Chinese Cinema essays

Chinese Cinema essays The history of film is an important one today. Many people in our society today may see film as simply a form of entertainment, but it is indeed more than that. Film is a medium of expression that is unlike no other. It can tell many tales of many different types of people throughout history. Film is also a good reflection of culture. The art of film can often be seen imitating life and telling the story of a nation and their peoples. China is one such country with a celebrated history of film. Chinese cinema is often divided into six generations. The term generations is used to make it easier to group the different phases of Chinese film history, but they are not completely different from one another. A particular generation may share something in common with the previous generation, while also passing something onto the next generation. In a sense, the history of Chinese film can be said to have gone through a sort of evolution from its beginnings to the present. The first and second generations of film began during the 1890s and continued through the beginning part of the early 1900s. These two generations of Chinese film are often seen as the pioneers for Chinese cinema. Many of these films consisted of operatic shorts and short comic skits. Eventually the Chinese would go on to make full length film features. The first film length Chinese film ever made was created in 1921 and was entitled Yan Ruishe. Some years later a new trend in film began. Many dancers ad stage performers began to move from the stage to the screen. This may have seemed like a good fit at the time, but many of the dancers-turned-actors were not successful. One actress who was successful was Ruan Lingyu. Unfortunately she committed suicide in 1935. Stephanie Donald tells us that in her suicide note, she was in despair at gossip about her private life (4). Its interesting to see that even in the early stages of...