List of Illustrations
Tables
Table 2.1 Principles of classical Hollywood narration that characterise American cinema from 1917 to 1960.
Table 3.1 Pudovkin’s and Eisenstein’s categories of montage.
Table 3.2 Ji Zhifeng’s Mengtaiqi jiqiao qiantan (A Brief Introduction to Montage Techniques) (1962) is divided into nine sections, which together establish montage as a general term for all editing methods.
Table 4.1 Major principles of Stanislavski’s system.
Figures
Figure 2.1 The physical act of turning the pages, accompanied by the off-screen voice of the protagonist–narrator, functions as a cinematic punctuation that divides the film into sequences. This Life of Mine (1950).
Figure 2.2 The final shot of This Life of Mine (1950).
Figure 2.3–2.4 Xianglin Sao’s transformation from hostility to awakened love to the establishment of a family is conveyed in eight shots with elliptical editing. The New Year’s Sacrifice (1956).
Figure 2.5 The 1956 film adaptation of ‘The New Year’s Sacrifice’, the first colour narrative film (caise gushipian) in the PRC, offered an unprecedented immediacy in visualising Ah Mao’s melodramatic death.
Figure 2.6 Appearing five times during the New Year celebrations in the film, the fish used for the ancestral offering functions as a moral symbol and a reminder of Xianglin Sao’s plight. The New Year’s Sacrifice (1956).
Figure 2.7 The film adaptation’s most controversial sequence: Xianglin Sao in a frenzy, violently hacking away the temple threshold with a cleaver. This sequence, absent in the original literary text, led contemporary audiences to debate the interpretation of Xianglin Sao’s character. The New Year’s Sacrifice (1956).
Figure 2.8 The added scene at the threshold of the temple was seen by some critics as a politically motivated violation of the short story’s realism, while director Xia Yan and lead actress Bai Yang said it depicted Xianglin Sao’s impulsive emotional explosion. The New Year’s Sacrifice (1956).
Figure 3.1 A contrast montage sequence that establishes parallel actions in The New Woman (1934).
Figure 3.2 A split-screen montage sequence that establishes contrast as well as parallel actions. The New Woman (1934).
Figure 3.3 Shi Dongshan considered the mass slaughter sequence in Eisenstein’s Strike (1925) an example of contrastive editing.
Figure 3.4 Ji Zhifeng illustrated the correlation between shot distance and emotional intensity as a curve, which he called the curve of ‘emotional development’. The shorter the shot distance, the higher the emotional intensity. The X-axis labels read (from left to right): long shot, medium shot, medium close-up shot, medium shot and long shot. Courtesy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library.
Figure 3.5 Fast cutting is combined with a revolutionary song in a montage sequence in Gate Number Six (1952).
Figure 3.6 A montage sequence in Nie Er (1959) that distorts temporal–spatial order to re-create a historical continuity that represents revolutionary struggle.
Figure 3.7 The use of internal montage in Stage Sisters (1965).
Figure 3.8 Relay of gazes in a montage sequence in Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia (1928).
Figure 3.9 Relay of gazes from the lead character to supporting characters to passionate onlookers in a montage sequence in Zhao Yiman (1950).
Figure 3.10 Relay of gazes and empty shots in a montage sequence in Sea Hawk (1959).
Figure 3.11 An illustration of an establishing shot and a shot/reverse shot that crosses the axis of action in Ji Zhifeng’s Mengtaiqi jiqiao qiantan (A Brief Introduction to Montage Techniques) (1962). Courtesy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library.
Figure 3.12 The use of shot/reverse shot to orchestrate kisses and physical embrace in a reunion witnessed by Stalin in The Fall of Berlin (1949).
Figure 3.13 The relay of gazes in Sea Hawk (1959) points to an off-screen space with a defined diegetic object, presenting the hero and the national flag as the heroine’s (and the ideal audience’s) twinned objects of desire.
Figure 3.14 Neither relayed through other major or supporting characters nor punctuated by empty shots, Qionghua’s gaze becomes properly socialist as she leaps to political consciousness as a Party member in The Red Detachment of Women (1961).
Figure 5.1 The Chinese film journal Film Art (Dianying yishu) (issue 1, 1961) highlighted this shot as a ‘touching’ (dongrende) moment of solidarity in the Sino–Soviet co-production Wind from the East (1959).
Figure 5.2 Multinational representatives from the Comintern joining hands in Moscow. Wind from the East (1959).
Figure 5.3 Wang Demin demonstrates that he can read and translate Soviet revolutionary slogans, outsmarting his teacher and brother in arms Matveyev, who struggles with Chinese. Wind from the East (1959).
Figure 5.4 An illustrated map of Premier Zhou Enlai’s visits to Albania, Burma, Ceylon, Pakistan and ten countries in Africa, constructing a ‘glittering arc’ of friendship. Courtesy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library.
Plates
Plate 1 The cinematic technique of ‘dotting the dragon’s eyes’ in Song of Youth (1959).
Plate 2 Low-contrast, soft frontal lighting is used to emphasise femininity and Ruan Lingyu’s delicacy of complexion in The Goddess (1934).
Plate 3 A glamorous ‘halo’ effect created by natural backlight in Song of Youth (1959).
Plate 4 The use of backlight enhances glamour, as if light is emanating from the socialist icon. Song of Youth (1959).
Plate 5 Lin Daojing’s glistening eyes shine due to the cinematic technique of ‘dotting the dragon’s eyes’. Song of Youth (1959).
Plate 6 Qionghua’s fiery agitation is enhanced by the use of lighting. The Red Detachment of Women (1961).
Plate 7 Orchestrated by montage, the socialist realist gaze and performative gestures are part of socialist iconography. The Red Detachment of Women (1961).