Moving Figures: Class and Feeling in the Films of Jia Zhangke

208 Pages·2018·8.861 MB·English

by  Corey Kai Nelson Schultz

Moving Figures
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EDINBURGH STUDIES IN EAST ASIAN FILM
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Moving Figures
Class and Feeling in the Films of
Jia Zhangke
Corey Kai Nelson Schultz
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© Corey Kai Nelson Schultz, 2018
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
1 Th e Worker Class: From Leader to the Margins 20
2 Th e Peasant and the Mingong: From Empathy to Sympathy to
Looking Back 48
3 Th e Soldier: From Degraded Reproduction to Avenging Hero 84
4 Th e Intellectual: Power and the Voice 109
5 Th e Entrepreneur: From Crook to “New Reform Model” 136
Notes 163
Filmography 177
Works Cited 178
Index 195
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Figures
I.1 Yin, Hong and Ke Da (尹洪, 大可). “Chinese Are Amazing!”
(中国人了不起). Hubei: Hubei Meishu Chubanshe, 1996.
ChinesePosters.Net 1
I.2 Anonymous. “Th e Industry Learns from Daqing,
Agriculture Learns from Dahai and the Whole
Country Learns from the People’s Liberation Army”
(工业学大庆农业学大寨全国学人民解放军). Shanghai:
Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1971. ChinesePosters.Net 11
1.1 Anonymous, “Greet the 1970s with the New Victories
of Revolution and Production” (用革命和生产的新胜利迎接七
十年代). Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1970.
ChinesePosters.Net 23
1.2 Qi Shuyan, Political Work Group of the Revolutionary
Committee of the Railroad Factory Collective Work
(戚墅堰; 铁路工厂革命委员会 政工组供稿). “Use and
Study Chairman Mao’s Glorious Philosophical Th ought in a
Big Way” (大学大用毛主席光辉哲学思想). Shanghai:
Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1971. ChinesePosters.Net 23
1.3 Huang Baomei in Huang Baomei 27
1.4 Huang Baomei’s photograph in Huang Baomei 27
1.5 Factory exterior from Huang Baomei 28
1.6 Factory interior from I Wish I Knew 29
1.7 Ruin in 24 City 31
1.8 Th e manager’s offi ce in Still Life 32
1.9 He Xikun in 24 City 36
1.10 Couple in 24 City 37
1.11 Xiao Hua in 24 City 37
2.1 Anonymous, “Greet the 1970s with the New Victories of
Revolution and Production” (用革命和生产的新胜利迎接七十
年代). Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Meishu Chubanshe, 1970.
ChinesePosters.Net 53
2.2 Cats catch big fi sh, every year good luck increases in Xiao Wu 55
2.3 Wang Hongwei in Xiao Wu 57
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Figures vii
2.4 First POV shot in Xiao Wu 63
2.5 Second POV shot in Xiao Wu 64
2.6 Th ird POV shot in Xiao Wu 64
2.7 Th e fi nal POV shot – the crowd gazes back in Xiao Wu 67
2.8 Dockworkers in I Wish I Knew 69
2.9 Workers in Still Life 71
2.10 Still from Dong 72
2.11 Mingong in 24 City 80
2.12 Final gaze in A Touch of Sin 81
3.1 Sex workers dressed as PLA soldiers in A Touch of Sin 91
3.2 Factory 420’s stage in 24 City 93
3.3 Zhao Gang and his father in 24 City 94
3.4 Fine Arts Section of the Chinese Revolutionary Army Museum
(中国人民革命军事博物馆美术组). “Charge the Enemy to the
Last Breath” (生命不息，冲锋不止) Shanghai: Renmin Meishu
Chubanshe, 1970. ChinesePosters.Net 97
3.5 Dahai in A Touch of Sin 98
3.6 Close-ups of Dahai’s fi rst murder sequence of Liu 102
3.7 Dahai’s stunned expression after his second murder in
A Touch of Sin 102
3.8 Close-up of the blood in A Touch of Sin 103
3.9 Dahai after the fi nal murder in A Touch of Sin 105
4.1 Liu Xiaodong interviewed in Dong 119
4.2 Ma Ke interviewed in Useless 120
4.3 Th e miners in Useless 123
4.4 Wang’s father in Dong 126
4.5 Th e upset widow in Dong 128
4.6 Factory employees in Useless 130
4.7 Ma Ke’s atelier in Useless 131
5.1 Yin, Hong and Ke Da (尹洪, 大可). “Chinese Are Amazing!”
(中国人了不起). Hubei: Hubei Meishu Chubanshe, 1996.
ChinesePosters.Net 139
5.2 Argument in the manager’s offi ce in Still Life 142
5.3 Coff ee table with guns in Mountains May Depart 145
5.4 Shoppers at Louis Vuitton in Useless 148
5.5 Shoppers at Louis Vuitton in Useless 149
5.6 Su Na’s face emerging from the debris in 24 City 152
5.7 Su Na in her car in 24 City 153
5.8 Su Na’s gaze in 24 City 155
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Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to Professor Chris Berry, Dr. Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor
Harriet Evans, Professor Tom Gold, Dr. Gareth Stanton, and the Department
of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths (University of London). And, of
course, to Jia Zhangke.
Th e Chinese propaganda posters in this book are reproduced with the per-
mission of the International Institute of Social History (IISH) and the Stefan R.
Landsberger Collections.

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Introduction
Th is poster, titled “Chinese are Amazing!” (1996), was one of four “‘Amazing’
Educational Propaganda Posters” produced for primary and middle schools
in compliance with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Propaganda Depart-
ment’s “Outline to Implement Patriotic Education.”1 It features the following
fi gures: in the foreground from left to right, we have the Maoist fi gures of the
Figure I.1 “Chinese Are Amazing!” (中国人了不起). Yin, Hong and Ke Da
(尹洪, 大可). Hubei: Hubei Meishu Chubanshe, 1996. ChinesePosters.Net. (1996).
Accessed February 10, 2011. http://chineseposters.net/gallery/e13-747.php
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2 Moving Figures
soldier, worker, and peasant, and in the background, also from left to right, an
athlete, an intellectual, and a business manager. Starting from this image, this
book analyzes the class fi gures of the worker, peasant, soldier, intellectual, and
entrepreneur in the fi lms of the contemporary Chinese director Jia Zhangke.
Every chapter is structured around a class fi gure, and in each one I examine a
fi gure’s socio-historical and cultural contexts, its representation in the fi lms, the
cinematic tropes that are attached to it, and the feelings that are evoked. Th ese
fi ve fi gures were chosen because they are the contemporary descendants of the
fi ve traditional classes of the craftsmen, peasants, soldiers, scholar gentry, and
merchants2: the craftsmen (工), who became the worker class in the Maoist
period; the peasants (农), who have also become the mingong (民工) rural-to-
urban migrant workers; the soldiers (兵), who became the People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) soldiers; the scholar gentry (士), who are now the intellectuals; and
the merchants (商), who are now the managers and entrepreneurs.
Th ese fi gures have been socially, politically, and culturally signifi cant through-
out China’s modern history. As the nation has transitioned from a planned to
a market economy during the Reform Era (1978 to present), old social classes
have been dissolved and new ones have been created – or, in some cases, have
re-appeared from China’s pre-Communist past. For instance, during the Maoist
period (1949–76), the idealized classes of the worker, peasant, and soldier
(工农兵) were exalted in Chinese art, literature, fi lm, and performance. Th ey
were seen as the vanguards of the revolution, and as potent Maoist symbols that
could inspire Socialist behaviors in the viewer, and therefore create a socialist
utopia; thus, these “mimetic models” were therefore “designed as much to proj-
ect a socialism of the future as to provide exemplars for the present.”3 Conversely,
during the Cultural Revolution, the intellectuals were called the “stinking num-
ber-nine,” and people in business were known as “capitalist roaders,” and both
groups were despised.4 During the Reform era’s Four Modernizations Campaign
(四个现代化, beginning 1978), intellectuals and businesspeople were rehabili-
tated and re-conceptualized as “working class,” and were advanced by the Party
to develop the nation through science and technology.5 However, during this
period, the Maoist fi gures concurrently lost their former status, and now live
in the shadow of their past glories. Th is situation is refl ected in Jia’s fi lms; the
workers are becoming extinct and their factories are in ruins; the peasants have
been uprooted from their rural environments and have become migrant workers
who wander the nation in search of employment; and the soldiers have vanished
and, in their disappearance, so too has their protection. Conversely, compared
to these Maoist fi gures, the intellectual and entrepreneur fi gures are depicted in
the fi lms as having largely benefi ted during the Reform era; the intellectual fi g-
ure is represented as an important fi gure that has resumed its traditional role of
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