences the change from the “left” toextremely “left”. In this process, the film criticism makes a difference to filmcreation greatly, and reflects the political logic of the ruling party realizing thenational modernization with cultural hegemony/cultural leadership. The dissertationis focused on the Chinese film criticism of the thirty years from the dimension of thefilm controversies and film animadversions. The dissertation is divided into fiveparts. The first, the political power gets involved in the film criticism strongly. Thefilm "Wu Xun Zhuan" criticism movement is the beginning of film political criticism,and this criticism movement takes a great on the film creation and film criticism later.It seems all of a sudden, but a precise political and ideological logic. Then, frequentpolitical movement starts a mobilization-transformation model of film criticismsuch as “why are there so few good national films in China”,“Artistry documentary”,and “white flag discharge”. After a series of film criticism, the ruling party iscompletely established in film critics. The second, in order to make the film servicein the new regime better, to complete the task of the ideology education better, thefilm critics composed by managers and movie practitioners launch cinema creationdiscussion with the political mission. In the discussion, based on the development ofthe inherent requirements of Film Ontology, film criticism has a trend of regressionto itself, mainly for the movie scripts, director duties and film forms are discussed bycritics. Although the debates on the character of ontology criticism consider politicaldiscipline as the aim, in fact they promote the development of Chinese film local art, and enrich Chinese film theories. The third, because China become enemies of theUnited States and The Soviet, the international political context of China tends to beclosed, and the Chinese film criticism disciplined by politic begins to perceive thefilm from the local culture angle, and shows its complying with the political mission,which is the localization of film criticism. Film critics note the possibility ofintegration between the movie and the native culture, and discuss or debate thetopics. The topics are involved in the localized explanation of montage, seeking themovie resources from traditional literature, the debates of film style and so on. Thesecontroversies and criticism have such positive significance as promoting the furtherintegration of movie art and the Chinese native culture, enriching the Chinese filmconcept and Chinese film theory. The fourth, after1963, the political contextcontinues to turn into the “left”, the film criticism’s function as political tool ishighlighted and is quickly pushed to the extreme. Before the outbreak of “CulturalRevolution”, film criticism guided by extremely "left" thoughts has launched threefilm animadversions on “poisonous weeds" films, political standards become theonly yardstick, the film ontology appeal hardly to be reflected. After the “CulturalRevolution” breaks out, film criticism completely turns into a political tool,extremely "left" has launches film criticism with the obvious political aim. Althoughthe method is simple with confusing logic, the film criticism complies with thepolitical logic of the extremely “left” thoughts. At the same time,“three prominent”and other radical criticism method are widely applied in the film criticism to “modelopera films” and "anti-capitalist roader films". The fifth, from the end of "CulturalRevolution" to1979, the film criticism experiences a tough change from politicalanimadversions to contemplating itself. When "Cultural Revolution" has just ended,"left" thoughts still exist. Although the film criticism object is reversal, the “CulturalRevolution” thinking and criticism are still valid, and continue to play a role inanimadverting on the "black dictatorship" theory,"three prominent" principle andcriticizing the "conspiracy movie". However, film criticism makes an effort to be faraway from political discipline.