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Literati Lenses
This chapter is in the book Literati Lenses
Notes to Pages 1–4191NotesINTRODUCTIONEpigraph. Sergei Eisenstein, Non-indifferent Nature: Film and Structure of Things (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 217.1For a discussion of Béla Balázs’ focus on the human body, see Erica Carter and Rodney Livingstone, “Béla Balázs, Visible Man, or the Culture of Film (1924),” Screen 48, no. 1 (2007): 91–108.2Roland Barthes, “The Face of Garbo,” in Mythologies (London: Paladin, 1980), 56.3Martin Lefebvre, “Introduction,” in Landscape and Film (New York: Routledge, 2006), xi.4David Desser, “Foreword,” in Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner, eds., Cinema and Landscape: Film, Nation and Cultural Geography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 9.5The People’s Republic of China’s censorship system was established in 1953. It demanded that as soon as the production application was turned in, the crew should submit the story synopsis and the finished script to the party’s bureaucratic system, sometimes undergoing up to seven rounds of review by different offices. The film print, in different editing stages, had to be reviewed as well, but the review of the script itself was at the core of this censorship system. For an account of the censorship system during this period, see Qizhi, Mao Zedong shidai de renmin dianying,1949–1966 (The People’s Cinema under Mao, 1949–1966), 53–69.6The same question applies for other “silent” elements of the mise-en-scène.7These terms were brought up by Hong Kong film historians Huang Jichi and Gu Cangwu in the 1980s. A third category was also proposed by Huang Jichi, yingren dianying (filmmakers’ cinema), referring to those few who were professionally trained in filmmaking, such as Sun Yu.8However, “theater men” filmmakers such as Zheng Zhengqiu also engaged with social criticism, while “literati” filmmakers were not immune to theatrical spectacles, either. For a discussion of these concepts, see Zhong Dafeng, Zhang Zhen, and Yingjin Zhang, “From Wenmingxi (Civilized Play) to Yingxi (Shadow Play): The Foundation of Shanghai Film Industry in the 1920s,” Asian Cinema 9, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 46–64.9Hong Shen was a Harvard graduate and a member of the Leftwing Writers Association. He was also among the first to introduce Soviet cinema into China, translating Eisenstein’s and Pudovkin’s works in 1928.10See Chen Mo, Liuying chunmeng: Fei Mu dianying lungao (Flying Oriel, Spring Dream: A Study of Fei Mu’s Movies) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2000).11See Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith, eds., Chinese Art: Modern Expressions (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001); David Clarke, Chinese Art and Its Encounter with the World (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011).
© University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu

Notes to Pages 1–4191NotesINTRODUCTIONEpigraph. Sergei Eisenstein, Non-indifferent Nature: Film and Structure of Things (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 217.1For a discussion of Béla Balázs’ focus on the human body, see Erica Carter and Rodney Livingstone, “Béla Balázs, Visible Man, or the Culture of Film (1924),” Screen 48, no. 1 (2007): 91–108.2Roland Barthes, “The Face of Garbo,” in Mythologies (London: Paladin, 1980), 56.3Martin Lefebvre, “Introduction,” in Landscape and Film (New York: Routledge, 2006), xi.4David Desser, “Foreword,” in Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner, eds., Cinema and Landscape: Film, Nation and Cultural Geography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 9.5The People’s Republic of China’s censorship system was established in 1953. It demanded that as soon as the production application was turned in, the crew should submit the story synopsis and the finished script to the party’s bureaucratic system, sometimes undergoing up to seven rounds of review by different offices. The film print, in different editing stages, had to be reviewed as well, but the review of the script itself was at the core of this censorship system. For an account of the censorship system during this period, see Qizhi, Mao Zedong shidai de renmin dianying,1949–1966 (The People’s Cinema under Mao, 1949–1966), 53–69.6The same question applies for other “silent” elements of the mise-en-scène.7These terms were brought up by Hong Kong film historians Huang Jichi and Gu Cangwu in the 1980s. A third category was also proposed by Huang Jichi, yingren dianying (filmmakers’ cinema), referring to those few who were professionally trained in filmmaking, such as Sun Yu.8However, “theater men” filmmakers such as Zheng Zhengqiu also engaged with social criticism, while “literati” filmmakers were not immune to theatrical spectacles, either. For a discussion of these concepts, see Zhong Dafeng, Zhang Zhen, and Yingjin Zhang, “From Wenmingxi (Civilized Play) to Yingxi (Shadow Play): The Foundation of Shanghai Film Industry in the 1920s,” Asian Cinema 9, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 46–64.9Hong Shen was a Harvard graduate and a member of the Leftwing Writers Association. He was also among the first to introduce Soviet cinema into China, translating Eisenstein’s and Pudovkin’s works in 1928.10See Chen Mo, Liuying chunmeng: Fei Mu dianying lungao (Flying Oriel, Spring Dream: A Study of Fei Mu’s Movies) (Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 2000).11See Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith, eds., Chinese Art: Modern Expressions (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001); David Clarke, Chinese Art and Its Encounter with the World (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011).
© University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu
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