stellamaris01

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on a third hand, china received film technology fully developed from europe and america the same way europe received printing from china in the 15th century. as a result, film was intrinsically western, smacking slightly of colonialism, and the only people who had both knowledge of and interest in filmmaking were paris-educated to some degree—in a similar way and to a greater extent than running a newspaper, making film was a behavior of anti-traditionalist leftists. i have not seen a single pre-1966 chinese film that is not consciously leftist, progressivist, feminist, and anti-traditionalist, and i’ve seen the names of some of china’s most significant revolutionary thinkers and actors in the credits. and so, put bluntly, this means that most of the pillars of early chinese film were hunted like dogs by three governments in a row before being posthumously rehabilitated in the mid 1970s. by that time most of the pillars of early european film were dead, blacklisted as fascists and collaborators, or retired in america, and most of the pillars of early american film were getting bit parts in the worst slop movies you’ve ever seen in your life. interesting stuff!

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