(From left to right) Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, and Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction (1994).Linda R. Chen/© 1994 Miramax Films; photograph from a private collection
David A. Cook
Robert Sklar
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Transition to the 21st century
The expansion of media culture
The history of motion pictures in the last period of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st was shaped in part by new technologies and the expansion of media culture that such technologies fostered. In the 1980s, for example, the widespread adoption of the videocassette recorder (VCR) opened up new possibilities for the distribution of films as videocassettes, giving wider circulation and easier access to works made throughout the world. In the same manner, new cable and satellite television systems that delivered media directly to homes created additional markets for film distribution and income sources for film producers. With the availability of higher-quality video cameras, more filmmakers used video technology to lower production costs, later transferring the image to film stock for theatrical exhibition. In the following years, the spread and increasing capabilities of computer animation as well as digital video cameras and DVDs (digital video discs) accelerated these trends, with the computer emerging as a new production unit in filmmaking and the Internet as a site for film distribution and exhibition. One result of these changes was the appearance on the world stage of filmmakers—particularly Chinese-language ones—from places that had previously been little recognized within international film culture. Asian cinema China
Filmmaking had become nearly moribund in China from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s during the Cultural Revolution. Under new leadership in the late 1970s, the ruling Chinese Communist Party sought to instigate economic development and open the country to international commerce and communication. Some veteran filmmakers resumed their careers, and one, Xie Jin, made a controversial work, Furong zhen (1986; Hibiscus Town), showing the deleterious effects of communist political dogma on a rural village. The Beijing Film Academy, closed for more than a decade, reopened in 1978 and graduated its first new class in 1982. From this group came several figures who began to make films in the 1980s and who became known collectively as China’s Fifth Generation of film directors (the previous four generations had been associated with specific decades beginning in the 1910s and early ’20s).
The Fifth Generation significantly transformed Chinese cinema by moving production away from its traditional studio interiors and backlot standing sets and into distant rural locations, which the filmmakers in many cases had come to know when they were sent from the cities during the Cultural Revolution to be country teachers or farmhands. Chen Kaige’s Huang tudi (1984; Yellow Earth), Da yuebing (1986; The Big Parade), Haizi wang (1987; King of the Children), and Bian zou bian chang (1991; Life on a String) emphasized China’s wide-open spaces and bright landscape colours. Similar impulses, with variations of style and theme, shaped the work of Zhang Yimou (Hong gaoliang [1987; Red Sorghum], Ju Dou [1990], Dahong denglong gaogao gua [1991; Raise the Red Lantern], Qiu Ju da guansi [1992; The Story of Qiu Ju]) and Tian Zhuangzhuang (Lie chang zha sha [1985; On the Hunting Ground], Daoma zei [1986; Horse Thief]).
As these filmmakers, and others, gained international recognition, their work became both more commercial and more political and thus more controversial in the eyes of Chinese authorities. The Cultural Revolution became a subject in Chen’s Bawang bieji (1993; Farewell My Concubine), Zhang’s Huozhe (1994; To Live), and Tian’s Lan fenzheng (1993; The Blue Kite), the last of which caused the filmmaker to be banned temporarily from film work. Both Chen and Zhang turned to what may have appeared a less-contentious historical subject, Shanghai in the early 20th century, although possibly with allegorical purpose, in the former’s Fengyue (1996; Temptress Moon, 1996) and the latter’s Yao a yao yao dao waipo qiao (1995; Shanghai Triad). As these filmmakers continued to develop in new directions (and Tian was able to resume film work), younger directors identified as a Sixth Generation, often working independently of the official studios, focused on contemporary urban subjects, depicting the social issues involved in the rapid growth of China’s cities. Taiwan
Another aspect of Chinese-language cinema developed on the island of Taiwan, off the coast of China. The government of Taiwan controlled filmmaking there during the middle decades of the 20th century, but by the early 1980s audiences were shunning local films in favour of action pictures from Hong Kong. A younger group of directors in Taiwan, similar to the Fifth Generation in their desire to break with old traditions, emerged under the banner of New Taiwanese Cinema. At the forefront was Hou Hsiao-hsien, who set his early works, such as Tongnian wangshi (1985; The Time to Live and the Time to Die) and Lainlian feng chen (1986; Dust in the Wind) in rural southern Taiwan. He developed a distinctive style emphasizing long shots and long takes, with little camera movement. When government censorship restrictions were lifted in the late 1980s, Hou launched a remarkable trilogy on Taiwan’s history during the Japanese occupation from its beginning in 1895 through World War II and the handover in 1945 of Taiwan to the Chinese Nationalist government: Beiqing chengshi (1989; City of Sadness), Hsimeng rensheng (1993; The Puppetmaster), and Haonan Haonu (1995; Good Men, Good Women). His later works include a sumptuous period piece set in 19th-century Shanghai, Hai shan hua (1998; Flowers of Shanghai), his first film to be set outside Taiwan.
Another leading figure of New Taiwanese Cinema was Edward Yang (Yang Dechang), whose work centred on the contemporary changes of urban culture in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei. Guling jie shaonian sharen shijian (1991; A Brighter Summer Day) took on Taiwan’s political history in a fashion similar to Hou’s trilogy. Yi yi (2000), a compelling portrait of a family and society, was honoured by the National Society of Film Critics in the United States as the year’s best film released there. Tsai Ming-liang, a filmmaker originally from Malaysia, continued Yang’s scrutiny of contemporary urban mores, albeit with more emphasis on socially marginal characters, in films such as Ching shao nien na cha (1993; Rebels of the Neon God), Aiqing wansui (1994; Vive l’amour), and Ni nei pien chi tien (2001; What Time Is It There?). Hong Kong