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. 75 (In fact, this fetish ofmaking the masses heroes took a big toll on Chinese literature and art when Mao Zedongmade it the party s policy in 1942 in his talks at the Yan an Forum on Literature and Art.) The origins of left-wing cinema in China, 1932 37 12The next question to come out of the discussions of the function of Chinese cinema inthe 1930s is: Are subjects that reflect the life of the lower classes in a societynecessarily more realistic than the others? Critic Meng Gongwei wanted a broaderdefinition of reality. He complained that the reality that many film critics wantedwriters to reflect was limited to only economic crises and the contrast between the poorand the rich.He pleaded with writers to pay more attention to the most important issuethe national crisis.76 Meng Gongwei s wish was soon granted.Many left-wing films madein 1936 and 1937 were radical national defense films.It was also widely agreed that progressive Chinese films should reveal social contradictions when putting thesematerials together.Critic Xi Naifang demanded that filmmakers show the audience thenaked reality of contradiction and the irrational, making them grasp the necessity ofsocial change profoundly and forcing them seek an immediate way out.This is the newroad of Chinese film circles. 77 The naked reality of the contradiction involved theelement of the conflict between the suffering Chinese people and their enemiesimperialism (and feudalism).In a 1933 article called The Road of Chinese Cinema, Chenwu observed thatChinese cinema started to change the moment the news of hostilities on September 18,1931 and January 28, 1932 when the Japanese attack on Manchuria and Shanghai wasreported.This change was the shift to militant anti-imperialism.78 The well-known writerA Ying (using the pen name Feng Wu) wrote that the answer of the film industry to theguns of imperialism was an emphatic down with imperialism. 79 In 1933, as theysearched for the future of Chinese film, many filmmakers pointed out that one of thetasks of the Chinese film industry was to oppose imperialism and feudalism.ZhengZhengqiu, one of the leading directors and screenwriters of the Mingxing Film Company,in answering to his own question of How to step onto the road to progress, articulatedthe Three Anti slogans, which included anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism and anti-feudalism. Zheng hoped that this would become the common goal of those who wantedto march forward, and it would open up a way out for Chinese cinema as well as a wayout for the masses.80 After criticizing American films for their ideological content, Zhengadvocated that Chinese filmmakers study Soviet films and the Soviet film theories and letthis be the proper guide to the progressive road. 81 (The first time that a Russian filmwas screened publicly in China was in 1931, when Pudovkin s militant Storm Over Asia(1929), detailing the life of Genghis Khan, was shown in Shanghai.82)Many left-wingers felt that the best method of revealing social contradictions was toexpose what they regarded as the darkness of society. In an article written on August16, 1932, on the new Chinese cinema, critic Zi Yu suggests:Chinese cinema should reveal the conflict and human life through specificimages individual characters, individual events, individual occa-sionsand individual social relationships at specific places and times.Themethod should be exposure and revealing, not inference and induce. This requires screenwriters and directors to have a deepunderstanding of real life.83The method of exposure was advocated even when critics discussed the basic nature offilm.For example, Sha Zhongyan, another left-wing critic, believed that the contribution Art and Politics 13of filmmakers was to communicate the soul of the film in a beautiful way, and to exposesocial reality in order to reveal the real human life. 84 However, not everyone agreed that exposure was the best policy.Film critic Riku felt that the greatest responsibility ofcinema is not to expose and reveal, but to instruct. 85 This comment leads us todidacticism, another concept that was emphasized by the left-wing Chinese filmmakers
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