A Study Of Xu Suling’s Shadow Drama Activities And Ideas Of Shadow Drama In The Republican Period

Xu Suling(1910-1997)was a three-dimensional film director,screenwriter,actor,producer,and film organization manager,and in the early 1930 s,he worked as an editor for such literary publications as Spring Tide and Contradictions,and then directed and performed in such progressive plays as The Gone Clock and The National Enemy.In 1934,he was introduced to become a scriptwriter for Yehwa Film Company,which was also Xu Suling’s first official entry into the film industry.In 1937,after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War,Xu Suling followed a large number of Shanghai filmmakers to Chongqing as the focus of the film industry shifted westward.During this period(1937-1945),he wrote and directed many excellent documentary films and documentaries,including the large-scale comprehensive documentaries Xinjiang Scenery and Tibet Tour,the documentary feature film Blood in the Lonely City,and the news documentary East Battlefield.At this stage,Xu Suling not only achieved remarkable results in the creation of documentaries,but also explored in the construction of documentary film theory,and was regarded by film scholars as the representative of the "Chongqing School of Documentary Film".In 1946,he returned to Shanghai after the Japanese surrender to take over the Japanese film organization,and served as the director of the second factory of China Film Corporation and founded an independent production company,Dawn Film Company,which made two films,"The Man is the Man" and "The Woman Tycoon".After the founding of New China,Xu Suling shifted from documentary films to opera art films and feature films,and conducted theoretical and creative research on the combination of opera and film.From the early 1930 s to the New China period,Xu Suling’s creative style and film philosophy varied from period to period,reflecting the epitome of Chinese film development history and,to a certain extent,reflecting the trajectory and historical context of Chinese film development.This article examines Xu Suling’s individual and social interactions with the society of his time in three dimensions: vertical axis(early 1930 s,the war period in the Great Rear Area,and the New China period),horizontal axis(socio-political context,space(Shanghai-Chongqing-Tibet-Shanghai),and four chapters.The interaction between the filmmaker and the society of the times.The films of the Great Rear Area period are a special historical phenomenon of Chinese cinema during the AntiJapanese War,and this period is also the highlight of Xu Suling’s personal film career,and the film creation of the Great Rear Area Anti-Japanese War period can best represent Xu Suling’s distinctive film aesthetics and psychological history.This paper will study Xu Suling’s film activities and film ideology during this period from various aspects,including the war against Japan and the war culture derived from the war against Japan,the war propaganda policy,the overall production policy of film production institutions,and Xu Suling’s aesthetic characteristics of the war against Japan.The dissertation draws on historical data,films,records,news reports,and articles and publications published by Xu Suling to systematically study his film and theater activities and ideas,bridging the historical gap in the systematic study of Xu Suling’s film and theater activities and ideas in China.