MCLC: Berry on new Chinese doc movement

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin B Lee <kevin at dgeneratefilms.com>
Subject: Berry on new Chinese doc movement
***********************************************************

Source: dGenerate Films (11/14/13):
http://dgeneratefilms.com/academia/chris-berry-on-the-new-chinese-documenta
ry-movement

Chris Berry on the New Chinese Documentary Movement

On May 17, 2013, Chinese film scholar Chris Berry, professor at Kings
College, London and co-editor of The New Chinese Documentary Movement: For
the Public Record, gave a presentation on Chinese independent documentary
as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s series Chinese Realities:
Documentary Visions <http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1371>.
Titled “Confronting Reality: The New Chinese Documentary Movement,” the
presentation discussed the Chinese documentary movement’s impact and the
aesthetic and moral questions it has raised for Chinese cinema. With
Professor Berry’s permission, the text of his presentation is reproduced
below.

My theme tonight is the theme of this film series – namely, the idea that
since the early 1990s,  one of the most powerful driving forces in cinema
from the People’s Republic of China has been how to “confront reality.” I
believe that the most interesting sector of the industry in this regard
has been independent cinema, and in particular independent documentary.
Those are the films that being featured in this series at MOMA, and I’m
going to talk about some of the ways they confront reality and what makes
them so interesting.

Just to be clear from the outset, what is independent cinema in China?
It’s not the same as here. At the risk of slight simplification, in China,
independent films are films the filmmakers do not send to the Chinese
censors because they know they will not be passed. As a result, they
cannot be screened commercially in China. This means that the style of
format of most of the films you are seeing in the season here at MOMA is
not related to a need to sell tickets. Sometimes people feel the films
could have been edited more tightly. But that would only make sense if you
were trying to sell them to TV stations, which is impossible in China. So,
I think a whole new aesthetic based on sharing DVDs and viewing on
computers has developed, in which viewing is an altogether more flexible
Practice.

Before I go on to talking about “confronting reality” in independent
cinema, I will say a couple of things about mainstream genre cinema.
Chinese popular cinema is becoming extremely successful at the box office
in China again, and has been knocking Hollywood blockbusters off their
perch in the last year or so. In part, I think that is because they are
also confronting Chinese reality in a way that Hollywood films cannot.

In mainstream cinema, that confrontation with reality appears as themes
about truth and trust. The comedies are usually about not being able to
trust anyone and everyone cheating each other. The most successful film in
China ever is a low budget comedy called Lost in Thailand, where the two
main characters chase and con each other all around the world as they try
get their hands on a commercial secret. The romances are about materialism
versus true love – and true love does not always win! Love Is Not Blind is
all about learning you don’t need Mr. Right if you’ve got credit cards and
a gay best friend to tell you what you look good in. And the crime films
are about what people are prepared to do in the pursuit of money. These
developments would make an interesting topic for a whole other talk.

But, now let me turn to independent cinema and the films you are seeing in
this series. Here the confrontation with reality occurs at a deeper level
– it is a more fundamental crisis about what reality is, how we should
perceive it and how it should be depicted. Radical shifts in our
understanding of what reality is require whole new aesthetic regimes. The
most obvious example of this kind of cosmological shift I can give you is
the move from a theistic to a secular understanding of the world. If you
walk through the great art museums of Europe you floor after floor mostly
filled with flying babies and other divine creatures until the sometime
around the early 19th century, which they give way to realism. This is the
product of just such a cosmological shift. Once people believed that the
reality of the world was full of spirits that are invisible to the human
eye. Then we became secular humanism and believed that the world was as
our eye saw it and we were at the centre of it.

In China also, realist aesthetics are also dominant, as you might expect
in a country that has adopted secular modernity a long time ago. But I
want to argue that the aesthetic you see in the films in this series are
the result of a crisis of representational aesthetics within secular
humanism that comes to a head in the late 1980s. A number of factors
created a crisis of faith for the younger generation. The end of state-led
socialism and the development of the market economy handed the economic
initiative over to ordinary citizens, but the nightmare of the suppression
of the Tiananmen democracy movement meant the one-party system remained.
The result is a loss of faith in the old realism associated with the
Maoist model and the emergence of a new realism.

What I’m going to do for the rest of this talk is outline three
overlapping periods and sets of issues that develop around the new realism
that appears with Chinese independent cinema, and documentary in
particular.

* First, I will explain that the new realism that appears in 1990 is
observational documentary, which implies access to truth on the basis of
empirical observation rather than Marxist analysis of visible reality. The
“on the spot” and spontaneous quality of this kind of documentary
aesthetic has not been superceded yet – it is the new normal.

* Second, after the arrival of the mini-DV camera in the late 1990s, the
field of independent cinema booms, and with it we have the age of the
“individual filmmaker.” As any naïve faith in pure observational film
drops away, a great number of different ways of working with on-the-spot
material emerges. So, the second point is diversification.

* Third, as the number of independent filmmakers grows, new issues emerge.
People are less concerned about how to represent reality. Instead, the
related questions of ethics and access become more crucial — the ethics of
the relationship between the filmmaker and his or her subjects, and the
question of who gets to make films, and who gets to speak on camera and
about what.

First, let me introduce the emergence of an “on the spot” style. The
Chinese word for this is “xianchang.” Originally, it meant “live,” as in
“live TV.” So, it carried the idea of being present, spontaneity, absence
of script or rehearsal, and so on.

This on the spot quality is the style you see in early independent fiction
feature films, like Zhang Yuan’s Beijing Bastards (Beijing Zázhong,
1993)or Jia Zhangke’s Xiao Wu (1997), which use a lot of location
shooting, natural light, amateur actors, improvised scripts, and handheld
camerawork. “On the spot” realism derived its power from its contrast to
the older styles of filmmaking from the Mao era and its aftermath. In
feature filmmaking, this older style was a lot like Hollywood studio
filmmaking. On-the-spot realism also stood out against the historical
fables favoured by the Fifth Generation in films like Zhang Yimou’s Red
Sorghum.

This contrast between the highly controlled filmmaking of the Maoist era
and the new spontaneity of “on the spot” realism was even clearer in the
world of documentary. In the Maoist era, documentaries always carried
authoritative voiceover, interviews were rare, and the events filmed were
often orchestrated. Contrast that with the first independent documentary,
Wu Wenguang’s Bumming in Beijing, were everything is hand-held camera,
muddy sound, stumbling interviews that are clearly not rehearsed, and so
on. The most notorious “on the spot” moment in the film is when Wu
accidentally comes across his friend, a painter, having a psychotic
episode. Imagine that for 30 years, you have seen only glossy films about
bumper harvests and the achievements of socialism. Then you see this:

[Clip of Bumming in Beijing]

So, as you can imagine this was quite shocking for viewers in the 1990s.I
don’t want to burden you with Chinese-language terminology today. But I do
want to point out that there are at least three different words for
“realism” in Chinese: xieshizhuyi; xianshizhuyi; and jishizhuyi. This is
important, because each of them marks the kind of cosmological shift I
have been speaking about. Only two of these are important for today’s
talk. Xianshizhuyi refers to a Marxist realism, in which truth is
understood as a dialectical analysis of reality. In other words, the world
should be depicted in a way that shows its underlying but invisible truth
of class struggle and historical materialism. This is the “realism” in
“socialist realism,” for example, and it explains why it is a much more
schematic and glossed up vision than the world as we see it. Jishizhuyi,
on the other hand, is the observational style that appears in the 1990s,
and which I argue marks a profound shift in thinking. This is a neologism
that first appears around this period.

One of the signs of the depth of this shift in thinking is the fact that
it is not confined to independent cinema. In fact, mainstream television
was also moving towards this style at the same time. Today, if you watch
Chinese television, you will often see reporters going to interview people
on the street in a seemingly spontaneous fashion. So, the “on the spot”
style marks a new way of understanding the world that runs across the
whole of society. The command economy has given way to one of spontaneous
initiatives not only from would-be entrepreneurs but also from citizens,
who do not believe what they are told by those in power but only believe
what they can see with their own eyes.

However, the adoption of this “on the spot” style by the mainstream media
also gets rid of any naïve idea that it is a guarantee of truth or even
absence of manipulation, because people don’t trust the mainstream media
and realize that an observational style can be faked. Let me give you my
favorite example. Wu Wenguang, the director of Bumming in Beijing, also
worked with ordinary farmers to train them so they could make
documentaries about their lives. One of them is a woman in her fifties
called Shao Yuzhen, and in a remarkable scene from one of her My Village
annual films, she films a local TV crew as they interview her husband. The
style the TV crew uses appears to be a spontaneous interview. But, in
fact, we see that the TV crews films the interview again and again until
her husband says the politically correct thing they hope that he will say!
It’s a remarkable expose.

Now let me move on to my second point – diversification. Up to the late
1990s, the independent documentary movement in China is small. It consists
mostly of people working in TV stations who can borrow equipment. Amongst
themselves, there is considerable emphasis on pure observational
filmmaking and debate about what representational aesthetic can deliver a
truth about reality. They police each other.

But in 1997, mini-DV cameras become available in regular stores, and the
potential population of filmmakers expands to the entire middle-class
population. With the mini-DV camera, it is possible to work alone. This is
what Wu Wenguang has called “individual filmmaking”. From this point on,
all kinds of people can start making films and they do not have to follow
any particular style. In practice, most of the people who start making
independent documentaries after 1997 are not ordinary people like woman
farmer Shao Yuzhen, who I just told you about. For the most part, they
have some kind of media and arts background. But the numbers boom and the
styles proliferate. The only thing that stays the same is that they are
still working with “on the spot” aesthetics. It is taken for granted that
this is the way to observe the world, but it is also accepted that this
material is always being shaped by the filmmaker, or the TV station, and
so the emphasis moves to different ways to work with the material. This
shift is the subject of Luke Robinson’s new book, Independent Chinese
Documentary – From the Studio to the Street, which I recommend if you are
interested in a more detailed and closely researched account.

What are some examples of the new different modes that appear after 1997?

* First, there are diary films and first person or private films. These
are not huge in number, but they are markedly different from the sort of
social issue films we have seen up to this point. Kiki Yu Tianqi has
produced a PhD recently on this  topic. Examples include Yang Lina’s Home
Video, in which she tries to probe her parent’s divorce. The corresponding
example in independent feature films would be Liu Jiayin’s Oxhide (2005),
although there is no divorce. In recent years, Wu Wenguang himself has
moved in this direction with his 2010 film, Treatment, which is all about
his mother’s final days and his relationship with her.

* A second type of film would be a more artistic, stylized use of
on-the-spot materials to make a sort of visual essay documentary. The most
well-known example is Wang Bing’s 2003 film West of the Tracks(Tiexi Qu, a
9-hour Tarkovsky-style trek through the rust belt of North-East China as
it fades away.

* Third, we could point to a kind of relaxation of the strict
observational aesthetics of the 1990s. In those days, inspired by Fred
Wiseman and other earlier observational filmmakers, the Chinese
documentarians tried to avoid adding voiceover narration or music. But
these elements have gradually made their way back in all over the place.

* Fourth, I would give the example of the intersection of experimental
video and documentary. Here, filmmakers working in the gallery also move
into documentary. Cao Fei’s i.Mirror, which some of you may have seen this
afternoon, is an example of this. In it, she records her experiences in
Second Life at a world she built for herself. In a certain sense, the
Second Life materials in the film are the observational materials, but
they observe a constructed online world, not the world offline. The film
is part art and also part first-person documentary. However, the “first
person” is her Second Life avatar, China Tracy. So the result is also an
experimental documentary.

* Another example that pushes the boundaries of “on the spot” documentary
and crosses into the world of experimental video is Huang Weikai’s
Disorder (2009). In this film, he uses all kinds of found footage to
create a kind of dystopian and crazy city symphony film in the tradition
associated with Walter Ruttman’s Berlin, Symphony of a City and Vertov’s
Man with a Movie Camera. Let’s see a clip. Disorder (2009, dir. Huang
Weikai)

[Clip of Disorder plays]

This crazy film is one of my all-time favourites.

There is a fifth type of film I want to mention that emerges with the
proliferation of styles in the new century. And this will also give me a
bridge into my third topic, which is the change in the issues that are
debated and the growing concern about ethics and access, rather than what
sort of realism should be adopted. That fifth type of film is the oral
history film, dominated by interviews. In these films, the filmmakers are
concerned to record an alternative archive of materials they know will
never make it into mainstream media. A good example would be Xu Xin’s 2010
film, Karamay <http://dgeneratefilms.com/catalog/karamay>. In this 9-hour
epic, he goes to the oil industry city of Karamay in Chinese Central Asia.
A number of years ago, a terrible tragedy happened there. During a
performance for children, the new city theatre caught fire. The children
were told to stay seated while the Communist Party leaders and city
officials in attendance were allowed out first. Many of the children
perished in the inferno that followed. No one has ever been held
responsible, and the event has been suppressed. Xu Xin simply allows the
parents of the children who died to speak, and he and we act as witnesses
and listeners for them.

As I mentioned, this takes me to my third point today. In the early days
of the “on the spot” the debates amongst filmmakers and critics was very
much about what style of “on the spot” realism was authentic. Was music
allowed? What about intertitles to let the audience know the location? And
so on. But in the new century, I think it has been taken for granted now
that “on the spot” style is the appropriate style for contemporary China.
Also, it is understood that how that “on the spot” material is used will
vary a lot and that there is no pure access to objective truth. In these
circumstances, new issues have emerged. In particular, I would like to
highlight ethics and access. In other words, how should documentary
filmmakers deal with their subjects, especially when there are clear
social power differences between them? But also, how should critics and
filmmakers work together, which has been the subject of a lot of debate
recently. And second, who can make films? Who should be seen and heard on
camera? Who has something important to say?

The scene we saw earlier of Wu Wenguang’s friend having the nervous
breakdown on camera is a good example of the ethical debates. Should he
have stopped filming? She was in no position to give consent at this time.

A more extreme example would be Xu Tong’s 2010 film, Wheat Harvest, a film
he made hanging out with a very young sex worker and trying to understand
her life. Let me say right now that although I’m sure a lot of things were
handled badly, I don’t think this is an exploitative film. But when it
screened in Hong Kong, there were accusations that, because he didn’t
disguise her identity or where she worked, he was making her vulnerable to
vigilante violence. Then, at a later date, the sex workers in the film
claimed they had not adequately understood what was going on, and demanded
financial compensation.

It is partly in response to ethical entanglements like these that
filmmakers like Wu Wenguang have been eager to work with their subjects
and train them to become filmmakers. As well as the Shao Yuzhen, his most
recent project on memory and the famine of the early 1960s is a good
example. In the latter case, he has trained young people with roots in the
countryside to become filmmakers. And some of these films are also
screening in this series.

So, you can see that the ethical debates overlap with the second issue of
access. Who gets to make films? Who gets to speak? Whose story gets told?
Sometimes, it can be important to tell the story of those marginal people
who are left out of mainstream media despite all kinds of difficult
ethical issues. The oral history films are an even more evident example of
this. In addition to films likeKaramay, there is a concern to catch
interviewees before they become too old and infirm or pass away. Here, the
Party’s official version of history often gets questioned.

So, let me show a final clip from one of the finest of many fine examples
of testimony films, Hu Jie’s Though I Am Gone, made in 2006. Let’s take a
look at the clip and then I will say something about it:

[clip of Though I Am Gone]

Here, the widower of one of the first school teachers to be killed by her
pupils during the Cultural Revolution, testifies about what happened and
how no one has ever been brought to justice, despite his best efforts.
Furthermore, he shows how he has carefully kept all the evidence he can.
So, the film not only gives him the voice and deals with a crucial issue
off-limits to mainstream media. It also turns into a contemplation of the
ongoing drive to confront reality and why it continues to be so important
in China today. To me, this clip sums up the three aspects of “confronting
reality” that I have been trying to draw to your attention today: first, a
profound questioning of what reality is, how we can perceive it and how we
should represent it; second, a proliferation of styles and ways of
employing the “on-the-spot” materials that are now dominant and taken for
granted; and, finally, a deep concern about who gets to make these films
and whose voice gets to be recorded.

However, I want to make one final point. I believe that a new issue may be
emerging. For many years, it has been hard but not impossible to see these
films inside China. Not only are discs shared amongst friends, but also a
number of small independent film festivals has sprung up. However, as the
producer and festival organizer, Zhang Xianmin, made clear at a talk he
gave in New York 
<http://dgeneratefilms.com/uncategorized/leading-chinese-indie-film-figure-
shares-a-sobering-outlook> a few weeks ago, now these are being actively
and aggressively suppressed by the government. This makes distribution and
exhibition a live issue in ways that it has not been before, and it will
be very interesting to see where that takes us.

Thank you very much.