The Research Of Monthly Newspapers Of Film

Monthly Newspapers of Film starts publication in April 1st 1928. It is issued by Liuhe Film Operating Company which is founded by a group of primary film companies headed by Mingxing Film Company. This periodical stops publication on September 15 th 1929 with a total of twelve volumes altogether eleven issues(the last two is a double issue). Although its publication lasts only one year, Monthly Newspapers of Film has the biggest circulation among all the film periodicals in the late 1920’s. This distinctive periodical is also content-rich which has published a vast of film stills, the stories and various kinds of theoretical articles. In the case of lacking the early image data, those contemporaneous film periodicals have become the precious recorder and witness.The main contents of Monthly Newspapers of Film are composed of pictures and articles. Those pictures are composed of the fine arts column, the stills and cooper drawings as well as the comics and caricatures. The articles can be divided into the publicity and the theory. The propaganda articles include stories, movie reviews, news of upcoming films and some shooting notes. As for the theoretical articles, they consist of some basic film knowledge, the film theory, the film criticism and introductions to foreign films. In addition to the basic graphic contents, Monthly Newspapers of Film creates a special column named “Pilian”. The column is designed for short articles as well as film series which come from other areas besides Shanghai, and the 8th special issue of the sound film. Carrying a wealth of movie information, Monthly Newspapers of Film is an important literary text and original data. It attributes to reconstruct the early Chinese film history in a fragmented way. Furthermore, the densely publications of those numerous and professional theoretical articles are of comparatively historical value. Therefore, it is worthwhile to do a deep research on this periodical. This paper aims to discuss the significance of Monthly Newspapers of Film by analyzing the social context of film development at that time, the film industry staff and the characteristics of all the issues, etc.