Mass film criticism and its digital afterlives

Abstract

This article looks at a unique kind of Chinese film culture known as the ‘mass film criticism’ (qunzhong yingping), namely, film discussion and criticism initiated by the non-professionals – workers, peasants, soldiers, students, etc. The practice of mass film criticism (MFC), led spontaneously by grassroot film enthusiasts and supported by state institutions, gained momentum in the 1980s: it is estimated that by 1988 there were more than 20,000 local groups of mass film criticism across the country, and the total number of amateur film critics reached ten million. The analogue history of MFC comprises a different genealogy for the emergence of amateur cinephiliac writing, which is almost exclusively associated with digital cinephiles in the west. This article examines the style and structural formation of MFC, as well as the role it played in fostering knowledge and appreciation of cinema for a large population with uneven film literacy. More importantly, often preforming a kind of sanctioned social criticism, MFC helped to carve out a public space for intense negotiations of what cinema and what China should become.

Keywords:

• Post-socialist film culture
• worker cinephiles
• Chinese film criticism
• the Xie Jin Model
• cultural reform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For instance, independent film media appearing as WeChat official accounts are subject to new forms of digital censorship, see “Cinephilia Meta-Roundtable” in this special issue.

2 For a detailed record of existing MFC groups and organizations in each province and autonomous region in the 1980s and 1990s, see Jing, Zhongqiang and Zhang, Baiqing, ed. 1994. An Overview of Chinese Popular Film Criticism (中国大众影评概览). Beijing: Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press.

3 Film illiteracy during socialist and early postsocialist time is an understudied subject. There was a wave of publications after the end of the Cultural Revolution designed to promote film literacy. See for instances, the collections and circulation of “Instruction Manuals of Movies” (电影说明书) that provides plot synopses; also books and articles explaining how movies are made, such as: Ye (1978, 1979) and Yang (1979).

4 For how workers’ cultural palaces continue to coordinate Chinese citizen’s cultural and political lives in the 21st Century, see Xing (2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zoe Meng Jiang

Zoe Meng Jiang is a PhD candidate at the Department of Cinema Studies in New York University. She has published in areas of media theory and history, social practice, gender and feminism, and moving-image arts.