ABSTRACT

By examining Chinese film as cultural politics, this chapter attempts to “reclaim” the significance of society in two ways. First, as lucidly expressed in the introduction to this volume, I share the premise that society “is not just a passive receptacle reacting to transformations in the economy or the state.”1 From the very beginning of the history of the People’s Republic, the Chinese party-state has considered film as one of the most important means of political propaganda and education, and this political role of film has continued to this day. On the other hand, with the deepening of the policy of economic Reform and Opening, film’s function as a form of entertainment has become increasingly important, and success in the economic marketplace has become one of the main priorities of Chinese film. Hence, film is an ideal site for examining the mechanisms through which society may reclaim and reconfigure its role in relation to the state on one hand, and to the economy on the other. In other words, the world of Chinese film is where politics, economy, and culture meet. However, at the same time, overemphasizing the causal role of society as against or as separate from the state and economy entails a danger of falling into a sterile zero-sum view of state-society and economy-society relations. By zeroing in on the interaction of the logic of the state and the logic of economy as played out in what I call the “film field,” I attempt to avoid the pitfalls of the “society-vs.- state-vs.- economy” view. Consequently, the first research question I tackle in this chapter is: How is the contemporary Chinese film field structured in relation to (not necessarily as against) the logic of state politics on one hand, and to the logic of economy on the other?