Discourse Authority And Identity Construction Of Chinese Film Criticism(1937-1949)

In the research of the Chinese film critical history, the part about the discourseauthority and identity construction still has considerable space. This thesis will takean effort to explore this phase of film from constituents of discourse authority andvarious complex critical text ideologies behind the text resources from 1937 to1949.The purpose is to make the study of Chinese film criticism from text level to a broaderideological and cultural level.This paper takes a detailed analysis on the Chinese film criticism of this periodfrom five perspectives such as the authority, identity, identification of categories.Firstly, national interpretation discourse and its distortion. The direct cause of itsemergence is the need of the War of Resistance Against Japan and the Third ChineseRevolutionary Civil War. The deeper reason is the national consciousness of critics.Many critics discussed the movie from a macro perspective such as the fate of countryand nation. This not only included the overall objective of"Serve for the War andPropaganda"during the War of Resistance Against Japan, but also involved thecritical discourse which aimed to discipline the film production in the period of theThird Chinese Revolutionary Civil War. However, the distortion phenomenon stillexists in specific period in this path. The main representative was the critic groupbased on the New Moviedom. They spotlighted their pro-Japanese standpoint andexculpated it----even soared the flag of patriotism. They shaped themselvescollaborationist nationalism'. Secondly, the "realism film ideal" is another authoritydiscourse form in this period associated with national interpretation. "Reflect thereality of war" and " make for the public" was the prominent appeal of the criticaldiscourse. Realistic ideality of film showed itself in a complicated visage thatcombined the interpretation of nation, the literary theory of Marxism, and the politicaldream of intellectuals, and realized its function of discourse concordance andconfining. Thirdly, the multiple perspectives on the main identity construction of film criticism. Difference still lived in most critical text which regard the Western Film asa'threaten'; double attitude towards the Japanese film; the identity on theanti-Fascism contained in the films of Soviet Union. This kind of selection andidentification to foreign movies is the important way to reshape oneself. Multipleattitudes towards foreign movies revealed complex political and cultural position andunderstanding of social situation of the critics in the process of constructing theirsubject identity. Fourth, the highlight and reflection of film critical self-awareness is aproblem that associated with discourse authority and identity construction. TheChinese film critics entrust a great expectation on film industry and film critical itself,as they regarded film criticism as a hallow thing with save role when they ponderedthe prospect of China. Therefore, film criticism must take the role of propagandizing,educating, and guiding the mass, even rescue the whole nation. The intensifying ofthis point of view has gradually expelled the room of'soft film', which advocatescritical origins from technique and discourse analysis. However, when critics focus onanalyzing the critical theory of that time, those'qualified critics', who held acompatible view on combining ideology, technique, and language, were labeled as notexist. This kind of reflection and worry on themselves is the indication that theself-consciousness of critics is becoming mature. Fifthly, discourse advantages whichwere done by "region and identity"centralized highlighted the process that howpolitical colour of region space shaped the identity, and words authority that realizedby the premise of patriotic feature of critical identity. After the start of the War ofResistance Against Japan, the filmmakers stranded in Shanghai apparently lackedsimilar critical discourse authority as that from the rear , though they did not give upto describes helpless and there identity of film art maker. Meanwhile, filmcriticism of newspapers from the rear took political and moral judgment of Shanghaias the premise. They reviewed the Hong Kong and shanghai film industry. Thisadvantage of discourse is closely related to the patriotic stance and political identity ofthe rear intellectuals. Actually, those critics had lost their rights to interpret andconstruct themselves in the critical discourse because the Shanghai intellectuals weredefined as a group of selfish depravity. Therefore, what a further research could get is a practice that premised fromself-identities and ethic judgment made by Chinese intellectuals during the time of1937-1949. During this period, film criticism involves right of speaking,self-identities, and Cultural identity was in fact a pluralistic one under one integratedmass, which performed the plentiful concerned contents and the clash of criticaldiscourses inside.