Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture 1604979755, 9781604979756

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Red Sorghum and the Resilience of the People
Chapter 2: Judou and the Ethics of the Gaze
Chapter 3: Raise the Red Lantern
Chapter 4: The Law and the People
Chapter 5: The Invisible Sovereign
Chapter 6: Keep Cool
Chapter 7: Happy Times
Chapter 8: Dismantling the Myth of Cultural Power
Chapter 9: Where in the World is Kenichi?
Conclusion
Chinese Character List
Zhang Yimou Feature Film Filmography (as director)
Other films cited
References
Index
About the Author
Praise for the Book

Citation preview

2017. Cambria Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. Copyright

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Zhang Yimou

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Zhang Yimou Globalization and the Subject of Culture

Wendy Larson           Cambria Sinophone World Series General Editor: Victor H. Mair      Cambria Contemporary Global Performing Arts Series General Editor: John M. Clum

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Copyright 2017 Cambria Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to: [email protected], or mailed to: Cambria Press University Corporate Centre, 100 Corporate Parkway, Suite 128 Amherst, New York 14226, U.S.A. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on file. ISBN 9781604979756 (alk. paper)

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For my aunt, Clarice “Kelly” Christenson (1921-)

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Table of Contents

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Introduction: The Subject of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1: Red Sorghum and the Resilience of the People . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Chapter 2: Judou and the Ethics of the Gaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Chapter 3: Raise the Red Lantern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Chapter 4: The Law and the People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Chapter 5: The Invisible Sovereign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Chapter 6: Keep Cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Chapter 7: Happy Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Chapter 8: Dismantling the Myth of Cultural Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Chapter 9: Where in the World is Kenichi? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Conclusion: National Culture on a Global Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Chinese Character List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Zhang Yimou Feature Film Filmography (as director) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 Other films cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 Praise for the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Jiu’er smiling at the fake bandit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Figure 2: My Grandpa after seeing Jiu’er return from the bandit  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Figure 3: Tianqing handing over profits to Jinshan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Figure 4: Reflection of Tianbai in the dye pool just as he is about to tip Tianqing in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Figure 5: Tianqing at right, the donkey at left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Figure 6: Judou and Tianqing with paper money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Figure 7: Meishan and Songlian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Figure 8: Songlian imagines foot massage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Figure 9: Yan’er imagines foot massage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Figure 10: Qiuju and Meizi approached by pedicab man . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Figure 11: Home-moving Furniture, by Wong Wai Yin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Figure 12: Qiuju and Meizi in new jackets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Figure 13: Fengxia looking at puppet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Figure 14: Puppet on bayonet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

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Figure 15: Courtyard with Mao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Figure 16: Life will get better and better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Figure 17: Peddler (played by director Zhang Yimou) riding by with picture of woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Figure 18: The perpetually tilted camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Figure 19: Anhong on her bike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Figure 20: Costumed women singing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Figure 21: In the restaurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Figure 22: “Eight.”  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Figure 23: Xiao Wu amidst speeding cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Figure 24: The capitalist cornucopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Figure 25: Lao Zhao pressured by the presence of Xiao Wu . . . . . . . . . 263 Figure 26: Lao Zhao further pressured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Figure 27: Lao Zhao tries to retreat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Figure 28: Lao Zhao stuck in the room with Xiao Wu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Figure 29: Xiao Wu outside abandoned factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Figure 30: Xiao Wu smells the fake money with authentic factory surfaces in the background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

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List of Figures

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Figure 31: Former factory workers happily watch Xiao Wu working  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Figure 32: Xiao Wu in fake massage parlor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Figure 33: Leaf fight  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Figure 34: Qin soldiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Figure 35: Calligraphy master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Figure 36: King of Qin and Nameless before character “Sword.”  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Figure 37: Banquet table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 Figure 38: Takata’s videotaped plea with Lingo in person . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Figure 39: Tape from Rei of Kenichi in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Figure 40: Zhan Xueyan on stage with other Anshun Local Opera performers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

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Acknowledgements Over the course of this project, I have presented many talks and engaged in many debates on Zhang Yimou and his films. The simple statement that I am working on Zhang Yimou often has elicited negative comments, although I also have met with curious questions and active, thoughtful engagement, for which I am grateful. One of the first colleagues to interact with me on this project was Nicholas Kaldis, who wrote a gracious and thought-provoking response to my early article on Hero (reworked in this book). I also have benefitted greatly from discussions with and support from my colleagues at the University of Oregon, especially Bryna Goodman, Roy Chan, Maram Epstein, Allison Groppe, Yugen Wang, Ina Asim, Stephen Durrant, and my former colleague Tze-lan Sang. I am grateful to Xudong Zhang for inviting me to speak several times at New York University, and to Xudong and his colleagues for their engaged discussion. I deeply appreciate these opportunities, which have helped me imagine new ways of thinking about Zhang’s films. While on sabbatical in 2012–2013, I worked at East China Normal University for four months, thanks to the assistance of Luo Gang, director of the Simian Institute of Advanced Studies at ECNU. I also spent half a year at the Asia Research Institute at Singapore National University,

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where I participated in the Cultural Studies Colloquium led by Chua Ben Huat, who organized our discussions and presentations and kept things lively and engaged. Prasenjit Duara, the Director of ARI, led a program of talks, including mine, which enhanced the many scholarly conversations at the institute. I am grateful to my colleagues at ARI and NUS, including Pheng Cheah, David G. Strand, William Callahan, Felicia Chan, Song Hwee Lim, Andrea Riemenschnitter, David G. Strand, Nicolai Volland, and Lanjun Xu for their stimulating conversation. Sebastian Veg has voiced some penetrating questions about my work that have been very helpful. I also deeply appreciate the discussions about Zhang Yimou that I have had with Li Haixia, who spent a year at the University of Oregon as a visiting scholar in 2013-14 and interviewed me about the project. I extend gratitude to those who have invited me to speak on this project, either individually or as part of conferences or workshops, including some previously mentioned colleagues as well as Julian Ward, Gloria Davies, Geremie Barmé, Mark Gallagher, Chris Lupke, Timothy Cheek, Patrick Lucas, Xin Yang, and Jiwei Xiao.My thanks to Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley for inviting me to contribute to their volume, Global Chinese Cinema: The Culture and Politics of ‘Hero’, which came out in 2010, and to Song Hwee Lim and Julian Ward, who accepted my “first volley” on the controversial film Hero for the Journal of Chinese Cinemas. And thank you to the scholars—Sabrina Q. Yu, Yingjin Zhang, Margaret Hillenbrand, Jason McGrath, and Andy Rodekhor—who participated in the AAS 2015 round table on Zhang Yimou that I organized. I received support for this project from the University of Oregon, which helped fund a sabbatical and provided research support. I want to extend a special thanks to my department, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and the many colleagues who have supervised me in my administrative work at UO. They recognized the value of my continual scholarly engagement and provided considerable financial and other support. I also benefitted greatly from an American Council of Learned Society grant to work in China, where I settled at ECNU, which provided library privileges and involved me in many talks and activities. The

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Acknowledgements

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Asia Research Institute generously provided housing and many other privileges for a half-year of research in Singapore. I also want to thank Wong Wai Yin for permission to use an image of her art installation, “Home-moving furniture.” Finally, I want to thank Toni Tan, director at Cambria Press, for her encouragement and support. With the establishment of the Cambria Sinophone World Series under the general editorship of Victor H. Mair, Toni is a remarkable pioneer in academic publishing. The series has already developed an impressive list of publications. I apologize if I have forgotten to include any of the many people and organizations that have pushed me along the way. For all of this help and support, I am very grateful.

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Zhang Yimou

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Introduction

The Subject of Culture The multiple-award-winning Chinese film director Zhang Yimou (1951–) must be the most admired and reviled film director China has ever seen.1 Since he began his work in the late 1980s, his steady stream of films has produced a profusion of criticism both pro and con.2 By 2008, more than 400 articles had been published in China about him, as opposed to around 150 for Xie Jin (1923–2008), next in line, and going down from there for other directors (Li Jinmei 2008, 2). The debate, which has involved some of China’s leading humanistic intellectuals as well as international scholars, has touched on the gamut of concerns that have faced China since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The embrace of capitalism and a renewed relationship with the nonsocialist world motivated a reevaluation and reimagining of socialist history, and Zhang’s work is often contextualized within that effort. In a way that has affected many countries or areas with rich cultural and economic histories but without the sustained industrialization of Europe and the United States, the socalled opening up of China under Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) prompted questions about the position of the nation as it relates to other nations, and eventually, as a leading player in globalization. Many intellectuals directly addressed culture, with investigations into the question of how

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various Chinese traditional and modern practices, ideas, beliefs, habits, and social environments function. Fascination with the controversial film Hero (2002) led me to think more about culture—what it is, how it works, and how globalization is changing its function. Early on, I imagined this project to center on “national culture on the global stage,” but immersion into Zhang Yimou’s films moved me away from that concept, as well as away from thinking about the particular situation of Chinese culture or “Chineseness.” Although Zhang is not the only film director to focus on the position and role of culture in a globalizing world, nor is this issue unique to film as opposed to literature or other creative work, I found an intriguing focus within a significant subset of films directed by Zhang. In this project, I argue that these films center on the significance, potential, and limitations not of various forms of cultural difference or anything that could be called Chinese culture, but rather the field of the cultural in postsocialist China. The films set that query within the historically determined conditions of China, viewing the local through a sharp lens that often works allegorically to consider various and limitations that derive from both past and present. Although the films I work on—less than half of Zhang Yimou’s oeuvre to date—cannot be understood or summarized by means of a single unifying theory, my analysis examines how they locate and evaluate cultural resources available or unavailable to people living in a rapidly transforming environment. Although Zhang Yimou has been criticized for flattering Western audiences and creating for them an unduly powerful and self-justifying viewer’s position, I argue that many of his films do not appease so much as they incorporate within themselves an understanding of the new context, or an awareness of how culture is changing under globalization. A similar awareness can be found in the films of other directors, as well as writers and artists, working during the same period. Yet Zhang Yimou’s interest in this topic, as well as his refusal to privilege the special forms of Chinese culture, is strongly evident in his narrative and

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The Subject of Culture

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aesthetic approach. Themes of performance under coercion, the duplicity of display, and action under constraint appear frequently. These filmic topos are interwoven with attention to the formation of subjectivity: how gazing and being gazed upon alters ethics and affect, and how the mind and behavior are formed under duress. Concerns about power and sovereignty, as well as “modernizing” forces in postsocialist China, also figure prominently. The films contribute not only to an in-depth understanding of transformation in China but also to a broader creative field that examines the relationship between the nation-state and culture under the developing conditions of globalization. Although the films I examine probe the possibilities for and the limitations of culture in contemporary China, I contend that their perspective is not a simple issue of cultural nationalism or the promotion of uncritical patriotism. Nonetheless, the fierce debate among cultural intellectuals, both inside and outside China, is an important tool that can be used to identify salient concerns both as applied to Zhang’s films and in social conversation. In this introduction, I first briefly evaluate the research on Zhang Yimou available in Chinese and English, and identify the main issues. Second, I analyze the debate about culture in the context of the developing nation-state and ongoing globalization, a topic that has spawned a massive scholarly effort, and lay out my interpretation and analysis in more detail. Finally, I include notes on methodology aimed at explaining my decisions to focus on the films of one director and my emphasis on close analysis.

The field of debate When Yellow Earth by Chen Kaige (1952–) burst onto the global scene in 1984, it immediately drew the attention of Western audiences to Chinese film, whose Fourth Generation directors had gone virtually unnoticed in Europe and the United States, the most important sites where recognition could lubricate ascension in the global hierarchy of film culture. But in China it was One and Eight (Zhang Junzhao 1983)

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that jolted audiences into realizing something important had changed. As director Guo Baochang (1940-) recalls, “As soon as the film came out I was shocked. Its arrangement of space was so unique, the light had so much character, the actors’ emotions were so simple and real, the emergence of the space outside the scene, incompletely composed, had so much imagination, and the screen rendering was so strong and powerful. It was an entirely new filmic language, imbued with personality, the most rebellious, and simply the very best film” (quoted in Li Jinmei 2008, 2). Made at the Guangxi Film Studio with Zhang Yimou as cinematographer, One and Eight heralded a drastic break from the past both visually and in its narrative approach. Although early on, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang (1952–) often were mentioned as the new directors who would radically change Chinese film, Zhang’s visual style, amply evident in One and Eight, eventually became the calling card through which Chinese film of this period was globally recognized. In his evocative history of the Fifth Generation, Ni Zhen (2002) explains that “Zhang Yimou's role as cinematographer determined the visual design and narrative structures of the earliest Fifth Generation films. An emphasis on visual language marked the films directed by Zhang Junzhao (1952–) and Chen Kaige, One and Eight and Yellow Earth, and because the films were widely acknowledged, the legend of the Fifth Generation and its style somehow took a new direction” (145). Red Sorghum, the first film directed by Zhang Yimou, came out in 1987 and was rapidly followed by Ju Dou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991). The Red Trilogy, as it was called, distanced the thematic and aesthetic discourses of the socialist period, building powerful allegorical stories set in a somewhat indeterminate past. Although Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Junzhao, and others also made films that were visually impressive, the new style that became the trademark of the Fifth Generation was most effectively deployed by Zhang Yimou, first as cinematographer and later as director. But as soon as Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear award in Berlin in 1988, the debate launched, with a flurry of articles coming out during the following two years and even more after.3 Those who were positive

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The Subject of Culture

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about the film praised it as embodying a special Chinese ethnic spirit, a historical connection to earlier generations of Chinese, and an Eastern aesthetic. Yet the films’ alluring visual style and emphasis on the rural poor brought the scorn of a new generation of cultural and film critics. Taking their ammunition from feminist theory, postcolonial criticism, globalization theory, and postmodern critique, these critics vigorously condemned Zhang Yimou’s early (and later) films. The selective summary in the following section is designed not to be comprehensive but rather meant to delineate an important and relevant field.4 A combination of feminist and postcolonialist critique singles out Zhang’s early “trapped female” as a reflection of the Western gaze directed at the East, and zeroes in on the representation of women as misogyny (Dai Jinhua 1994; Qu Yajun 1998; Chen Huifen 1999). This “male gaze,” best known in Western film theory through the work of Laura Mulvey (1999 [1975]), constructs an ethnic version of the damsel in distress that appeals to men by giving them a target of desire and a blueprint for heroic action, and to women in its ability to forge a relative position through which they can solicit interest and, to a lesser degree, act. Although Mulvey’s work is now considered dated, it was groundbreaking in showing how film can embody and project the assumptions of a gendered social field. Feminist critics in China argue that this model works in China not only in its implications of gender and power but also through the desire of Westerners, who subconsciously want to the keep the Eastern “Other” in a position of subservience and weakness. Jiu’er of Red Sorghum, Judou of Judou, and Songlian of Raise the Red Lantern all are examples. According to this critique, Zhang’s early films are engaging spectacles constructed to satisfy the desire not just of males but of the West as a body, which tries to keep the non-West in a vulnerable subject position of limited agency. This trick is accomplished via a filmic manipulation of desire that always assigns the role of the one-who-is-looking (and implicitly judging) to the Western audience. This critical approach often combines several strands of contemporary criticism, ultimately resting on the insight gained from a metaphorical transfer of the attractive, sexualized, and vulnerable woman

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gazed upon by men who wish to possess and control her into a global critique of imperialism and the positioning of the non-West by the West. Overall, the combined feminist/postcolonial perspective emphasizes the subjectification, voyeurism, self-feminization, and spectacle in Zhang’s films, which, critics argue, make him an unwitting toady of the West and constitute a broadly based betrayal of China. In addition to leveling an attack along these lines, Chen Xiaoming (1994) and Zhang Yiwu (2001, 2003) also criticize the filmmaker for excessive spectacle, but they focus more intensely on his depiction of so-called Eastern folk customs, as well as for his strong desire to be viewed—or made into an object of voyeuristic interest—by the West. The director’s creation of an obedient “Other” who fawns on the West and creates an image that pleases it, following its master economically and ideologically, along with the ethnic allegory through which this subservience is expressed, make up the elements of this critique. For these critics, the proof that Zhang’s early films are merely reflecting back to the West what it wants to see is in the relative fall from grace of his later films, which did not dwell on “ethnic China” and therefore failed to garner nearly as much Western attention. Zhang Yimou’s success was always based on the Western imagination of China as strange and inferior, Chen Xiaoming and Zhang Yiwu assert, adding that the rapid inroads into postsocialist China made by Hollywood only enhanced the director’s dependency on and identification with what they call an arm of American cultural imperialism. Zhang’s “China,” therefore, is produced out of this cultural logic of reductionism, and this tendency continues under globalization and commercialization. A related angle, developed by Wang Yichuan (1997) and Sha Lin (2004), is to argue that Zhang Yimou can be excused for “moving toward the world,” a common phrase that refers to China’s reengagement with the West after 1979. This perspective recognizes that cultural work in the 1980s cannot help but embody the values of the European Enlightenment and its individualism, a powerful alternative that could potentially offset

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the ills of socialist culture after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The replacement of Enlightenment values by market forces in the following decade, which demanded a turn toward mass culture, is also a much more general trend for which any single director cannot be held accountable, Wang and Sha contend. What they find untenable in Zhang’s films is that during the late 1980s, when “opening” to the world, identifying with Westerners, and actualizing the self were common and muchembraced themes that necessarily stimulated China to emerge from its relative socialist isolation, Zhang Yimou sought out unusual mythical environments and strange situations. The idea that fascist elements lurk in the Zhang’s earlier films and come to full fruition in Hero is also a strong interpretive strand in the work of Wang Yichuan, Hu Ke, and Zhang Yiwu.5 Whereas this criticism rang loudly after Hero came out, some identify a subtler assignment of power and control to the state in Zhang’s early phase.6 Regarding the ability of Zhang’s films to break into a hierarchy determined in Europe and the United States as a victory, Yan Chunjun (1995) and Huang Shixian (2005) robustly reject the postmodernist and postcolonial arguments, the charge of toadying to the West, and the point that the ethnic culture displayed in Zhang’s films is unrealistic and damaging. They argue that it is not possible to readily sum up and dismiss all of the ideas and aesthetic concepts in the director’s films, and that the appreciation of his films by Western audiences through the single, reductive lens of postcolonialism is itself a form of bias. From a pragmatic perspective, these critics ask whether the goal of such criticism is to stop filmmakers from seeking an audience in the West or the rest of the world, arguing that this strategy could readily run the risk of forcing the Chinese film industry into a true postcolonial context forever. Moreover, this approach also demands that China, as an “Other” that must stand alone, refuse be part of global discourse. In general, postcolonial theory as carried out by Zhang Yimou’s critics seeks to isolate the topic of “China,” rather than to integrate it within intellectual debate carried on internationally, according to Yan and Huang. But in reality, Zhang

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and the other Fifth Generation directors have expanded the influence of and market for Chinese film and enhanced cultural exchange. In a stinging rebuke to the postcolonialists, Yan Chunjun contends that despite the anti-Zhang critics’ complaints about the ethnic depictions and representations of backwardness in films directed by Zhang Yimou, postcolonialism itself is a Third World discourse based on an underlying theory of ethnicity. Along similar lines, Zhu Shoutong (1988), Huang Shixian (2005), and Jia Leilei (1994), while sometimes critical of Zhang’s films, argue that the Fifth Generation were participants in the crafting of a new postMao society and remind readers that the films launched a fresh and innovative cultural wave that grabbed the attention of Asia and the world. Their breakthrough was truly earth-shattering, these critics argue, and demonizing their films as having been coerced and manipulated by the West is nothing other than a form of cultural nihilism. The attention garnered in Hollywood by Fifth Generation films suggests not a postcolonial mentality, but a rejection of separation and isolation. Ultimately, the postcolonial critique aimed at Zhang Yimou is ahistorical, narrow, and self-defeating; it is a form of negativity that leads away from pluralism toward monoculture. Pro-Zhang critics contend that while claiming a radical edge, under the fashionable surface of postcolonial criticism hides the new-style conservatism typical of this period. Bent on returning to China’s rejection of the West that underlay the socialist period, the anti-Zhang critics long for the time when China was the center of the universe and everyone else was outside, according to this perspective. Critics writing in English also have taken a strong interest in Zhang Yimou’s films. Similar arguments emerge, albeit with somewhat different foci. The ritualization and masculine encoding of culture in the early films, made exotic by ethnic detail, has been analyzed by Esther Yau (1989) and Hu Ying (1999), who argue that films such as Raise the Red Lantern produce the image of a totality, a culture set in stone, and something

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impossible to change. The alluring, seductive ritual also produces a China recognizable by its ethnographic exoticism. They claim that common in Zhang’s work is the conflict between cultural tradition and a tragic heroine, through which he both capitalizes on Oriental exoticism while also critiquing it, trying to have it both ways. This perspective has a great deal in common with the Chinese-language feminist argument: Zhang Yimou’s films exploit women and Chinese culture in unacceptable ways. It also invokes the postcolonialist critique that Zhang panders to Western desire to keep China weak, vulnerable, and impoverished. While pro-Zhang critics take various tacks, their work often lends support to the idea that Zhang’s early films must be interpreted as a certain representation of China, according to Rey Chow (1995, 1996, 2003, 2004b), an energetic and supportive researcher of Zhang Yimou’s films. While agreeing with Zhang’s attackers that his collective use of objects and narratives to evoke a mysterious sense of ethnicity is a kind of self-subalternization, his filmic style and emphasis on visuality and surface take his films one step beyond, turning them into a fullfledged confrontation with Western theories of depth, Chow argues. Zhang grasps this principle and the reality that film is about images, creating not an orientalist display, but a critique of orientalism and a new ethnography, eventually taking on ethics as well. Writing on Chinese cinema and nation, others also find significance in the characters played by Gong Li in Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and Raise the Red Lantern, all of whom are either unhappily married to or forced into concubinage with older, tyrannical men against whom they struggle (Larson 1995; Berry and Farquhar 2006). This approach recasts sexual behavior as part of the collective cause and progressively shows how through her active desire, Gong Li’s characters gain agency and work against patriarchal figures, a process that can symbolize the abuse of the Communist Party and resistance to its power. Zhang Yimou’s recent films have results in a flurry of new activity. In particular, Hero has produced fascinating interpretations from Feng

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Lan (2008), Margaret Hillenbrand (2013), and Jason McGrath (2013), all of whom reject an analysis that is founded on exposing the authoritarian nature of the film—an approach common in both China and the West. While Feng Lan makes a philosophical inquiry into the history of the important term tianxia (all under heaven), Hillenbrand and McGrath focus on the aesthetic aspects of the film, respectively interpreting the use of color and computer generated images. Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley (2014) have commissioned a collection of articles about various aspects of Hero and published it as a book, with emphasis on technical analysis, theme, and reception. At the center of the debate in publications in Chinese and to a lesser degree in English are questions of audience and self-display, and of how to interpret the success of Zhang’s films in the West. From the point of view of both critics and advocates, this success could force the films into the position of representing China and Chinese culture to the world. Those who criticize Zhang are heavily against the way in which he “moves toward the world,” but nonetheless assume that his films must represent China, implicitly agreeing with the much-contested national allegory that Fredric Jameson (1986) argued was a precondition of Third World literature: I will argue that, although we may retain for convenience and for analysis such categories as the subjective and the public or political, the relations between them are wholly different in thirdworld culture. Third-world texts, even those which are seemingly private and invested with a properly libidinal dynamic—necessarily project a political dimension in the form of national allegory: the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society. (69)7 Although the interpretation of Zhang’s films as representing China through a disreputable, fawning form of culture is present in both Chinese and English criticism, it is both more common and more fervently argued in Chinese-language scholarship. On the part of those who view

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themselves as cultural natives, this greater emphasis indicates a deeper concern with cultural authenticity and identity, and a greater sensitivity to the imbalance of power. These critics’ concern that Zhang has not put forward the best of Chinese culture, their anger that he has put himself and the nation in a subservient position, and their general wariness about performative enunciations of “China” in the West points to a strong sense that the playing field is not entirely level.

National culture, global culture Writing on Chinese cinema and the nation, Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar (2006) call for the “final abandonment of the old national cinemas model, which assumed nation-states were stable and coherent and that films expressed singular national identity,” instead arguing that a problematic around the question of cinema and the nation should take its place (2). Although they question assumptions of national stability, in other words, that “the national informs almost every aspect of the Chinese cinematic image and narrative repertoire” (2), Berry and Farquhar further contend that resistance to imperialism and rejection of the foreign cannot constitute the rationale of the transnational. What is needed, they state, is a more complex view of agency, a concept much debated within cultural studies, where the attempt by Antonio Gramsci (2011) to figure out how people could be manipulated by a state in pursuit of hegemony has spawned hundreds of studies. The definition and location of culture along a spectrum from ideal to material and from autonomous to dependent is a central concern in this work. The use of classical and evolved Marxist approaches to culture has combined with cultural studies to contextualize literature, film, art and popular culture within a much broader framework. As Douglas Kellner (2016) states, “In general, for a Marxian approach, cultural forms always emerge in specific historical situations, serving particular socio-economic interests and carrying out important social functions. For Marx and Engels, the cultural ideas of an epoch serve the interests of the ruling class, providing ideologies that

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legitimate class domination” (1). Yet the abilities and role of culture were elevated under later cultural Marxists, who “ascribed more autonomy and import to culture than classical Marxists” (2). Can culture produce resistance to invasion, capitalism, or nonindigenous practices? Can it preserve, sustain, and evolve something distinct to a community, a way of life through which its members can gain a positive social and cultural identity? The debate has been confusing and multifarious; at one pole, culture is treated as a masquerade justifying privilege and producing myths, under capitalism becoming an economic imperative that enhances capital’s ability to subsume labor within habit. At the other end, culture is a fully autonomous practice with its own internal logic and meaning-generating strategies, thus containing the resources through which a specific life-world can coalesce.8 In the explosion of interest in culture after World War II, this spectrum has expanded to include all aspects of human life, forming a vast field of inquiry both befuddling and exhilarating in its complexity.9 Discussion by critics working on Chinese culture shows that agency and cultural difference have been crucial but tricky issues. Is implicit or explicit refusal to bend to ethnic, gender, or economic demands a precondition of agency, and, if so, does this perspective define struggle as fundamentally based on opposition to a preexisting discourse? Some wonder how the struggle can become proactive, turning into a positive act that transcends reaction and produces authentic and positive rather than negative agency. Amartya Sen (2007) identifies negative agency as one aspect of the colonialized mind, which focuses endlessly on its relation with former colonial masters: When the Muslim kingdoms ran the centers of civilization in the old world, from Spain and Morocco to India to Indonesia, there was no feverish need to define oneself in negative terms…being Muslim or Arab at that time involved a very positive identity. They had a philosophy, they had an interest in science, they had interest in their own work, they had interest in other people’s work…We see a similar attempt to raise the banner of “Asian

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values” today—it was very strong in the 1990s—when East and Southeast Asia try to “Westernize” feverishly. (14) Countering this doomsday scenario, Berry and Farquhar (2006) argue that “resistance under transnational conditions needs to be understood not as rejection, but through ambivalent metaphors of exchange ranging from theft, poaching, and appropriation, to paying a price” (205). They chart the ever-increasing hegemony of Hollywood in the relatively free market that followed the entry of Taiwan and China into the World Trade Organization. In Taipei, by 1999, almost 97% of box office was foreign films, and while China limits Hollywood imports, the twenty foreign films allowed in annually occupy from 60% to 85% of the local film-viewing market. Berry and Farquhar recognize that under these conditions, piracy is often considered simple resistance—although to what is not clear, given that Hollywood films are actively pirated—but they are not completely happy with that equation, eventually describing piracy with the phrase “resistance as negotiation” (209). This kind of resistance sits uneasily with their statement that the damage piracy does to the local market is far greater than what it does to Hollywood. Like many who have discussed culture and identity, Berry and Farquhar struggle to theorize the contradictions that make the much-debated concept of agency so slippery.10 One example comes in their discussion of Hero, a blockbuster that captured the international audience and was financially successful, thereby negotiating agency, albeit the “new agency” that is more difficult to recognize and comprehend. What the new agency becomes under transnational conditions is “the achievement of agency through appropriation and submission,” which involves partial acceptance of American or European models, video piracy, and global blockbusters, all of which contribute to this murky, half-subservient, half-resistant state of cultural indeterminacy (211).11 Whether produced out of and understood as resistance to the hegemony of the West or not, agency dogs discussions of culture, copycat-ism (shanzhai), and authenticity in Chinese studies. This debate often revolves around the

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way in which power works through or with culture to subtly influence, and around the potential of culture to resist power. The spectrum of approaches to culture also shadows recent discussion of globalization, transnationalism, postcolonialism, and cosmopolitanism in academic literature, a body of writing that covers a wide range and has sprouted many branches. Proponents who herald the decline of the nationstate point joyfully to the internet and its disregard of national borders, the mobility and uncontrollability of global capital, increased migration, travel, and movement of people in all classes, and environmental issues that demand regional and global cooperation. These transformations, some contend, will subsume hypocritical claims to origin in a swirl of hybridity, which is, after all, the underlying truth of a cultural authenticity only imagined to be pure.12 At the same time, worrisome concerns are the increasingly ubiquitous use of English as a global lingua franca, the dollar as a common currency, and the attraction of Hollywood films— in short, an apparent Westernization or Americanization hiding within globalizing trends, and a new hybridity emerging from the erasure rather than the acceptance of difference. The debate over whether it is necessary to first go through a strongly national phase before aspiring to the new cosmopolitan world supposedly governed by world organizations also must take into account the establishment of new sovereign nation-states, a phenomenon that has been a constant part of recent global political life as former colonial governments have declared independence and large socialist regimes have fallen. Over the last quarter century, this list would include some nineteen nation-states.13 It seems, in other words, that while some are ready to push for the demise of the sovereign nation and strive toward an emancipatory globalization replete with its own borderless political entities, others are still working to attain recognition as one among many in the family of nations, or to hone their position within that structure—as China has done for the last thirty or forty years. The 2003 debate on European culture, prompted by articles launched into the public sphere by Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (2003),

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testifies to the enduring relevance of and unease about cultural identity and agency, global position, and hierarchy that haunts political bodies and peoples. It also suggests that this concern is not a second or third world problem alone. In the wake of the American invasion of Iraq, these leading intellectuals proposed that Europe unite around a set of fundamental European values, beliefs, tendencies, and qualities that would distinguish it from other nations, in particular the United States, and in the process develop a model for a future supranational world.14 As Krishan Kumar (2008) explains, “The article by Habermas and Derrida was clearly in the nature of a manifesto, a Declaration of European Independence. Above all, it was independence from America. The two authors wished to assert the distinctiveness, as well as the autonomy, of European political and cultural values…” (89–90). While recognizing the global influence of Western values in a general sense, Habermas and Derrida argue that a set of authentic, long-lasting core values distinguish the cultural, social, and political life of all Europeans. Roughly speaking, these values are the privatization of faith, trust in the civilizing power of the state, the sensitivity of citizens to the paradoxes of power, the tradition of collective action, and leadership in supranationalism. The manifesto triggered a debate that evaluated the content of the so-called core European culture that Habermas and Derrida proposed, noting its exclusions, its basis in German and French thought, and the covert European nationalism hiding under its supranationalism. Some argued that the proclamation was little more than a demand for strengthening Eurocentrism rather than an argument on behalf of a more inclusive global democracy, with Iris Marion Young (2005) noting “… Habermas may reinscribe the logic of the nation-state for Europe, rather than transcend it” (156). If Young’s point is taken, Habermas and Derrida view the European Union not as a group of unique nations, but as a collection of states connected by and through a common set of values forming a larger federation, which also could become or function as a sovereign nation. Such a strong proclamation by leading French and German intellectuals on behalf of cultural similitude for the European Union, and the attempt

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to carve out of a cultural and ideological sphere clearly differentiating it from the United States, shows that despite increasing interest in the “de-nationalization” that popular terms such as global, cosmopolitanization/cosmopol, hybrid, border-crossing, transnational, and the third space suggest, the desire to establish and express a unified cultural identity has not disappeared, even for first world political bodies.15 As doyen of anthropological studies of culture Clifford Geertz (2004) states, “But by far the bulk of the discussion, confused and anxious and inconclusive, has been directed toward the future of the predominant political form of the nineteenth and twentieth-century West, ‘nation-state.’ Is it going away? Changing form? Restrengthening? Indispensable? Due for a comeback? What can it mean in countries with dozens of languages, religions, races, localities, ethnicities, custom communities” (579)?16 Political models of community devolving from structures of kingdom, empire, tribe, religious affiliation, supranationalism, and global human rights are part the experience of peoples across the globe, and provide conceptual alternatives to a nation-state that is often thought to have emerged from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 Europe.17 At the same time, although many recognize that globalization is underway economically, socially, and culturally, it is unclear that the changes will necessarily either topple the nation-state or lead to a more peaceful and prosperous societies. Questions about governance and the neutrality of globalizing forces, which can be used by criminals and by oppressive as well as progressive forces, continue to devil utopian imaginaries. The typical form and value of the nation-state—let alone the yet-to-emerge global governance structure—is not consistently agreed upon. In response to Clifford Geertz, Thomas Hylland Eriksen comments that because “human worlds are created intersubjectively, based on experience, locally specific, and so on,” it is “impossible to take slippery concepts like ‘nation,’ ‘state,’ and ‘people’ at face value” (Geertz 2004, 586). And Marianne Gullestad reminds us that Norway became a nation-state only in 1905, having been the junior partner in a union with Sweden for 100 years and only a region under the Danish crown for 400 years, which means that nationalism

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has been perceived as “positive, liberating, and democratizing” (Geertz 2004, 588). But what role does culture play in all of this? Culture is not thought to have a necessary relationship to any particular form of political organization, but culture is something that exists everywhere. It is an aspect of life within all sizes of groups, a part of the life of a single individual, can be inclusive or exclusive, and can rapidly change. It is striking that under globalization, even with recognition of the hybridity of all identities, ideas of home and life in a specific locale, in a specific way, and with allegiance to various groups however constituted/under change, have not disappeared. An important debate revolves around the fear that globalization will slowly chip away at and destroy not only local and regional cultures, but the very idea that they will or should continue. For some, marginal or non-Western cultures contain the possibility that alternative life-worlds radically different from the EuroAmerican model—whatever that actually is—can thrive and form the basis of a multipolar world. It is not unusual for cultural theorists to find themselves trapped in a conundrum, on one hand questioning cultural nationalism or allegiance to specific forms of culture, while on the other lamenting universalization. From the perspective of cultures thought of as different life-worlds based on a unique combination of habitual forms, one primary danger of globalization is universalization, not just at the level of overt cultural forms but in a much subtler way that transforms subjectivities and desires, as described by Helena Norberg-Hodge (2007): Simultaneously, at the psychological level, you have media, advertising, even schooling, promoting the notion that the future is urban, the future is, in effect, a Western consumer lifestyle. This lifestyle is associated with looking like a white European, eating European-style food, wearing European-style clothes, and worst of all, having the skin color, eye color, manners, and language of a European. The end result is that young children are being made to feel that their own language, their own skin color, their own way of being is inferior. I have witnessed this very closely in

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In an earlier interview, Norberg-Hodge further documents the transformation: Thirty-five years ago, I had the great privilege of living and working in Ladakh, or Little Tibet. People there seemed happier than any people I had ever met. To me, this seemed to come from a self-esteem so high that it was almost as though the self wasn't an issue. Even among young people, there wasn't a need to show off, to act “cool.” I remember being impressed that a thirteen-yearold boy wouldn’t feel embarrassed to coo over a little baby or to hold hands with his grandmother. But as Western-style development came to Ladakh, so did the message that the people there were primitive and backward. They were suddenly comparing themselves to romanticized, glamorized role models in the media—images of perfection and wealth that no one can compete with. You began to see young people using dangerous chemicals to lighten their skin. In Ladakh, there is now a suicide a month, mainly among young people. Not that long ago, suicide was basically unknown—there would have been one in a lifetime. That’s a really, really clear indicator that something is really wrong—and the dominant economic model is what had changed. (Jarvis 2001) Norberg-Hodge addresses cultural changes taking place as nations devote themselves to the capitalist projects of wealth and progress. The heavily mediated images of the world available through technology open the door to models that seem connected to a life of greater freedom and resources. This “life-style” connection is powerful just as are advertisements that present juxtapositions: the implication is not that products have a particular use, but that certain things naturally go together in what becomes a normative way of life.18

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Opposition to this kind of subtle cultural change has been widespread. In Jeremy Gilbert’s (2008) examination of the various forms of resistance to capitalism, he connects them to a desire to maintain a sense of local culture. The terms global justice movement or pro-democracy movement share a common goal of defending the capacity of people to collectively “determine their own destinies in the face of threats to that capacity from concentration of corporate power” (76).19 And yet, even as some organizations fight the neoliberal, capitalist, and Eurocentric order, others argues that it is impossible to imagine that local culture—even if it is possible to come to a consensus about its qualities—can or should be preserved as a haven from changes resulting from Eurocentrism: Euro-Americans conquered the world; renamed places; rearranged economies, societies, and politics; and erased or drove to the margins premodern ways of knowing space, time, and many other things. In the process, they universalized history in their own selfimage in an unprecedented manner…Eurocentrism as a historical phenomenon is not to be understood without reference to the structures of power Euro-America produced over the last five centuries, which in turn produced Eurocentrism, globalized its effects, and universalized its historical claims…The complexity of Eurocentrism becomes even more daunting if we note that Eurocentrism, as we have it now, is hardly a Euro-American phenomenon. Much of what we associate with Eurocentrism is now internal to societies worldwide… (Dirlik 2000, 65–70) In the third chapter of Postmodernity’s Histories, “Is there history after Eurocentrism? Globalism, postcolonialism, and the disavowal of history,” Arif Dirlik (2000) argues that Eurocentrism has come under attack at the moment of its global victory. This history, he insists, cannot be written or spoken away by cultural theorists, who vainly hope that culture is autonomous enough that it can somehow stand against this pervasive transformation without, of course, violence directed against others or complete isolation. Dirlik recognizes the complexity of any definition of culture, but also states that what makes a culture widely influential is not

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its essential qualities or specific characteristics, but the power with which it is associated. He argues that “it is power, which has little to do with culture, that then dynamizes the claims of culture” (71). In particular, it is the power of capitalism and its innovations in the social, political, and cultural realms that makes Eurocentrism more than just another ethnocentrism. Fredric Jameson (1986) agrees, noting that discussions of the unique characteristics of culture (such as those undertaken by Habermas and Derrida) rarely take place among intellectuals in the United States: Judging from recent conversations among third-world intellectuals, there is now an obsessive return of the national situation itself, the name of the country that returns again and again like a gong, the collective attention to “us” and what we have to do and how we do it, to what we can't do and what we do better than this or that nationality, our unique characteristics, in short, to the level of the “people.” This is not the way American intellectuals have been discussing “America,” and indeed one might feel that the whole matter is nothing but that old thing called “nationalism,” long since liquidated here and rightly so. Yet a certain nationalism is fundamental in the third world (and also in the most vital areas of the second world), thus making it legitimate to ask whether it is all that bad in the end. Does in fact the message of some disabused and more experienced first-world wisdom (that of Europe even more than of the United States) consist in urging these nation states to outgrow it as fast as possible? The predictable reminders of Kampuchea and of Iraq and Iran do not really seem to me to settle anything or suggest by what these nationalisms might be replaced except perhaps some global American postmodernist culture. (65) The implication of work by Dirlik and Jameson is that some cultural aspects of Euro-Americanization have become globally naturalized and are irreversible. Dirlik (2000) also argues that Euro-America influenced global cultures in ways that were not only impossible to resist, but often welcome:

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Eurocentrism was globalized not because of any inherent virtue of Euro-American values but because those values were stamped on activities of various kinds that insinuated themselves into existing practices (such as trade), proved to be welcome to certain groups in non-Euro-American societies, or, when there was resistance to them, were enforced on the world by the power of arms. (73) It is the assertion of inherent superiority that historically has been made by the groups who ended up with relatively more power that postcolonial studies have addressed. Yet although the claims of superiority are false, the power associated with them successfully promotes certain values and cultural forms. Culture includes both specific ways of living that can be eroded by rapid change, but also—and even under change—a subjective sense of living in a way that feels authentic, vital, and shared. From this perspective, Chantal Mouffe’s (2005) work on “the political” as revolving around the antagonism inherent to human societies and necessary for their constitution is a useful context within which to reflect on culture. Social order, Mouffe states, emerges through the debates and struggles of people representing conflicting positions, which cannot be mediated through consensus. This continual conflict is a valuable and permanent aspect of democratic societies, and attempts of liberals to smooth it out are misguided, according to Mouffe, who explains that “political questions always involve decisions which require us to make a choice between conflicting alternatives” (10). Following Carl Schmitt (1996 [1927]) in his The Concept of the Political, Mouffe understands both antagonism and hegemony as ontological conditions of human social order, which emerges from “a series of practices attempting to establish order in a context of contingency” (17).20 As she writes, The social is the realm of sedimented practices, that is, practices that conceal the originary acts of their contingent political institution and which are taken for granted, as if they were self-grounded. Sedimented social practices are a constitutive part of any possible

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Mouffe is thus critical of the cosmopolitan project, arguing that it would impose a Western liberal democratic order on the world, in the process creating dangerous forms of resistance and hiding its dangers behind a feel-good and sometimes mystical faith that the demise of the nationstate will permit new and inclusive forms of government in a unified world.21 Her proposals for future global political organization carefully recognize the pluralist nature of societies across the world. She argues for the establishment of “an international system of law based on the idea of regional poles and cultural identities federated among themselves in the recognition of their full autonomy,” and “a certain number of great spaces and genuine cultural poles” in a multipolar world (2005, 117).22 While she views the cosmopolitan vision as theoretically flawed, the creation of its alternative, a “multipolar order,” has only empirical obstacles ahead of it, Mouffe believes. The emergence of China as a superpower, along with efforts in Latin America to strengthen their shared economic structure, indicates to Mouffe that this new global order, with its multiple modernities, is a strong possibility. Mouffe distinguishes her multipolar order from liberal pluralism, which seems to recognize difference but then makes it irrelevant by relegating pluralism to the private realm, and by ignoring relations of subordination. I am not as confident as is Mouffe that a multipolar global political order is on the horizon. Still, Mouffe’s work contains useful perspectives.

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First, both she and Cacciari (2002) recognize the importance of culture, identifying an undefined cultural center at the core of community groupings that, they argue, will be central to the new multipolar structure that will materialize through globalization. Although it is unclear exactly how these communities will develop or function, the role of culture in all its capacities clearly is important. And second, Mouffe’s reflections on the social and the political suggest that even though there can be no clear line between what counts as the cultural and everything else, it is possible to use the term analytically just as she does for the political. In their broadest meaning, all three categories can include the others.23 Yet Mouffe has usefully identified the salient core of the political to be the continual struggle to push forward a specific agenda against others. She also delineates “the social” as the sedimentation of cultural and political practices into normalized patterns, and others have analyzed how the social is formed and can be identified. Tracing the 1990s discussion about cultural history and social history, Patrick Joyce (2010) alludes to the difficulty of separating the two concepts. Indeed, the issues and concerns of the social overlap with a similar debate about culture or the cultural, and include questions about the idealist-materialist continuum, the role of discourse or textual analysis, the envisioning of society as a totality or something more fluid, and the role of power and the political. These and other discussions suggest the difficulty of separating the cultural and the social. As Joyce states, one consequence of the shared terrain “has been the indiscriminate merging together of culture and the social, as for instance in the increasingly frequent use of the category ‘cultural and social history’” (221). In an attempt to bring clarity to the conversation, he develops a set of terms that he associates with culture: construction, constitution, identity, meaning, representation, belief, linguistic, symbolic, and narrative, later evolving into a new set of terms including affect, post-human, anti-individualist, and relational, all of which imply that “culture” is a foundational aspect of human experience.

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Joyce argues that insistence on “the centrality of the cultural tacitly recognizes that the material, and the economic in particular, are separate entities; or, otherwise, it removes them from the scope of discussion and relegates them from history altogether” (221). Although this statement is not necessarily true, cultural studies as a field was formed in part to address the academic separation of culture from the social, political, and economic: [T]he academic norms of the university define the production of knowledge as an act of simplification; that is why the disciplines are necessary. In that sense, the typical forms of knowledge enact a kind of reductionism, by which the complexity of the real world is reduced in the service of disciplinary norms of explanation. Cultural studies chooses to embrace the complexity, to argue that you cannot understand the human world except by mapping the multiplicity of relations that constitute any context, and any event within it. (Cornut-Gentille D’arcy 2010, 112) It is this “radical contextualism” that defines cultural studies, a field based on recognition of complexity, relativism, lack of boundaries, collaboration, and engagement. Yet one of the founders of cultural studies, Lawrence Grossberg, bemoans the way in which the field became so “f***** boring and useless; why we have so little to say that seems to help us stop the movement of most of the world (and certainly my own country) in directions that built upon values and visions that we oppose” (Cornut-Gentille D’arcy and Grossbert 2010, 113, 119; Grossberg 1995, 2006). Arguing that cultural studies as a field has failed to live up to its self-proclaimed contextualizing project, Grossberg identifies a number of problems. One is an ambiguous concept of culture that was developed to counter the academic focus on “high” culture. As a result, the field ended up focusing on mass media and popular culture almost exclusively. Part of this trajectory was based on replacing the ideal of social totality with the notion of the cultural construction of reality. This new emphasis merged with the desire to move away from high culture by insisting that the reality of any cultural process or artefact must lie

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in the response of the audience, in terms of subjectivity and identity. Speaking of cultural studies in the United Kingdom, Grossberg (2006) notes that in an unintended attempt to remake both the social sciences and the humanities, cultural studies tried to “do sociology better than the sociologists” and to locate itself within a larger and “more complex complex of hegemonic struggle” (13). The thorny problems of figuring out whether culture is primary or secondary, indirectly, directly, or not at all political, individualistic or deterministic contributed to the ambiguity. But Grossberg’s (2006) sobering account of interdisciplinarity also speaks to the problem: First, there is a tendency to think that one can create a “new economics” without engaging with the discipline, pulling it as if by magic out of the theoretical mouth of one’s favorite writers. One might read the occasional economist, as long as his or her positions are theoretically and/or politically resonant with one’s own. Somehow the enormous diversity of academic economics (what is often referred to within the discipline as heterodox economics), to say nothing of other (extra-disciplinary and even extra-university) forms and sites of the production of economic knowledge simply disappear. Even more frightening is the tendency for theory to overwhelm and displace any effort to analyze the concrete complexities of economic life, relations and discourses in ways that might challenge theory. Interdisciplinarity has to fight against the tendency to assume that theory is, automatically, an adequate (i.e. the most useful) description of contexts. (20) The resulting arrogance of cultural studies in relation to the disciplines it purported to replace makes it “odd to find that it is often congealed into a set of assumptions about the effectivity of popular culture and the media, and their place in social formation and everyday life” (23). Grossberg castigates cultural studies for its breadth, suggesting that this all-encompassing approach eventually resulted in a sense of selfimportance and superficiality. Although Grossberg calls for cultural studies researchers to remedy this situation, when he is asked how it is possible to reposition cultural studies in a more fruitful relationship

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with disciplinary perspectives, Grossberg admits that he has not been as successful as he would have liked (Cornut-Gentille D’arcy and Grossberg 2010, 113–114). It is in this general context of furious debate about culture, cultural essence, agency, authenticity, and autonomy—as well as within the postsocialist developments within China—that my study of Zhang Yimou’s work has taken place. Often Zhang’s films are categorized by period: the early films are seen as spectacular allegories of Chinese (peripheral, misunderstood, fake) culture, spirit, and history; the middle films bring out smaller but more universal issues of human nature and emotion; and the later films are commercial blockbusters kowtowing to consumer mentality. I largely disregard these divisions, instead bringing out the films’ perspectives on what can and cannot be accomplished through, by, and within culture. I also address the way in which the films evaluate the role of the cultural within Chinese society, which includes an awareness of culture away from home, of domestic and global audiences, of being watched, as well as a sense of urgency regarding representation. I argue that these issues, rather than the recognition and elevation of something that could be called Chinese culture, are the major concerns of many of Zhang Yimou’s films. Even if we quickly jump to more elusive forms of culture—subtle ways of being in the world that could include a sense of time, space, human relationships, and nature rather than clear markers such as cuisine, language, dress and costume, music, architecture, and so on—culture cannot be reduced to any one of these things. My goal is not to develop a new concept of culture, and indeed, I end up locating the concept’s usefulness within familiar terrain. As John Hutnyk (2006) wryly notes, the opacity and complexity of the term culture has resulted in extensive disclaimers: Every commentary on culture must begin with a ritual acknowledgement of the local and the global, and of the twinned inextricably bound antithesis of becoming universal and becoming particular, of identity and difference, and contest over these terms. Of course any easy mode of culture is delusional in its simplicity,

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and the local-global nexus obfuscates and enshrines an untenable and thought-congealing homology that is so fragile it should immediately be toppled (‘what is falling down should be pushed’— Neitzsche). The task of denoting Culture in encyclopaedic mode is fraught with the impossibility of capturing an always-morphed term—multiple meanings, multiple sites, political struggle. In this sense the categories of Culture are infinitely varied, and so this entry begins with a necessarily incomplete survey, taking into account in turn of anthropological notions of culture, mass culture, high culture, cultural translation, culture as a resource, political cultures and cultural movements. (351)24 An influential statement from Frantz Fanon (2004) in his extensive work on national culture offers a useful concept. Fanon describes national culture as “the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify, and praise the action through which that people keeps itself in existence” (168). The films I discuss certainly address what describes, justifies, and praises the continued existence of the people whose lives it examines, although “the people” are invoked allegorically rather than directly portrayed. Fanon’s emphasis on a temporal aspect to the cultural is especially relevant for Zhang’s films, which persistently look at the past and present with an eye to the future. The terms isolated by Patrick Joyce (2010) earlier in this introduction—construction, constitution, identity, meaning, representation, belief, linguistic, symbolic, and narrative, affect, post-human, anti-individualist, and relational—are all relevant. And Raymond Williams’ famous dichotomy, as described by Lawrence Grossberg (2006) of “(1) culture as a limited set of signifying and textual activities—sometimes referred to as aesthetic or expressive culture, and (2) culture as a whole way of life, as a material organization of practices,” even though rejected by a cultural studies that turned its attention to the cultural construction of reality, also is useful, as is Williams’ “structure of feeling” and Stuart Hall’s “maps of meaning” (8– 9).25 If we think of the political as a power struggle between antagonistic positions, and the social as organizational practices that form a community, then the cultural can be thought of as the collection of practices,

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from concrete to abstract, that form a logic of and rationale for existence within or without that community. Ideas, emotions, customs, habits, arts, language, and other practices form the center of many aspects of life that coalesce into culture. Although I started out with the simple phrase “the way we live” as a general descriptor of the cultural, I have modified that phrase to “our deep sense of the way we live and thrive.” This definition is not new, but it engages with a more abstract concept of the cultural that is not limited by specific patterns, habits, or forms, although they may feed into it. The term “sense” recognizes the nonintellectual, nonconceptual, subjective aspects of cultural life, while “deep” points to relatively tenacious perceptions, habits, and ideas. “Our” and “we” refer to the logic of the group, which suggests the way in which the cultural is often thought to apply to communities. “Thrive” is a positive concept that speaks to duration and the future, alluding to the concerns about cultural loss. Overall, this attempt to briefly encompass the complexity of culture within a short phrase validates subcommunities all the way down to the individual, while invoking family and other group norms. “Our deep sense of the way we live and thrive” does not exclude the influence of the political, social, economic, material, and so on, but it also does not privilege these realms. Culture in Zhang Yimou’s films often refers to something abstract or metaphysical that cannot be characterized as custom or habit, although it may be expressed through them. This approach is part of what makes a treatment of cultural difference the films’ least important aspect. While Red Sorghum, the first film directed by Zhang Yimou, expresses confidence in culture as a realm of experience embodied with strength and power, the films that follow retreat from this exuberant vision. Red Sorghum locates in the people the means to carve a vital and powerful route to the future, even under impoverished conditions and brutal invasion by a foreign power. Judou and Raise the Red Lantern gut this heady buoyancy, producing a vision in which, first, a strong male— inspired by a brave female—is too weak to step in and overturn unhealthy

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traditions, and second, daily life is vacated of human affection and turned into performative competition. From the wide-open spaces and panfamilial grouping of Red Sorghum, to the village dye mill circumscribed by heavy beams and pillars in Judou, and finally to the completely domestic household compound of Raise the Red Lantern, the films illustrate the closing down of physical and metaphysical space. They also progressively show a dangerous rejection of change, as any hope of progress vanishes. Qiuju Goes to Court (1992) moves to the contemporary period right after the rule of law was extended to the general population. This sustained look at how culture is made reveals a fracture between the ideal of universal legal standards and the historical reality of how the community has built itself over time, while also addressing political power and its relationship to cultural norms under the conditions of crisis. To Live (1994) puts forward a bleak image of continuity under the vacant watch of the absent sovereign. When life for everyone becomes a political play eviscerated of its vitality, the future is only the ability to keep living, without the justification to which Frantz Fanon (2004) refers. Keep Cool (1999), a comedy about contemporary urban life in the margins, regains some of the self-assurance and energy of Red Sorghum. Yet the cost of this gain is that the symbolic hope-for-the-future that sons often represent be abandoned. In Judou the son turns into a murderous tool of the oppressive past, but in Keep Cool, the possibility of producing a son disappears when the main character chooses male friendship over his relationship with a woman. This vanishing woman, as well as a pronounced and unusual constriction and skewing of the visual, produces a tightly controlled setting in which it is possible to find happiness in the present but not to imagine or take steps to create a future. Yet even the happiness-in-the-present notion is quickly dissolved in the ironically titled Happy Times (2000), where the son again becomes unavailable as an embodied form of hope. The film plumbs a past that once gained existential logic through the life-forming principles of socialism as it existed in China, now under the onslaught of new capitalist practices and fast becoming illegible, humorous, and damaging. The failure is not only

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the fault of the developing economic system, however—Happy Times finds a contaminating germ of hypocrisy located deep within socialist practice. Hero reworks the foundational tale of the establishment of China by the King of Qin, a tyrant both admired and despised for his unification of the Warring States. Weaving a fictional tale of resistance that ends in capitulation, Hero expresses distrust in the nation-state model of culture that accords a hypocritical equality to all nations. At the same time, the film illustrates how this model will continue to provide the most powerful with the means of establishing the cultural “rules” of the future, essentially depriving the smaller and weaker entities of self-determination. The standardization of money, weights, measures, and languages for which the Qin Emperor is known alludes to a universalization that may become the norm under globalization. Of all Zhang’s films, Hero most directly allegorizes culture and presents a negative perspective on the role that it will play in a potentially pluralistic future. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2009), the final film I analyze, continues the direction of Hero in addressing culture in an emerging global world. Rather than depicting the Japanese as invaders and one-sided villains as does Red Sorghum, Riding Alone features a sympathetic Japanese man who travels to China in an illconceived attempt to make amends with his alienated son, Kenichi, who is dying in Tokyo. As he bumbles through the maze of cultural practices, his success is belied by his wounded refusal to directly communicate with Kenichi, who passes away before his father can return. The convoluted emotions surrounding home and the false hope that success abroad can erase failure at home make up the fantastical promise of the duplicitous touristic experience. Implicitly siding with Arif Dirlik in his work on globalization, these films recognize power as crucially important in determining cultural continuity, identity, and confidence. At the same time, they also regard the various aspects of existence—the political, the cultural, the social, the economic, the material—as mutable, and as dominant at different moments, refusing to place one above the other in a permanent relation-

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ship. Their persistence in parsing through the field of the cultural for signs of hope, therefore, rejects the subsidiary position alloted to culture in classical Marxism. The films also can be thought of as an extended query that examines the conditions under which culture functions, and the mechanism of its efforts. The performance within performance, or play within play, a ubiquitous element of these films, often embodies the acting out of power relations writ large and small, asking what it means to perform culture, to seek the gaze of others, and to imagine oneself as gazed upon. It also addresses the power implications of cultural position in a globalizing world. Although the films are pessimistic about the possibility of a positive, life-affirming culture emerging at their present moment, they offer tantalizing insights and proffer some hopeful signs. My conclusion takes as its material the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, which were directed by Zhang Yimou. Having been developed in the heady days of the emergence of the modern nation-state, the Olympics were motivated by the idea of the equality of nations, and the representation of cultural essence in the opening ceremonies complements this notion. Yet the sports competitions of the Olympics always favor the more powerful, and the equality of cultures is equally illusionary. Reconciling the vision of the ceremonies as cultural expressions of the nation-state with the director’s skepticism toward the utopian potential of culture’s role, in either the nation-state or as one aspect of globalization, produces a contradictory mandate: to overtly represent the essence of Chinese culture, while covertly expressing suspicion about cultural display. In the context of my project and especially with reference to the play-within-play that is part of so many of Zhang’s films, a performative ceremony that symbolically presents a representative Chinese form of culture is particularly thoughtprovoking. The wide range of readings of the ceremonies, which must be enacted within the inherent demands of the Olympics, provides a perfect opportunity to reflect on the interest in culture that I locate in many of Zhang Yimou’s films.

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Notes on Methodology In the conclusion to my last book, From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China, (2009), I commented on the domination of historical methods in literary and filmic studies, which came about because of decisions by scholars such as myself who hoped to work in socially relevant ways and to be part of a larger intellectual community. Despite efforts in that book to work closely with literary texts and film, in the end I was not entirely happy with the structure, which separated history and theory in the first three chapters, in the final three delving into the creative work through close reading. This book, on the films of Zhang Yimou, tries to remedy the shortcomings of that project, using primarily close reading and weaving historical and theoretical commentary into each chapter. My aim is to bring out the social, theoretical, and philosophical concerns that both engender and are engendered by creative work. Yet I also want to address the turn toward history that the field of cultural studies has undergone, to regain as a valid field of scholarly inquiry the distinctive work accomplished through creative areas such as film, and to argue that textual analysis can provide us with unique understanding that can contribute to the formation of theoretical understandings. There are many valid ways to engage with culture—including historical—but my comments here are directed at the downgrading of close reading (in literature) or textual analysis (in film studies). I argue in favor of reclaiming close reading strategies, while rejecting the conviction that they must imply an atemporal, ahistorical appreciation of an aesthetic object as unified and autonomous.26 In literary studies I would side with René Wellek (1978), who, speaking of literature, argues that New Criticism does not reject history, but rather history as the primary source of literature’s meaning. These words could apply to film as well. Although I support more historical contextualization than does radical New Criticism, I value the techniques brought to us by that movement.

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Contemporary scholars are conscious of and sensitive about the unrecognized convictions and ideologies that exist in the choices of academic work. But as the brave deconstruction of cultural studies by Lawrence Grossberg—one of the methodology’s founders—has shown, dangers lie in every direction. Although my focus in this project has been almost entirely on films directed by Zhang Yimou—thus implying an auteur approach—many of his concerns are shared throughout the Fifth and sometimes Sixth Generation filmmakers (as well as by writers and artists), so I have brought in comparative analysis of other films when appropriate. Of the films directed by Zhang that I have not included in this project, several could work well within the parameters of my interpretation and argument. I understand that the making of film is a collaborative business, and I do not wish to imply that Zhang Yimou exercises full and conscious authorial intent in the films he directs.27 In order to avoid the negative implications of auteurship and authorial intent, some scholars have moved away from and even attacked singledirector studies. As Daisuke Miyao explains in his study of light in the work of Japanese cinema: Most academic works on Japanese cinema have focused on either a historical survey of popular films or canonized auteur directors. The assumption of auteur theory is that films directed by a particular auteur can be analyzed to uncover recurrent themes and aesthetic patterns that demonstrate the cohesion of his or her vision of the world. This approach is insufficient to address filmmaking. What is most lacking in existing academic works on Japanese films is a perspective that considers films to be the products of collaboration that exist beyond the auteur directors’ authority. (2013, 13–14). Although we can try to avoid the pitfalls of our predecessors, if earlier research has been limited, it only follows that this is true of later research as well, which must carry its own ideological baggage. Therefore, while I recognize that some valid criticisms will be directed at my choices of a single-director focus as well as a methodology that emphasizes

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textual analysis, there also are advantages. Close reading of the films has the potential to drive conversations about the special role that, in our social world and present moment, we have developed for and assigned to creative work in any of its many manifestations. It validates such work as a form of craftsmanship and artistry that fully engages with and, in its own way, theorizes a complicated world. My organization, methodology, and focus in this book also have practical implications, which have driven me away from the broader approach of my last book, which covered ground from the late Qing to the contemporary period. It is true that a book that ranges over many periods, people, genres, methodologies, and themes may avoid the dangers of assigning too much significance to artificial periodization, to reliance on the agency of “great men,” and to excessive respect of preexisting scholarly categories. It also may implicitly reject the idea that art is autonomous. However, although the broadness of these combined strategies of avoidance can produce exhilarating ideas and new ways of thinking, they also can end up with a confusing format and superficial results, as Grossberg (2006) suggests. Second, I recognize that my present book will be used mostly within educational institutions. The separation of chapters by individual films will, I hope, make it useful to those teaching Chinese film or using it as a resource in their pedagogy. While throughout the book I refer both back and forward in chronological time, and often refer to earlier or later films by Zhang and others, the relatively tight emphasis within a chapter is partially designed to pragmatically address the conditions within which we work. Although the book has an overarching argument, because I hope that the chapters will be individually useful, there is some inevitable repetition. Finally, despite efforts to investigate the many directions in political and philosophical thought that a study of culture in the films of Zhang Yimou should appreciate, my research is constrained by the vast complexity of the many areas that are relevant to this study. In addition, although I have done my best to bring in the work of Chinese scholars, as this introduction

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shows, I still situate my direction within the intellectual environment of my time and place. Although I regard this contextualization as a personal limitation, I also tend to think of it as evidence of the value of working both within an intellectual community where topics and languages are known both formally and informally, and from the outside of other intellectual communities that we can never understand in exactly the same way.

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Notes 1. Zhang was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Yale University in 2010. Several films have received domestic and international awards, including the Golden Bear, the Silver Lion, and the Grand Prix du Jury. 2. I am grateful to Pheng Cheah for his insightful comments on this introduction. 3. “Zhang Yimou from the Perspective of Cultural Research,” a dissertation by Li Jinmei at Suzhou University (2008) carefully lays out the contesting interpretations of Zhang Yimou’s films. See especially the first chapter, which explains out the various arguments about Zhang’s films. Note: the pagination in Li’s manuscript starts the main body of the work at page 1; the introduction is paginated separately, also beginning with page 1. My references here are to the body of the manuscript, beginning with this first chapter. 4. The so-called language barrier is not just an issue of language, but of intellectual communities formed by those who read, write, and engage in scholarly exchange primarily in one language. These communities have significant linguistic, conceptual, ideological, and pragmatic coherence and boundaries. Responding to Rey Chow’s complaint about “what it means that certain white scholars expound so freely on the Chinese tradition, culture, language, history, women and so forth,” Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar confirm the need to critique “Eurocentrism in English-language film studies” while recognizing that “language is still a divider” (Chow 1998, 9; Berry and Farquhar 2006, 14–15). Chow’s reference to “certain white scholars” suggests that racial and ethnic authenticity, however it is determined, trumps training and expertise as the mandatory foundation for cultural critique. Hence while the comments by Berry and Farquhar affirm their desire to overcome the Eurocentrism of English-language film studies, they also defend their right to speak out both as “white scholars” and as researchers who work primarily within the English language intellectual community. 5. In 2003, Contemporary Cinema (2003: 2) published a set of articles analyzing Hero, by Hu Ke, Zhang Yiwu, Wang Yichuan, Huang Shixian, Zhang Jianyong, and Lin Hongtong, bringing together some of the most famous critics who had written on Zhang Yimou.

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6. This early identification is particularly relevant not only because it anticipates later voices, but also because it touches on an issue that becomes central in Zhang’s later work: the key problem of what possibilities exist for cultural agency in the absence of political, economic, and military power. 7. For critique of Fredric Jameson’s position, see Aijaz Ahmad (1987). For a defense, see Imre Szeman (2001). 8. Stephen Tumino (2011) argues against the notion of agency, commenting that “Humanist cultural theory situates ‘value’ exclusively within the superstructure of society in which the subject is hailed as a free agent of free market forces and occults the relation of this subject’s freedom and the unfreedom of the material base where the class antagonism between capital and labor is articulated. The result is an idealist theory of the social as constituted by the everyday agency of ‘desire’ (an ‘education of the heart’) rather than ‘labor’ (class consciousness) (129).” He promotes a labor theory of culture that will fight against culturalism, deconstruction, and discourse analysis, all of which he interprets as a slow creep within cultural studies away from a materialist perspective. Tumino criticizes most of the famous names in cultural theory, including Judith Butler, Fredric Jameson, Jacque Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Smith, Antonio Negri, Stuart Hall, Georg Lukacs, and others, arguing that their interpretive strategies are a form of culturalism that despite claims to the contrary, disavows materialist analysis and learns to live with capitalism. Judith Butler (1997), in contradistinction, criticizes proclamations against culturalism by materialists as a form of neoconservatism linked to “nostalgia for a false and exclusionary unity” (38). 9. Despite his pathbreaking work on culture, Raymond Williams admitted that he often wished he had never heard the term (1979, 154). 10. Bruno Latour (2005) describes the emergence of objects, or cultural artifacts, as a long process that involves interaction between people, the material world, and social organizations. It is these material-semiotic networks that constitute the social, and it is less important to identify the agency of the actors than to analyze the network. Patrick Joyce (2010) criticizes this approach for its inability to account for inequality or pre-existing formation of agencies and powers. See also Andrew Martin (2005). 11. If this is the only kind of agency that is available to Chinese filmmakers, it is fair to wonder if “moving outside sinological orientalism” really is possible (Berry and Farquhar 2006, 15).

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12. Two well-known theorists of hybridity are Homi Bhabha (2003) and James Clifford (1998). For a deconstruction of hybridity as a utopian concept, see Pheng Cheah (2006), who argues that “as a paradigm of postcolonial agency in globalization, hybridity is closet idealism. It is anthropological culturalism, a theory of resistance that reduces the complex givenness of material reality to its symbolic dimensions and underplays the material institution of capitalist oppression at a global-systemic level” (94). See also Franz Fanon (2004), who argues that the three stages of colonization were assimilation, rejection, and revolution, and the end result was hybridity and creolization. 13. Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper (2011) point out that these new nations resulted in “the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people,” although empires also featured violence and coercion (1–2). 14. Although the manifesto emerged in response to the “Letter of Eight” in which eight European countries declared support for the American invasion of Iraq, it focused on the cultural basis of European identity, and implied that the hegemony of American culture and political power made it the logical target against which all others must claim distinctive identity. Chantal Mouffe (2009) also argues that Europe is the only place that can provide a “post-social-democratic answer to neo-liberalism,” which “must be carried out successfully in a European context, and this is why a left-wing project today can only be a European one” (127). See also Marianne Pastephanou (2011), who argues against unity around cultural ideals. 15. Ulrich Beck (2006, 2009), Homi Bhabha (2003), Arjun Appadurai (1996), Saskia Sassen (1991, 1998, 2003), and others working in globalization and postcolonial theory have sketched out a post nation-state transformation underway in many areas. Beck proposes the “cosmopolitical” to describe the situation that results from migration and resettlement, off-shoring, the interdependence of nations, states, and players in environmental, economic, and political issues, the increase of nonstate political actors, and other issues where the nation state is not the primary unit determining action and subjectivity. Bhabha and Appadurai are positive about the changes of globalization, viewing them as new forms of hybrid social life that eventually will wipe out narrow forms of nationalism. For an interdisciplinary summary of culture under globalization, see Paul Hopper (2007). See also Pheng Cheah (2006). 16. Clifford Geertz (2004) points out the various models of the nation-state, perhaps not entirely accurately, when he comments “China is a civiliza-

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The Subject of Culture

17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

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tion trying to be a state, Saudi Arabia is a family business disguised as a state, Israel is a faith inscribed in a state” (579). His point, however, is that the model of the nation-state that evolved in Europe after the Westphalia treaty of 1579 has never achieved universality below the surface. The importance of Westphalia notwithstanding, some work now emphasizes how empire is far and away the more durable political organization, with the nation-state only coalescing around the late 1940s, and shakily at that. See Frederick Cooper (2005), who calls France in 1946 an “empire-state,” and argues that “imperial polities—‘old’ and ‘new’— constituted a system in which any serious competitor for geo-political influence had to think and act like an empire” (153–154). See also Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper (2011). For more on the uncanny way in which advertising functions, see John Kenneth Galbraith (1976); Raymond Williams (1980); Michael Schudson (1984); Roland Marchand (1985); and Sal Randazzo (1993). Jeremy Gilbert (2008), shows his wide scope in the title of chapter three, “Another World is Possible: The Anti-Capitalist Movement.” One example of a successful broad effort to insist on a local sense of time, place, and change is the Zapatistas, a “new, post-Cold War, postmodern type of anti-capitalist politics,” although he also recognizes precursors (80). Carl Schmitt’s monograph may have been published in response to comments by Leo Strauss, which are included in this English edition. Schmitt believes the political is composed of friend-enemy distinctions. Nazi alliances make him a contentious theoretical source, as Mouffe often points out. Mouffe (2005) attacks the vision of a “smooth” empire that consists of a neo-liberal model of globalization with the United States in a formative role, as discussed by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their wellknown monograph Empire (2001). Mouffe writes, “As far as ‘sovereignty’ is concerned, there is not so much difference either between those who celebrate the perspective of a universal order organized around a ‘cosmopolitan sovereignty’ and the radical ‘anti-sovereignty’ stand taken in Empire” (109–110). The mysterious position of Hardt and Negri that the evolving order will produce a sovereignty of the multitude, out of which will emerge a new position of being meets with Mouffe’s scorn, primarily because she finds no discussion of how this metamorphosis will take place. Mouffe does not address the disquiet in Asia on China’s rise, or the fear of consensus enforced by violence that may result from this new center.

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22. Mouffe draws on Massimo Cacciari (2002), but does not clarify how violence in the establishment of great spaces and cultural centers will be addressed, whether it is a foregone conclusion that their construction will involve violence, or whether these cultural areas will be constituted through boundaries. Also unclear is the process of exclusion that “a certain number” implies. 23. Terms such as political culture suggest some of the difficulties. Stephen Welch (2013) states, “Marxism first sought to debunk and deflate culture, to ‘expose’ it in the light of a fundamental materialism as an instrument of class rule. With Gramsci came a recognition of the terrain on which ruling class ideology was met by the consciousness of the working class, which is of course a cultural terrain, and needless to say a political one. Even so, the Marxist starting point made problematic if not impossible an understanding of how culture has its political effects” (83). 24. See also John Hutnyk’s (2004) monograph on “bad Marxism” and cultural studies. Hutnyk lays out the history of culture as developed by anthropologists and modified via postcolonialism and capitalism. He makes the important point that cultural resistance is often overemphasized. One example he mentions is the way in which alternative culture often is quickly mediated through consumerism, which the producers themselves rapidly embrace (356). 25. See also Raymond Williams’ work on the future of cultural studies in his monographs The Politics of Modernism (1989) and Marxism and Literature (1977; especially chapter 9, “Structures of Feeling,” 128–135). See also Stuart Hall (2003). 26. For more on this complicated and widely discussed topic for art in general, see Peter Bürger, Christa Bürger, Loren Kruger, and Russell A. Berman (1992); Antonio Negri and Max Henninger (2007); and Antonio Negri (2011). In literature, close reading is associated with New Criticism, which was popular in the United States from the 1940s through the 1960s. See Hosek and Parker (1985). 27. For more on this history and controversy, see David A. Gerstner and Janet Staiger (2003).

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Chapter 1

Red Sorghum and the Resilience of the People The other thing I was thinking was, and I started realizing this when I was working on the Hawthorne book actually, I realized that people’s attachment to the nation form was an optimistic attachment, that there could be an institutional and phantasmatic system that could allow people to proceed incoherently in the social, because they are incoherent and they’re politically incoherent, and in love they make no sense. But there would be room for them to make sense in a way that would be joyous and life building. What was so interesting about that for me was that a generation of leftists older than me said, “when we started reading your book we just didn’t know how you could write it because the nation form is just a horrible monster that destroys things,” and I said “well I’m not saying it isn’t.” What I’m saying is that the nation form held a place for the continuity of optimism for what social life could be. You know? In that version of that encounter, it wasn’t an insult, it was just their amazement that I didn’t feel that the nation had already lost its legitimacy as a magnet for social life. But unfortunately, for many people the nation is kind of all

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Zhang Yimou there is for imagining what social life could be. As a result, there are a lot of hysterical politics organized around the nation. And even though there are all kinds of scales for being in the world that people are trying to imagine otherwise, the question of what the meta-structure could be that would deliver mass happiness, or that would hold a space open for the delivery of mass happiness, well, the nation still remains the name of it for many, many people. —Lauren Berlant1

When Zhang Yimou’s first film, Red Sorghum (1987) appeared on the silver screen, critics hailed a new film language, pundits attacked a West-toadying aesthetics, and Zhang rode the wave initiated by Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth (1984) into the global limelight. The film attracted attention in art houses of Europe and the United States and won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear award in 1988. Made at the innovative Xi’an Film Studio and part of the “northwest wind” that set stories in the harsh rural environment of northwest China, Red Sorghum put forward a vision designed to startle those looking for a gentler, more conventionally civilized perspective (Baranovitch 2003, 24). In addition to lauding a wild, unconstrained spirit and bold resistance to oppression, Red Sorghum also celebrated the active pleasure of sensual fulfillment. The film challenged the socialist past while embracing the Maoist valorization of work, expanding it into a sacred, near mystical life-force. It seemed that the film’s coarse culture had little to do with China’s burgeoning and modernizing urban centers or its intelligentsia, who derided the director for projecting an unsavory view of China as a primitive state. The version of Chinese culture exalted in Red Sorghum imagined a raw, warm brashness located in the countryside, far away from the tame city lifestyle. This perspective is not unlike that of the “Roots” writers, who sought to reinvigorate China by tapping the more primeval approach to life that, they believed, characterized the rural, often non-Han periphery (Leenhouts 2003). In Yellow Earth, the first Fifth Generation film to draw attention in the United States and Europe, Chen Kaige also made use of the alternative perspective of an impoverished rural community. However,

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Yellow Earth contained not only a visual and narrative presentation of culture of the margins, but also a critique of that culture’s backwardness and, most importantly, of the Communist Party’s failure to deeply understand the environment, and of its utilitarian use of rural culture for its own aims. Similarities in plot and environment—the impoverished countryside, the central theme of a young woman who is married off to an older man, the use of music as a key element, and contextualization within national political movements related to the presence of outsiders —make a comparison between Red Sorghum and Yellow Earth especially productive. Yet the differences are equally revealing. Although both Cuiqiao of Yellow Earth and Jiu’er of Red Sorghum are young women about to be married off to older men, compared with Jiu’er, Cuiqiao’s youth (she is fourteen whereas Jiu’er is nineteen), passivity, and relative silence make her an untenable vehicle to represent a flourishing and rebellious rural spirit. And the story contains no local My Grandpa (as is the case in Red Sorghum) to burst through the layers of accumulated habitual behavior that evoke the inability of the population to alter its fatalistic acceptance of their life as it is. With Cuiqiao’s hopelessness, cadre Gu Qing’s inability to aid, help from the party far away, and the culture of superstition and survival determining almost every aspect of their lives, there is no glimmer of the mythical, idealized, and joyous society that we see in Red Sorghum. Zhang Yimou was the one of the first Chinese filmmakers to thoroughly grasp and completely exploit the optimistic potential of the “Roots” approach within a global context in which the Chinese socialist foundation of cultural confidence had been shaken.2 Red Sorghum shocked domestic audiences with its bold alternative vision and exaggerated, fierce, and romanticized wildness, which quickly engendered attacks on the film’s so-called self-Orientalism and nativism. However, placing the film in the context of Zhang’s other work suggests that Red Sorghum is unique in expressing absolute confidence in the power and efficacy of a living, vital culture to be a key element in domestic rejuvenation and in China’s struggle for a new global position. The kind of culture that the film

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pursues—backward, isolated, crude, peripheral, marginalized, mystical, sensual, ritualistic, empowering, and brimming with self-confidence—is significant because its exuberant optimism is the vehicle through which it can express this buoyancy and assurance. As we see in Yellow Earth, “primitive” rural culture readily can be deployed to put forward a much more ambivalent message. Red Sorghum is set within an implicit, overarching question of how the community lifeworld, or the lived life of those in China, can be meaningful within the developing globalized world. As such, the film embodies a recognition of, first, a paradigmatic political and social transformation that is altering the cultural foundation of the country. Echoing Evans Chan’s (2004) much-later criticism of Zhang’s film Hero (2002) as fascist, Wang Yichuan (1990) finds similar elements in Red Sorghum, and his article was one of several that instigated the fervent debate.3 The controversy within China opens doors to understanding why the film was so provocative and how its success within art house film culture in the United States and Europe brought troubling specters to its domestic interpretation. Red Sorghum’s presentation of deep culture as the “spirit of the people” suggested to some a nationalistic perspective that glorifies power through consolidation against outsiders. This complex issue lies at the heart of my project: the difference between the glorification of nationalism and its culture, and a filmic inquiry into what the work of culture can accomplish in a new global context within which national, regional, and local identities, languages, and ways of life are both metamorphosing rapidly and yet still powerfully germane to daily life. Lauren Berlant’s discussion quoted in the epigraph to this chapter—which argues that the nation-state is still the most relevant community category for many—is thus very apt. As we will see, however, although Red Sorghum boisterously and energetically carries forward a vision of cultural meaning that forms autonomously within the group, that optimistic viewpoint crumbles in later films.

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Red Sorghum systematically disavows the niceties of what most intellectuals and urbanites view as Chinese culture, and the reaction from critics was severe. Yet although the dynamic culture seen and heard in the film may not be what critics hoped for, Red Sorghum nonetheless treats culture as crucially important in both metaphysical and pragmatic ways. In addition to specific and easily identifiable cultural elements such as local song, dress, food, drink, and rituals in daily life and ceremony, Red Sorghum also promotes a human society—with affective, behavioral, and environmental elements—that has both rebellious and conventional elements. In this broader perspective on the constituting elements of culture, the film takes advantage of the striking natural landscape to create a thick rope connecting the people and their society to the land, thus turning the sorghum, rock formations, and skies into colorful elements that function like visual art. In this broader definition, the rhythms of life or habitual ways of behaving, talking, and thinking, the institutions that organize and direct social relations, and all aspects of regular daily life make up the building blocks of culture. By transforming the perception that the Chinese “race” (Zhonghua minzu; minzu can be translated as race, ethnicity, or tribe) is going downhill into a celebration of a wild spirit and throbbing life-force, the film significantly modifies Mo Yan’s narrative, twisting the tale into a story of resistance to the exhaustion and worry that the filmmaker identifies as characteristic of Chinese life (Ma Ting 2007; Mo Yan 1994, 2008). As Yang Gang (1989) explains, this exhaustion and worry is not made up of the regular troubles that afflict people indiscriminately, but rather is formed out of specific concerns about China’s future, global status, and equality with the West. Red Sorghum makes this context clear by directing viewers toward the unwelcome presence of hostile outsiders and their confrontation with a fabricated harmonious community. The naturalized role of culture and the implications of its performance are not under question in any sustained, serious way in Red Sorghum. The film expresses uncritical confidence that culture is deeply woven within the

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land and people, and is capable of autonomously generating an authentic and vital life and of standing up to threats. Red Sorghum, therefore, contains three foci. First, in its insistence on offending the sensibilities of educated urban audiences in China, the film forces habit and custom into rough images of bodily functions, bellowing songs, and a complete lack of book culture. This abrasive physicality cannot easily be identified as culture by the urban viewers, and therefore is difficult to normalize: it represents a radical way of life informed by its own logic and rituals. Through this strategy, the film carves out a unified world that stands proudly oblivious to anything outside, locked in its tiny civilization, until the inevitable arrival of the outsiders. In this way, the society of the sorghum winery represents not Chinese culture, but China in the world. Second, issues of sovereignty and authority point to the creation of a deep culture that thrives in the people, and in new ways of life that transform the community. This gathering of the colorful, crude people to stand as one in the service of the upcoming confrontation marks the film’s assignment of power not to the state or the law, but to the daily life culture that molds and is molded by the people’s subjective and material existence. And third, in comparison to other films directed by Zhang Yimou, faith in the power of culture is at its height in Red Sorghum. As we know, the film irritated those who imagined that this bristly rustic community may appear as “China” in the eyes of nonChinese. Yet the film expresses a deeply optimistic conviction that the most vibrant life-force of Chinese culture can be engaged as a positive and creative way of envisioning and moving into the future. The film can be divided into three connected sections with focus on the sorghum fields, the winery, and the Japanese invasion. The plot follows nineteen-year old Jiu’er (played by Gong Li), as she is sold by her father to Li Datou, the leprous middle-aged owner of a red sorghum winery.4 Exchanged for a black mule, Jiu’er is taken to her new husband in a sedan hand-carried by a group of his employees, with the addition of a famous sedan-man to whom the narrator refers as My Grandpa. After flirting

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back and forth with Jiu’er, My Grandpa watches as a masked bandit suddenly appears and takes their money, leading Jiu’er into the sorghum. My Grandpa finally surges forward to rescue her, and the others join in to kick and beat the bandit. In the second section, Jiu’er arrives at the winery as the bride of Li Datou. As she rides a donkey home to visit her father, she again is attacked by a masked bandit, who reveals himself to be My Grandpa. My Grandpa flattens the sorghum and Jiu’er falls rapturously on it, with My Grandpa kneeling before her. When Li Datou is mysteriously killed, the workers agree to stay and work under Jiu’er’s leadership; she asks the foreman Big Brother Luohan to continue in that role. My Grandpa shows up several times, and eventually claims Jiu’er as his bride. Luohan, apparently dissatisfied, takes his leave. In the last part of the film, the peaceful and happy winery, now enlivened with the antics of Douguan, the son of Jiu’er and My Grandpa, is shattered when Japanese invaders arrive, forcing the people, young and old, female and male, to smash down the sorghum to make way for a road. Inspired by Jiu’er’s rousing speech, the workers prepare to fight, bombing the first Japanese truck that comes along. In a hail of bullets, the Japanese soldiers kill Jiu’er and most of the workers before they are set upon by My Grandpa and others, who rush the truck with a landmine in their hands after their cannon will not shoot. The film ends with Jiu’er’s death and My Grandpa and Douguan walking away in a daze. Red Sorghum begins with a black screen with the voice of the narrator, who is the son of Douguan and grandson of Jiu’er and My Grandpa. The tale of his grandparents is an old one that some believe and others do not, the narrator states. This question about historical veracity, along with several moments of withheld visual clues that produce a blank space of open implication, encourages us to regard what follows as constructed and fantastical. And indeed, it is difficult to regard this carefully constructed community, invigorated and bonded through a frenzy of collectivity and affection, as completely realistic. Jiu’er, My Grandpa, Luohan, and Sanpao are fully developed characters with personalities and idiosyncrasies, but the workers are stick figures who live without affliction by the

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usual human conflicts. This idealized society is formed out of a cheerful communal work ethic where the unreal unification of work and play elevates daily life into a transcendent experience molded by vigor and equality. The romanticized condition leads to a heightened life of the senses, embodying the physical power of culture in song and ritual. The crude songs are an easily identified form of culture that is performed within a conceptually enclosed, insider-only space. Their unproblematic directness eliminates the standpoint of a third party (diegetic viewers) while retaining a direct link to the second party (the audience). And finally, the community is situated within a graduated outside environment suggested by three elements: Sanpao, the Communist Party that Luohan joins, and the Japanese troops. While Sanpao is a threat that under certain circumstances must be challenged, he is nonetheless part of the communal environment and is absorbed back into the collective when the Japanese arrive. The party exists only through Luohan, who joins when he leaves the winery after My Grandpa moves in with Jiu’er; as such, it is also represented as nonalien, leaving the non-Chinese invaders as the only true outside force. Via these three forms—collective labor, identifiable cultural forms, and the outsider—Red Sorghum lays out the themes that will become concerns in several films directed by Zhang Yimou in the decades that follow.

Glorious Labor and Sensual Connections In identifying and analyzing what he terms the fascist elements of Red Sorghum, Wang Yichuan (1990) argues that while it is possible to view My Grandpa’s forceful takeover of the winery and of Jiu’er as a class and gender struggle—after all, it is only because of his relative wealth and status as a rich peasant that the old and sick Li Datou has access to the young and beautiful Jiu’er—what belies this interpretation is the fact that rather than overturn this structure, My Grandpa simply repeats what went on before, putting himself in the position of owner of the winery and the woman. The law of the jungle motivates both takeovers and

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the underlying ethos is social Darwinism or the strong over the weak, Wang contends. My Grandpa does not achieve his goals by engendering mutual respect and fostering equality, but rather by simply taking what he wants (44). Thus, the film’s exuberant life-validating spirit becomes a paradox, because it rests on the foundation of thievery, force, and the elimination of reason, by means of a frenzy of muscle power. As with Adolf Hitler and his fascism, Wang states, Red Sorghum valorizes power and control, using the vehicle of the time-jumping narrator to connect the contemporary audience with this covert perspective. Via this narrator, who is of approximately the same generation as the audience, Red Sorghum constructs for viewers a road into a mythical tale that will put them in a position from which to understand that without the forcible taking of power, China will get nowhere. Wang’s interpretation, while insightful in recognizing the film’s interest in relations of power, does not address the way in which labor is reconfigured, first through Jiu’er’s assumption of control, and second through My Grandpa’s reappearance. When the workers decide that Li Datou must indeed be dead and pack their belongings to leave, Jiu’er appears at the door to ask them to stay. Her open, cheerful countenance, her self-denigration as “only a woman,” her request that Luohan continue to serve as foreman, and her expressions of equality—“stay and help and we’ll all have a share” and “I’m from a poor family too, I’m the same as you, don’t call me boss…call me Jiu’er”—contrast with the invisible, cloistered existence of Li Datou. In his role as owner of the winery, Li wielded a very different kind of power, controlled by means of hierarchical relationships. Jiu’er also volunteers to pay the month’s salary whether anyone stays or not, and to accept the return of anyone who changes his or her (there is one woman worker) mind, all with a smile. Her generosity and kindness, as well as her willingness to put herself on the line, stand in contrast with Li Datou’s absence and contagious illness. The three-day fire-and-wine purge of anything touched by Li Datou, instigated by Jiu’er, is filmed as a fest of playfulness and excitement. The

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workers and Jiu’er throw the wine around like children with a water hose, drenching each other far beyond what is necessary to “sterilize” the workplace. When Luohan asks if three dippings of the keys in wine is enough to purge them, Jiu’er says, “You keep them—what is mine is yours,” sanctifying the emblematic expulsion of the hierarchy of private property ownership versus wage labor. But her participation in labor is far more than symbolic. After she returns from capture by Sanpao, ruffled and distressed, Jiu’er is finally lured from her room by Luohan, who urges her to come and see the making of wine. In the smoky, misty atmosphere where the men are dressed only in loincloths, she asks to try out the fire bellows and works away until she is exhausted. She sits down to watch the ritualized process of turning wine into sorghum, its cadences called out by Luohan. The “Wine God Song” completes the sacralization of wine production and of the human labor that brings the wine into existence. The feel-good environment, which relies on a reconfiguration of work as sacred, enabling, mysterious, and deeply enjoyable, comes to a halt when My Grandpa shows up again. His earlier ousting came at the command of Jiu’er, who now stands silently as My Grandpa pees into the wine. There is no doubt that a word from her would result in the workers ejecting him once again, but she does not speak. The reason for this is not, as Wang Yichuan argues, that the rule of the jungle is once again at play and the strong conquer the weak. In fact, the combined strength of the workers is more than enough to once again put My Grandpa in his place. Why, then, does not Jiu’er tell them to throw him out? This scene first rests on the difference between Li Datou and My Grandpa, who both profess a claim to Jiu’er. Whereas Li Datou purchased Jiu’er in a commercial transaction with her father, the winepeeing episode culminates a series of interactions between Jiu’er and My Grandpa. Throughout this back-and-forth process, My Grandpa continually expresses his interest, and then, with a worried expression on his face, checks her reaction. Jiu’er makes her interest in, attraction to, and eventual affection for him apparent. She peeks at his naked back when she is in the sedan, stares at him twice when the masked bandit

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leads her off, and falls ecstatically on the sorghum when he reveals himself to be the second masked bandit. When Jiu’er accompanies her father in a customary visit home after she stays with Li Datou for a few days and nights, she hears My Grandpa singing in the sorghum as she rides away on the donkey and laughs happily as her father curses furiously. But if Jiu’er likes My Grandpa, why, then, does she refuse to recognize him the first time he drunkenly shows up to claim her? To understand this dynamic, we must examine another contrast, that between My Grandpa and Luohan, the foreman at the winery. Several episodes suggest the wild/tame binary that directs viewers to understand these characters as fundamentally different. The most important is their reaction to the bandit Sanpao’s kidnapping of Jiu’er. After Jiu’er rejects My Grandpa’s claim on her as “my woman” and even beats him with a broom put in her hands by one of the workers, several workers step forward to stuff My Grandpa unceremoniously into a wine cauldron. Against any realistic possibility, he remains stuck in the cauldron for three days, during which Sanpao captures Jiu’er and demands a ransom. Luohan pays the ransom, and she returns with him just as My Grandpa emerges from the cauldron. The Sanpao incident, with My Grandpa’s self-endangering confrontation of the bandit, along with the wine-peeing event, establishes the key difference between Luohan and My Grandpa. My Grandpa’s character embodies rebellion, wildness, and craziness, characteristics that both Jiu’er and he possess, if to different degrees and in different ways. By contrast, Luohan accepts the fundamental power structure that rules over the region, redeeming Jiu’er from Sanpao but never thinking to challenge the bandit. When he brings the urineenhanced wine to Jiu’er with good tidings, Luohan is troubled by the appearance of My Grandpa at the door, tying his belt as if he has just put on his trousers. He looks past My Grandpa and asks Jiu’er what the wine should be named, but he is forced to wait too long for her disembodied response, and Luohan’s discomfort—ostensibly because of the implication of sexual activity—shows on his face. While both Jiu’er and My Grandpa eventually ensconce themselves within the regular

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structure of conventional social practice, this initial triumph of the wild over the tame profoundly alienates Luohan, who takes his leave. He shows up again in the hands of the Japanese, and the narrator tells us that he left to join the Communist Party so he could fight against the occupation. The competition and dichotomy between My Grandpa and Luohan only enhances the mystical life-force that Jiu’er and My Grandpa possess: the state and social life within it will be the beneficiaries of this wild spirit, which resides not in institutions or imposed order but deeply within the people.5 Thus, My Grandpa’s claim to Jiu’er is not a unilateral power move as Wang Yichuan suggests. Rather than taking the same position as the fake bandit who leads Jiu’er into the sorghum, or that of Li Datou with his financial power, My Grandpa instead step-by-step builds on their flirtatious relationship, breaking through stultifying social restrictions with true communication and genuine affection. However, although he saves Jiu’er from the fake bandit and respects social order by returning her to the sedan, he has learned something from the bandit, following in his footsteps by grabbing Jiu’er’s foot in front of the other men. Later, he mimics the bandit to haul her into the sorghum when she is riding on the donkey, with her father who is sufficiently farther behind not to notice. But My Grandpa does not act before revealing his identity and waiting for her reaction, which turns out to be positive and encouraging.6 His desires and actions, therefore, may be motivated by the unlawful and the rebellious, but they exist on a moral foundation, and show their ability to function within regular (but invigorated) social norms. My Grandpa comes back when Li Datou is killed (the narrator obliquely implies that My Grandpa is the one who killed him) and succeeds in his quest by means of a most outrageous gesture, urinating into the wine as Jiu’er looks away embarrassed, silently refusing to order the workers to take him away as she did before. Although he ultimately integrates himself into the romanticized environment of the idealized, orderly community, My Grandpa stands for the spark that lies outside

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the routines of society. While he and Jiu’er share a taste for wild rebellion on one hand, and embodied community on the other, he tends more toward the first, and she toward the second. After all, it is Jiu’er, not My Grandpa, who successfully reestablishes and transforms the community into one of happy laborers, equality, and potent bonding rituals. Jiu’er and My Grandpa have a passionate and affectionate relationship that to some degree stands outside conventional social practice. My Grandpa’s provocative urination both forces Jiu’er to recognize their relationship and her desire; his act also confronts the others, who wait for her response, with an exhibition. The shocking deed is an act of exposure, a notice to the workers, and a reminder to Jiu’er of the fundamental physicality of their affection. It is one of two self-conscious displays in the film, made necessary by Jiu’er’s success in setting up a positive society that excludes sexual desire and its implication of wildness. Through his rebellious urination, My Grandpa states what he knows to be true and what he has slowly developed through Jiu’er’s active engagement: Jiu’er likes him and enjoys their sexual relationship. He saturates the wine with this implication and waves before Jiu’er and the workers a sign of their physical and emotional intimacy. After she refuses to reject him but stands embarrassed, My Grandpa picks her up and awkwardly carries her into the house that now belongs to her. Via this second union, My Grandpa is absorbed into the collective and works alongside the other workers, moving the heavy wine cauldrons and participating in the arduous physical labor. He is a far cry from a simple replacement for Li Datou, as Wang Yichuan argues, but instead, inspired by Jiu’er, participates in the transformation of work initiated by Jiu’er and through it, the value of human life. My Grandpa’s role in the film is fairly straightforward. He embodies the life force that is often suppressed in conventional authoritarian civilization, which is represented (by Li Datou) as diseased and in need of change. Whereas he is the challenge to authority that is difficult for most people to put into effect, Jiu’er’s position is more complex. When

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the fake bandit pulls off her red cloth, Jiu’er stares back unperturbed and even smiles broadly (see figure 1). At this point, right before her dreaded defilement by Li Datou, she is interested in anything that will get her out of her dire situation, including any available transgression of propriety. Her reaction is so unusual and improper that the bandit jumps back in alarm. Two things change Jiu’er from a trapped woman looking for escape into a moral exemplar that brings the community together and urges them on in a fight against invaders. The first is My Grandpa’s energetic intervention, and the second is her plunge into communal labor. These alternatives radically differ from the self-destructive resistance she retains as an option (the scissors), or from a redemption hardly better than what she is trying to escape (Li Datou) in the form of a relationship with the fake bandit. Jiu’er’s intervention highlights the moral importance of labor within this pan-socialist rendering. Labor works both concretely, in terms of the physical exertion, and conceptually, as ability and the willingness to work hard in the building of community. It also sheds light on the “trapped woman” syndrome in Zhang’s early (and some later) films. Jiu’er’s desirability and the relative wealth of her original husband, Li Datou, most likely would have limited her labor to the work of unwanted sexual intercourse and reproduction, perhaps even eliminating other forms of physical labor. Her father reminds her that everything owned by Li Datou eventually will be hers. Her decision to work hard and share the fruits of her position and wealth signals her refusal to accept that status, even as she becomes the boss. This transformation marks a crucial pivot point within the film, wrenching a set of hierarchical relations—boss and worker, rich and poor, idle and employed—into a new configuration, and creating the ideal imaginary socialist society without the intervention of the state. Jiu’er’s initial rejection of the drunken My Grandpa, therefore, expresses her empowerment and the importance of what she has accomplished. She rebuffs his casual, disrespectful attitude toward the mystically

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embodied labor through which she has gained agency and reinvigorated the collective. Nonetheless, although Jiu’er has accomplished a great deal, in the context of the film’s themes, it is not enough. What is needed is a transcendent spark of pure, uncivilized life, an urge to smash through danger and charge ahead, and most importantly, a proactive, not reactive energy based on desire.7 If we regard My Grandpa as such a spark, his drunken claiming of Jiu’er is not out of character, but merely goes too far. The same lawless energy, more under control, comes into play when My Grandpa shows up the second time, humming a tune. It is the same song that he loudly sang as he shadowed Jiu’er through the sorghum when she was on the donkey after their “wild union.” Through it, he alludes to her former acquiescence and the exchanges between them in which she has made her affection clear. His urinating into the wine is clearly understood as a transgressive act by Luohan, who does not fight back but simply walks away. Labor, an all-important element in Red Sorghum, is a crucial part of daily life, the routines of making wine and their ritualization by habitual forms, and the communal experience that results from collaborative effort. It recognizes and exalts the bond that comes from working together for the same goal. It also is permeated by a sharp physical reality, which comes out in the sweat, dirt, and sounds that are part of the effort. After Jiu’er begins to work at the winery, we never see her in clean, colorful clothes again. She and the others are always perspiring, their garments stained and dirtied. Red Sorghum presents this daily life culture as simultaneously down-to-earth and transcendent. After the wine is finished and before My Grandpa returns, the vibrant “Wine God Song” transforms vitality of labor into a song that crystalizes the emotions of the people. My focus in the next section is on the way in which the film creates the songs as the pure, untroubled, and authentic expressions of the culture of the people.

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Culture in Song After the black screen, the first images we see in Red Sorghum are of Jiu’er in her wedding garb, as she is covered with a red cloth and put into an ornate red wedding sedan. The camera zooms in on her earrings, the attachment of hair ornaments, a bracelet slid along her arm, and the fastening of the cloth buttons at her neck. Her somber mien and the fetishistic adorning of the female being prepared for both a new kinship alliance as well as the initiation of sexual and reproductive life, along with the list of rules and frightening consequences recited to her —“keep your head covered,” “don’t get out of the sedan”—give notice to the repressive customs that feature more intensely in Zhang Yimou’s upcoming films Judou (1989) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991). Raucous horn music plays in the background. Jiu’er is trapped in a small red space, and dust is kicked up by the carriers as they take her away. The narrator tells us that teasing the bride is a local tradition. While ranting about how difficult it is to carry her and making offensive jokes, the carriers ask her to talk and sing with them in return for their efforts. Their bodies, naked from the waist up, glisten with sweat as they laugh and chortle. Getting no rise out of Jiu’er, My Grandpa announces that it is time to shake the sedan. With loud and jarring horn music provided by the band behind the sedan, the carriers break into song. “Jolt the Sedan” (lyrics written by Zhang Yimou for the film) makes relentless fun of a pockmarked, chicken-necked, lice-laden bride and the groom’s surprise when he sees her for the first time. During these scenes, the camera jumps around, cutting boundaries seemingly at random, focusing on feet, hands, and knees, with frequent switches to the interior of the sedan. Critics have praised and scolded the wild abandon and stark physicality of the tenminute sedan-jolting scene, especially its coarse eroticism (Xu Xiaojuan 1998, 68; Zhu Shoutong 1988, 35; Yvonne Ng).8 The second song is “Little Sister, Go Boldly Forward,” sung by My Grandpa after he and Jiu’er engage in their “wild union” in the sorghum. Alluding to his liaison and their future of drinking red sorghum wine

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together, My Grandpa, hidden by the tall plants, follows Jiu’er as she rides on the donkey. Jiu’er’s father, who sold her to a leper, yells at him for his “crooked sounds and immoral tunes” and demands that he show himself. My Grandpa sings even louder. Jiu’er smiles as she rides on the donkey, and we see a stunning shot of gold, red, and purple fields with sorghum waving, linking the wild union, the song, and Grandpa’s challenge to propriety with the land. Later the song is repeated by My Grandpa, who hums and sings it under his breath as he brazenly urinates into the wine. The final rendition begins when the Japanese truck is blown up and My Grandpa staggers out with Douguan. The extradiegetic version the audience hears is that of My Grandpa as he runs through the sorghum beside Jiu’er’s donkey. The camera scans the dead men and women, and then stops as it comes to rest on the table of food prepared by Jiu’er for the workers to eat after the battle. The third song, “The Wine God Song,” is sung after Jiu’er has been redeemed from Sanpao. Coaxed back into the community by Luohan, Jiu’er learns about wine making and jumps in to work the bellows. After the wine-making is completed, the men sing a song to the wine god, whose likeness is etched on the wall. The words relate the fine points of the wine, which will cure coughs and bad breath, engender a brave attitude to the point where one is not afraid to stand alone at Murderers’ Gulch, and produce a confidence that will not bow down even to the emperor. Led by Luohan the first time, the tune later is lowered an octave and led by My Grandpa as the community prepares to fight the Japanese. Two of the folksy songs—“The Wine God Song” and “Little Sister, Go Boldly Forward”—became so popular after the film was shown that they were sung on the streets, and many famous singers have performed the tunes (Zhang Xingliang 2012, 131). Valorizing romanticized primitive energy, the songs of Red Sorghum are conventional, sometimes bawdy folksongs put forward in a high-spirited and straightforward way. The role that the songs play in the film can be revealed more easily if we compare them with those of Yellow Earth, where folk songs are an

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important thematic element. Yellow Earth is set in 1939, when Communist Party official Gu Qing is sent to collect the hauntingly beautiful songs sung by peasants in the central China province of Shaanxi. At this time, the Japanese have invaded (although they do not appear in the film), and Gu Qing is tasked with writing new lyrics for the old melodies, in the hope that the troops will find them inspiring. The story centers on Cuiqiao, her upcoming marriage to a much older man, and her attempt to escape when she learns from Gu Qing that in Yan’an, women are equal to men and have access to education. Although there are several diegetic and extradiegetic uses of music in the film, there are three important songs. The first is the song that Cuiqiao’s father sings when he becomes worried about Gu Qing fulfilling his song-collecting mission. Gu Qing sits with them in their rustic home, and Cuiqiao works the fire bellows as her father sings, loudly and with no accompanying instruments, about the sorrow of a girl betrothed at the age of thirteen, married at fourteen, and widowed at fifteen, at which point she kills herself. The second is Cuiqiao’s song for her brother Hanhan as she tries to row herself across the river to travel to Yan’an. This song originally was taught by Gu Qing to Hanhan after the latter sang his humorous song about bed-wetting. Although initially shy and without words, Hanhan finally bonds with Gu Qing and quickly learns the revolutionary song. As Cuiqiao rows away toward the end of the film, she belts out the lyrics, referring to the hammer, sickle, and pick, as well as the making of a new road for the poor. As she reaches the spot where she credits the Communist Party with many achievements, her voice disappears after the first two characters, gongchan (communist), leaving dang (party) unvoiced. The third song is the plea of the assembled men to the Dragon King of the Sea for rain to save the people. This song is sung after Gu Qing returns in the spring and goes to Cuiqiao’s home, only to find no one. The scene flips between the men with leaves around their heads and red fabric in the river, possibly floating loose from Cuiqiao as her boat went down. As the crowd sings and rushes forward, Hanhan runs the opposite direction, waving at Gu Qing, who appears and reappears over the horizon. The

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camera moves to slow motion and we see Hanhan bobbing in the sea of naked human backs. The final song is the same one that Cuiqiao sang when she went into the river, about the party saving the people. Other than the humorous song sung by Hanhan (which also begins with an arranged marriage in which the bride is not asked about her preferences), the others refer to a miserable life in which lack of control and agency is the norm. Cuiqiao’s father, who sobs out her name when he tells Cuiqiao of her impending marriage, is much kinder than Jiu’er’s father. He is not sending her away for monetary reasons, but he cannot change the fact that she must be married off to an older man, since they are poor and he cannot find a better match. He sings directly about the cruelty of traditions such as the arranged marriage of young girls. The men singing to the rain god ask for help to bring water to the parched land so the people may be saved. Their communal plea is deeply felt and directly expressed. In both cases, the songs are tightly connected to the actual life and experience of the people, and they embody and project the true culture of the harsh, demanding land. They are, in other words, cultural forms whose authenticity cannot be questioned. The transformation of songs about the miserable life of peasants into those with an optimistic outlook by way of new lyrics inserted into the tunes is a reversal of culture that might be acceptable in times of war. However, the party’s cultural representative makes a crucial mistake: Gu Qing is sent only to collect songs, not to teach the people new lyrics. Those are reserved for soldiers fighting the Japanese. Whereas his motivation is pure, he commits a fatal error when, in order to forge an alliance with Hanhan, he teaches the boy the new lyrics. Sitting nearby, Cuiqiao immediately absorbs the words and their message of liberation and hope, transferring the historical depth of emotion that the folk songs embody and display into the new song. This melodious arrow to the heart combines with Gu Qing’s happy description of Yan’an to give birth to the idea that she may be able to escape her fate. Gu Qing may think he is only teaching a young boy a song of hope, but he disturbs the brutal reality of

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the way things really are with this musical expression. Innocent by nature and yet guilty of duplicity in the role he plays, Gu Qing optimistically represents the improved conditions of Yan’an, inspiring in Cui Qiao the desire for a new future. But the desperate conditions of this barren area will not change quickly or even within Cuiqiao’s lifetime. Implicated in the emotional life of the family and having successfully transferred the spark of hope to Cuiqiao, Gu Qing unwittingly leads her to what is most likely to be her death. As he prepares to leave, Cuiqiao senses the departure as a betrayal and reminds him of the obligation he has created by his actions. She asks if he can really walk away freely from her, her brother, and her father as if nothing has happened, but Gu Qing fails to understand what he has done. The songs in Yellow Earth, therefore, are profound expressions of the affective life of the people, who are trapped in time and space. That link, both strong and fragile at once, presents the songs as culture at its most authentic and genuine. Assigned by the Communist Party with a mission that is instrumental at heart, Gu Qing senses but ultimately cannot interpret the powerful connection to a hard-won existence and its emotional life that the songs both contain and convey. He has taken local culture entirely too lightly, not recognizing the complex web of meaning within and beneath its expression. In Red Sorghum, similar themes run through the songs: girls trapped in marriage and a nod to the appropriate god. The music, however, has none of the deterministic resignation of the songs in Yellow Earth. Rather than latching onto and expressing fatalism, the songs in Red Sorghum, while likewise welling out from deep-rooted emotions, enable and portray selfempowerment and vigor. Like the songs sung by Cuiqiao, her father, and Hanhan, these songs appear to come directly from the lives of the people. The film presents this form of culture as connected to the active, positive, life-giving spirit of the people, rather than as conveying the truth of an impoverished existence. As a pure and authentic manifestation of this power rather than a lament, the songs are part of the film’s

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presentation of culture as powerful, as able to accomplish positive work, and as linking the past through the present into the future, constructing a new social body. Red Sorghum’s “Little Sister, Go Boldly Foward” would seem to relate the disaster of marriage for a woman, much as does the song of Cuiqiao’s father. But it humorously and slyly introduces the presence of the singer: Little Sister, go boldly ahead Go forward, don’t turn back your head Little Sister, go boldly ahead Go forward, don’t turn back your head The great road to the sky Nine thousand, nine hundred, nine thousand, nine Little Sister, go boldly ahead Go forward, don’t turn back your head From now on you’ll be in a red bridal stall You’ll toss a red bridal ball And on my head it will fall I’ll drink a pot with you Red sorghum wine Red sorghum wine9 My Grandpa sings the song as he moves hidden through the sorghum, fully audible for both Jiu’er and her father as they make their way home after the symbolic third day of the marriage. Jiu’er’s father accurately interprets the threatening meaning of the song and the voice of a trespasser into the marriage, which challenges the give-and-take between him and his son-in-law, or the trade of Jiu’er for a mule. When the song is sung by the hidden but energetically running and shouting My Grandpa, it defies the custom of marriage as economic exchange. This conventional narrative, which has trapped Jiu’er in the sedan, is replaced by an alternative formed not through the bonds of money, but through emotional and physical connection. Rather than lamenting the fate of the young bride, as is the case with the father’s song in Yellow Earth,

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the song celebrates the rejection of economic exchange as the primary mechanism of human alliance and as the basis of society. A closer look at the wine-peeing incident will further clarify the significance of the song “Little Sister,” which reappears when My Grandpa is stuck in the cauldron after his first drunken attempt to claim Jiu’er. The song is hummed and lightly mouthed by My Grandpa when he returns a second time to claim Jiu’er. My Grandpa ignores the offer of wine from Luohan, understanding that accepting it would socialize him within the group of men and soften his demand. Without a word, he moves four of the smaller cauldrons over in a line in front of Jiu’er. The men stand in a half-circle around. After he unties his belt and begins to urinate, My Grandpa starts to sing “Little Sister.” His urine tinkles into the wine. The song, which begins at the moment of exposure, makes My Grandpa’s goal clear: he rejects reabsorption into the anonymous male workers’ community, instead demanding recognition of his relationship with Jiu’er and insisting that Jiu’er go boldly forward. The song’s final appearance comes after the Japanese truck is blown up, transferring the same spirit into the fight against the Japanese. When it is first sung, the “Wine God Song” celebrates the fruits of communal labor. In its second appearance, as the workers prepare to fight the invaders, the song constructs a connection between belonging to the community and the desire to organize and repel hostile outsiders. The idealization of the community members, who are equals to the point that no absolute and separate sovereign is necessary, is a precondition for the powerful act of resistance. The song is an expression of collectivity and an affirmation of their willingness to die. In the final rendition of “Wine God Song,” we can identify the affective thread that runs through and ties together the powerful aspects of community that the film has so carefully constructed: hard work, equality, and joy. These are all parts of the romance of the people, culture, and land—revealing a spirit that is initially hidden, then exposed by the subversive acts of My Grandpa and Jiu’er, finally becoming the community norm. When the Japanese

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invade, the final, shocking section extends the logic of belonging from the small kin-like group into the national and global arenas. The sense of unity that motivates Jiu’er, My Grandpa, and the others to fight the Japanese is almost completely unrelated to the state, but derives from the power of deep culture, invigorated by means of the rebellious lifeforce that My Grandpa and Jiu’er embody and provide.

Outsiders: Sanpao, the Communist party, and the Japanese Three entities are external to the community but play an important role in the film. The first is Sanpao, the true bandit, well-known and greatly feared. When the marriage band enters the sorghum, its raucous noise is replaced by an eerie quiet, punctuated by fearful glances and stealthy movement. While the first bandit the musicians encounter turns out to be only mimicking the real thing, later Sanpao himself makes an appearance. Barely moments after My Grandpa has been rejected by Jiu’er and stuffed into a wine cauldron, shots pierce the air and the workers cry out Sanpao’s name. He strides through the round rock formation that is the symbolic entry to the wine-making community. Sanpao captures Jiu’er and demands a ransom. Just as Jiu’er returns with Luohan, My Grandpa emerges from the cauldron. He sees Jiu’er, and his face dissolves into a picture of sadness, embarrassment, and chagrin (see figure 2). As Luohan and the female cook help Jiu’er into her room, she turns and sees My Grandpa run up the hill and through the very same round rock formation through which Sanpao entered. He enters the butcher shop and restaurant that is a kind of lair for Sanpao and his gang. Sanpao returns, and My Grandpa puts a knife to Sanpao’s throat, stating, “You ruined my woman.” As a local bandit who arrives via the symbolic round rock hole (which the Japanese do not pass through), Sanpao’s reign is not fundamentally challenged by either Luohan or My Grandpa, although My Grandpa draws the line differently than does Luohan. Whereas Luohan allows encroachment both financially and physically,

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My Grandpa accepts the ransom as part of the local economy but rejects the physical violation, implying that the stakes are greater than money. The refusal to allow economic subsistence to overwhelm other aspects of life has several appearances in the film, and reinforces the romantic and spiritual ethos. My Grandpa’s intervention also temporarily challenges the social hierarchy, a threat that Sanpao decides to ignore only when he is accused of shameful deceit. The social logic that determines the exchange—ownership of women, hierarchy determined by brute power, economic privilege, and honor between men—takes place outside the warm communal environment of the winery, and marks Sanpao as an internal bandit who more or less lives by the accepted rules of the area. Suddenly the screen is full of people never seen before, alluding to the isolation of the winery in its mythical existence as well as its real-life contextualization within a larger community. Nearby villagers have been forced into labor. The Japanese soldiers shout loudly and poke people with bayonets, ordering them to stomp down the sorghum to prepare the ground for road building. Sanpao’s butcher and butcher’s assistant are skinning a donkey or mule, which could allude to the loss of the animal for which Jiu’er’s father exchanged her. The Chinese collaborator compliments the butcher on his skill, admiring his work. Machine guns are trained on the crowd, and a badly beaten man is dragged in. The collaborator yells at the crowd, “You’ve smashed down the sorghum, now we’ll open your eyes and you can watch a man be skinned! Take a clear look at the man hanging up there, this will be the end result for anyone who opposes the imperial army!” The man—Sanpao—lifts his head. The butcher, however, stabs Sanpao instead of skinning him and is thus shot himself. The assistant brought over to skin the next man, who is Luohan. At this point, the narrator refers to historical records to verify his tale. The historical perspective contextualizes the event within the imperialistic invasion of China by Japan, and it has the effect of cementing both the context and the meaning:

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According to the people in my hometown, our Grandpa Luohan had joined the Communist Party and was assigned to recruit people and arm them to fight the Japanese. I checked the country records, the Japanese army conscripted 400,000 laborers to build Zhangping Road, ruining countless families and killing thousands. When Liu Luohan came to Qingshakou, he was skinned by the Japanese army as a warning to the people. Liu had no fear on his face, and would not stop swearing at them until he was dead. After these horrific scenes and the intrusion by a hostile outside power, the mobilization of the wine workers via ritual begins, expanding the gathering together of emotional and physical resources that reconstituted the community after Li Datou’s death. Through this ritualized mobilization, we see how the same cultural values that bond the workers into a tight, happy group will forcefully project a unified front against the Japanese. In this case, the outsiders are as radical and destructive as is possible, their presence offering a challenge that, when met, illustrates the powerful unity of the community. It is not surprising, then, that it is Jiu’er and not My Grandpa who demands revenge. Whereas My Grandpa stands more on the side of wild rebellion, Jiu’er facilitates the transition between the rich camaraderie of idealized everyday life and the spirit of the wild. Neither should it surprise us that the workers are quickly motivated and unified via the “Wine God Song,” the song that enables and expresses their bond. The scene is carefully constructed to demonstrate the seamless connection between the life-giving rebellious force of the wine and its song, and the opposition to outside invasion. “If you are men,” Jiu’er says harshly, “drink this wine, and when dawn comes attack the Japanese trucks. Get revenge for Big Brother Luohan!” The song ends with a vision of a deep blue night sky with the moon above and the rock formation, symbolizing the tightknit community below. The next scene shows the workers carrying equipment, with the same blue night sky as a narrow space in which their completely dark figures work. They prepare a cannon

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and hide a bomb between four cauldrons of wine, and My Grandpa asks Douguan to urinate into the wine, infusing it with the magical bodily spark, just as he himself did before. Grandpa tells one of the men to blow a loud and energetic horn when the attack begins because the Japanese fear “noisy horns.”10 The barbaric native horns emblematically disrupt the imperialist invasion. This use of the noise of a nonmodern culture is exactly the opposite of what Rey Chow finds in Ba Jin’s novel Family, where the narrator’s figurative translation of native culture under the modern gaze turns the cultural habit of mourning into sheer noise, an indication of backwardness that no longer can be explicated in the modern world (Chow 2014, 62–64). Although My Grandpa attributes the fear of loud instruments to the Japanese, he could easily be talking about literati culture in China, which privileges the elegant and beautiful over the crude and ugly, marked as primitive and barbarian. This bias is what motivates Zhou Shoutong (1988) when he discusses viewers who find Red Sorghum to have abandoned beauty, the fundamental requirement of Chinese aesthetics. While recognizing the anticivilizational stimulation that the northwest experimental films including Red Sorghum, One and Eight, and Yellow Earth provide, Zhou blames them for desecrating and demeaning Chinese culture: Beauty opens reality by means of emotions, whereas ugliness forces a reaction by means of stimulation. Stimulation can provide a passive sense of the new, especially in the context of the long desert that has been Chinese film. So when a stimulating film like Red Sorghum happens to appear, it can bring a breath of fresh air to the senses. Exactly as critics claim in the case of Red Sorghum, the film’s allure lies precisely in its heretical nature: “We have never seen it before, so it seems fresh and new, and we want to see it.” Most audiences can simply rely on whether or not the stimulation is fresh and new enough to make them want to see it, and thus determine its value. But it is inappropriate for a film critic to determine value in the same way. Red Sorghum, which is representative of the stimulation sought by experimental films about western China, uses descriptions of savagery, characterizations of brute force, the

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appearance of tenacious barbarity, uncivilized renderings and so on to produce an ugly treatment of reality. This should be regarded as an extremely harmful phenomenon for China’s experimental films and for Chinese cultural criticism. (35) Among other aspects of the film, Zhou points to jolting the sedan, which he calls a “typical expression of barbaric stimulation” (35). In both Red Sorghum and Yellow Earth, he sees the depiction of a closed rural society, with its “numb, obstinate, conservative, ignorant spiritual state,” characteristics of a backward country already identified and criticized by Lu Xun, without the writer’s sharp eye to identify suffering and use his writing to fight against it (35–36). However, the fact that My Grandpa speaks directly about the coarse culture at the moment of the Japanese invasion—even spitting out his orders that the man blow the horn with great vigor; the louder the better —highlights the powerful intervention of an earthy form of cultural expression, which is important in the face of the challenge that the outsiders present. The invasion is more than just the appearance of hostile outsiders. It embodies a threat to the survival of the group and suggests that the community’s future is in peril. We first watch the sorghum in the wind, and then the narrator tells us that after that day in the sun, there was always something wrong with his father’s eyes, and he could only see red. He also says that when he returned home, the Qingshakou Bridge was there but no sorghum. This comment alerts us to the film’s valorization of the rebellious body and spirit, and the disappearance of the sorghum means that the wild land that once produced a wild spirit has changed. It is within this context that the role of the Communist Party becomes relevant. Associated with the domesticated Luohan rather than the bold My Grandpa, the party is connected to the former’s personality and values. Thus, while brave and steadfast, the party also can be seen as a damper on the explosive, contrary energy that is needed. When the smoke dissipates, My Grandpa and Douguan are the only survivors. The camera pans over the dead and Jiu’er—who has fallen

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over in a repeated sequence—lying on the ground. The sorghum waves in the wind, My Grandpa’s former rendition of “Little Sister” is in the background, and an eclipse of the sun turns the screen completely red. Douguan yells out a funeral chant for his mother. This section is raw and difficult to watch, but it directs us toward three important points. First, the crude culture of the northwest embodies a vigorous strength deep within and could represent a quality lying in wait within the people at large. The glorification of the “barbaric” northwest culture is neither meant as a comparison with the more elegant aspects of Chinese culture, nor is it an attempt to mimetically represent the breadth of Chinese rural life. It implies that the people have vigor and the spiritual resources to go forward. Second, the film is not primarily an anti-Japanese narrative, but uses the invasion to force a confrontation between this mythical Chinese culture and the most historically significant, easily recognizable, powerful and hostile outside element. Without this struggle, the global context would not be clear given that there is little in the film to suggest that the winery and its workers are anything more than a small local group. Both the culture and the confrontation, therefore, while presented as physical and brutal, are symbolic of a larger struggle. Third, while this battle takes place at the end of the story, the entire film is predicated on it. The film’s main question is not so much whether China has the ability to stand up to occupation, but rather, whether it has the raw material to craft a future that is authentic, strong, self-reliant, and confident. My Grandpa’s fertile spark of life; Jiu’er’s rebellion; the idealistic, transcendent, and egalitarian construction of the community with its bonding rituals; and the emboldening songs all become meaningful within the context of confrontation with the outsider.

Red Sorghum and the 1980s Red Sorghum was among the early films that addressed the significance of culture at the cusp of China’s entry into the nonsocialist global world. This orientation centered the West rather than the socialist countries

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with which China had been allied, and it implicitly compared Chinese society to that of the United States and Western Europe. The “northwest wind” was not limited to film but blew through the country in the form of novels, poetry, songs, and art (Yang Gang 1989, 37; Wang Yichuan 1994, 68). Writing on Red Sorghum, Old Well, and Samsara, Yang Gang contextualizes the northwest wind within the question of how to make films that can stand up to the highest standards in global film production (41). Wang Yichuan insightfully argues that when Zhang Yimou made Red Sorghum, he had faith in the “ethnic spirit” of the people, and that after 1989, the director developed a much more sober and suspicious viewpoint (72). However, in an argument closely related to Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), Wang also claims that Zhang’s films, in particular Red Sorghum, reflect back to the West its own imaginary about China: Actually, this primitive sentiment and its accompanying strategy of marginalization, allegorizing, and Othering to a great degree is established from a Western perspective of the “Other,” to the extent that it becomes a product “engendered from the Western Other.” With the unexpected “discovery” of Yellow Earth by the West, Zhang Yimou began to calculate how he could use the sentiments of a foreign country to “conquer” the West. To the Chinese, it is nothing but primitive sentiments, but for Westerners it becomes the sentiments of a foreign country. Starting with Red Sorghum, with every footprint increasingly carrying primitive sentiments, he ceremoniously walked toward the West. But the result of his efforts to figure out the specifics of the Western “Other” was that the “self” and “self-nature” got secretly replaced. The China of his “self-nature” became nothing other than the imaginary China of the West, while the China that was his real “self-nature” ended up with no right to speak. (72) Edward Said’s seminal book analyzes the study of the Orient by the West, which according to Said is characterized by its desire to keep this ultimate “other” servile so that imperialism and expansionism would encounter no obstacles. In culture, the West strove to define the Orient as weak, feminine, and irrational, an entity against which it could define itself as

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strong, masculine, and rational, Said argued. He attacked Orientalism as racist, self-serving, and intellectually fraudulent.11 Yet the evaluation of Zhang’s primitivism runs from positive to negative, from analysis that brings out its vital spirit as representative of China, to critiques of fascism and Orientalism. Xiao Bing (1998a) directly disagrees with Wang Yichuan’s (1994) claim that irrationality directs the narrative of Red Sorghum: Wang Yichuan doesn’t seem to notice the way peasants do business, just the political implications. He is surprised and bewildered that Jiu’er would “even think of” having affection for the sedan man. Since the bride, with a knife in her bosom, is prepared to die (probably killing the leper), any lifeline, even the gift of her body to anyone else is better than to the leper—not to mention that she was bought to be a beast of burden. So she happily smiles at the bandit. Logic lurks in wildness—the senses (the subconscious and so on), obliterated by logic, take their departure along with emotions. Wang Yichuan cleverly sees that the “sedan jolting” is filled with “the flavor of sex,” and the sedan man “really teases the new bride.” But he doesn’t know that this is not only a traditional male right, but also a performance of love. This is Jiu’er’s first love, and is more complex than when Cui Yingying falls in love. Yet this is also “crude” planning: the bandit is better than the leper, and the sedan man is smarter than the stupid bandit. Why wouldn’t Jiu’er, full of wild energy, fall for the valiant, brave, wild, and rebellious— if there were no salvation by the rebel, all she could do is become a sacrificial lamb on the enchanted alter of the “patriarch.” (110) The story of Cui Yingying and her love at first sight for Zhang Sheng —also forbidden love that takes place outside the bonds of marriage—is related in the Romance of the Western Chamber, one of the most famous love stories of China.12 By comparing the complexity of Jiu’er’s affection for the sedan man with Cui Yingying’s love, Xiao Bing faults Wang Yichuan for being an elitist, implying that Wang can only recognize love when it is dressed in the clothes of high culture while finding it

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implausible for peasants. Additionally, Xiao Bing identifies in Jiu’er’s choice a logical desire for survival. Rey Chow (2011) puts forward a related argument: In hindsight, however, what the fifth-generation filmmakers’ redemptive gestures helped to inaugurate was an unprecedented economic-semiotic transfer. Filmmaking meant that the philosophical and aesthetic investments in Chinese nativism/indigenism were set in motion at a steady pace of deterritorialization, in which the native or indigene, signifying the rooted, local knowledge that is associated with China and Chineseness, took on the exchange value of a marketable, because circulatable, transnational exhibit… Through the deployment of innovative moving images in the works of the fifth-generation directors, precisely the organic intellectual efforts to remember the Cultural Revolution and the founding aspirations of Chinese communism—letting the subalterns speak, vindicating and empowering the downtrodden classes —metamorphosed into a commodification and specularization of subalternity as a type of late-capitalist cinematic sign. (556) Chow joins together Yellow Earth, Red Sorghum, Judou, Raise the Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine, To Live (1994) and The Blue Kite (Lan fengzheng; Tian Zhuangzhuang 1993) as the most well-known examples of Fifth Generation films that draw “on the associations of impoverishment, illiteracy, and technical dissonance with the rest of the world—in brief, the familiar constituents of human subalternity” (556). She argues that Zhang Yimou deploys poverty and illiteracy to compel “reflection on Chinese history through a focus on the underprivileged, often rural, masses” (556). Chow accurately pinpoints the Fifth Generation focus on the underprivileged rural masses, although delving into the daily oppression of commoners, especially those in the countryside, also was a feature of the leftist cinematic movement from the 1930s on, as well as other visual arts (Vivien Shen 2005; Xiaobing Tang 2016). Classics such as The White-Haired Girl, while more formulaic than the Fifth Generation films, featured oppressed peasants, who often were presented

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as subalterns in relation to landlords or others in power. The innovation of the Fifth Generation filmmakers came not through their depiction of the poor and powerless, but rather through the framework they established, which included not only a critical evaluation of Chinese history but also knowledge about how this history could be understood in a new global contexts where the West has replaced the old socialist world as the bearer of standards. This approach included a historical assessment of how ideology was embedded within cultural practice, but that was not necessarily the central focus. The question of how to form a new future out of the past and through the present was explored through an experimental aesthetics that often took the impoverished as its material. Although Red Sorghum represents both the primitive sentiments (in Rey Chow’s [1995] work rendered as “primitive passions”) that Wang Yichuan singles out, as well as the impoverishment/illiteracy/subalternity to which Chow calls attention, the deployment of a vigorous if peripheral rural culture has little to do with a focus on the rural masses, and everything to do with the deployment of subalterns to construct an allegory. Nonetheless, the tactic of setting the stories deeply within primitive or impoverished environments, as described by Wang Yichuan and Rey Chow, is important for other reasons. The absence of leaders outside the community, the rejection of intellectual approaches, and the exuberant, coarse cultural expressions can disorient viewers more familiar with either stock socialist narratives or intellectual issues of education, law, or governance. Wang and Chow both point to the capitalist environment that China entered in the postsocialist period as determining the nature of the Fifth Generation directors’ concerns. Their contention that Red Sorghum is resonant with this new global environment is thought-provoking. Although I disagree that the film reflects the West’s Orientalized image back to viewers anxious to confirm their superiority (and oblivious to the constructed nature of film), it is sharply aware of the presence of the West and of competitive global film culture, where the most coveted awards and recognitions come from Western Europe and the United States. Red Sorghum is part of the Fifth Generation movement

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away from socialist film modes, “modernizing” with new themes and techniques. However, it accomplishes much more than this when it addresses the resources available to China as it enters this new global context. As we will see in the next chapter, this exuberant vision did not last very long. With Judou, the positive aspects of the mythical rural community mined so productively in Red Sorghum turn into a weighty structure bearing down on those who live within an enclosed society. Figure 1. Jiu’er smiling at the fake bandit.

Figure 2. My Grandpa after seeing Jiu’er return from the bandit.

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Notes 1. The quote is part of an interview with Lauren Berlant and Michael Hardt. See Heather Davis and Paige Sarlin (2016). 2. The “Roots” literature movement of the 1980s sought inspiration for mainstream Han society from rural cultures, often in non-Han areas. For analysis and history of this movement, see Mark Leenhouts (2003). 3. For a direct rebuttal of Wang’s arguments, see Liu Nan (1991). For discussions of nativism, Chinese culture as backward, and the global positioning of the film see also Zhu Shoutong (1988), Yang Gang (1989), Yu Aichun and Li Yan (2007), Liu Chang (1988), Li Jinzhao (2006), and Xu Xiaojuan (2008). 4. The narrator refers to the two main characters as My Grandpa and My Grandma, but My Grandma is given a name in the film, whereas My Grandpa is not. I will refer to My Grandma as Jiu’er to avoid confusion. 5. Another enigmatic scene contributes to the positioning of My Grandpa as a wild force and Luohan as a more docile alternative. A few years after he vanishes, Luohan mysteriously shows up under the rock formation, where he watches the winery for a while before again disappearing. Jiu’er runs after him and My Grandpa follows, keeping a distance and looking around carefully when Jiu’er tells him it was Luohan. The sudden appearance and disappearance of Luohan with no contact implies that he is checking out the situation to see if anything has changed (i.e., if My Grandpa is still around). This provocative juncture suggests that if My Grandpa were gone, Luohan may give up what we later learn to be his participation in the anti-Japanese Communist Party resistance, instead returning to the winery. In other words, if he could get rid of the wild and attractive My Grandpa, and resume his life as foreman of the winery with Jiu’er in charge, he would relinquish his commitment to the state. 6. For a discussion of interpretations of this scene as both literal and symbolic rape (of the nation), or as an example of the liberating force of female sexuality, see Jerome Silbergeld (1999, 142–143). 7. This representation of vibrant masculinity has been widely discussed and analyzed. See Louise Ann Williams (2004) and Yuejin Wang (1991). 8. The title of Xu Xiaojuan’s article is a pun on the director’s given name, which literally means “art seeking.” By changing the character for “art”

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9.

10.

11. 12.

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to a rhyming character that means profit (li), the author puns on the name, transforming it from “seeking art” to “seeking profit.” The song “Little Sister, Go Boldly Foward” is heavily rhymed in Chinese, and interspersed with ejections to add rhythm. The ending words correspond to Jiu’er’s name, jiu (nine 九), which is a homonym for wine (jiu 酒). The words tower (lou), ball (qiu), walk (zou), head (tou), and after (hou) all rhyme rhyme closely with pot (hu). Noisy instruments, or xiangqi, refers to the horns blown at weddings, funerals, and other important events in rural locales. It also can refer to drums. Sometimes paired with wild behavior, the horns have ended up with a vulgar reputation in some places. See “Noisy Instruments” (accessed July 30, 2014). See also Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism (1993). The Romance of the Western Chamber (Xixiang ji) by Wang Shifu dates from the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). It was translated into English by Stephen West and Wilt L. Idema (1991). This story in turn is based on an earlier tale, “The Story of Yingying” by Yuan Zhen of the Tang Dynasty (618–907).

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Chapter 2

Judou and the Ethics of the Gaze LC: Do you think an American audience can understand this? ZY: I don’t because, basically, ours are two different kinds of cultures, the result of two different societies. I don’t think a Westerner can understand why we can stand all this oppression for our whole lives. For them, it is simply inhuman. Actually, I don’t care too much whether this concept can reach American audiences, because one has to recognize the uniqueness of each culture. They may not understand the metaphysical obstacles of these characters, but I think they can understand the exterior obstructions. For example, the son, Thin [sic] Bai: they can understand why Tian Qing has to hide away from other people, why he has to hide away from his own son. For me, this is enough. If they can understand more, that would be fine. If they find it strange and impenetrable, I think this is also normal. The Chinese culture occupies a very weak status internationally, among the world order, so it is the responsibility of the filmmaker to break through all this, so that more people in the world can accept and understand Chinese culture and what made the Chinese people.

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Zhang Yimou … LC: At the Beijing Film Academy, you saw a lot of different kinds of films. Which directors had an impact on your way of seeing? ZY: I have seen a lot of films, but no Western filmmaker has ever had a great impact or influence on me. We always feel there is a great gap between Chinese films and Western films. Western films are far more advanced, but we don’t feel any shock about this gap. It seems natural. I think the film that really influenced us, the Fifth Generation, is The Spring of A Small Town [1949 film by Fei Mu]. We simply couldn’t get to sleep after we saw the film. It’s a world-class film. It was so brilliant that we kept asking, “How is it possible that China make such a film in 1949, and yet 40 years later, have such a leap backward?” Now we’re not even making bad films, but trash. We had lots of discussions about that and promised ourselves that when we graduated and started to make films, that we would never make films which go backwards. Films like The One and the Eight, Yellow Earth, The Big Parade, the reason why we tried to express very strong emotions in those films is in fact a continuation of this anger, of this decision. We don’t care whether the film is good or not. At least we’re not making backwards trash. —Lawrence Chua, interview with Zhang Yimou (1991)

Judou (1990) came out only a few years after Red Sorghum, but suddenly the high spirits and confidence of My Grandpa and Jiu’er that animated Zhang’s first film vanished almost entirely. The relative pessimism of Judou could be related to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, when students and workers protested against the state and were driven out of the square by force. Hundreds or thousands were killed, and the use of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) against Chinese protesters brought lasting anger at both the Party and the military.1 However, the dire prognosis for the future continued long after Judou, and arguably, the optimism of Red Sorghum never reappeared. Even with the radical difference in tone, the parallels between Red Sorghum and Judou are striking, with the leprous

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Li Datou and Yang Jinshan in the position of old men purchasing young women, the young brides Jiu’er and Judou fighting for their lives, My Grandpa and Tianqing as their lovers and helpers, and Douguan and Qingbai as the lovers’ sons, the result of “wild” or illicit unions. Jiu’er and Judou both are sold by their fathers, and both use sexual display as a tool to escape the marriage with an older man. The structural similarity is so conspicuous that Judou easily could be regarded as a reworking of the same story, now set in a new environment. Not only does the film intensify questions about what culture is and how it works, but it also reworks issues of gender and agency, which also were topics in Red Sorghum. In addition to the change in tone, the lack of a significant outsider is another important difference between the two films, a variation that is further intensified in Raise the Red Lantern. Instead of a ruthless Japanese enemy against which the fighting spirit and rebellious attitude of Jiu’er and My Grandpa can work, a claustrophobic sense of suffocation envelops the village setting. Many critics have noted the emphasis on architecture, expressed in shot after shot of the sea of roofs with the solitary courtyard of the dye mill opening up as a tiny space within (Fan 1997, 24; Wang and Lin 2012, 32; Lau 1994, 6). The camera forces us into narrow lanes within the village, and the closed-in feeling breaks only when we see Tianqing on a road coming in and going out, with a fleeting eye to what lies outside. The camera also emphasizes the giant solid beams of the dye mill, as well as the heavy wood-hewn wheels and other equipment. This weighty, tightly crafted interiority correlates with the tension and pressure experienced by Judou, who is abused frequently, but it also has other implications. Whereas Red Sorghum celebrates Jiu’er’s escape from the bridal sedan, from her father’s mercenary transaction, and from Li Datou’s control into a loving community and relationship, in Judou, the final escape for the couple lies deep underground, in a storage room they use for sexual encounters.

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More than in Red Sorghum, in Judou culture is exaggerated, formalized, and structured, with little opportunity for transformation. It is shown to be tenaciously rooted in customs, forming an impermeable shell that determines thought and behavior. Whereas Red Sorghum recognizes the energy and life force of the people even if they spend their lives in a narrowly circumscribed space, the rigidity of social mores in Judou erodes the rebellious spirit. Except in the mouths of children, the boisterous songs of Red Sorghum are gone, replaced by toxic daily life practices. Negative tendencies—especially social, familial, and gender hierarchies— that were curtailed in the earlier film come into prominence. Other differences between Red Sorghum and Judou also point toward a more sober assessment of the historical and contemporary resources that can be directed toward a viable future. From Red Sorghum to Judou and on to Raise the Red Lantern and finally Qiuju Goes to Court (1992), the vanishing strength and visibility of the once-powerful male lead is part of this evolution. Yang Tianqing, made fearful by his loyalty to his adoptive uncle, has none of My Grandpa’s wild energy. Comparing Yang Jinshan to Li Datou in Red Sorghum, we find a much stronger, long-lasting adversary whose very physical existence is a persistent obstacle. And whereas Li Datou cannot be understood as a Confucian patriarch, Judou quickly establishes a Confucian context of familial shrines, advising elders, and the necessity of male descendants. Even within this context, however, Jinshan operates at an extreme that would seem to be hard to surpass—until Raise the Red Lantern comes along. As Ding Xiaodong and Dale “Yuhao” Zhong (2014) explain, From the modern perspective, Confucian familial relationships were hierarchical, patriarchal and gendered. Authority lay with the father the husband and the elders. However, formal inequality in the familial relationships did not lead to unconditional domination and subordination. Confucianism imposed a high standard on the benevolence of the father, the righteousness of the husband and the fraternity of the elder brother. (435)

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Li Datou’s quick death refocuses attention on the healthy couple that takes over the winery and their son, as well as his son, the narrator. In Judou, we learn that Yang Jinshan is impotent and see the transfer of a poisoned environment into Tianbai, the son of Judou and Tianqing. The evil and violent Tianbai replaces the bland but playful Douguan and the invisible grandson, whose voice possesses the ability to synthesize the past into a powerful, positive narrative that produces an optimistic sense of the present and its direction. As part of the overall bleakness, the reproduction of sons as the symbolic route into the future also becomes twisted. Compared to Jiu’er, Judou is forced to take a much more energetic role in activating a male agent, which suggests disturbing implications about the nature of acting, display, watching, and being watched. The role of the calculated performance becomes more prominent, assuming an even more conspicuous and disconcerting position in Raise the Red Lantern. And finally, in Judou, economic exchange springs up as a force to be reckoned with, taking on a rigidity similar to the dense and claustrophobic architectural structures of the village and dye mill, enforcing hierarchy, and establishing immovable boundaries. In Red Sorghum, labor is seen through a utopian lens that brings out its abilities to rejuvenate the individual and the community, anchoring a vital connection to the land and locale. In Judou, however, labor is subsumed under economic imperatives, turning into a joyless and arduous routine. In addition to changing the wide-open spaces of Red Sorghum into heavy containment, Judou alters the experience of time by contextualizing it solidly within the regimented schedule of utilitarian labor. As in several other films directed by Zhang Yimou, the most heartbreaking character is a mentally strong but trapped woman. These relatively defenseless females are bereft of protective parents or others to help them and have limited options for agency. Their main strategy is to draw sympathy through displaying their beauty, vulnerability, and helplessness. Judou’s tactical baring of her bruised and naked body forces Tian-

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qing (and the audience) to see not only her beauty but also her wounds. Her famous return gaze creates for her an impressive moment of agency and launches her campaign to elicit Tianqing’s help. In this chapter, I analyze the way in which the gaze initiates the performance-withinperformance or play-within-play, a focus that highlights who is looking, whom is being looked at, and what kinds of appeals and statements are being made. Intersecting with the debate on how China is presented in Zhang Yimou’s work, I argue that rather than functioning as a plea for the West to pay attention, the play within play captures and queries the dilemma of Chinese culture in a globalizing world.

Gender, Performance, and Survival The soundless words on the screen tell us that the film is set in the 1920s, in a mountainous region of China. The first scenic image is of a man leading a horse through a golden cultivated field that could be wheat or some other grain. Not too far in the background looms a mountain range. We see the man’s back as he follows the path; enigmatic, melancholy music is playing. As soon as the scene switches, a wall of roofs appears in front of the man and the horse, as if it were a depthless backdrop. While the man and horse continue to move toward it, nothing in the background moves. They cross a bridge, and the man’s head appears as he traverses a slope in a narrow passage, boxed in by dark walls. Turning a corner, the man and horse arrive at an imposing old wooden structure with the faded words “Yang Family Dye Mill” barely visible above. The age and condition of the wood, along with the fading of the characters, combine to project a sense of permanence. The man and the horse enter the compound together, the first of a number of scenes that blur the human/beast distinction, most obvious in the abuse Jinshan inflicts on Judou as he straps a saddle to her and beats her. The interior courtyard then comes into view, shown from above as a small opening in the roof with scaffolding that, we later learn, is used to hang dyed fabric to dry. The darkly dense tiled roofs on all four sides overwhelm the tiny aperture.

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Smiling and obsequious, Tianqing approaches dye mill owner Yang Jinshan, who sits at a table eating. Behind him stands a family shrine, along with banners listing Confucian traditional values. Two large and two small candles provide some illumination, but the angle of the camera at tabletop level brings out the heavy dark floor, table, and structure. Jinshan almost immediately berates Tianqing for his long journey, dismissing his adopted nephew’s reason of there being bandits on the road causing the lateness of his return. The angle and distance, which do not change as Tianqing hands over the profits to his uncle, produce a murky sense of duration and weightiness. Jinshan quickly fires a young helper and collects the rest of the money, despite Tianqing’s outstretched arm (see figure 3). Tianqing looks around blankly, and Jinshan asks about the health of the horse. These initial scenes suggest that the wild, open sorghum fields and the open-air winery of Red Sorghum have metamorphosed into a dense and solid focal point. In Red Sorghum, Li Datou is locked in his room and dying from leprosy, his absence weakening his literal and figurative presence. Other than his entry into the marriage suite—presented to us only through Jiu’er’s cry—we have no physical indication of his existence, making him more of a conceptual or abstract hindrance and allowing for a murder behind the scenes. By contrast, in Judou Yang Jinshan makes an early, forceful appearance, a visual confirmation of his position as an entity too powerful to be readily dispatched. Later we see that he also does some share of the labor, inserting a foreboding and controlling element into the daily work of the dye mill. Little of the village is visible, as Tianqing only travels on its periphery before entering the compound, but there is no reason to suspect that the patriarchal structure of the dye mill is different from other households in the small community. That suspicion is confirmed when the male elders meet to deliberate on the living conditions of Judou and Tianqing after Jinshan’s death. The family shrine silently indicates the important position of the Confucian family hierarchy, and the film relentlessly reminds us of the significance of reproduction through the male line. Thus, although Li Datou of Red

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Sorghum has nothing to say about his potential descendants, Jinshan is a figurehead for a stereotypical Confucian social system, albeit one that has taken a crooked path. As Tianqing chats with the fired hand, who is gathering his things to leave, he learns of the new wife Judou, both pretty and expensive. The young hand tells Tianqing that the first two wives were killed for their failure to produce descendants, and Tianqing is silent. The fact that Tianqing does not seem to know—or, as we later suspect, does not want to know—the fate of the first two wives indicates that he is firmly ensconced in his subsidiary and self-protective position. His innate fearfulness is a strong contrast with Red Sorghum’s My Grandpa, who mocks Jiu’er’s mercenary father as he carries her in the sedan. My Grandpa is part of the movement to transport the bride, whereas Tianqing returns home only after Judou is settled within the home. This completed act lends an air of unchangeability to the arrangement, as if the installation of the bride within the dye mill is predetermined. From this perspective, the jolting of Jiu’er’s sedan in Red Sorghum can be viewed as a deeper perturbation than it may appear to be, disturbing the figurative journey toward a traditional and hierarchical organization of social life. In Judou, the next scene is of the rooftops at night, suggesting Tianqing’s deep immersion into this heavy physical and metaphysical structure. The specific cultural practices of the Red Trilogy have been carefully investigated by critics anxious to confirm or deny their authenticity. This search for historical or contemporary veracity occurs despite general understanding that a work of fiction does not need to be realistic in any or all components, and overlaps with the debate on the representation of China as a national and cultural body. Along with Red Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern, Judou has been criticized for constructing a rural village life out of imaginary customs that show China as primitive and inhuman. However, in a long two-part explication of the folk elements of the Red Trilogy, and as a rebuttal of the postcolonial interpretive theories of Wang Yichuan (1990), Zhang Yiwu (2003a), and others, Xiao Bing (1998a, 1998b) defends the films’ representation of folk culture.

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Writing for the journal Folk Art Quarterly, Xiao connects most of the traditions in the Red Trilogy with worldwide rural practices that are in no way unique to China, but form a metalanguage of global folk culture. He argues that the Red Trilogy should be viewed as a continuous story in which the heroines are replaced as they fall, with Judou replacing Jiu’er, and Songlian of Raise the Red Lantern replacing Judou (1998a, 104). This “eternal return” is a common theme in folk culture, Xiao contends (105). As he explains, enclosing a new bride into a decorated sedan for transport and covering her face is a widespread, documented ethnographic rite of passage designed to protect her not only from harm from alien tribes and animals but also from the “evil eye” of spirits. Often the bride regards her enclosure within the sedan as an honor and refuses to get married without it. The custom of teasing the bride and jolting the sedan is one form of the metalanguage of sexual union that is common in many traditional cultures, and it has a long history in China. The Hanshu (c. C.E. 111) records the teasing of the bride and groom in the marriage chamber, and the Baopuzi (c. C.E. 320) records the jolting of the sedan. In Europe as well as China, “marriage by capture” was a common folk custom, even if acted out only symbolically (105–109). In reference to Red Sorghum, Xiao Bing identifies subsistence as a persistent concern for those living off the land. Intellectuals such as Wang Yichuan have trouble recognizing and interpreting this anxiety in rural culture, and thus tend to be elitist in their analysis of films set in the countryside, according to Xiao (110). What for Xiao Bing is a realistic depiction for Wang Yichuan becomes only an example of the director’s desire to depict a primitive China. The issue of survival or bodily harm is even more crucial in Judou than in Red Sorghum: whereas Jiu’er may be willing to smile at the fake bandit and flirt with the sedan carrier to test her possibilities for escape, Judou is in imminent danger. Sleeping in the blue gloom, Tianqing hears Judou crying and begging Jinshan to let her rest. A shot of the roofs the next day brings out the seemingly immovable weight of village life once again. While feeding the horse, Tianqing peeks through a crack in the wall to see Judou washing up. It doesn’t take him long to make

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his way to his special voyeuristic spot, the peephole from where he can catch a glimpse of Judou as she bathes. Tianqing’s ability to locate the well-hidden peephole immediately, with no searching whatsoever, tells us that he has been peeping for a while. He must, therefore, know full well about the brutality inflicted on the other two wives, and the hired hand’s statement that Yang Jinshan killed his wives through abuse should not have been a surprise. Yet not only does he pretend to not know, but he apparently never acted to help the suffering women; instead he simply watched them through the peephole. In addition to secretly watching Judou bathe, Tianqing sneaks looks at her while he is working. The expression on his face and the romantic music indicates that he is strongly attracted, which may be his first precondition for action. When Jinshan carries the saddle upstairs to use as a prop in his erotic abuse, Tianqing angrily swirls dye into the pool. He listens to Judou’s cries again but does not intervene. Soon Judou finds the peephole and realizes what is going on. At this point, her understanding of exposure fluctuates between two poles. The first references a correlative structure in which the female body is assigned significance in relation to the traditional categories of mother, wife, and daughter, within a social world where kinship relationships structure identity.2 In this role, Judou gasps in horror and clutches at her clothing when she realizes that Tianqing—her husband’s adopted nephew —has been watching her bathe. Aware that a taboo has been broken, she stuffs straw into the peephole to block his access. Yet desperation alerts her to an alternative, the possibility of abdicating her relational position so she can transform the meaning of exposure into an appeal for help. This radically new understanding does not come easy: when she understands that she can turn Tianqing’s secret but objectifying gaze to her advantage, Judou undergoes a difficult metamorphosis. As she develops her plan, she becomes self-conscious of every movement. She smoothes back her hair and gingerly moves to the washing area. Her face shows no pleasure or delight. She noisily splashes the water, tilting her head to listen for the sounds of Tianqing’s presence. When

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she is sure he is in place, Judou nervously unbuttons her shirt. With her eyes closed and soft moans, she lowers her face and lets the shirt fall off her shoulders. Tears flow and she turns her bruised body around, dropping her arms, raising her face, and opening her eyes, displaying her contusions and welts while she sobs. In essence, Judou bares her damaged body in a bid for sympathy and assistance, gazing back at the peephole through which Tianqing watches. However, this fundamentally ethical appeal falls short. Tianqing is deeply moved, but his despair over his uncle’s treatment of Judou does not generate enough bravery for him to break free from his bond of kinship, even if Jinshan is not kin by blood.3 Tianqing’s fear, as well as his respect for his uncle’s power within the social hierarchy, prevents him from responding to Judou’s entreaties. Although he comes close to intervening when he hears her cries, slamming a meat cleaver into the stairs, he still cannot bring himself to confront his uncle. Deeply passive and engrained within the existing social structure, Tianqing is caught within an inflexible sense of propriety that he cannot transgress. Shortly after her failed attempt to solicit Tianqing’s help, Judou cries and begs for his help, but he turns away to attend to his work. When Jinshan leaves to see to a sick horse, Tianqing asks Judou to wake him up early to work, but within moments, he struggles with his desire and approaches the stairs leading up to Judou’s bedroom. We might think Judou would regard this as an opportunity, but in the back-and-forth play between desire and fear, hope and resignation, she panics and looks for a hairpin to use as a weapon against him. Again she reconsiders, stops, and looks down, but he is gone. She then takes the initiative and goes to open his door, but it is latched and he does not respond. Later, with the heavy machinery of their enforced labor around them, Tianqing and Judou sit eating. A manipulative look appears on her face and she suddenly becomes bold, flirting with and touching Tianqing. She asks him what he is afraid of and why he locked the door. She rubs her fingers over him, rips the sugar cane he is eating out of his hands, and bites it

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suggestively. She throws herself on him, saying she has kept her body for him. He finally relents, tossing her down and placing himself on top of her body. We only view her ecstatic face as the large pieces of dye cloth come tumbling down. Judou’s mission finally appears to be successful. Were Tianqing to speak out on Judou’s behalf on moral grounds— either directly to his uncle or to village elders—he would gain nothing and may lose a great deal. But Judou’s new tactic offers him sexual pleasure. It is this sexualization of empathy that ultimately succeeds in bringing Tianqing to Judou’s side and engendering in him the boldness to despise and eventually torment his uncle. Yet even though he allies himself with Judou and continues to find ways to engage her sexually, he initially does not have the courage to fight back directly on Judou’s behalf, as did My Grandpa for Jiu’er in Red Sorghum. It is Jinshan’s threat against their child that finally changes Tianqing, again directing our attention toward the symbolic issue of rebirth and cultural continuation, or regeneration with the future in mind. Tianqing loses his trepidation once his son is in danger, threatening to kill Jinshan if he touches the child again. The combination of erotic desire inspired by Tianqing’s energetic use of the peephole, along with the exposure of Judou’s battered body, produces a perfect moment when beauty, vulnerability, and desire come together, triggering among critics a round of condemnation. In laying out the various “myths of women” in Chinese film, Wu Suping (2007) comprehensively discusses the “sexual model” that Zhang Yimou uses in Red Sorghum, Judou, and Raise the Red Lantern—the way in which women must provoke sexual desire in order to protect themselves and move the story forward. Despite the apparent focus on women, Qu Yajun (1998) argues that Zhang Yimou’s sympathy for the most part is directed at men, and the film is a prescient nod to the ideological and economic pressure that men suffered in the 1990s. While recognizing a symbolic historical burden placed on men, Qu contends that Zhang creates female characters out of an unrealistic male imaginary, although his female characters also express desire and limited agency (35–36). The

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most trenchant critique comes from Dai Jinhua (1994), who combines postcolonial and feminist critique to thoroughly disparage the female image in Fifth Generation film: It was just after 1987, when commercialism first shook the Chinese mainland, that contemporary Chinese cultural/filmic history faced a new kind of “Othering.” It was like the moment when contemporary Chinese women writers woke up to the racial and gender aspects of postcolonial culture in their own particular experience; now the mainland Chinese art film producers experienced the journey of “escape and arrest” within the difficulties of their existence. As opposed to the women writers of the same period who used sexual difference to resist ethnic/national [minzu] culture, the Fifth Generation of creators followed a course of cultural subservience and ethnic, cultural “internal self-exile.” They insisted on forcing people to internalize this “Othering” perspective, at the same time objectifying ethnic/national history, background, and personal experience…Eastern space, Eastern stories, Eastern beauty all became a “spectacle” within the Western sphere. In the classic form of “gazing”/being gazed on, male/female, the ethnic culture placed on the periphery of Western culture took a selfconsciously “female” role and position. (41–42) Singling out Judou as among the offenders, Dai criticizes the director and his Fifth Generation colleagues for using damaged, eroticized women to satisfy the desire of the West to keep the non-West in a vulnerable subject position of limited agency. In light of the argument put forward by Dai Jinhua and others, and in order to delve into the implications of performance, watching, and being watched, I want to look more closely at the pivotal moment when Judou uses her bruised body to spur Tianqing into action. The appearance of the household shrine right before this incident reminds us of the contextual parameters within which both Tianqing and Judou function: neither is a free agent in any respect. As the reaction of critics has shown, Judou’s exposure, the gaze it elicits, and her return gaze raise questions about the purpose of display, the nature of the audience, the motivation of the

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(social) actor, and the ideological implications of exposure. Although Judou’s aggressive flirting is successful in a way that the human, bruisedflesh plea for help is not, she initially does not bare her body for sexual reasons, but rather as a simple human supplication based on nothing more than physical and emotional pain. It is the failure of this first attempt, along with its more direct rendition shortly after, that leads to a sexualized appeal. The film makes it clear that the goal of both acts is the same: Judou understands that she, like the earlier wives, is likely to lose her life if she cannot escape her husband’s abuse. She is not seeking sexual satisfaction from Tianqing, but is instead seeking his help so that she can avoid violence and possibly death at the hands of her husband. While emerging from the same coercive demand and aimed at the same goal, the two performances are nonetheless different. The first is founded in ethical considerations of human pain, with the bared body making a simple statement: I am suffering; help me. The second uses sexual desire as a tool through which to advance, eventually resulting in continued life, mutual sexual attraction, and genuine affection between Judou and Tianqing, at least for a while. In both Red Sorghum and Judou, a vulnerable, beautiful woman makes a direct appeal to a man whom she hopes will help her. But Jiu’er in Red Sorghum shows no indication of having developed a plan; on the contrary, the plan is developed by My Grandpa, the energetic male who has much more intent and direction than does Tianqing in Judou. In the Red Trilogy in general, the female lead looks for escape and release through the activation of male desire; at the same time, a progressive shift of agency from the male to the female has been noted by many critics (Larson 1997; Fan Guomei 2007; Berry and Farquhar 2006). Judou’s heightened attention to strategy—which disappears for Jiu’er once she takes control of the winery and establishes a pan-socialist workers’ paradise—combines with the film’s intense hierarchical and gendered power relations and an impervious, oppressive local environment to mark a shift in the implications of self-conscious display. Certainly, Tianqing’s passivity and obedient regard for Confucian boundaries force Judou into

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a more active and demanding role than that of Jiu’er in Red Sorghum; she has to work hard to get Tianqing on her side. Her back-and-forth internal struggle, clearly expressed in her journey toward the moment of exposure and appeal, shows that the decision to bare herself to Tianqing is not taken lightly. If we compare Judou’s wrenching decision with Jiu’er’s smile to the fake bandit and silent entreaty to My Grandpa, the latter seems immediate and natural. By enhancing the suffering of the female lead as well as the timorousness of the male lead, Judou pushes Judou toward a more powerful plan of action. Suffering and pain, therefore, along with recognition that the target is both interested in her and upset by his uncle’s behavior, give birth to the planned performative moment designed to manipulate. However, the calculated appeal alone does not budge Tianqing. Judou has to overcome her hesitation and initiate an aggressive campaign aimed at using his desire to dislocate his familial loyalty to his adoptive uncle. Compared with what it takes for Jiu’er to motivate My Grandpa in Red Sorghum, this pervasive, desperate attempt to get Tianqing to act suggests that the performance is significant not only because of its goal of emboldening Tianqing. It also has a strong effect on Judou, pushing her into a state of near-constant calculation and, most importantly, minimizing the expression of the “good society” that results from Jiu’er’s efforts in Red Sorghum. Just as in Red Sorghum, when the danger to Jiu’er is eliminated once Li Datou is dead and she reforms the collective, so does Judou successfully passes a dangerous threshold, giving birth to a boy. The next part of the story, in which the child ironically is named Tianbai and thus connected to Tianqing as his putative brother, initiates a plot segment that has no parallel in Red Sorghum. Tianqing and Judou begin to show deep affection and desire for each other, and to take joy in their son. But they have no choice but to carry on their relationship within the family compound, under the constant pressure of Jinshan’s presence. Despite his bragging, Tianqing is afraid to kill Jinshan. He is unable to avail

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himself of the chance to get rid of his adoptive uncle without anyone knowing when he overcomes the temptation to push the unconscious Jinshan, who has fallen off his donkey on a mountain path, over a cliff. Jinshan learns that the child is not his; he tries but fails to kill the boy. Trapped by paralysis after his fall from the donkey and imprisoned in a tub with wheels that Tianqing hoists in the air at night, Jinshan finds another chance to kill Tianbai when Judou and Tianqing sneak away for sex and the child runs back to the dye mill. But as Jinshan pushes himself forward with the intent of drowning Tianbai in the dye vat, the boy utters his first word, calling Jinshan die 爹 (father). This naming and utterance of the proper relationship, Jinshan realizes, is all that is necessary to shore up his stature. Multiple disasters and traumas begin to take over the story. Rumors of the relationship between Judou and Tianqing, along with their increasing discomfort as Jinshan throws his social fatherhood in their faces and flaunts it among the villagers, cause difficulty and conflict between the two lovers. Guests jokingly allude to the relationship between Tianqing and Judou at the ceremonial three-year birthday party. Judou becomes ill and the doctor diagnoses her as having a “rotted out” lower body. Jinshan is accidentally tipped into a dye vat by Tianbai, where he thrashes about and eventually dies. Tianqing believes Judou is the murderer and chastises her. As he grows up, the strong and stocky child tries to kill the same hired hand that once worked for Jinshan when he hears the man joke about seeing his mother and Tianqing having sex. The village elders announce that because of the rumors of a relationship between Tianqing and Judou, Tianqing will move out, and the couple will “block the coffin’s path,” or throw themselves down in front of the hearse forty-nine times to show their loyalty to Jinshan. This important display of filial piety, while deeply false from an emotional perspective, stands directly against the genuine affection between Judou and Tianqing. Astride the hearse sits Tianbai, the new perpetrator of the inhuman Confucian patriarchy. Finally, having taken over the role of Jinshan, Tianbai eventually dumps his biological father into the red-dye vat, hitting his hands when he

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tries to escape (see figure 4). Judou burns down the dye mill in what possibly is a suicide-murder. In Red Sorghum the male child embodied the hope for the future both in his survival and in his ability to himself produce a son who could narrate an inspiring story out of the lives of his ancestors. By contrast, even though Tianbai is the son of Judou and Tianqing, he appears as a silent, malevolent power that transforms the twisted system into a pure and inarticulate force. His mute enforcement of a Confucian model gone awry shows him to be an embodiment of disciplinary violence and of the worst possibility for the evolution of a positive, life-giving society. It would not be irrational, therefore, to interpret the film as a critique of traditional culture and therefore of contemporary China, as many critics have done. We could view Tianqing’s refusal to risk himself unless stimulated by sexual desire as nothing but crass self-benefit and thus, as the film’s attack on a profoundly instrumental traditional and contemporary order. But it also is important to recognize the subtle variations in the behavior of the heroine in terms of calculation, strategy, and manipulation, which suggest that Tianqing’s hesitation alters her perspective. What Judou learns when she first displays herself before Tianqing is that he is too weak: in order to succeed, she must provide him with a stronger incentive. That incentive first is sexual desire, and second is the protection of his offspring and by extension, their joint ability to extend their family into the future through their son. When compared with Red Sorghum, this vision is more guarded about how change can come about. It zeroes in on the performer, who must learn the heartless lesson that her suffering alone is not sufficient to draw assistance. Even that suffering is hard to think of outside her understanding of herself as a wife, a role within which she would have no basis from which to appeal for help. The initial decision—when she calculates the effect of baring her bruises—is extraordinarily difficult. But when that fails, she resorts to a much more cynical form of manipulation.

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Before I further discuss the implications of this emphasis on the duplicity of display, I will turn the film’s theme of economic exchange, its pernicious effect on social relations, and its relationship to performance. I begin with a detour through a critique of postcolonial studies that questions the importance assigned to the analysis of culture as generating resistance and social change. This critique also accuses cultural critics of downplaying the global influence of capitalism and of promoting the “illusion” that resistance to Western culture through alternative cultural strategies can be successful.

Money and the Performance of Work In “What postcolonial theory doesn’t say,” Neil Lazarus (2011) condemns the field of postcolonial theory for its failure to account for the realities of the contemporary world system, instead focusing—in an ahistorical, mystifying, and nonmaterial manner—on the idea of the West. As Lazarus describes it, this undifferentiated West, which lumps together all of the countries and histories, traumas and erasures of Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and more, rests on the critique of Eurocentrism as an abstracted civilizational bloc and a global form of power that must be resisted.4 Ignoring the historical dynamic of capitalism and its global trajectory, Lazarus argues, is a product of a disciplinary shift of postcolonial research out of the social sciences into the humanities, especially literature (7-8). Lazarus argues in opposition to this literary abstraction of power and focus on political domination, favoring a return to material analysis: It is, therefore, important to insist, in opposition to this emphasis, that whatever else it might have and indeed did involve—all the way from the systematic annihilation of whole communities to the cultivation of aesthetic tastes and preference—colonialism as an historical process involved the forced integration of hitherto uncapitalised societies, or societies in which the capitalist mode of production was not hegemonic, into a capitalist world system…

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Along the way, existing social relations and modes of existence were undermined, destroyed, reconfigured; new social relations and modes of existence were brought into being. (11) Thus in Lazarus’ analysis, Emmanuel Wallerstein’s (1996) “commodification of everything” and Congolese novelist Sony Labou Tansi’s (1988) remark in The Antipeople that “[t]he invasion of money into everyday life is something the Belgians left us as a mark of love,” as well as numerous other literary texts, suggest that without recognition of the fundamental role that capital accumulation plays in colonial expansion, the analysis of discourse, subjectivity, and beliefs—in other words, of culture—won’t explain much (11–12; 28). Lazarus also quotes Fredric Jameson’s blunt statement that the “United States is not just one country, or one culture, among others, any more than English is just one language among others,” implying that the United States has best grasped the expansionist acculturation that capitalism carries with it or demands, and therefore its culture and language to some degree have become universalized (23; Jameson 1986, 68). Lazarus finds in postcolonial criticism a willful desire to ignore many aspects of on-the-ground reality. Rey Chow (2004b), he argues, follows a “Third Worldist” model in seeking a post-European perspective that provincializes Europe with knowledge, perspectives, and theories from the Third World, as popularized by Dipesh Chakrabarty and Walter D. Mignolo. Echoing Arif Dirliks’ critique, Lazarus argues that Chow “proceeds as though it were possible to achieve the ‘provincialisation’ of ‘Europe’ in the absence of any plausible explanation of what has grounded and enabled ‘European’ dominance over the course of the past 500 years” (23; Dirlik 2000, 65–70). It is no coincidence, Lazarus points out, that the global lingua franca is now English, the language of the country that first launched the capitalist revolution in the late 1600s, which in turn spurred the geopolitical competition that spread capitalism across Europe and into the Americas and Asia.

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A critique of postcolonial theory that touches on many of the same points is that of Vivek Chibber (2006; 2013), who chronicles and laments the turn away from class analysis and toward culture that was especially intense in South Asian studies, first in the United States and then, because of the influence of American universities on India, within elite Indian institutions. Lumping poststructuralism and postcolonial theory together, Chibber traces the discursive perspective to a number of conflating tendencies, including the rapid expansion of universities in the U.S. after World War II, the shift of Marxist theory from leftist political organizations to universities, and the general marginalization of Marxism in the United States, where even in the 1920s the radicalization of the intelligentsia took place more within universities than without. And the English ability of Indian scholars, who came to the U.S. to work as part of the multicultural critique of the academy that began in the 1960s, allowed for a seamless integration with Indology, which a priori was firmly located in textual analysis. The collapse of British colonialism in the 1960s resulted in the emergence of a number of sociologically oriented scholars, but the topic of India’s liberation, which had come a half century before, was not attractive to the young radicals. With new programs focusing on ethnicity and gender, American universities—along with the defeat of the Left and working-class politics—moved more deeply into the study of identity and away from materialist approaches. When subaltern studies emerged, it easily accessed the tremendous networks of English-language study that connected scholars in the United States and the United Kingdom, networks that had penetrated deeply into Indian universities. Writing by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, Partha Chatterjee, Edward Said, Ranajit Guha, and others, with inspiration from Antonio Gramsci’s work, focused on the ideological and cultural indoctrination, or “interpellation,” of subordinate groups (375). This cultural take became common in anthropology and the humanities, where it appeared as a radical theory “in the role of a vanguard in the drive toward postMarxism” (376).

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While both Lazarus and Chibber promote a return to materialism and class analysis, they imply that cultural analysis should be a subsidiary of sociology and history, with the goal of providing local experiential evidence about social change. As a sociologist, Chibber does not try to explain what kind of work art, literature, and music accomplish, instead acclaiming the “relative diminution of culturalism as the reigning framework for scholarship” that will result from South Asian studies “recovering from its flight out of the social sciences” (385). As a Marxist literary scholar, Lazarus is somewhat more expansive in giving examples of the analytical tendency that he hopes cultural study will follow.5 Nonetheless, he does not question the subsidiary position of culture within Marxist theory. Throughout this project, I argue that a subset of Zhang Yimou’s films query the role of deep culture in forging a vital future. The first relevant question, brought up by Lazarus, is to what extent modern social conditions and change can or should be thought of as primarily cultural in nature, rather than as a result of the transformation wrought by the advent of capitalism. Lazarus argues that culture has been overemphasized, to the detriment of attention to material issues that will better explain social life and suggest policies through which it can change. Chibber echoes this criticism, pointing out that analysis of cultural issues such as discourse and identity has pushed postcolonial studies away from material concerns. He also contends that resistance to imperialism, capitalism, and an accompanying vision of modernity cannot be based solely or even mainly on cultural and psychological difference. Both Lazarus and Chibber have attacked the focus on the West that underlies postcolonial critiques as misguided, misleading, and falsely heroic. Although in many of Zhang Yimou’s films, culture is expressed in conventional ways (song, ritual, traditions, habits), it functions as a complex knot of social and pan-spiritual resources—deriving from the past, under constant transformation, working in the present, and directed toward a future—available to entities that range in size from single

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individual to a community or the nation. First, the query into culture that the films undertake is not a claim on behalf of cultural difference and its productivity as a source of an alternative, non-Western modernity. Thus, the films do not establish cultural difference as a form of resistance, avoiding the heroic view of culture against which Lazarus and Chibber protest. However, although the films recognize economic, political, and social transformation as the environment within which culture works, they grant the latter more pride of place than do Lazarus and Chibber, implying that the influence of culture can ebb and flow. Second, although Lazarus and Chibber may go too far in devaluing culture, their criticism suggests that there are good reasons to look beyond the strategy of appeasing the West that Zhang’s critics find in his work. The powerful cultural cohesion of Red Sorghum is not the result of a cultural difference imagined to be non-Western and unique to China, but rather as a form of community that develops out of the historical, material, and pan-spiritual life of the people. Jiu’er’s manipulative acts, designed to ensure her survival, are quickly forgotten as she transforms herself into a leader who can elicit hope and nurture the community. By contrast, in Judou, the situation has changed to the extent that cultural traditions appear as life defying and destructive, along with the a more sustained presentation of how a new form of capitalist accumulation is at work. The formidable architectural structure, the near-disappearance of happy music, the relative temporal indeterminacy, the gendered power structure, the rigid Confucian system, and the social centering of the patriarch enhance the position of economic exchange, which embodies abstract instrumentalism and points our attention toward the difference between an authentic and life-enhancing culture and a calculated culture of performance. Money rarely becomes important in Red Sorghum, although we see its role when Jiu’er’s father sells her to Li Datou, and when the bandit Sanpao demands money in exchange for Jiu’er. With Li Datou’s death, the communal values of warm camaraderie and shared labor quickly

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overtake the monetary value attached to Jiu’er, and her open and innocent willingness to pay workers even if they don’t work confirms her understanding of the limits of economic value. Sanpao is defined by the equivalence of money and life, but even he redeems himself in his anti-Japanese resistance at the moment of torture and death. Another example is the forced recruitment of the local population to help in building the road. While money does not exchange hands, the workers are drafted by the Japanese soldiers with the threat of violence, and the exchange of work for their lives is also a kind of economic transaction. By contrast, in Judou, although Jinshan’s money-grubbing behaviors are obvious, more subtle is the way in which money has become woven into the cultural basis of the dye mill and the village. The sale of Judou is normalized to the extent that it carries no symbolic journey, protest, or outrage, appearing as a done deal within the confines of the heavy architectural structure. The purchase is so unremarkable that Tianqing is unaware of the transaction until the fired hand tells him. Jiu’er’s father defends the exchange of his daughter for a mule when he tells her that everything Li Datou owns will become hers, whereas Judou’s parents do not appear in the film. The breaking of the bond of kinship in the film hinges on turning Tianqing into an adopted rather than a biological nephew (as he is in the novel), alienating him and allowing Jinshan to regard him as nothing more than an economic tool. The artful scenes of Tianqing straining to work the cloth wheel, sweating under the demands of harsh labor, and along with the donkey being trapped within a machine much larger than he is only indicate the position that he occupies in the scheme. He becomes a silhouette no different from the machinery in which he is framed, or from the donkey to the left (see figure 5). Under these conditions, labor becomes a joyless task, a robotic enterprise highlighted through multiple shots of sweating bodies and heavy working instruments. In Red Sorghum the community is invigorated by noninstrumental values of human warmth and companionship, but in Judou the community is a money-making machine. The friendly exchanges among the winery

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workers, Jiu’er, and My Grandpa are replaced by stolen glances between Tianqing and Judou between wheels, beams, and machinery, always under the threat of Jinshan’s calculating eye. These negative directions, coming so soon after the energetic Red Sorghum, suggest that the energy of the people has been severely damaged. As Jinshan carries the saddle upstairs to use as a prop in his erotic brutalization of Judou, he tells Tianqing to not waste the dye. This scene perfectly aligns sexual reproduction and economic exchange, marking Tianqing and Judou both as instruments in a fierce system of calculated gain. But the most telling example of falsity is the coffin-mourning scene in which Judou and Tianqing are forced into a display of grief. While this scene is notable for its obvious symbolic meaning of the trampling of the living by the dead, the slow-motion repetition of the victorious Tianbai sitting on the hearse while his mother and father are passed over beneath takes place amidst the flutter of paper money around them.6 Throwing themselves under the coffin forty-nine times, they end up exhausted in a pile of paper money that is meant for the deceased to use in the underworld (see figure 6). Bringing together alienated labor, duplicitous ritual, economic imperative, and cultural inheritance, the coffin scene perfectly captures the life-destroying impetus of exhibition, display, or performance unmoored from authenticity. The fact that Jinshan was so readily able to gain possession of Tianbai by teaching him to call him “father” repeatedly, and the fact that the situation for Judou and Tianqing did not change with Jinshan’s death, highlight inauthentic performance and calculated display as driving forces in the village. Although Red Sorghum is a far more optimistic film, the bones of the critique present in Judou are nonetheless present. The same desperate plea for help is transformed through the offer of sexual promise into a solid relationship, which in Judou exists only for a short time. As they briefly contain Jinshan and gain control the dye mill, Judou and Tianqing dress up and share a meal, but that only happens once. The film

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draws our attention not only to potential duplicity and ethical ambiguity in any calculated performance—taken up more seriously by Raise the Red Lantern and in a different way by Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)—but also to fading hope that the alienation produced by inauthentic display can be altered. The destruction of genuine positive emotion in favor of debilitating ritual is, therefore, related not only to concerns about how culture can work but also to the global situation in which new eyes are on China. It is precisely issues of performance and duplicity that are amplified in Raise the Red Lantern, the most devastating film of the Red Trilogy. Figure 3. Tianqing handing over profits to Jinshan.

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Figure 4. Reflection of Tianbai in the dye pool just as he is about to tip Tianqing in.

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Figure 5. Tianqing at right, the donkey at left.

Figure 6. Judou and Tianqing with paper money.

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Notes 1. For more on the Tiananmen massacre, see Zhuyuan Zheng (1990), and Jean-Philippe Béja (2010). 2. For the most comprehensive discussion of the various modern discourses about women’s social role and identity, see Tani E. Barlow (2004). 3. In the story on which the film is based, Tianqing is closer to Judou’s age and is Jinshan’s biological nephew. See Liu Heng (1993). The story has been translated as The Obsessed (Liu Heng 1991). Fuxi, the namesake of the novel in Chinese, is a legendary ruler credited with procreating the human race and originating various civilizing practices. 4. For a discussion of postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and the Chinese Marxist positioning of practitioners and interpreters of culture, see Larson (2015b). 5. Neil Lazarus is scathingly critical of the efforts of his Warwick University colleague Susan Bassnett (2006), who tries to think through what comparative literature—which emerged out of the related and overlapping histories, languages, and cultures of Europe—could be if reconceived as a global discipline. Lazarus finds little value in Bassnet’s recognition of the similarities and crossing points of the literatures and cultures of various European countries. Once the basis of comparative literature as a field, these European intellectual connections point to the specificities of experience that generate cultural products and that underlie national-cultural academic groupings often differentiated by language. 6. As Gu Ying (2001, 69) notes, the trampling of the living by the dead is a common theme in Zhang Yimou’s early work and is particularly obvious in the coffin-mourning scene.

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Chapter 3

Raise the Red Lantern Game’s On [Confused primitivism] is a bit different from the first two in having a more complex and mixed attitude toward primitive life, which is often shown in impoverished choices that can be taken or left behind, in worship and hatred, sometimes praise, sometimes blame…this kind of primitive tune often gives primitive life the appearance of having been altered, of having many facets, or of being mysterious. Which category do Zhang Yimou’s films fall into? Basically, we can divide them into three groups: 1. Worship of the primitive: Red Sorghum; 2. Hatred of the primitive: Judou, Raise the Red Lantern; 3. Confused primitivism: Qiuju Goes to Court. From this we can see that the order within Zhang Yimou’s films corresponds to the logic within our system. First, in Red Sorghum, he elevates primitive life force with virtually no restraint. But then comes Judou and Raise the Red Lantern, where he quickly changes to negating the primitive life force. Then after he has exposed his tendency toward complete favor and complete rejection, he comes out with Qiuju Goes to Court, which makes people feel that he is laying out an “explanation” to reconcile and resolve this

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Whereas many lump the films of the Red Trilogy together, Wang Yichuan and a few others separate them into two groups, with Red Sorghum in one category and Judou and Raise the Red Lantern (1991) in another. Gu Ying (2001) also draws a distinction, noting that while the films all use the traditional tale (chuanqi) method, allowing the audience to break away from bland daily life and enter an imaginary and mysterious land fraught with strangeness and allure, the customs and rituals of Judou and Red Lantern only intensify the alien sense that encourages escapism. Echoing Wang’s comments, Gu Ying notes the exacerbated pessimism and negativity of the latter two films, which may continue the trend of thrusting the viewer into a strange world while erasing the possibility of wild freedom offered in Red Sorghum (69). Raise the Red Lantern begins with no uncertainty. A young woman faces the camera with eyes down and says, “Stop, mother, stop talking about it, you’ve been talking about it for three days. I get it. If I have to get married, I’ll get married.” Off screen, her mother asks what kind of man she wants to marry. “What kind of person I marry—is that up to me?” the woman responds, her eyes filling with tears. “Since you’re always talking about money, I’ll marry a rich man.” “If you marry a rich man, you’ll only be a concubine,” the mother comments. “If I have to be a concubine, then I’ll be a concubine,” the woman responds. “Isn’t that the way it is for women?” The tears overflow and run down her cheeks. The general focus on money as the most important aspect of life—which in Red Sorghum disappears with the death of Li Datou and is replaced by Judou’s creation of a rich existence of work and community, and which in Judou slowly expands but is finally brought under temporary control when Judou and Tianqing immobilize Jinshan—has become a starting point. However, with the exception of this initial statement, the accruement of wealth is rarely a visual, aural, or narrative topic in

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Red Lantern. Rather, it is internalized within a structural arrangement that dictates the solid and cloistered courtyard apartments, the position of servants, and the purchase of one wife after another. The near-total naturalization of wealth as an unseen precondition of daily life and ritual within the Chen family compound—the “family traditions” referred to incessantly—corresponds to the near invisibility of the master as the center of family power. As opposed to the situation of Li Datou in Red Sorghum, here the implication of invisibility is not containment, but pervasiveness and normalization. The perpetual need to function constantly within the context of economic value, which is provided in Judou by Jinshan’s incessant reminders and overarching presence, has been absorbed into the physical structures and relationships. The anger that Jiu’er directs toward her father for selling her to Li Datou in Red Sorghum diminishes in Red Lantern, amounting only to Songlian’s initial tears, shed with contained emotion. Her right to protest at all, even in this lukewarm form, is undermined by the breaking of the mother-daughter bond—we later learn that the mother so anxious to sell her off is in fact a stepmother. Jiu’er’s face-to-face, passionately expressed condemnation of her biological father for his human-animal exchange is not a possibility for Songlian, whose father has died before the story begins. The transformation of the principle of economic exchange into forms so foundational and natural that they cannot be identified or attacked is not the only form of abstraction that Red Lantern undertakes. Equally as pervasive is the way in which performativity permeates all forms of life, destroying anything that is natural by means of an enforced artificiality. Substantially expanding the earlier films’ inquiry into the meaning of performance under conditions of willingness and coercion, Red Lantern lays out parallel dangers for economic exchange and performance. Both transform into extensive forces that have infiltrated consciousness, the organization of social life, and the physical household. Whereas Songlian has significant moments of clarity about her absorption into the compound and its rules, she cannot resist the allure of playing life like a game. In Red Lantern, social life is transformed into performative moments and

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the thrill of competition: winning or losing mark the two possibilities available to the cloistered wives. The only character who has gained a more complete outside perspective is Second Wife Meishan, who through her study of Beijing opera has learned bitter lessons about the risks of performance. The inclusion of a former professional performer among the wives signals the film’s increasing awareness of the implications and imbrications of economic exchange, performativity, and inauthenticity as threats to genuine cultural life. Wang Yichuan (1994) notes that the primitive life forces of Red Sorghum are brought under increasing control and eradication in Judou and Red Lantern. While Red Sorghum—with its wild songs and rituals, sorghum fields, and uncultivated life close to the land—displays a kind of primitive culture, it is difficult to find any true primitivism in Judou or Red Lantern. The traditions that the films display may be repugnant to modern city dwellers, but they are ensconced within village civilization and sanctioned by texts, elders, and kinship structures that emerge from a broad historical and geographical referential field that extends beyond the small community. Through Songlian’s brief role as a student—shaped by the modern turn toward education that previously was available only to boys—Red Lantern more directly implies a modern/traditional binary, but nothing resembling a primitive lifestyle exists in the film. If anything, the rituals and underlying structure of the Chen family traditions speak to an excess of civilization, an example of what the “Roots” implicitly identified as a moribund culture.2 Although like its predecessors, Red Lantern assigns the ability to recognize wrongs and to fight back to the female lead, from the start it is no longer confident in the capacity of this female lead to struggle against the overwhelming and deadening edifice that organizes her existence and determines her subjectivity. Yet the real culprit is not so much gender roles, traditional culture, or even civilization considered abstractly, but the way in which life becomes only artifice. From the perspective of Red Lantern, we can more clearly envision how the Red Trilogy overall

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stages a confrontation between values and practices of authenticity, and the ascension of instrumentalist principles. The nonperformative takes the form of honest emotional connections, a “good day’s work,” and the rejection of use value: qualities that make up a positive, life-endowing culture that should produce not only energetic songs and rituals but also a vital, enjoyable form of daily life. When instrumentalization through performance is enhanced by coercion and enforced by wealth, it subverts lived reality and its characteristic expression of cultural forms. Red Lantern is an intense and penetrating deconstruction of culture as artifice. Songlian, Meishan, and Zhuoyun, the wives who are still candidates for the Master Chen’s (Chen Laoye) attention, along with the maid Yan’er, represent a range of possibilities in understanding this radical transformation. Songlian and Meishan stand on the side of resistance, with Meishan far more cognizant of reality than is Songlian. With her evocative pretense to wifely status in the confines of her room and her aggressive attack on Songlian, Yan’er allies with Zhuoyun, as fully dedicated to the game and committed to winning at any cost. First Wife, an elderly woman about the age of Master Chen who goes unnamed in the film, must also line up as a candidate for his favor but is never chosen. Her predictable humiliation in the selection process speaks to the melding of artifice with social convention, to the point where nothing else is possible and no one is allowed to escape. In the following section, I analyze the heightened performance within performance, play within play, game within game, and artifice within artifice of Red Lantern, acted by the four characters who offer contrasting interpretations about the meaning of performed culture.

The Resistance: Songlian and Meishan After Songlian’s marriage is arranged, she walks into the closed environment of the Chen compound alone, dressed in plain clothing and carrying her own suitcase. Her defiance is different from that of Jiu’er and Judou, and provides a third way of thinking about marriage rituals.

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As we recall, Red Sorghum began with Jiu’er being adorned as a bride, and then moving across the landscape enclosed in a red sedan. In Judou, the initial scenes are of Tianqing traversing the path back into the Yang family dye mill with Judou already ensconced inside. Here we see the young educated beauty—in all three films played by Gong Li—spurning the sedan and moving on her own into the household. This bold ability to reject local custom would seem to bode well for Songlian’s future independence and autonomy. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that she cannot stand up to the comprehensive, rationalized, and claustrophobic system that Master Chen’s household turns out to be. The fact that Songlian has studied for half a year at university brings another unfamiliar element into the film. The duration of her training is short and Songlian does not express bookish interests, but the hint of a modern standpoint through which she accessed the benefits of formal university-level education makes her very different than either Jiu’er or Judou. Modern ideas of equality and strength through learning are powerful discourses to which Songlian has been exposed. It is this learned modern perspective that allows her to believe that plain clothes are better than ornate gowns, that walking is better than being carried in a sedan, that simple food is better than flowery dishes, and that engaging in work is better than watching someone else work. Gowns and sedans only insert her into a value system that ultimately demeans her. The other characters recognize the difference between themselves and the Fourth Wife, and they often comment on her educational level in both positive and negative terms. In order to have entered university, Songlian must have had some early education, either at home or at school. Her education should place her in a better position than either Jiu’er or Judou and render her more capable of fighting for the values we see her embody at the beginning of the film. With this relatively powerful background having casted Songlian as a seemingly modern woman, we may wonder why she capitulates so rapidly to her stepmother’s demand for money by agreeing to be sold

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as a concubine. Not only her acceptance of the concubine status, but also her quick adaptation to the power games and performative rituals of the Chen family compound point toward a determinism that belies Songlian’s intelligence and education. In order to accurately recognize the way in which Red Lantern radically develops the hints of an inquiry into performativity that we can find in the earlier films, we must understand that Songlian’s education, as briefly as it is represented, sets the stage for several important strands of the story. First, as I explained earlier, education is a tool that allows its holders to stand apart and critically evaluate inherited traditions, in this case charting a new path in which the bridal sedan becomes a cage and expensive clothing an entrapping veneer. Second is the vast scope that education can bring into view, and the new social context that it can create. Modern education or knowledge is determined by a global environment and thus linked to a spatial and temporal reality outside the family, the village, the city, the province, and even the nation. The grand geographical and historical implications of the modern can shine a harsh light on the smaller entities and their customs, and proffer a threat to the control of those who do not share its comprehensive perspective. The modern imperative is a formidable agent of change, influencing gender and class ideologies, traditional organization, and conventional power relations. Modern education in China emerged within an awareness of nation’s weak global position among powerful nations with intimidating scientific, economic, military, and political resources, a situation to which Zhang Yimou alludes in the interview quoted in the epigraph of chapter 2: “The Chinese culture occupies a very weak status internationally, among the world order, so it is the responsibility of the filmmaker to break through all this, so that more people in the world can accept and understand Chinese culture and what made the Chinese people” (Chua 1991). And third, the most important aspect of education is the possibility it creates for shattering the mysterious aura of artifice through critical, informed thought. Songlian should have the ability to question the constant demand that human relations be performed competitively rather than

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lived through genuine warmth and mutual concern, and that rituals be humiliating and stultifying. Yet her inability to sustain this position becomes a device that through which the film highlights artifice, gameplaying, and a win-loss structure. When she arrives at the compound—a dense set of walls, flooring, and roofs similar to (if more self-contained than) what we saw in Judou— the old male servant asks, “Miss, who are you looking for?” As soon as Songlian reminds him that they have met before, he quickly changes the “Miss” (xiaojie) to “Fourth Wife” (Si taitai), incorporating her into the family structure as the fourth wife of Master Chen. Songlian insists on carrying her own bag, following the servant as they traverse through the many halls into the courtyard. A young woman sits on the step washing clothes. Songlian walks over, rolls up her sleeves, and begins to help, speaking in a kindly fashion. Although she exudes a comraderie that is more characteristic of Jiu’er in Red Sorghum, in this new environment, only a woman educated outside the conventional structure—in other words, someone who has been subjected to the new discourse of equality that is part of modern education—would do such a thing. Initially the servant Yan’er is intrigued, but when she hears the old male servant call out to Fourth Wife, her expression changes and she scornfully says, “So you’re that Fourth Wife.” Songlian responds in kind, the servant rudely snatches away the pan she was using to help with the washing, and Songlian disdainfully relinquishes the sign of independence and strength that she just claimed, ordering Yan’er to bring the suitcase in. In this initial encounter with Yan’er, the illusion that Songlian can maintain a private sensibility separate from the dictates of the complex is violently knocked out of her mind. In the space of a few minutes, she is sucked into the Chen family and assumes her role as a wife among many, with the first victims being her modern equality-based identity and labor as a form of human community and bonding, so thoroughly embraced by Jiu’er in Red Sorghum. Even in Judou, the pleasure of affectionate work and play has a longer life. Until Judou and Tianqing

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manage to contain Jinshan in his tub on wheels, their labor is alienated and unpleasant, punctuated only by stolen gazes and longing glances. But once they block Jinshan’s exploitation, they begin to enjoy themselves. Although Songlian is inspired by respect and equality and thus quickly squats down to work alongside the servant, Yan’er’s disdain immediately alters her perspective. Songlian instantly becomes a tyrant, ordering the servant to carry her suitcase and from this point on, mocking and tormenting her. The mistress-servant distinction invades Songlian’s subjective understanding, and she cruelly wields the power of the wife in relation to the servant. As Master Chen prepares to get into bed with Songlian, we hear the extradiegetic opera singing of Third Wife Meishan. Later there is a knock on the door and a servant announces that Meishan is ill and urgently requires Master Chen to come to her room. He obliges, and the servant outside the door orders the lanterns to be lit at the Third Wife’s quarters, using the loud ritualistic voice that also announces the result of the daily competition for Master Chen’s attention. The image of Songlian sitting forlorn on the bed confirms the exchange as a loss for her and a win for Meishan. She then repeats an earlier scene in which the master asked her to raise the lantern close to her face so he could look at her. His comment that “educated girls do look different after all” is replaced by Songlian’s vacant expression as she gazes in the mirror, tears running down her face. By miserably reiterating the moment of self-reflection, she suggests that she already sees herself and her education as does Master Chen. Having rebuffed Songlian by feigning illness when she is taken around to meet the wives, Meishan finally makes an appearance at the first collective meal, wandering in languidly after everyone else is seated. Meishan throws a hostile glance at Songlian when they are introduced. Master Chen asks Songlian why she is not eating. She requests spinach and tofu, a simple homey contrast with the flowery dishes on the list read by the servant. Meishan’s antagonistic face contrasts with that of Second Wife Zhuoyun, who is the picture of welcoming friendliness. As Meishan,

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actress He Saifei does a masterful job, weaving a metaperformance that highlights acting as a calculated way of living and performing both on and off the stage. Trained as an operatic performer in Yue opera, a southern form of opera especially popular in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian, He Saifei studied Peking opera in order to play this part. Using exaggerated operatic expressions and bodily movements even when Meishan is not singing, He Saifei’s acting intensifies the sense of artificiality that pervades the compound. Later, Songlian objects when she is asked to wait outside Master Chen’s quarters for “instructions.” Having been exempted for her first nine days, she does not yet know about the competition, and asks why Master Chen doesn’t just come and talk to her if he wants to ask her to do something. The naturalness that she imagines, and the ability to talk without pretense or artifice, are what motivates Songlian’s question, which receives no response from the old servant. The operatic cymbals and drums begin, and the lantern bearer sets the lantern by Songlian, with the old servant standing in the symmetrical half-moon opening, calligraphy behind him, loudly announcing “Light the lanterns in the Fourth House!” Later, Master Chen laughingly comments to Songlian, “How do you like it? Lanterns, foot massages—in a while you won’t be able to do without them!” Songlian has won the competition with its prize of a night with Master Chen, but she is awakened early by the boisterous singing of Meishan’s opera performance, which Songlian interprets as a protest against her victory. Despite Master Chen’s request that she ignore the singing, she steps out to confront Meishan. The camera shows her walking on the paths that weave over the sea of roofs. She dips behind a screen and travels up flights of stairs toward the top of the compound. Ornate doors and woodwork form a background as she navigates a walkway from one building to the next, winding among the rooftops to look across the way. Meishan notices Songlian but continues singing (the room where she eventually is hanged visible in the background). Meishan takes off her

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opera robe and, coquettishly patting her hair, walks toward Songlian. Every step, movement, and comment is excessive, as if she were still performing. Songlian stops her and asks if her illness is better. “What, did I wake you from your pleasant dreams?” Meishan asks coyly, adding prophetically, “Good thing you woke up; the more you sleep, the more confused you’ll get.” Indeed, to her shock, fury, and disappointment, when Songlian returns to her room, she is confronted with the sight of Yan’er being embraced by Master Chen. In an intriguing and contradictory way, Meishan’s exaggerated display is a ruse, an ornate rejection of the demand that artifice structure subjectivity, imagination, and emotion. Even more importantly, Meishan’s sensibility projects artifice not only as a cage-like entrapment, but also as a temporal determinism or a constriction of the future. As a former opera performer, she seems to understand that their lives in the compound are plays in fundamental ways, both abstract and concrete. Early in the film, Meishan appears petty and competitive, but as the story goes on, we learn that she has seen through the structure. Her coquettish jealousy is a show behind which she carries on a love affair with Dr. Gao. From this informed vantage point, her comment, “Good thing you woke up; the more you sleep, the more confused you’ll get,” appears both prescient and philosophical, implying that Songlian already has become a victim of the competitive game that defines their lives. If she is not careful, Meishan suggests, Songlian will end up playing her role all too perfectly. “The more you sleep” refers not only to Songlian sleeping with the master but also to the duration of time that passes in the process of the competition and its result, and its slow chipping away of genuine, nonperformative life. If interpreted as a warning, the resulting “confusion” turns into the inability to recall what the women once imagined could be theirs: true affection, honest work, and warm relationships. Meishan’s singing is much more than simple operatic play, weaving itself into larger concerns about performance under conflicting conditions of both pleasure and duress. While she sounds convincing when she

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performs for Master Chen, Meishan repeatedly hints or even directly states that the much-vaunted sisterhood is a front, and that the wives are meant to be competitors and enemies who sustain the structure through their participation. Until she is confident that Songlian will not ally with Zhuoyun, Meishan remains warily unreceptive, acting out her suspicions. Always jealous of Master Chen’s attention to anyone else, she plays the game with verve and intensity. Yet even when she is unsympathetic, Meishan’s comments, gestures, body movements, and facial expressions open the door to complex interpretations. Through subtle and multifaceted language and behavior, Meishan displays her profound understanding of the way in which uncontrolled artifice destroys life. When she sees Master Chen fondle Yan’er, Songlian experiences another painful awakening. She realizes that she and the servants both serve at his pleasure, and that the “wife” status means very little. Crying and refusing to talk to or be touched despite his reminder that there are many others who desire the foot massage, Songlian’s petulant behavior results in the next go-around settled in favor of Meishan. As she listens to Meishan get her foot massage, she pushes her shoes off and shuts her eyes in imagined rapture, but only for a second. This brief infiltration of her total sensory existence by the fantasized experience of an artificial victory is harshly shattered when Songlian calls Yan’er to bring in water to wash her feet. After the second or third command, Yan’er appears, and we later learn why. Her punning response to Songlian’s question about why she always pulls a long face—“better than having no face at all”— confirms the delicate power balance and Master Chen’s facility in making himself ubiquitously present even in his absence. Again Yan’er succeeds in drawing Fourth Wife into the competition, as Songlian furiously kicks the basin and glares. After a series of unpleasant meal interactions, Meishan arrives to personally invite Fourth Wife to play mahjong when an invitation sent via Yan’er does not succeed. At Songlian’s denial that she is just jealous, Meishan says, “That’s good. Surely you would not be so petty as to be

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worried about first losing the man and then losing some money? If you are really afraid of losing, I’ll let you win.” Songlian replies, “Since you put it that way, I have no choice. You don’t need to indulge me. We’ll see who wins and who loses.” Again Meishan’s words imply complex meanings, linking the competitive mahjong game to their life in the compound. She disarms Songlian by stating that she will let her win, bringing in the possibility of manipulation within the game, or a game within a game. The outer game appears to conform to the rules, just as Meishan’s jealousy makes her appear to be wildly fond of Master Chen’s attention. The inner game is the crafting of the outer game as a ruse. The mahjong game takes place in Meishan’s quarters, with giant masks hung around the room, emphasizing the play-acting theme. Dr. Gao and his friend are the other players. Meishan points out that Songlian is a university student, not simply an opera singer like herself, and is out to win. From the perspective of a naïve outsider, Dr. Gao responds, “Certainly not, it’s only a game.” “Third Wife is truly an opera singer, her room is decorated like a stage,” Songlian comments, to which Dr. Gao responds, “No one can forget the past.” These brief exchanges are codes that encourage Songlian to reflect her situation. The connection between education and winning that Meishan suggests is particularly provocative. Ironically, Songlian’s elite education has failed to put her in a position from which she can perceive and distance herself from the game, whereas Meishan’s background as a performing artist—thought to be lower class in the first half of the twentieth century—has made her a sophisticated observer and a talented schemer. Master Chen appreciates Songlian’s education because it makes her more beautiful, but Meishan accurately implies that it may merely make her want to win even more. This gutting of true education in favor of power games in which imagined superiority is the result echoes Lu Xun in his famous tale The True Story of Ah Q (2009, 1960). Although he is far from educated, Ah Q’s “spiritual victory method” can twist any defeat into victory, and the character of the “fake foreign devil” is a good example of education leading to posturing rather than to progress. While

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Songlian is surely intelligent enough to hear the multilayered hints in Meishan’s voice, she immediately takes the suggestion that Meishan may let her win as a challenge, failing to hear the implication. She interprets Yan’er’s words in the same way: although she leaps in to share in the labor of washing clothes, Songlian quickly identifies the maid’s sharp retort as a taunt. Education, it seems, has not developed in Songlian a deep knowledge that can allow her to recognize the workings of power, but rather has positioned her as someone who believes she has rights and power. In spite of Meishan’s innuendos, the desire to leap into the fray is what prevents Songlian from seeing what the game is all about until it is too late, blinding her to the consequences of her actions. When autumn arrives and Songlian finds that her flute has disappeared, we get a further clue that can help us understand her quick capitulation to concubinage despite her education. The connection of the flute to several men clarifies this contradiction, which drives the initial scenes of the film. The first is Songlian’s father, who was the owner of the flute before he died. As she puts it, “It is my father’s legacy” or “It is an inheritance from my father.” The second is Master Chen’s son by his first wife, Feipu. Feipu, who plays a flute, assumes a role similar to that of My Grandpa in Red Sorghum and Tianqing in Judou: he is the male to whom Songlian is attracted and to whom she appeals, if but weakly. The third is Master Chen, who imagines that a male university student gave Songlian the flute as a token of admiration. When he realizes that there is no such student, Master Chen admits that his imagination was overactive, but he also casually informs Songlian that he has burned the flute. The destruction of the flute cuts off the past to which Dr. Gao refers as he explains the presence of opera masks in Meishan’s room, diminishing the possibility that it can exert a positive influence. For Master Chen, Songlian’s past is her life as a university student and the knowledge or perspective it could grant her, and he cleverly cuts the link. As we have seen, one characteristic element of the Red Trilogy is the existence of a powerful a good-hearted supporting male for the female

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lead. As the male weakens, the emancipatory possibilities for the female lead also contract. My Grandpa of Red Sorghum is the strongest of the males to which the female lead appeals; in Judou, Tianqing plays a weaker role. The only male on whom Songlian can call is Feipu, whose presence becomes known through the eerily beautiful flute music that echoes through the complex. His time in the compound is limited because he is leaving the next day for Yunnan on business, an oblique reference to the wealth that supports the family enterprise. Songlian is beguiled by the music, and the camera focuses steadily on her beautiful face as she listens at the doorway of the room where he plays. When Feipu notices her, he asks, “Are you Songlian?” She responds, “According to the rules, you shouldn’t call me by my name.” He says, “What, should I call you Fourth Wife?” These sentences are sufficient to connect the speakers in a symbiosis of understanding, implying that they both are able to recognize the absurdity of life in the compound. Feipu’s existence is not limited to the confines of the household, and he possesses the perspective of an outsider. His remark, therefore, emboldens her, and they cast meaningful glances before Feipu is called away by his mother. Songlian does not see him again until winter, when her disillusion has intensified. Having learned that Yan’er died from her mistreatment, Songlian takes advantage of her birthday—and Master Chen’s absence —to get drunk. When Feipu is asked to intervene, Songlian addresses him sardonically as “Young master” and invites him to celebrate with her, splashing the wine on his robe when she hands him a glass. She explains the logic of her faked pregnancy as a ploy to get Master Chen to sleep with her more often, increasing her chances of actually becoming pregnant. “What I didn’t know was that they were plotting against me all the time...they plot against me, I plot against them, back and forth, what’s the point?” she asks, in a burst of clarity. Songlian’s father, Master Chen with his imaginary male student, and Feipu all have a relationship to the flute. We can surmise that Songlian’s father supported her education, which ended with his death, and that he passed the flute on to his daughter. As always, Master Chen exerts his

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power without manifestation, secretly stealing and destroying the flute. Feipu’s direct playing of the flute suggests a connection with the father who supported Songlian, and inspires her to imagine that she may be able to escape through his help. Compared with the three men in Red Sorghum (Jiu’er’s father, Li Datou, and My Grandpa) or in Judou (Judou’s unseen father, Yang Jinshan, and Yang Tianqing), the three men in Red Lantern (Songlian’s father, Master Chen, and Feipu) have remarkably ethereal presences. Songlian’s father is dead; we never see Master Chen without the mediation of obstruction or distance; and Feipu comes across as an elegant, detached, and effeminate connoisseur. Using music and a musical instrument to link the men further enhances the wraithlike impression, in which physical presence has become muted into sound and atmosphere. The flute abstracts the physical life force evident in the songs of Red Sorghum into an airy and mournful sound. The existence of a real or longed-for male child carries each film’s narrative trajectory through the Red Trilogy from Red Sorghum to Red Lantern and on to Qiuju Goes to Court (1992). Songlian feigns pregnancy; however, when Zhuoyun asks Dr. Gao to examine her, her ruse is exposed. When Songlian maliciously cuts Zhuoyun’s ear while giving her a haircut, Meishan decides she is trustworthy and discloses how Zhuoyun attempted to get Meishan to miscarry or to delay the birth of her child, so that Zhuoyun’s child would be the firstborn. “You’re new so the master is not yet tired of you, but if you don’t give him a son, bitter times are on the way,” Meishan explains. “You may be a student while I am just an opera singer, but that wouldn’t make a difference.” In Red Sorghum, Douguan, the son of Jiu’er and My Grandpa, is a delightful child who does not hesitate when called on to join with the men in drinking wine to fortify them against the Japanese. He sings a song to help his mother on her postdeath journey to the netherworld, and lives on to father the film’s narrator, thus performing a crucial function of transmitting the story and spirit of the people who live and work in the winery. Tianbai, the son of Judou and Tianqing, is the opposite. A sullen-faced child whose first and near-only speech act is calling Jinshan

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“father,” Tianbai ends up killing both of his fathers. Songlian’s son is nonexistent. Even if he were to appear, he would be nothing more than a pawn in the competition, obviating the role of cultural continuation assigned to sons. In Red Lantern, the son is neither positive as is Douguan or negative as is Tianbai, but like so many aspects of the Kafkaesque family compound, is an abstraction. As fully instrumentalized as are all processes, emotions, and relationships within the film, the imaginary son is a fulcrum designed to consolidate Songlian’s victory. Songlian repeatedly declares that she does not care about the game, but over and over she is drawn in. She cannot resist getting angry at Yan’er’s taunts, even though her fury indirectly leads to the maid’s death. The servant who replaces Yan’er suggests that there was no need for Songlian to take the dream-infected maid so seriously. Whereas the viewer may moderate that mild criticism with the awareness of Yan’er’s continual petty defiance, it is a perfect critique of Songlian’s inability to distance herself from an approach to life that she knows is devastating. Her desire to compete alternates with her awareness that the game is disastrous, which means that in her moments of lucidity, Songlian is miserable. Her anger and disillusionment after she fails to inspire Feipu’s interest leads her to drunkenly reveal Meishan’s affair with Dr. Gao, which in turn results in the opera singer’s death. Despite her hard-won and carefully maintained distance from the game, Meishan knows that play-acting is serious business. Yet she constantly walks a dangerous line. The daily competition for the attention of Master Chen must appear authentic, when in reality Meishan has seen through the game, and even acted on her new knowledge by forming a relationship with Dr. Gao. Because she was once a professional performer, Meishan has an excellent tool at her disposal: she can infuse her selfpresentation with operatic elements that appear to be simply part of her identity. This form of acting helps her juggle between calculated performance and authenticity so skillfully that she seems to truly desire Master Chen. She both literally and figuratively performs for Master

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Chen, who enthusiastically praises her when she is singing opera, and is completely taken in by her jealous behavior. Believing her jealousy to be genuine and finding it alluring, he leaves his new bride to go to Meishan’s side when the latter feigns illness. After Songlian’s fake pregnancy is discovered and her lanterns are covered with black cloth, Meishan makes her most direct statements about what is going on, and Songlian experiences her most profound moment of understanding (see figure 7). Meishan sees Songlian on the walkway above and goes up to talk with her. Directly facing the camera and thus speaking to the audience, they obliquely dissect the logic of life at the Chen family compound. Meishan: Fourth Sister, what are you doing out so early? Songlian: I’m here to listen to Third Sister sing. You sing opera so well. Meishan: Ha, good or bad, it’s nothing but play-acting. If you play well, you can fool others. If you play badly, you can only fool yourself. When you can’t even fool yourself, your only option is to fool the ghosts. Songlian: The only difference between people and ghosts is one breath. People are ghosts and ghosts are people. Meishan: Fourth Sister, I’m not criticizing you, but you shouldn’t have acted out about Yan’er. So she stole the lanterns, just let her hang them. Wasn’t she just dreaming of becoming a wife? Songlian: I wasn’t acting out because of her. It was for someone else to see. Meishan: That’s true, she was only a maid, so what could she really do? Someone must have been behind her. You saw that someone’s unctuous manner last night when the lantern was lit. She thinks she’s really something. Just watch what I can do to her.

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Songlian: Light the lanterns, blow out the lanterns, cover the lanterns, I really don’t care. I just understand what people amount to in this household. They’re like dogs, cats, or rats. Whatever it is, they aren’t like people. Standing here I keep thinking, wouldn’t it be better to be hanged in that room? Meishan: Fourth Sister, don’t talk so casually about death. Whatever it’s like, just go on living. This unhappy manner isn’t good for living. Look at me, all day happy, isn’t it better to just amuse yourself? Songlian: Of course Third Sister is happy, you can go look up that nice Dr. Gao. Meishan: What do you mean by that? Songlian: I don’t mean anything. I haven’t yet thanked him for coming to see me when I was sick. Meishan: Let me tell you, this is nothing to joke about. If you tell this nonsense to anyone else, I’ll stop at nothing. To tell you the truth, I’m off to see Dr. Gao soon. Let’s see what you and the others can do about that. At this moment of honesty and directness, devoid of acting, Songlian insists that she doesn’t care about the rituals, that she understands she is being treated like an animal, that she would be better off dead, and that she is both angry at Dr. Gao for exposing her false pregnancy and jealous of Meishan for having a lover. Meishan openly declares her theory of life in the compound: act and act well, pretend you are happy, fool everyone, and find happiness elsewhere. Meishan realizes too late that Songlian could let her secret out and threatens her to keep quiet.

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The Collaborators: Zhuoyun and Yan’er Second Wife Zhuoyun and maid Yan’er are firm believers in the competition and do everything they can to win. Zhuoyun is the most vicious and two-faced competitor. A picture of sisterly concern and decorum, Zhuoyun makes a special effort to welcome Songlian, gives her a gift, and always speaks with kindness. In contrast to Meishan, whose deceit is acting huffily and coquettishly, Zhuoyun always comes across as thinking of the welfare of others. The difference between Meishan’s expressed haughtiness but genuine heart and Zhuoyun’s expressed kindness but true ruthlessness contains an important insight about performance that is picked up in Zhang Yimou’s later film Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005): acting within any given social environment is always complex, and authenticity cannot be reliably identified. Whereas Meishan, sulky on the surface, has seen through the game and gone out to develop something real, Zhuoyun, seemingly gentle, has absorbed the game and turned her life into a performance designed to enhance her chances of success. Songlian is a threat to Zhuoyun because of the power she has in attracting Master Chen. If Songlian gives birth to a son, her status will be enhanced. Like others in the film, Zhuoyun has her own interpretation of the value of education, and her comment is one of several that enlarges the significance of the short early scenes. Claiming that Master Chen said she would look younger with shorter hair, Zhuoyun asks Songlian to give her a haircut but is rebuffed, because Songlian at this point knows that it was Zhuoyun who wrote her name on a voodoo doll with the intent of harming her. She tells Zhuoyun to ask Meishan, but Zhuoyun insists that because Songlian has a university education, she would be a better beautician.3 The link between education and female grooming brings up the gender-specific rationales for women’s schooling often cited in the early days of modern education. These include training female students to be efficient and pragmatic in running a household, making them better mothers equipped with modern scientific learning in

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nutrition and child education, and helping them master other skills that are appropriately feminine (Larson 1998). Zhuoyun’s comment suggests that women’s education is only a finishing-school experience. In addition to demeaning Songlian, Zhuoyun’s remark is cleverly designed to point out the containment of the liberatory and transcendent possibilities of education. Although Yan’er is manipulated by Zhuoyun, she is driven by her own dreams of being a wife. Her relentless hostility to Songlian from the moment she arrives, along with the physical nature of her interactions with Master Chen, implies that she believed she could have become the Fourth Wife. Whereas Zhuoyun and Meishan are opponents, Yan’er’s enemy is Songlian, who has taken the spot that she imagined was hers. A more stunning connection between the two, however, comes when Zhuoyun is chosen and given the foot massage with the rattling hammers. The camera shows a front-on image of Songlian swooning in a fantasy of pleasure as she listens to the far-away rattle and imagines that her feet are being massaged (see figure 8). Immediately following this scene, Yan’er, in her room with discarded lanterns she has hung and lit, also falls into reverie (see figure 9). This scene suggests reasons why Songlian repeatedly fails to reject the game. The transformation of the sexual relationship into what is simultaneously a rigid structure, a daily competitive performance, and a desired and sublime imaginary marks the infusion of artifice into all aspects of life, or its near-complete takeover of reality. The pleasure experienced simultaneously by the servant and her mistress speaks eloquently to the comprehensive interpellation of performativity within the minds, bodies, and sensual fantasies of the women. Not only has the game become so enticing that Songlian loses the ability to perceive that she is putting herself in play, but it also creates powerful tactile imaginaries. The positioning of Yan’er as an enemy is crucially important for other reasons. The conversion of Songlian from an open-minded, educated, woman into a spiteful bully takes place in the blink of an eye, the moment

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after she innocently and hopefully tries to help Yan’er wash the clothes. The encounter pivots on Songlian’s understanding of the power of labor to alter hierarchical human relationships. Yan’er’s fantasy—ironically also based on the crossing of class borders—is potent and extensive. It unfolds not only in her mind but also in the small amount of space she controls, where she works hard to establish the environment, mending and setting up the broken lanterns, enabling their red glow and the conversion of the aural evidence of wifehood into subjectivity and physical sensation. Once the rattle of the massage hammer metamorphoses into a fantasy of power and sensuality, the magic that labor can enact vanishes, and her work becomes only a chore. In the Red Trilogy, the transformation of labor from a utopian vision with an overarching metaphysical role to play to an abstracted and diminished form illustrates both a pervasive socialist context that singles out labor as important as well as the environment of rapid change during the time when the films were made. In Red Lantern, the framework of the domestic household comes into even greater prominence, as it forms the core of the entire visual presentation, which is centered and contained within the compound. This world is clearly demarcated by the roles of master, wives, and servants, along with ritualistic acts, events, and other markers that identify the positions of all concerned. Yet the transformation of labor into a burden that is contextualized within the hierarchy of the family suggests that the socialist ideologies of the past are still relevant. Under Chinese socialism, the “family was still conceived as an ethical community in socialist family culture, although a secondary one. The family was imagined as a small labor community and still conceived as a place to support the old and foster the young, but now through labor” (Ding and Zhong 2014, 439). Thus, Yan’er’s desire is to escape labor and instead be the beneficiary of the labor of others, as are the wives, whose cloistering is not a disadvantage but rather something to which she aspires. To be free from labor has become a value, and— with the exception of the brief moment when Songlian squats down to help Yan’er do the washing—work no longer possesses any liberatory

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potential. This dire situation is part of the crumbling of socialist idealism characteristic of the transformative social environment during which the Red Trilogy was produced.4

The Game is Everything Is Red Lantern it a self-Orientalizing film with the goal of making China exotic, beautiful, and weak in the eyes of Westerners? In this chapter, I have argued that to the contrary, it is a subtle evolution in a series of films that allegorically imagine and stage the possibilities and hopes for a viable present and future. In Red Lantern, traditional culture has nothing to recommend it, metamorphosing into a calculated game driven by fear. Life is a form of coerced and competitive performance, and the culture of the small community has turned into a ubiquitous mist of implication and positioning, managed by a master never fully visible. Through competition, it pits one person against the next, creating and sustaining the desire to play the game through richly sensual fantasies. Those without resources are used, while the powerful deploy every trick they can muster. It is not surprising that some have interpreted the film as a critique of a China as so full of artifice and devoid of human authenticity, so conniving and cruel, that it needs thorough overhaul. Like the May Fourth texts that called for reform, Red Lantern looks at the past and comes up with a devastating portrait, these critics argue. The arrival of the modern in the form of education does not stand a chance against this long-lasting cultural perspective, which has mutated into an atmosphere so wily, invisible, and pervasive that cannot be captured and beaten. Within this interpretation, even the modern technology (here in the form of the phonograph) that allows Songlian her final protest cannot make a dent in the deadened environment of China. The most brilliant aspects of Red Lantern are its relentless abstraction of heavy roofs and beams into boundaries, of power into haziness, of human emotions into rivalry, of labor into decadence, and of existence into artifice. The film greatly expands the Red Trilogy themes when

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it brings in the elements of modern education and technology, whose representative character Songlian fails utterly in this environment of enhanced, exaggerated competition. The thwarted potential of the young and attractive modern woman, or the inability of Songlian to stand up to the rules and regulations of the Chen family, is a powerful statement against the hope that modernity, with its reasonable and egalitarian approach and its driving concepts of logic and progress, can lead to a sane and happy society. By contrast, the optimistic vision of Red Sorghum puts the power to decide how they will live in the hands of the people. Simply speaking, this is the ability to determine culture, a communal agreement that structures human relationships, work, and play. When various performances are part of the local scene, they are undertaken collectively and with a shared pleasure in ritual expression. The pressure to perform in offensive ways only comes from the outside, and the resistance to that demand emerges from genuine emotion. Although many of the winery workers die, their story inspires future generations. In Judou, performance takes an evil turn that is evident in Jinshan’s acted-out sexual cruelty when he rides Judou like a horse, in the village’s hypocritical insistence that widowhood be correctly performed, in Tianbai’s violent enforcement of titular fatherhood, and in the display of manufactured feelings for the dead. With Red Lantern, we gain an overarching perspective from which to view the series and the intensification of performance as a lifeand-culture-defining principle. Songlian’s transfiguration into a cruel mistress, a conniving competitor, and eventually a deranged woman exemplifies the Red Trilogy’s ongoing concerns with labor, community, and economic exchange as the means through which human life finds significance. Red Lantern shrivels the active, hopeful possibilities of the performative moment that we saw in the wine ritual of Red Sorghum. Far from internalizing the imagined perspective of the outside world, Red Lantern turns it into a subject to be probed, tested, and examined. An important metamorphosis over the course of the Red Trilogy is the films’ increasing suspicion not about Chinese culture or its essential

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meaning, but about the corrosive effects of a culture that is performed more than it is lived. Red Lantern creates a devastating society in which little is genuine or authentic: most or all of life is acted out under a nearinvisible determining gaze, an insight that will gain a more intimate relationship with Chinese socialist modernity in the film To Live (1994). The claustrophobia in Red Lantern, much more extreme than that of Red Sorghum and Judou, takes the notion of performed culture or the sensation of being watched by an invisible eye to new heights, bringing a new perspective to the global condition under which postsocialist China exists. Figure 7. Meishan and Songlian.

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Figure 8. Songlian imagines foot massage.

Figure 9. Yan’er imagines foot massage.

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Notes 1. The term explanation is shuofa, the same term the Qiuju uses when she asks for an “apology.” I discuss this term in greater detail in the next chapter. 2. The film is based on Su Tong’s novel Wives and Concubines (1990), which later was republished under the same name as the film (Su Tong 1996). While noted for both its classical use of language and its simultaneous attention to structure and language construction and play that is typical of the avant-gardists, Wives and Concubines does not glorify life as it is lived on at the edge of Han civilization, as is typical of the “Roots” writers’ works. For more on the “Roots” writers, see Mark Leenhouts (2003). 3. Short hairstyles were a mark of modernity in 1920s China, and also became a rationale for violence. See Lung-kee Sun (1997) and Weikun Cheng (1988). 4. Labor in Marx’s thought, and in the Marxist tradition, includes various positions ranging from the idea that labor is ennobling and the key element in the formation of human consciousness or essence, to considering it a burden to be equitably shared and overcome through technology (Beilharz 1992; 2012). Summing up Marx’s work on labor and utopia, Beilarz identifies the central question as “Is utopia beyond labour, or through it?—ergo the centrality of Marx to all this, for he manages across the path of his work to argue both” (2012, 51).

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Chapter 4

The Law and the People Qiuju Goes to Court Human rights are generated as concrete rights at the level of bodily needs and materialized through institutional practices as part of a complex of processes by which global capitalism continually sustains and reproduces itself through the production of human subjects with rights. Our interconnectedness within global capitalism thus generates a real and unequal universality that caricatures the ideal universality presupposed by conventional human rights discourse. Rights are not, in the original instance, entitlements of intersubjectively constituted rational social agents but violent gifts, the necessary nexuses within immanent global force relations that produce the identities of their claimants. Yet they are the only way for the disenfranchised to mobilize. —Pheng Cheah (2006, 172)1 Standing at the cusp of Zhang Yimou’s apparent move away from the allegorical, highly structured art films that had become his trademark, Qiuju Goes to Court (1992) marks a transition into new time periods, approaches, and topics. One of these changes is often thought to be a new spotlight shown on average people with regular lives, or “real people” in the countryside, provincial towns, and cities at various levels. Some of Zhang’s later work, including Not One Less (1999), The Road

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Home (1999), To Live (1994), Keep Cool (1997), Happy Times (2000), and The Love of the Hawthorn Tree (2010), focus on ordinary people in rural and urban environments. But despite this difference, Qiuju continues some directions established in the earlier films. A purposeful melding of cultural transmission and the biological reproduction of males as a persistent hub of symbolic and actual social organization is woven into the story. The structuring of space seems related, if not identical, to the spaces of the Red Trilogy: from the wide-open land of Red Sorghum to the contained, claustrophobic environment of Raise the Red Lantern, a progressive closing in of space broadens and flattens out in Qiuju, with roads carving a careful path into larger and larger urban clusters while not allowing anyone to stray. Thus, while the trapped female protagonist at least has a path to follow, the claustrophobic feeling remains, fluctuating between spatial restriction and temporal predetermination. Given that the strongly gendered themes of entrapment, rebellion, and escape that form the backbone of Red Sorghum, Judou, and Raise the Red Lantern—that is, the persistently bold, aggressive female and the increasingly weak male, as well as the emphasis on having sons —are maintained, it would be a mistake to separate Qiuju completely from the Red Trilogy. And although it is set in contemporary times and veers away from anything unusual, Qiuju’s apparent voyage into real life is misleading, at least to some degree. Whereas there are many “real” aspects to the village life we see, Qiuju is nonetheless highly allegorical, moving the camera through the village and provincial cities with an overlay of meaning directly related to the concerns of the earlier films. Indeed, the film has transposed many of the themes of the Red Trilogy into modern times, giving the female lead access to a tool that Jiu’er and Judou could never even imagine, and with which Songlian had only brief acquaintance: the equality-espousing discourse of modernity. In this case, the power of the law—the main apparatus through which the modern discourse of human and individual rights is enforced—turns out to be available to the village woman Qiuju, whereas earlier heroines were largely trapped outside modern ways of thinking and institutional

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frameworks. Among other strategies, the film’s stages a confrontation between rural culture (defined by village governance and custom) and an emerging modern legal system (controlled by rule of law), investigating the way in which justice works under the new conditions of legal rights, which are part of the overarching context of human rights. Played again by Gong Li, the main character Qiuju is a pregnant villager, and the plot revolves around her attempt to get an apology from village chief Wang Shantang for kicking her husband Qinglai in the groin.2 Wang refuses to oblige: after all, Qinglai laughed at him for fathering four girls and not a single boy, calling him a man who could raise only hens. Ostensibly worried that she will give birth to a girl, and that physical damage to her husband’s reproductive organs will mean that they will never have a male heir, Qiuju demands an apology from the village chief. Despite attempts from higher-ups to resolve the dilemma amicably, the village chief’s surly attitude enrages her to the point that she decides to first seek mediation, and when that fails, to sue him. It is important, first, to recognize that an apology from the chief will have no direct influence on the material situation of Qinglai and Qiuju: it will not change the fact that Qinglai has been kicked, nor, if the kick turns out to have left permanent damage, will it repair his reproductive abilities. Qiuju makes it perfectly clear that she is not seeking monetary compensation. Furthermore, it is not evident that the apology, should it be forthcoming, will enhance the reputation of the family within the community. Although viewers are not given much access to the village perspective on the disagreement, what we do see— groups standing on a ridge gawking at Qiuju when she keeps visiting the chief’s home, jokes about her journeys—implies that at least some of the villagers find their neighbor’s quest excessive. Not only does the continuing drama gut Qinglai of male authority (as the chief points out), but after a certain point, it also conflicts with the common culture, or a general understanding of how things work in the village.

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It becomes apparent, therefore, that something else is driving Qiuju’s stubborn quest. Although we do not learn this until we are well into the story, Qiuju’s demand for an apology turns out to be one of a series of exchanges in which she and Qinglai jockey for power with the chief. The way in which the film centers this power relationship, which is driven by its own dynamics, is crucial to understanding exactly what makes up the transition from the Red Trilogy to Zhang’s later work. By eliminating obvious side effects to the power struggle—increased wealth, superior privileges, heightened prestige—Qiuju zeroes in on the political aspect of human relations as its focal point. In this context, the complexities that cloud our understanding of who is right and who is wrong are significant, highlighting instead the environment in which that question fades away in a jumble of contextual contingencies and drawing viewers’ attention to issues surrounding relative power, crisis, and authority. Comparison with the Red Trilogy shows how this political confrontation relates to the queries directed at culture that, I have argued, are central to the earlier films. Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian all pursue a reasonable life invigorated by affectionate human relations, supportive communities, and rewarding hard work. Jiu’er succeeds in establishing an ideal life, only to be killed when the Japanese invade; Judou has brief moments of happiness but ultimately fails to establish a secure life; and Songlian is doomed to misery from the first seconds of the film. In Qiuju, by contrast, Qiuju already has the kind of life to which the heroines of the Red Trilogy aspire. She has a reliable livelihood soundly rooted in the value of hard work, a supportive community, and an affectionate and kind husband. She is pregnant and will soon give birth to a child. Moreover, whereas in the earlier films, the female protagonists struggle against controlling males with few or no positive qualities, Wang Shantang is a mixed bag. By providing Qiuju with a material and emotional foundation that is exactly what the earlier heroines lack, the film substantially changes the equation, building a power struggle with little apparent benefit to be had in victory. Eliminating the more easily identifiable and distasteful issues of physical or emotional abuse and mistreatment, Qiuju distills the object

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of struggles by Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian against obnoxious patriarchs into a principle of authority and power within the community, focusing attention in a political direction. From this perspective, it seems that the film may be commenting on the failure of Chinese society to develop fast enough: even though Qiuju and the other villagers know about the law, the idea that it should be invoked to provide a solution to actual problems lies like a veneer over the surface of the community. The organic struggle that leads to hardwon modern rights and develops a structure to enforce them, and that reorders society and consciousness by means of this new knowledge, simply has not taken place in a broad enough fashion, the film could be implying. Even more importantly, the material infrastructure of resources that would allow Qiuju to efficiently seek the hand of the law against the chief does not yet exist. We also could decode the film as a telling testimony against the West’s incessant cry for modernization by means of enhanced human rights. After all, there is no point in having the right to sue the village chief if your very life and the future of your family depend on his good intentions and willingness to help in times of need. The film’s plot is more intensely allegorical than it first appears, however, and there is more to it than a deconstruction of the universalized discourse of human rights as they work in less developed regions. And although we may get a glimpse of village life with its primitive kitchens, padded clothing, politeness and deference, and reliance on the land, the point of the film is not to enlighten us about rural customs. Rather, Qiuju marks an important evolution, a move away from the victimizer-victim structure of the Red Trilogy into a deeper and more complex consideration of the ways in which rulers and the ruled interact. If we consider the deepest meaning of culture to lie in the organization of daily life, human relationships, and the the sedimented habits that develop over time, Qiuju Goes to Court links culture—especially when it enters crisis—tightly to politics, or to human relations expressed through hierarchies of social power. In moving out of the framework of the Red Trilogy into Qiuju,

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this switch from formulating culture as an independent force of life through habitual practice, aesthetic organization, and spirit into viewing it as part and parcel of political relations is an important transformation. The vital and innocent cultural life of Red Sorghum, motivated by a sensual connection to the land and a strong respect for physical labor, has morphed into something far more complicated. In addition to its revision of the patriarch, the film offers a radically new style. Its perspective of the country bumpkin, through whose eyes the camera works, allegorizes human relations built on subtle hierarchies. By means of this strategy, the film develops a pan-documentary style that even more powerfully lays out the social networks within which any individual must function as predetermined and productive, to the point where the possibility of a successful challenge—and the gaining of power or authority that could result from it—is diffused. This diffusion of power muddies the identification of a clear enemy against which to struggle, and puts Qiuju’s energetic search for justice into an ambivalent framework. Qiuju Goes to Court, therefore, transitions into a different and more complex mode of thinking about culture. This perspective derives not so much from an immersion into the existence of ordinary people as through creative consideration of how power is subtly woven into daily life. As opposed to Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian, and despite her status as an uneducated villager, Qiuju has access to the new authority of modern legal practice—based on the implicit and universal equality of all human beings before the law—which should override and fundamentally alter both her position within the village and the rules of conduct themselves. Theoretically, she can use the law to stand up to the village head. Her failure to deploy this tool to get what she wants—and even more, its turning against her like a boomerang—sets up a crisis that exposes the constitutive imbrications of culture and politics. Therefore, as we move out of the Red Trilogy and into Qiuju Goes to Court, the most significant development is not only the contemporary, real-life, commoner perspective, but the way in which the film refines

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and complicates the idea of what culture is and how it works. This vision of culture almost completely abandons both spiritual force—for good and for evil—as well as recognizable forms of music, art, and texts, in favor of a tapestry wherein human power relations embody cultural meaning. While power was both clear-cut and morally defunct in the Red Trilogy, Qiuju evokes the mutuality of culture and political power, taking a closer look at sovereignty, or power as invested in a person, institution, or entity. In this situation, justice cannot be separated from the conditions of its enactment. Another relatively new aspect—hinted at but left undeveloped in Raise the Red Lantern— is the two-world structure, which sets up a binary clash of ideologies, spheres, or concepts, an ordered contrast that reaches its apotheosis in Hero (2002).3

The Country Bumpkin and the Undirected Camera As the opening text to Qiuju Goes to Court appears on the screen, we hear singing and the plucking of a stringed instrument that clearly is Chinese in origin.4 The screen switches to a straight-on, slightly elevated view of crowds walking toward the camera with trees on either side. The sun is shining, but the people all wear padded coats. Some push bicycles and stop by the side of the road to make purchases, while others pull carts or drag children along. The men invariably are dressed in outfits ranging from near-black to blue, while the women are in dark pants and jackets of many colors, including lavender, red, and rust. Anyone familiar with China can quickly surmise that the setting most likely is a provincial or district town. Without moving, the camera lingers on this scene for over ninety seconds, and then Qiuju and her sister-in-law Meizi come into view. Meizi is pulling a cart on which someone lies covered with a quilt, and a very pregnant Qiuju walks with her hand on the cart. Although they clearly are going somewhere, the pregnancy, the slow speed of the procession, and Qiuju’s incessant glancing around project an aimless sense, as if they have found themselves in a new place that they do not

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understand. This wandering, or the feeling of an undirected presence in an alien environment, appears in the film repeatedly as the camera follows Qiuju and Meizi in their consecutive journeys. After this long scene, the camera switches angles several times to give us different views of the two women and the cart, while the music plays on. They arrive at a clinic, and Qiuju helps a man off the cart. Inside, another man is splitting wood by a makeshift stove. Not stopping in his effort, he asks “What’s wrong?” “My husband was kicked,” Qiuju responds. “Where?” the man asks. “Lower body,” her husband responds. “Take off your pants and let me take a look,” the doctor says. Qiuju and Meizi help him to the bed and then walk toward the door. The doctor washes his hands with soap, all recorded by the camera, whose close-up attention to these common acts imparts a documentary feel. At this point the scene moves outdoors, where Meizi and Qiuju stand. We still hear the hustle and bustle of the city, and passers-by walk in front of the camera, blocking our view. There is a sharp difference between these static long takes, which allow people to move randomly before the camera, and the highly structured and artistic lens of the Red Trilogy. The camera seems to have backed up and lost its aesthetic perspective, as if recording life as it is lived rather than framing a scene for maximum effect. The scene shifts back into the clinic and from the inside, we see Qiuju peeking through the window as her husband explains he is from Xigouzi. “You came all that way,” the doctor exclaims, establishing the central significance of the journey. The camera then focuses straight on Meizi and Qiuju from the outside, still with people walking between. The crowd is moving, and before long the injured man staggers out. The doctor told him, he says, to “keep it straight” and “air it out,” and things will be fine. After they get a stamp on the doctor’s report, the group traverses snow-covered roads in a rural area, with Meizi pulling the cart. Qiuju voices her concerns: If the child in her womb is female and her husband’s reproductive organs are damaged, they will be left without a male heir. For that reason, she will “talk to him” when they get back. At this point, it unclear to whom “him” refers.

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Soon a small village appears, with cattle wandering by and a young herder (who reappears with important comments later), and then the view moves inside a house. An old woman is given a bowl of noodles and a man also gets one, along with several children, setting the scene as already ongoing when, out of our vision, Qiuju walks in. “Auntie Qiuju!” the children call out. Qiuju turns down the offer of food and sits on the bed, facing the man, who has his back to her while he eats. She is in the home of village chief Wang Shantang, the “him” to whom she earlier referred. He sits gobbling noodles with his back to the visitor, implying that he has little time or energy for her. Qiuju nonetheless speaks up, telling him that her husband Qinglai is wounded, and presents the report for him, placing it on the bed in front of her. She nudges it in his direction with her hand, but the chief only turns his head slightly to the side, refusing to face her. When Qiuju asks what they should do, he leisurely gets up and walks away, saying contemptuously, “Do whatever you want.” His wife scolds him for not taking the matter seriously; after all, Qiuju has gone to the trouble of bringing the report. He responds harshly that she should mind her own business. Qiuju pursues him as he squats in the doorway, and he makes a crude and insulting offer: Qinglai can kick him in the groin in return. The thick social padding through which the exchange takes place, as well as the emphasis on temporal continuity, make this conversation particularly interesting. The scene is the first of many of its sort, whereby Qiuju confronts the chief with familial and village members around, with our initial entry into the environment via a camera undirected by the protagonist’s immediate presence. By filming people in their natural and ongoing environment before Qiuju comes in, rather than focusing on her as the driver and agent, the film brings out the constancy of cultural habit, the role that each person plays, and the heavy materiality of this preexisting context. The film’s presentation of village life, as well as the camera’s refusal to completely center Qiuju as the agent of its appearance in our visual field, suggests that clear-cut, directed action will be absorbed and modified. Like a giant sponge, village life, customs, and

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relationships modify and diffuse any action taken by an individual. Even before we become fully aware of Qiuju’s struggle to force responsibility on the village chief, the relationships of the community appear like a web before us, obviating the possibility that she can move in a clear trajectory that will not become entangled within this network of meanings and connotations. And although her voiced intent is clear and logical, the massive predetermined setting belies the possibility that she will be able to push any agenda through to a conclusion. To enhance the way in which village ways of life exist as an overdetermined material, spatial, and temporal force, every encounter is stretched out and filled with spaces where nothing happens, and the camera often idles without moving. It is through these pan-documentary techniques that the film builds a convincing presentation of the imbrication of culture with human relations, or the ways in which power is woven into daily life. The camera work effectively decenters the main character and her effort, pointing us toward the surroundings instead. When Qiuju returns home after her frustrating visit to the village chief, although the camera moves from speaker to speaker, it remains low, at the level of the seated grandfather and Qinglai, cutting off a view of Meizi’s head as she stands cooking. This incomplete and fragmentary perspective implies that the actors are just a small part of a large organism. Moving from Qinglai lying on the bed toward the door, we hear Qiuju come in before the camera slowly pans over to see her. Qinglai and an older man—most likely his father—actively support her decision to go to the village: “There must be justice somewhere,” Qinglai proclaims. More often than not, responses to a question or comment are only a grunt, enhancing the feel of a rural life built around a paucity of verbal communication complemented by rich networks of meaning within village relationships. Communication may be nonverbal or in subtle dialogue with ideas or practices already well understood.5 As they set off on the snowy road, the music starts up again. After hitching a ride on a cart pulled by a tractor, they arrive at an open gate, which we view from the inside, establishing the perspective not of the protagonist moving toward her goal, but of the environment

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within which she moves. Qiuju’s odd indirect walking style again belies her determination. The next scene is an off-centered view of several men smoking and talking. They are describing a fight in which, ironically, a man, his wife, and two daughters are accused of beating another man. As we see Qiuju open the door, we realize again that the scene has taken place without her in the room, expanding the sense of a rich and meaningful setting. When Qiuju and Meizi arrive at the district-level city, the quivering hand-held camera alights on several groups of posters with images as diverse as Chairman Mao, Arnold Schwarzenegger, two kittens watching a goldfish in a glass, Chinese Buddhist figures, a near-naked Caucasian man and woman kissing, folk art for the new year, industrial scenes, body builders, film stars, and singers. The camera randomly picks out people from the passersby, following them as they walk or ride by.6 It is painfully obvious that Qiuju and Meizi are from the countryside and are not used to this combination of imagery, and the camera forces us to see the city through their “country-bumpkin” eyes. In an extensive scene that takes place mostly before Qiuju and Meizi enter the room, a young man and woman sit across the table from Officer Li and another man. The young man looks at the officers, clearly embarrassed, while the young woman stares down. Several others are waiting, and we learn that Li and his colleague are officiating marriages. “You two are in love?” the second official asks, referring to the marriage laws of 1950 and 1980, both of which affirmed the free choice of the woman and the man: “Marriage must be based upon the complete willingness of the two parties. Neither party shall use compulsion and no third party is allowed to interfere” (“China’s New Marriage Law” 1981, 369; Niida 1964, 6). The young woman is too shy to speak up or raise her head. While Li and the other official mercilessly tease the couple, the humiliation results in blushing and smiles rather than anger and tears. The couple willingly and in a good-natured spirit submits to a well-intentioned rite of passage that is clearly part of local culture.

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Qiuju and Meizi must sell chili peppers to finance their next trip, which takes them to an even larger metropolis. The journey moves forward on a winding road, a goat piled on top of the bus, and with another confusing mishmash of images. As the two women stand and stare, a group of brightly uniformed women with smart hats ride by on bikes. The camera pans to a large billboard of a woman in high heels and a short skirt with a girl next to a refrigerator. A man rides up on a pedicab and begins to negotiate. The cover of the man’s pedicab is made out of an inexpensive woven red, blue, and white plastic that is ubiquitous in bags and tarps all over China. Representing poverty, immigrant labor, dislocation, and the entrepreneurial spirit, the fabric has been used by contemporary Chinese artists such as Wong Wai Yin and Stanley Wong. About one such work, called “Home-moving Furniture,” Wong Wai Yin (2002) writes: This piece of work was made in 2002. At that time I was studying in Chinese University of Hong Kong. On the train trips I always found people using “Red White Blue” plastic bags as they go to Mainland China or coming back from there. The bags reminded me of those people travelling between two places, two homes. Showing it after six years, the work today reminds me of my long lost imagination to materials and daily objects. The idea of people travelling between “two places, two homes” parallels the trips taken by Qiuju and Meizi from the village to the city, and brings out the reality of provincialism and its jarring presence in the city. Existing in the way the women dress, talk, and walk, “country ways” come across as concrete and meaningful, but also as a sign of vulnerability. Although the pedicab driver is far from cosmopolitan, he knows more than the villagers and promptly cheats them by overcharging for the ride (see figures 10 and 11). When Qiuju and Meizi are in the cities, the camera and microphone often take their perspective, allowing the audience to experience an alien jumble of images, sounds, and movements. But the camera also turns a mocking eye on the pair and their rural lives. A bike guard tells Qiuju and Meizi that they need to get some clothes that will not identify them as being from the village, so they walk out of a department

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store with Qiuju clad in a striped blazer that many viewers would find ridiculous (see figure 12). The hotel that the pedicab driver directs them to turns out to be too expensive, and as they approach a different one, a new kind of Western pop music starts up, gesturing toward a qualitative change in their environment now that they are in the big city. When Qiuju’s complaint is turned down for the final time, with the decision that Officer Li’s original negotiation and the payment of cash was correct, he tells Qiuju that her only option left is to sue, and recommends Counsel Wu as her representative. The suit propels her into direct confrontation not only with the village chief but also with his superiors, and brings into focus the role of leader at the center of village life.

The Locus of Power In the Red Trilogy, Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian live in a world where social authority symbolically and to a great degree, in actuality, is wielded by the patriarch. Although the female protagonists struggle against the power of these men, they have no intention of overthrowing the system but merely wish to replace the old and decrepit men with younger, kinder, more inclusive, and more vital versions. In these contexts, for better (Red Sorghum) and for worse (Judou and Red Lantern), the purpose of male offspring is to carry on this form of social organization, a transmission of culture that broadly anchors the community’s way of life. Like her predecessors, Qiuju also values males over females, and wants an apology from the village chief largely to recognize the possibility that she and her husband may be stuck with daughters. At the end, she too gives birth to a son. The Red Trilogy features existing patriarchies that viewers have no problem understanding as abusive, diseased, and perverse. And each film indicates that some community members know perfectly well that the men in power are abusing or taking advantage of their young wives. In Red Sorghum, not only My Grandpa, but also the winery workers understand what it means for a father to sell his daughter to an old, sick

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man. We witness their rowdiness end when Jiu’er begins to cry in the sedan, and their somber faces when they hear her screams in the nuptial bedroom. In Judou, the young worker who replaces Tianqing for a few days announces with some glee that Judou’s screams are the same as those of the first two wives, who were abused to death by Jinshan. Subtle humorous references to the illicit alliance between Tianqing and Judou (and thus, the impotence of Jinshan) are the undercurrent of Tianbai’s birthday party, and young people on the street joke openly about their transgression, causing Tianbai to attack them with a cleaver. Meishan is the strongest voice of truth in Raise the Red Lantern, but Master Chen’s son Feipu also shows glimmers of knowledge. Thus, although the three older patriarchs manage to keep their rule intact, internal fractures indicate that many people know something something is wrong and feel some degree of alienation. As for the audience, viewers can see that the patriarchs of the Red Trilogy have sufficient authority to maintain control within their communities, while simultaneously realizing that as contemporary film viewers, they are positioned to see that any reasonable modern person would find this authority to be bankrupt. The audience can hardly fail to despise the patriarchs and identify with the struggling female protagonists, who clearly have right on their side. Whereas the patriarchs’ peers recognize their rule and the right to compel most of the community to act as if everything is all working as it should be, for the film viewer, that authority does not exist. Standing outside the time and place of the films, the viewer recognizes the evisceration of legitimacy in favor of brutal intimidation. In other words, if we imagine the Red Trilogy as a meditation on sovereignty, the films indicate that with legitimate authority based on human value gutted, coercion through the power of the sovereign is what drives the cultural life of these communities.7 Whereas the drama of the Red Trilogy is structured around women who are married off to bullies, Qiuju’s husband is a kind man. The dispute arises because he is kicked in the groin and thus severely weakened,

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resulting in Qiuju stepping up to defend him. The role of evil patriarch is assigned to the village chief, Wang Shantang, a man with mixed qualities that include some coarse intimidation, some sensitivity, and some genuine human concern. Even Qiuju admits that as chief, Wang has the right to inflict mild physical violence on the villagers, but not to kick someone in the groin “where it counts.” This blow to male reproductivity is interpreted by Qiuju as an assault on the biological right of the couple to continue their line in a male heir. As she goes a step farther in explaining the situation to Officer Li, however, another conflict creeps in, suggesting a more complex interpretation of the kicking incident and of the power networks that underlay the village like an invisible grid. It turns out that Qiuju and Qinglai have repeatedly applied for permission to build a storage shed for the chilies they grow, but the village chief turned them down. They then decided to build on their own land and collected bricks and tiles to begin the job, but the chief stopped them, claiming it was against the law. According to Qiuju, when Wang was asked to specify the law, he said, “I am the law.” Officer Li assures Qiuju that there is a law requiring that crops be grown rather than building on land in order to ensure that agricultural property does not get misused. “But does this law permit him to beat people?” Qiuju asks, quickly understanding that her unrelated complaint has gone awry. “He’s the chief, a few punches are one thing, but to kick a man where it counts…” Li comments that the chief must have been provoked and keeps asking her to elaborate. When Qiuju does not respond, Meizi jumps in and relates Qinglai’s taunt that the chief would have no heirs because he only had daughters. We begin to understand that the kick is not a one-time event, but is embedded in a series of challenges between the couple and the village chief. Although the film does not give us a detailed history, the shedbuilding conflict suggests that with self-benefit in mind, Qinglai and Qiuju have pushed against laws in place to protect the larger community. This possibility hints at an accumulated set of historical exchanges that make up relations in the village, a complicated web of meaning that is

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difficult to unravel using a blunt tool in the form of one particular law. As Terrence C. Halliday and Pavel Osinsky have argued, The farther globalizing legal norms and practices are located from core local cultural institutions and beliefs, the less likely those norms and practices will provide explicit contestation and confrontation, whether in the center, periphery, or in between. Obversely, the closer that globalizing legal norms and institutions are to transformations in core cultural values and practices at the local level—gender, ethnicity, religion, family, class, sovereignty— the greater the contestation is likely to be around those norms. For instance, we should expect considerably greater local resistance to norms about radical changes in gender relations and women’s rights than over the regulation of business relationships. (2006, 446). Officer Li is aware of this problem, and thus he gently persists in his efforts to uncover what Qinglai did to enrage the chief. Biased in favor of her embellished narrative and unwilling to contradict it, Qiuju refuses to answer, thereby forcing Meizi to respond. Pointing out the cruelty of Qinglai’s comment, Li tells Qiuju to go home and engage in self-criticism, a reference to Maoist forms of social mediation that imply a priority of community rather than individual or familial values. He also tells her that he will come to the village to negotiate a solution. Officer Li is a friendly, rational, and self-effacing man who goes out of his way to help people, as he shows by locating a lost ox and returning it to the owner.8 Li’s refusal to take Qiuju’s story at face value indicates that he understands exactly what happened: the chief was provoked and is embedded in a complex history with blame on all sides. Through Li’s reaction, we begin to see that Wang Shantang is not the only one to have overstepped his authority. Qiuju and Qinglai, it appears, have tried to violate laws, as well as goading the chief. In the case of Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian, the men in charge are oppressive and drive the women’s resistance, which would seem to be the case in Qiuju as well. Yet the situation is more complicated. Not only is the couple nestled

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within the context of questionable motivation, but common sense, or conventional understandings of what unwritten rules gird village life, is presented as having a much richer and deeper history and presence than that of the law, which is little understood. Even more importantly, accepted ways of handling conflict are shown as closely and necessarily tied to and emerging from the conditions of the village, whereas the law is an outsider. When Officer Li tells Wang that he shouldn’t have beaten Qinglai, Wang responds, “But I was only following the law.” “The law does not allow you to beat people,” Li states, to which the chief answers, “If he had any sense, he would know why I hit him.” Wang’s response refers to an underlying code that establishes lines that, he implies, everyone in the village understands. More and more complexities are introduced, making it difficult to decipher the correct way to interpret the kick to Qinglai’s groin. To modern viewers, physical violence should be punished; however, to the villagers, including Qiuju, the chief must have access to mild violence to keep his subjects in line. Indeed, in taunting the chief about his four daughters, Qinglai must have known he was crossing a dangerous boundary. In fact, the chief, Officer Li, and eventually even Qinglai acknowledge that had the chief not counterattacked when Qinglai so crudely confronted him, his authority would be diminished. And the importance of sons is such that no one pays any attention to Qiuju’s argument in the letter of accusation she has hired a scribe to write, which is that by having four children, Wang has violated family-planning laws. It appears that most people agree that the chief of the village should be allowed to reproduce until he has a son. It is this symbolic power of sons, Qiuju’s refusal to accept any responsibility, and his potential loss of authority that makes it difficult for Wang Shantang to meekly accept the solution that Officer Li negotiates, which is that the chief will pay for Qinglai’s medical expenses and lost wages of 200 yuan. Qiuju insists she doesn’t want money, only an apology, but she reluctantly bows to Li’s authority and accepts, following through with

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the receipt and medical bill the next day. The chief takes out the money, but instead of giving it to her, he throws it on the ground. “You think I’m giving up?” Wang smirks. “It’s only because Li showed up, and I can’t let him lose face. Here are twenty $10 bills. If you bend down twenty times to pick them up, you will have kowtowed to me twenty times. Then we’ll be even.” Qiuju retorts, “I’ll say when we’ll be even,” as she walks away. Qiuju not only accuses the chief of kicking Qinglai and violating family-planning laws to have four daughters, but also insists that when Qinglai said that the chief raised hens, the chief mistakenly assume “hens” referred to his daughters. “We cannot tolerate this travesty of justice,” her letter reads. “For this attempted homicide, the chief should be punished.” Qiuju and her scribe stretch the truth about Qinglai’s taunt, the meaning of which was perfectly clear, and purposefully misrepresent the kick as an attempted murder.9 In the village, Qinglai is mocked when the ox herder laughingly says, “Keep your legs locked, if he kicks the family jewels again, Qiuju will head straight for Beijing!” Pressured to solve the problem, the chief adds fifty yuan, but insists on mocking Qinglai’s authority and puffing up his own. “Sue me if you want,” he says. “I work hard for the government all year, my bosses know that, don’t you think they’ll back me up?” Other references in the film imply that the collusion of the powerful to which he refers is a genuine problem and concern. For example, when a decision comes down (before the suit), instead of being delivered to Qiuju, it goes to the chief. Qiuju accurately understands that the leaders may be in cahoots and confronts Li, who admits that the process was flawed. Qiuju loses the lawsuit and decides to appeal. Officials visit the village and encourage Qinglai to get an x-ray so they can evaluate the injury. Meanwhile, at the New Year celebration—the most significant Chinese holiday and thus symbolically, the most potent moment—Qiuju goes into labor. Qinglai and the midwife beg help from Wang Shantang, who grumbles but springs into action, pulling men out of a celebratory opera performance, transporting the pregnant woman through cold and rough

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terrain, and getting her to the hospital in time. The chief’s heroic action puts Qiuju to shame. By way of apology for her behavior, she personally visits his home and invites him to the baby’s one-month celebration. The chief holds her new baby boy, in a friendly way complaining about his wife giving birth to girls. However, the x-ray shows a broken rib in addition to the groin injury, and as a result Wang Shantang is detained for fifteen days. Mortified when she hears the sirens, Qiuju rushes out, but is too late to stop the police cars.

Sovereignty, Culture, and the Law Until the twentieth century, Chinese law relied on a combination of social control and moral education, as well as a legal code with criminal sanctions and corporeal punishments for violation (McKnight 1992; Huang 2001). Civil law came into China from Europe in the early twentieth century, and the Soviet system was influential after 1949. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, China set about building a modern legal system, incorporating aspects of various codes into its organization. In Article V, the constitution presently in effect specifies that no person is above the law. In 1987, the Administrative Litigation Law opened the door for individuals to seek legal redress against arbitrary government action, and throughout the 1990s the government strengthened legal codes and infrastructure. Qiuju Goes to Court, which is based on the 1992 novel The Wan Family’s Lawsuit by Chen Yuanbin, was produced at a time when the legal system was under rapid change, and during the initial period when commoners were first allowed to sue a government official. When Qiuju sues, she is dismayed to find that the target of her suit is not the village chief Wang Shantang, but Director Yan, who kindly transported her in his car and listened to her complaints. Because her final complaint immediately preceding the lawsuit was settled through mediation by Director Yan, it is his decision that she challenges, effectively suing the government representative. Believing Director Yan to be a kind and

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just man, Qiuju refuses to enter the courtroom until he comes out and convinces her that it is the right thing to do. Although it turns out that even Chief Wang is not above the law, the result of Qiuju’s successful suit is disastrous, for the court seeks only evidence that a crime has been committed, ignoring the broad field of human relations within which the kick must be contextualized to be fully understood. What Qiuju wants —an apology—makes little sense within the context of the law, which seeks to judge and punish. The power that allows the chief to pull men out of their opera-watching/ playing and demand that they transport a pregnant woman through the mountains is precisely the same power that Wang Shantang invokes when he kicks Qinglai for his insensitive comment. When Qiuju goes into labor and has problems, there are no ambulances to call. The village chief is the only one with enough authority to quickly pluck able-bodied men from their pleasurable holiday evening of opera-watching and demand that they carry her to the hospital. The steep snowy hills, darkness, and cold through which they struggle to haul the heavy stretcher speak to the harsh physical conditions that are the reality of village life. The village chief embodies the role of local sovereign, and challenging him too vigorously could result in bodily harm or even death not because— as depicted in the earlier films—he will engage in violence, but because he could lose authority. In Qiuju, the complications and the murkiness of figuring who is right and who is wrong open the door to a more complex understanding of the relationship between culture and power. Qiuju’s invocation of the law, it turns out, is a challenge not only to a single village chief, but to a system wherein authority is vested in a sovereign who both symbolizes and enacts the political and cultural responsibilities of the entire community. Yet the symbolic power that the sovereign holds can become the actual power that allows him to mobilize the community in times of crisis. Qinglai’s taunt was not innocent, and it was directed at the reproductive ability of the chief. With the persistent demands of Qinglai and Qiuju

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regarding their chili shed, and with Qiuju’s refusal to back down to the chief until she gives birth to a son, the outlines of the dispute take the form of the individual or family versus the collective and the common good. Without a leader who has enough authority to prod the community into action, the culture-reproducing, future-enacting sons may die in the womb. Unlike Li Datou, Yang Jinshan, and Master Chen, Wang Shantang actually has positive qualities and an important role to play. The power of the law is a dim replacement for the embodied community sovereign, and while it can evaluate right and wrong according to one standard, it cannot recognize nuance, nor accomplish what he can do. In political theory, sovereignty is generally held to apply to states, and “most attention has been given to the relationship between sovereignty and political authority: in particular, that state sovereignty has arisen to enforce internal order legitimately and to protect against external threat” (Agnew 2005, 437). Although territoriality is the necessary condition for this view of sovereignty, John Agnew argues that effective sovereignty will not necessarily be territorialized; the old binary of de jure and de facto sovereignty has given way to the latter.10 The al Qaeda network and ISIS have also thrown a wrench into ideas of territorial sovereignty, as these organizations exploit the relatively weak control of some states and the valued openness of others, in order to work across borders. With the goal of challenging the equation of state and sovereignty, Agnew recognizes the relative power of states as the important variable that transcends geography, arguing that “political authority is not necessarily predicated on and defined by strict and fixed territorial boundaries” (440–441). Moving from control of territory to this more abstract authority and attempting to locate its relationship to space (rather than just territory), he further states that authority is whatever can manage flows through space—whether at a distance or locally— through territory. Since territoriality is only one kind of spatiality, and there are many other social and political ways of mobilizing, power can “result from patterns of social association and interaction in groups and movements,” or be diffused (442).11

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While views on the position of the nation-state in globalization range from its impending dissolution to its continuing or even enhanced relevance, the idea of diffused sovereignty that operates outside the territorial model has grown in popularity. The so-called “global crisis of the nationstate as the main vehicle of sovereign power” has become more complex, with Michel Foucault’s (1980) version of power dispersed throughout social organization, ritual, and the body, as well as Giorgio Agamben’s (2005) “banished life” outside the moral order of the community, providing new perspectives (Hansen and Stepputat 2005, 296). De facto sovereignty—fundamentally the “ability to kill, punish, and discipline with impunity wherever it is found and practices, rather than sovereignty grounded in formal ideologies of rule and legality” moves away from legal rule toward authority grounded in violence, whose main objective is to generate fear, loyalty, and legitimacy (297). What follows is a focus on the body as the “site of performance” of sovereign power (297).12 Thomas Blum Hansen and Finn Stepputat (2006) address the failure of anthropologists to understand “primitive societies” as truly historical, and the discipline’s focus on symbolic forms, as well as a poor understanding of modern forms of power, especially in relation to colonialism (300). The authors earlier (2005) outlined a more universal form of sovereignty, which they here summarize as royal power’s promise to cojoin opposites, the “state of exception” or the zero point where the law, norms, and political order is constituted, and the urge of modern sovereignty to become not merely a legal or symbolic reign but a “comprehensive, effective, and totalizing” type of government that applies to both territories and their populations (2006, 301-302). These ideas are driven by powerful notions of protecting the nation, people, society, community; to those, I would add culture. This expanded notion of sovereignty includes legitimate, quasilegitimate, illegal, and informal rule on various scales, all capable of challenging the state’s monopoly on violence to some degree. Thus nested within higher sovereignties are localized forms, which may have the ability

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to determine life and death. This fragmented, multilayered authority comes close to recognizing any individual exercise of power as a type of sovereignty.13 While Hansen and Stepputat’s conclusion that firms and market forces controlling contracts now comprise the “most decisive form of citizenship” may be only partially true (witness some state’s ability to prohibit commerce with certain entities), their emphasis is, rather, on the position of the law, which makes their work a useful perspective from which to think through issues in Qiuju (309). Indeed, a central concern of the film is the complicated relationship between justice (Qiuju’s demand for a shuofa) and the law, a connection that becomes more twisted when local and state histories are taken into account. In the sprawling theoretical fields of globalization and cosmopolitanism, the responsibilities of the cosmopolitan citizen, the nation-state system, and corporations to work toward global justice has been a major theme.14 Qiuju moves around and between concepts of fairness and justice, and within various networks of power. With a potential future-destroying blow to Qinglai in the kick to his genitals, and the same danger for Qiuju when she reaches the point of giving birth and begins to bleed, the film centers the body as a site of contestation for varying degrees, scales, and enactments of authority and violence. The issue of territory is brought up via the claim by Qinglai and Qiuju that even if the village head will not allow them to build a shed for their chilies on public land, they have the right to build on their own land. Qiuju reports to Officer Li that when she invoked the law to insist on her right to build, Wang responded by proclaiming “I am the law,” bringing in questions of sovereignty. And the concerns of the law clearly dominate the narrative, with Qiuju appealing to higher and higher legal authorities to pursue her claims against Wang Shantang. Although it revolves around and recognizes these issues, the themes of Qiuju go beyond even these vast concerns of sovereignty, the law, violence and the human body, or territory. The film shows and works with various kinds of authority, but the location of the highest authority

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within the state is never in doubt. The chain of command is secure even when Qiuju seeks higher and higher mediators and judges. The village chief is arrogant and impolitic, but he is able to launch swiftly into action in the face of danger to his charges. The necessity of keeping a village chief like him in place are apparent to his immediate supervisor, Officer Li, who tells him to cut down on his gloating but also speaks out in his defense. In contrast to Qiuju, the plot and aesthetics of the Red Trilogy are relatively clear: cruel, violent, and immoral local strongmen hold sway. These strongmen have perverted daily life, but the spark of change exists in each film’s female lead, with decreasing success in their efforts. The more likely the failure of the female lead, the less likely that a strong, well-intentioned, successful son will be able to carry on; in fact, only in Red Sorghum does the son appear as a viable inheritor and transmitter. This clear-cut story is complicated in Qiuju, where the female lead is successful in her quest to bring the local authority to justice and in giving birth to a son, but ultimately fails to do the right thing. The technique of detached observation builds on the film’s awareness of complexity and the impossibility of purity: Qiuju, Qinglai, and Wang Shantang all have their weaknesses. Preexisting cultural practices, some of which are unreasonable and unfair, nonetheless contain their own logic, which is jarred when the new rules relevant to commoners and based on the law come into effect. What could have been straightforward story about an uneducated village woman testing the boundaries of power by seeking redress against a bullying village chief becomes a web of entangled meanings, bringing out the many layers of interchange among the villagers and their leader. Thus, the unambiguous and straightforward allegory seems to have been disrupted. The camera has taken a step back and now captures the world, with all of its messiness and incongruity. Once it realizes what the world can show on its own, without the heavyhanded aesthetic framing that was the former films’ confidence and assurance, the camera grants it a presence before the characters have even walked into the scene. This sense—that an earlier aesthetic model

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has been shaken by its failure to provide the energetic, forward-looking female protagonists with a way out—is nonetheless something of an illusion. Qiuju is yet another highly crafted allegory, if in different ways than Zhang’s earlier films. The Red Trilogy presents a consistent challenge to violent and unjustified authority, pushed forward by the female protagonists as they confront the social structures that have emerged from the past. With the exception of the vigorous male My Grandpa in Red Sorghum, it is the women who come to the fore when the men are too beaten down, injured, or mentally weak to do the job. Once imagined as a robust struggle against injustice and brutality, the confrontation thickens and bogs down in Qiuju. Unlike Jiu’er, Judou, and Songlian, Qiuju is not a completely innocent victim. In this complex challenge to authority, the film hints at a theme that will appear much later in Hero, where a male assassin is finally tasked with killing the king. Although Qiuju does back down, it is too late, whereas in Hero, Wuming decides at the last moment to spare the king, which within the film results in the demise of the five kingdoms and the unification of China, and within the critical community in an attack on the film as an apology for authoritarianism. One question Qiuju addresses is whether it is possible to “give birth to sons,” or to produce cultural continuity and a vital future, if there is no sovereign authority to spring into action at the moment of crisis? Perhaps, therefore, Wang Yichuan (1994) is correct in his analysis quoted in the epigraph to my last chapter, when he states that Qiuju Goes to Court is a resolution of the problems raised in Red Sorghum, Judou, and Raise the Red Lantern, albeit a resolution that opens the door to a host of new issues. When culture is thought of as a way of life that includes music, ritual, and aesthetic forms such as architecture but also ways of behaving, acting, thinking, and simply being, the revitalizing move of challenging the sovereign authority does not lead to clear success or clear failure, but rather to a more diffused notion of both culture and power, or of sovereignty and its web-like enmeshment within social

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life. This perspective not only complicates the nature of power, but it also speaks to a new sense of agency, or a refusal to structure a clear narrative of power versus subject, insisting rather on the culpability of everyone involved. This vision of power as woven throughout society, which itself is a field of various forms of authority, and of obedience as a complex precondition for the functioning of the law, is more similar to the arguments of Michel Foucault (1980) than to those of Giorgio Agamben (1998, 2005).15 The possibility of Qiuju’s son dying in the womb is very real. She follows a road out and up to higher authorities but when the crisis arrives, the bounded territory in which she physically exists marks the absolute horizon. Thus we see the closed-in, claustrophobic context within which Judou and Songlian function both repeated and revised in Qiuju. There is no evil strongman who has taken control of her as a sexual being and restricted her physically—in fact, she is quite free to come and go. But when her reproductive body reaches the moment of birth, the surroundings shrink into a tight ball around her, and assistance from Officer Li will do no good. The appeal then turns to the one person positioned to push through the crisis. The allegory that motivates the Red Trilogy is also at work in Qiuju, with all four films structured by means of a female challenge to authority. The films’ joint concern is not the control of the biological body by the state, but the dire need of the cultural body—represented and reproduced through the birth of the son—to have a powerful force to represent and protect it, especially when under duress. Therefore even though Qiuju is one of Zhang Yimou’s most well-liked films among intellectuals, the possibility of finding in it intimations of authoritarianism quickly became apparent. The film rejects the more straightforward “evil king” narrative of Red Sorghum, Judou, and Red Lantern, opting instead for a subtler take on power, authority, legitimacy, and control. This essentially political vision of culture takes leave from the master-subject, victimizer-victim core narrative that organized the earlier films, opting instead for a diffused perspective that moves into both a recognition of previously existing

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cultural frameworks, as well as a blunt realism that directly confronts one aspect of the logic behind the relevance of political authority. The “outside,” whether conceived of culturally, politically, or spatially, poses a threat against the communities of Zhang’s first four films. In Red Sorghum, the Japanese represent an outside danger that relies on the transgression of territorial boundaries. In Judou, there is little menace from the outside, although the one time that Jinshan ventures out represents a perfect moment for his demise at the hands of his adopted nephew. Outside sexual engagement between Judou and Tianqing results in rumors, which incite Tianbai to violence. Songlian’s education gives her some access to modern ideas of equality and self-respect, which briefly empower her in Red Lantern. For Qiuju, the hierarchy of legal authorities leads her outside the village into increasingly farther locales. The role played by Beijing as a distant, inaccessible, and to some degree invisible site of political authority foreshadows a sustained inquiry into the relationship between political power and culture that will be further developed in To Live (1994). In his deconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’ work on nationalism and globalization, Pheng Cheah (2006) analyzes the implication that politics and culture can be decoupled; in other words, that one’s political and cultural identities can be clearly separated. While such a move would gut nationalism of its emotional resonance, Cheah accurately notes that the connections between culture and nationalism are historically developed, and cannot therefore be severed by mean of “mere theoretical ingenuity or philosophical wisdom” (54). The building of a cosmopolitan subjectivity, therefore, is no easy task. As Anthony D. Smith describes and Cheah quotes, a “timeless global culture answers to no living needs and conjures no memories. If memory is central to identity, we can discern no global identity-in-the-making, nor aspirations for one, nor any collective amnesia to replace existing ‘deep’ cultures with a cosmopolitan ‘flat culture.’ The latter remains a dream confined to some intellectuals” (Cheah 2006, 41; Smith 1995, 24). As Cheah further states:

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Qiuju troubles the allegory of the Red Trilogy by producing, in detail and with a realistic, documentary feel, the “weave of forces” that are at work as a new and modern rule of law begins to establish itself. This disruption of the former narrative broadens the scope of what must be included if we want to analyze culture and considers anew the many aspects of experience that are part of that concept. It also powerfully brings in political issues of power and sovereignty as aspects of culture that must be considered not only in straightforward good-evil ways, but as constitutive forms of human society. Figure 10. Qiuju and Meizi approached by pedicab man.

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Figure 11. Home-moving Furniture, by Wong Wai Yin.

Figure 12. Qiuju and Meizi in new jackets.

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Notes 1. In his deconstruction of globalization and the discourse of human rights and NGOs, Pheng Cheah (2006) shows how Habermas’ fundamentally Eurocentric idea of inclusive cosmopolitanism relies on his refusal to consider the north-south unevenness of global wealth, and therefore to underestimate the desire of poor southern countries to strengthen their national entities. He also argues that despite good intention, NGOs, often thought to be the non-state agents of the new cosmopolitanism and its global civil society, emerge directly out of the power balance and are coopted “to dress up Northern hegemony in the garb of cosmopolitan democracy” (71–72). Ultimately NGOs and civil society both “rely on and are part of the web of governmentality” (201). 2. Ann Anagnost (1997) addresses the complexity of the term used by Qiuju, shuofa, and quotes Zhang Yimou—ostensibly reacting to the English translation of the term—in claiming that what Qiuju actually wants is an explanation or clarification (138). While those terms are closer to the meaning of shuofa, they make little sense in the context of the film. Qiuju knows exactly what has occurred, and needs no explanation. If we interpret shuofa to mean “an explanation of how anyone can get allowed to get away with this,” it still comes down to her demand for an expression of regret. Therefore, I have continued to use the translation “apology.” 3. For a well-argued and insightful interpretation of the film as an inquiry into the limits of power, see Anagnost (1997): “Read as an ironic commentary on socialist realism, the film offers a strategic site from which to explore how peasant subjects are constituted in the political rhetoric and practices of reform-era China. The film begs the question of how the party’s civilizing rhetoric ‘speaks’ to the people and the kinds of subjects that are made possible or impossible by such an address” (139). Anagnost analyzes the film as a struggle of the people against their rulers, asking the question of “what forces converge to reproduce the uncannily persistent power of the local leader” (146). She also views the film as an allegory of “the emergence of individual agency in reform-era China,” with Qiuju’s refusal to become an “obedient subject” at its core (157). 4. Qiuju has a lively score that is easily identifiable as traditional Chinese music and instrumentation, written by Zhao Jiping.

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5. For example, the old man’s repeated commands to Meizi to “take care of your sister” on the slippery roads are not designed to tell her something she does not know, but to express his concern and care around the pregnant woman, and to establish the speaker in the role of protector even though his efficacy is limited. 6. Anagnost notes that the camerawork “uses a telescopic lens pushed to its limit, lending a jittery quality to the film and an extremely shallow depth of field that distorts the spatial relationship between objects so that they loom over each other in an almost hallucinatory way” (1997, 156). She also discusses the scene in which Qiuju returns from the public lavatory to find that Meizi has disappeared, her panic revealing the strangeness of the urban world to the two peasants (156). 7. Anagnost (1997) raises “popular sovereignty” as one issue in Qiuju, although her emphasis is on the power invested in the people (159). 8. Anagnost (1997) interprets this scene as Li chastising Qiuju by implying that she has reduced him to this and made him lose face, as he says, “This is all I am good for” (150). Whereas Li undoubtedly is referring to his inability to negotiate the disagreement, I find that he is balanced and equal in assigning blame, and does not unduly blame Qiuju, even at this moment. He is frustrated, however, that Qiuju refuses to admit the role she and Qinglai have played in generating the controversy. 9. Anagnost (1997) assigns the rhetorical flourishes to the scribe, but Qiuju asks him to write a strong letter, and agrees to the language (146). Although it is true, as Anagnost explains, that Qiuju does not speak the language of the legal system, she is savvy, persistent, and manipulative in her own way, and perfectly capable of rejecting language she does not like. 10. As Agnew explains, the American establishment of Guantanamo Bay, one of many detention centers set up by the CIA, outside the jurisdiction of American courts without consideration of local sovereignty turns such sovereignty into a “mask to allow treating prisoners in ways that would potentially be subject to judicial review in the U.S. proper” (438). In his argument in favor of doing away with the idea of de jure sovereignty, Agnew argues against Alexander B. Murphy’s (1996) delineation of de jure vs. de facto sovereignty. He recognizes the seminal contributions of Michel Foucault (1980) and later, Giorgio Agamben (1998) in the construction of a more diffused notion of power. 11. In his analysis of currency and the position of the American dollar, Agnew (2005) notes that “what is more important about the dollar than

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12. 13. 14.

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its role as a monetary standard is the revolutionary hollowing out of other territorial currencies that it has facilitated. It is now a direct means of exchange in many countries that still have their own currency” (452). In cultural relationships, language could have the same function in forming and expressing the cultural body. Recent interest in Sinophone culture (Shu-mei Shih 2007; Jing Tsu 2010; Alison Groppe 2013) identifies language as a key element of cultural unification, valorizing it over local history. While most states print their own currency and identify a national language, the ubiquity of English as a global language could parallel the transnational dollar. For a discussion of territoriality that recognizes its continuing importance while also arguing for a historical perspective on contingent sovereignty, see Stuart Eldon (2009). Eldon brands the claim that territory no longer matters a “simplistic argument” that fails to recognize that even as deterritorialization takes place, “there is a concomitant process of reterritorialization” (177). The authors refer to Giorgio Agamben (2005) for this emphasis on the body. The authors recognize work by Caroline Humphrey (2004), who evaluates the notion of freedom within various theories of sovereignty. David Miller (2007) notes that responsibility extends to recognition of past injustice, but that groups of people with aspirations toward nationhood also must be included (143). In the rush toward a conceptual dismantling of the nation-state as anachronistic, the fact that some groups that aspire toward nationhood are still struggling in that direction often is disregarded. See also Janna Thompson’s work on reparations (2002). In their collection of articles debating Law of Peoples by John Rawls (1999), Rex Martin and David A. Reidy (2006) organize support and opposition to Rawls’ seminal work through several categories, including cosmopolitanism, nationalism, universalism, human rights, global economic justice, and foreign policy. As Leif Warner’s (2006) chapter, “Why Rawls is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian,” argues, the question of whether or not a national concept of the “citizen” can be globally enacted without trampling on the right of various societies to claim fundamentally different models of social and political organization is at the root of the debate around Rawl’s work. Steven DeCaroli (2007) argues for the importance of recognizing authority not as distinct from those it affects, but as a two-sided relationship between the ruler and the ruled, a “context-dependent concept,” and

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an integral aspect of the political field, noting that sovereignty is “the embeddedness of authority within a field of application” (48). 16. In Cheah’s analysis, the concept of human dignity, often conceived of as a “contentless human attribute that is the basis of freedom in the world,” are affirmed via human rights, which come into being “only via political instruments that specify and protect them” (153). Human rights, therefore, belong not to the realm of abstract philosophized morality, but to political morality (154).

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Chapter 5

The Invisible Sovereign To Live Critique of Zhang Yimou’s films has never been consistent in terms of praise and blame. The same holds even for those who have a critical standpoint, as the content of their critique is all over the map. They say he praises the Communist Party, or he criticizes the Communist Party, or he uses Orientalism, or he refuses to directly consider Chinese modern history and purposefully avoids it, or he has compromised for commercialism, and so on. Although all these ideas have reasonable elements, if we look at the whole of his work, they are not accurate. Especially for certain works, a crude application of these ideas will not lead to understanding…In the end, by means of the life of Fugui, the film To Live works on a foundation of the political imaginary to express a politicized space filled with the content of the metropolis. The novel To Live works on a foundation of mystified imaginings to unfold a deified space based on a dichotomy between the city and the countryside. The hope expressed by the deified imaginary of the novel is actually comparatively weaker than the hope expressed by the politicized imaginary of the film. —Quan Jiongjun ([Jeon Hyung-Jun] 2013, 181–183)1 Spanning China’s tumultuous history from the 1940s into the cultural revolution, To Live (1994), based on a 1993 novel of the same name by Yu

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Hua, works within and around several dominant interpretative paradigms of twentieth-century culture. The first of these is the discourse of the people, and its relationship to the term huozhe—which could be translated as to live, to be alive, or living—in terms of the endurance and survival of the Chinese people.2 On one hand, the film shows the people enduring no matter what the conditions. At the same time, it critiques the Maoist master narrative of the people as those in charge of society, deconstructing this grandiose concept by showing how the people function under conditions of fear, misunderstanding, and oppression. Specifically aimed at recent history, the film illustrates the local failures of socialism as it was actualized within the cultural and political environment of China, pointing toward an underlying will to survive—borne of hardship under various kinds of oppressive rule that is repeated over time—as characteristic of the Chinese people, while simultaneously attacking the conditions that have made the people suffer. Whether from the perspective of celebrating the Chinese people’s ability to live on no matter what, or of lamenting the political conditions that have forced the people to suffer, the film recognizes how the discourse of the people has become a cultural trait and a national myth. Whereas To Live begins in the 1940s and ends in the late years of the Cultural Revolution, it could be hinting at an historical condition that is more particular to China than to any other place. Rey Chow (1996) argues that the film’s emphasis on “simply having enough to eat” as a way of enduring is also both a recognition of and a protest against Chinese-style human rights, which implies that if the people have enough to eat, they should be happy. This exposure of the people as nothing but a “bunch of gaping mouths” guts the idea that the government is looking out for the welfare of the people, let alone putting them in charge (1043–1044). In this critical presentation of the people, the film ...does not celebrate the common people’s ability to live—to adapt to and endure harsh circumstances—as an unequivocal virtue; rather, it problematizes it as China’s most enduring ideology. In Zhang’s film, the conventional notion of endurance as a strength is not simply reproduced but consciously staged, and it is through

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such staging, such as dramatization or melo-dramatization, that a crucial fantasy which props up “China”—whether as a culture, a nation, a family, or a common person—is revealed. “We, the Chinese, are the oldest culture, the oldest people in the world,” this fantasy says. “The trick of our success is the ability to stick it out—to absorb every external difficulty into ourselves, to incorporate even our enemies into our culture. We endure, therefore we are.” (1056)3 The answer to the question of how the film imagines China, therefore, is damning: it is a nation “governed, managed, and fantasized as a collective by the self-fulfilling, self-perpetuating ideology of endurance and survival—of an ethical insistence on staying alive at all costs” (1057). The second paradigm zeroes in on the relationship between modernity and trauma, recognizing the twentieth century as a series of catastrophic failures rooted in the false optimism of the Enlightenment.4 According to this way of thinking, as Enlightenment ideals spread across the globe, they promised the rule of reason over superstition, democracy over authoritarianism, egalitarianism over hierarchy, and freedom over slavery. The twentieth century showed these promises to be false, and the worlds they created or influenced disintegrated into fascism and genocide. The two most destructive world wars were waged under Enlightenment banners, and the strongest nations never stopped adding to their coffers by unfairly extracting resources from weaker nations, often supporting brutal dictatorships to do so. Socialism and its Chinese version, Maoism, are here but extensions of Enlightenment philosophy, and have contributed to a century of suffering. As the most visible and well-known twentieth-century atrocity, the Holocaust provides the model for this approach, centering human pain under various historical circumstances and bringing individual and group misery into focus. The twentieth century becomes a hundred-year long history of trauma that repeats itself in many locales, societies, and cultures. Looking at China through the lens of modernity-as-pain, Michael Berry (2008) analyzes the many Chinese novels, stories, films, and other cultural forms that center suffering and violence as critical parts of the modern Chinese experience:

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Zhang Yimou Twentieth-century China represents a time and a place marred by the unrelenting vicissitudes of history and the repeated trauma of violence. Struggling to redefine its position in the world after the harrowing Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century and a devastating defeat at the hands of Japan during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, China entered the twentieth century only to face the collapse of its last dynastic empire in 1911. Since then, from May Fourth’s violent negation of the past (1919) to the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45), from the Civil War (1945-49) to the “great leap” into mass famine (1958-60), and from the engineered violence of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) to the televised bloodbath of Tiananmen (1989), modern China’s trajectory has been one of discontinuity, displacement, social unrest, and historical trauma. Heated international disputes and armed conflicts with Japan, the United States, the USSR, and Vietnam have been interspersed with abundant examples of China’s own indigenous appetite for class struggle, political movements, and violence. Looking back on China’s first modern century, one cannot help but be struck by the level and consistency of brutality, especially those examples of self-inflicted barbarism. Pain has become such a critical component of our understanding of modern China that Lu Xun’s 1918 cannibalistic vision now seems just as much a prophecy for the future as it is a commentary on tradition. (1)

Recognizing work by Yomi Braester (2003), Ban Wang (2004), David Der-wei Wang (2004), and Xiaobin Yang (2002), Berry furthers their investigations into atrocity in China by expanding the “temporal, spatial, and fictional mapping” into six specific historical loci: the Musha Incident in Taiwan (1930), the Rape of Nanjing (1937–1938), the February 28th Incident also in Taiwan (1947), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and the Tiananmen Square Incident (1989), plus in a section on the handover of Hong Kong (1997) (2). He emphasizes the way in which each event “played a key role in shaping history and national consciousness through unspeakable violence” (3). His inclusion of events that took place in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and of representations by writers and filmmakers across political boundaries, expresses his generalization

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of violence as characteristic of—but not exclusive to—modern Chinese culture. Although Berry differentiates violence in China from that of the Holocaust, he recognizes a theoretical debt to those working in trauma theory, including Dominick LaCapra (1994, 2001), E. Ann Kaplan (2005), Cathy Cruth (1995, 1996), Susan Sontag (2004), Elaine Scarry (1987, 1994), and Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub (1992), many of whom work on the Holocaust or on other violent events in the West. In this way, he contextualizes his study within a more general field of trauma studies that find a causal link between modernity and violence and characterize the twentieth century as a time of suffering and pain. At the same time, Berry refuses to victimize Chinese societies as helpless in the face of global trends, holding them responsible for internally inflicted atrocities. Ban Wang (2004) investigates similar themes in his examination of the “trauma-induced texts of literature and film” in the 1980s and 1990s: “The repeated cinematic enactment of the Cultural Revolution implies a compulsion to return to the scene of injury and loss, to dwell on and re-experience the wounds…I invoke the notion of trauma not only to designate a psychic disorder, but a social and cultural situation and a collective pathology” (94; 146–147). Noting that Zhang Yimou, dissatisfied with the extensive trauma depicted in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Blue Kite, infused a more human perspective into To Live, Wang nonetheless finds in the film an overwhelming “end-of-the-world sense of doom” (148). In Wang’s approach, and in Berry’s (2008) allusion to the “leap from history to the imaginary,” we can glimpse a third way of interpreting To Live (383). Closely related to national myth and the history of trauma is the recirculation of historical memory, or postmemory. In this approach, the problem is not so much traumatic history as it is ongoing, extensive efforts to keep memories of atrocities alive in the consciousness of those who did not experience them. In films that recreate this history of violence, the suffering of ordinary people in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, then, is not really the issue. Rather, the focus is on bringing that pain into the memory of younger viewers. Many motivations can lie behind the creation of postmemory, including the desire to construct national myth,

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create ethnic bonds, forge political unity, expose political oppression, and strengthen psychological resilience. As Marianne Hirsch (2012b) explains: “Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before—to experiences they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. As I see it, the connection to the past that I define as postmemory is mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. To grow up with overwhelming inherited memories, to be dominated by narratives that preceded one’s birth or one´s consciousness, is to risk having one’s own life stories displaced, even evacuated, by our ancestors. It is to be shaped, however indirectly, by traumatic fragments of events that still defy narrative reconstruction and exceed comprehension. These events happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present. When balanced against the common (but not necessarily true) idea that we can avoid repeating history only if we put in place strategies to remember what happened, and working against the concept of “personal witness” to suffering evident in many recollections of violence—whether experienced by the speaker or not—the dangers of postmemory sit on the other end of the spectrum: The challenge for us in the next generations is precisely to acknowledge and to signal our own distance from the traumatic events that preceded us and not to appropriate them for ourselves. Of course, our own investment can be great, and trauma cannot so easily be contained, it seeps out of its bounds, connecting disparate subjectivities. Inherited trauma transmitted familially—or even culturally—can have significant effects on our lives, but it is not we who have suffered persecution or deportation. (Hirsch 2012b) In To Live—as well as in other films, television shows, and literature—the Civil War (1945–1949) is joined by the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960)

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and finally the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), all of which continue to create postmemories for later generations.5 From this perspective, it is important to recognize how the film works within the larger understanding of the Chinese past and to evaluate its construction of history as trauma even for those who did not live through that history. If the film deconstructs the historically powerful notion of the long-enduring people, or if it uses represented trauma to place China within the global narrative of failed Enlightenment ideals, then the first two paradigms also address the third. At the same time, by refusing to incorporate the Japanese invasion and occupation into the story, To Live makes this history of trauma an overwhelmingly Chinese condition. Another kind of meaning that critics have found in To Live is a relationship between Daoist cosmic ideas and the way in which the characters understand their experience. As Liang Shi (1999) comments, The critical discussion to date has centered around the ethical aspect of the issue “to live.” The views expressed share one philosophical footing: they presuppose the rationality of history. Events and actions are strung together by a chain of cause and effect and are measured against a scale of good and evil. Wherever there is existence, there is meaning; whatever happens, it happens for a purpose. Traces of such teleological thinking are, without doubt, prominent in the film, but constitute only part of the story. Throughout the film a strand of irrationality, derived from Daoist cosmology, compounds, counteracts, and overrides the will to live and the ethics of survival. These undercurrents, blending, clashing, cutting, and severing each other, make To Live such a complex film. (4) Over and over, the irrational twists of the film bring good things from bad and bad things from good in yin-yang alteration. Fugui’s loss of the family fortune through gambling and his consequential redemption under the Communists as a poor man (while the man who won is executed); his insistence on hauling the puppets (his sign of humiliation) to war and their role in establishing him as an asset to the Communist army

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when he is captured from the Nationalists; the accidental event that kills Youqing because his father strives to act in a politically correct way; the coincidence of his old friend Chunsheng, who wanted to be a driver, becoming District Chief and killing Youqing; the death of Fengxia because Fugui tries to feed the starving doctor—these events combine to turn the story into an amoral and random series that repeats movement typical of Daoist and yin-yang theory, where once things arrive at an extreme, they evolve into their opposites. When unfolded within a heavily political environment, the “course of unpredictable fortune undermines the logic and legitimacy of the Communist ideology and social practice” (11). Noting a similar trend, Rujie Wang (2001) adds that the humility and resignation that ultimately affect Fugui are a sharp critique of Maoist absolutism. Wang also finds that To Live demolishes scientific rationalism as a tool through which to understand the real, linking this critique with the failure of Enlightenment ideals. With increasingly little success, the female protagonists of the Red Trilogy resist the abusive patriarchal power under which they live. Raise the Red Lantern presents the most elusive enemy: an unclear, ungraspable patriarch whose influence is uncannily pervasive and thus difficult to counter, but still basically limited to the family environment. Qiuju Goes to Court recrafts power and authority as more complex than that wielded by the evil patriarchs of the Red Trilogy. It recognizes webs of political power, legal rights, and abstract authority, while exposing the constitutive imbrications of culture and political relationships and complicating the people-sovereign dichotomy. The village chief that Qiuju resists is not the clear-cut emblem of evil that we see in the Red Trilogy. Despite her victory, she loses, but not because the chief wins; rather, her failure is a result of real-life complications in a local environment of power relations developed historically. In the repeated discussions between Qiuju and the various officials she meets, as well as in the court proceedings and the meetings between governmental representatives when Qiuju is not present, the process of government is made more or less transparent. Although To Live also addresses the people and political authority, its

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emphasis is different. Qiuju tilts toward the interaction between the people and their rulers at all levels, with the weight of the query put upon the intricate tapestry of power interactions and their workings on the ground, as well as on the web of relationships that imbricates everyday life into this more abstract, rule-driven fabric. The power that Qiuju wields is less than but still not far from that of the village head: she can directly confront him and does so many times. The film’s exposure of the mechanism of power, down to its petty corruptions, is completely absent in To Live, which features only one governmental representative as a significant character. Hiding the judgment-rendering entities that Qiuju exposes, To Live makes invisible the bases of their decisions, almost erasing the visible mechanisms of control and inserting a vast distance between ultimate political authority and the people. Such a soul-destroying move inaugurates in the director’s work a new, clearheaded, eventually brutal look at the realities of grand sovereign power, both in China and more generally, under the conditions of globalization. To Live points us toward the way in which sovereign power works on a broader and more removed scale, irrespective of any interaction with the people, who become its pawns. In this chapter, therefore, I show how To Live builds on the transition out of the Red Trilogy that we see in Qiuju Goes to Court, broadening the implications of the relationship between political authority and culture that the earlier film developed. In To Live, the written phrase “the 1940s” appears at the beginning, which has led critics to interpret the film as a critique of Chinese history along the lines of the first paradigm I describe. This relatively new emphasis on historical duration, especially with the focus on well-known political events, forms an interesting contrast with the film’s tendency to abstract and diffuse the relationship between the people and the sovereign.6 Whether interpreted as a positive portrayal of endurance or as a devastating deconstruction of a covertly anticommoner political ideology, the film focuses on the people rather than the decision-making authorities—who are nearly invisible—or their political decisions. To Live implies that local culture is purely a function

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of the will of the sovereign, in this case Mao Zedong, whose faded image appears frequently. Even more importantly, this rupture between people and sovereign has irreparably damaged daily life subjectivity. As a result, culture has become nothing more than an effect of the sovereign’s invisible, unquenchable, and unpredictable power.

Puppetry and Performance Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. —Macbeth 5.5, 23–27 The central presence of the shadow play (literally, “skin shadow play”) is one of several important differences between Yu Hua’s novel To Live and the film, which starts out with Fugui—in the novel the decadent son of a rural landowner in the south, here the decadent son of a wealthy city dweller in the north—gambling in a tea house while a shadow play goes on in the background. Fugui is on the verge of losing the family home, and drunkenly criticizes the abilities of the singer behind the curtain, who narrates and chants the voices of the puppets as well as adding other sound effects. At the manager’s urging, Fugui takes over and injects vitality and crudeness into the meeting of the male and female puppet figures, the loud smacks as they kiss inspiring raucous cheers. After Fugui gambles away the family home and begs the winner Long’er for help, the latter gives him the puppets, which are stored in a large wooden box, telling him that they will guarantee his livelihood. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” is one interpretation of the puppets’ role in the film. This perspective, which places the lives of the characters in a direct parallel with the puppets, encourages viewers to regard them as managed and enhances the presence of invisible manipulation. Rather than being a true shadow,

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the articulated puppets are worked behind a translucent screen, through which the audience can discern the fine elements of design, construction, and color. In addition to acting out well-known tales or stories, the puppets’ material sensuality and mimetic detail further connect them with human beings and society, as well as with daily life culture. Made out of either animal skin or paper and attached to sticks that the puppeteer manipulates, the puppets’ fragility mimics the physical vulnerability of people batted about by political movements and other life challenges. The film adds elements or otherwise changes the novel to emphasize the political and social background that lead to the catastrophes around which the story forms. Whereas in the novel, Fugui narrates disaster after disaster with little historically specific reference to politics, in the film, the historical background of the Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution could hardly be more evident. Political considerations motivate the decisions that lead to the deaths of the two children, Fengxia and Youqing. In the case of Youqing, Fugui is worried that his neighbors will consider the family reactionary if he does not send his young exhausted son to a school meeting. As a result of his father’s insistence, Youqing dies when he falls asleep behind a wall and a truck (coincidentally driven by Fugui’s friend Chunsheng) crashes into it. Wang Bin, a medical doctor branded as a Rightist and imprisoned, does not exist at all in the novel, in which Youqing dies not in an accident, but because he is forced to donate an excessive amount of blood for the wife of the County Magistrate (who turns out to be Chunsheng).7 In the film, the inexperienced “red” medical workers are helpless when Fengxia begins to bleed while giving birth. Panicked, the young revolutionaries agree to bring in Dr. Wang, a qualified physician, to help. Starved in prison, Dr. Wang stuffs himself on the steamed bread Fugui brings him and follows with water, which expands his stomach to the point where he becomes incapacitated. Through these changes, the film enhances the connections between disaster and politics. In identifying and analyzing these differences

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between the novel and the film, Xu Zhenglong (2006) argues—in contrast to Ban Wang’s sense of the film as projecting overwhelming doom—that although To Live posits direct political causation for catastrophe, in other ways it lessens the horror that Yu Hua creates: From an aesthetic perspective, To Live also continues the principle behind the series of Zhang Yimou’s “good-to-watch films” (haokan dianying). The film decreases the number of deaths and allows more people to live, minimizing the novel’s level of cruelty, and excessive theatricalization, and coincidence...The film’s final scene of calm family life with Fugui, Jiazhen, Erxi and grandson Mantou shows hope for the continuation of life. The child is the future and also is hope. The Chinese emphasize family and love between family members, so in the film Fugui keeps saying that nothing is as good as a wife and children. In allowing three additional people to live, the family is provided for and familial love can continue...Mantou represents the future generation. No matter how much misery and pain Fugui’s family has endured, at the end of the film, Zhang Yimou nonetheless expresses his hope toward life. This is a theatrical resolution. (48). Xu also explains that the film lessens the death pall over the novel, which features one demise after another, all dispassionately narrated by sole survivor Fugui. Although there may be fewer deaths in the film as compared with the novel, as in all of Zhang’s previous films, in To Live the survival of the male heir guarantees some kind of future existence. Nonetheless, as I will explain later in this chapter, I argue that the film does not express hope toward life as Xu Zhenglong contends.8 From the perspective of the film’s enhanced political context, the puppets could symbolize not only the manipulation of the people but also the special way in which the sovereign exerts control, functioning invisibly behind the scene and determining what they do according to a fixed narrative. As we move from Red Sorghum to Red Lantern, the strongmen have increasingly more control, but even so, resistance can be imagined and some strategies can be put into action, if often

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unsuccessfully. In Qiuju Goes to Court, the relative if not complete leveling of the playing field between commoner and ruler directs us to the close relationship between culture and political power. In To Live, the ability of the puppeteer to provide life-like sound effects and actions, even having the puppets fly at and strike each other, parallels the protected position of the behind-the-scenes controller, suggesting that the people believe they are living a life formed from their own emotions, ideas, and sensual experiences while in fact, all aspects of their existence are preformed, manipulated, and contained on a stage. Considering the puppets—certainly a form of Chinese folk culture—as symbolic of culture can open the way to a productive structural reading of the film. First performed in the gambling house where Fugui loses his family home and his wife, the puppets start out as human stories performed on and contained by a stage. Long’er, the winner of the house and the owner of the puppet troupe, sets himself up in the mansion, and Jiazhen leaves to stay with her parents. When Jiazhen learns that Fugui is no longer gambling she returns, and Fugui goes to Long’er to ask him to lend money so he can open a shop. Long’er, however, refuses to do so, instead telling Fugui he has given up both gambling and the puppet troupe. He holds the colorful carved puppets up to the light, sighing, “They’re really amazing.” Long’er gives them to Fugui, a skilled puppet master under whose guidance they metamorphose into performers that animate the lives of those who watch them. Beloved in times of war and peace, the puppets draw the interest of the people, who watch fascinated as the stick-and-skin figures act out stories that could be from real life. The puppets are saved twice, and both times the rationale is that the people—workers and soldiers—need some form of recreation, which the puppet performances can provide. Separate from the productive work of war and labor, and different than the political movements that completely structure people’s lives, the puppets have the potential to stand for a less calculated, more organic, and deeply human kind of experience. Ideally, this experience would include an engaging narrative that could remove the audience from its daily toil and cares

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but still be close enough to what they know that instant understanding is possible. It would provide an alluring display that would capture the viewer’s fancy, creatively enacting the materiality of their daily lives, fully enhanced with sounds and actions to stimulate their imagination. The familiar tales, sounds, images, and context—in other words, the elements that make up a specific local culture—would be interwoven into daily life in a comforting and exhilarating way. For many years, the puppets do fulfill this role. Yet their existence is precarious, and in June of 1966, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, they succumb to their essential political incorrectness. Approached by Comrade Niu and told to burn the puppets, Fugui asks whether they could be used in a Mao Zedong thought puppet propaganda troupe, using the old to produce the new. “Can’t you see what those things are?” Niu exclaims, “Emperors, ministers, scholars, and beauties, the typical Old Four!”9 Niu brings out the latest edict that specifies “the older, the more reactionary.” “Burn them, burn them,” he says. “Listen to Chairman Mao.” Fugui hesitates and when Jiazhen leaves, tells Niu that the puppets are the only thing left that reminds his wife of her dead son, Youqing. “Forget it, forget it, let’s not bring up the past,” Niu responds. Fengxia comes to help and holds the puppets to the light, her gaze expressing wonder and delight (see figure 13). With the old life thus destroyed, the new is supposed to replace it. Yet although the puppets are demolished, the wooden box where they were stored lives on, with various possible implications. Along positive lines, the surviving box could imply that a new form of culture will eventually have a presence there. More negatively, it could mean that the formal structure of expecting culture to perform as it does within people’s lives will be there, but the content will be gone. And the destruction of the puppets has even greater implications. The assault of the puppet performance on the senses, its connection to the lived past, its expression in narrative, and the magic of its hidden movements speaks to a strong material and physical foundation for culture as the uncanny texture of

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daily life. The fact that the puppets can inspire such pleasure—almost as if it possesses magical qualities—implies that they are powerful, but their ready containment within a box suggests fragility and dependence. Unless animated, the puppets lose much of their allure, suggesting that culture must be kept alive by the active, directed input of those whose lives are part of it.

Sovereignty and the People Compared to the Red Trilogy, Qiuju Goes to Court blurs the line between those in charge and the people, showing the wielding of political power to be more complex than it seems and more deeply embedded within social structures and cultural forms. As such, the film transitions out of one mode of understanding culture as the spiritual and material energy of the people, into another in which the connections between the people and political authority must be regarded as integral to culture. As Zhang Yimou’s second transitional film, To Live addresses a similar but not identical conundrum. As opposed to Qiuju, which presents the protagonist traveling along an actual and metaphorical road to encounter higher and higher governmental and judiciary representatives, To Live posits a distant sovereign, Mao Zedong, whose control is both abstract and powerful. In this rendition of the film’s culture-power topos, the government representatives who put political policies into action are as victimized as the people, and their situation is equally precarious. We could interpret this contrast between a government that functions with attention to the people’s complaints and one that dictates absurd policies from afar without feedback as simply a function of different time periods. From this angle, the film’s critique of revolutionary China and the extreme leftist policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution is the same as those made in many post–Cultural Revolution films and novels that attack the abuses of the Maoist period. The more transparent and functional government of Qiuju could then be little more than a recognition of positive change and of the move toward rule of

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law that was missing during Mao’s rule. However, these contrasting models of how culture works under different kinds of political power also lead to different ideological positions. As opposed to Qiuju, To Live constructs a vast space between ruler and subject, imagining subjectivity under this kind of structure. These two models are not a binary or a choice, but represent different aspects of the way in which modern governments work. On one hand, they have a structure of representatives and institutions that allows an individual to continue to question policy, authority, and decisions all the way to the top, or in the case of Qiuju, to Beijing. For Qiuju, the system worked as it was supposed to work, even though it did not provide a resolution to her problems but rather, exacerbated them. On the other hand, as in To Live, governments can send out a cadre of well-intentioned representatives who have no way to question authority or process and who eventually become robotic figures carrying out orders. This distant and relatively authoritarian form of government also is one aspect of the way in which modern sovereignties work, and it produces an abstract form of power that is difficult to challenge. From this perspective, To Live is similar to Raise the Red Lantern, whose patriarch appears only obliquely, from a distance, or in a dark environment. But as I have mentioned, the scope of the sovereign in To Live is much broader than that of the patriarch, with the grand implied context more strongly suggesting implications for the larger social body. The model of political authority and the nature of the authority has changed, a development that encourages us to examine more closely not only the nature of the patriarch and/or sovereign, but the qualities of sovereignty itself, which suggests certain positions for the people, their leader, and their culture. As I discussed in the last chapter, in classical political theory, sovereignty implies both control over territory and central state authority. Associated with the king or monarch, state sovereignty is the “absolute territorial organization of political authority,” although when and how this political authority coalesced differs for each entity (Agnew 2005, 439). The implication of the territorial state model is that any “given

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state must be recognized as sovereign by other states in order to qualify as such. Such recognition implies a formal equality between states in which none can exercise command over others” (439). This equality, however, is an ideal rather than an actualized reality, since relative power creates a hierarchy and the authority of the state has never been complete (442). Therefore, exceptions to the general rule of territorial sovereignty are not uncommon, and weaker states often ally with stronger states in associations designed to prevent invasion by more powerful states. Globalization has brought various aspects of sovereignty into question, including the “willingness of states to share authority in the face of environmental, economic, and social problems that go well beyond their individual capacity to manage on their own.” (441). Changes in communication, NGOs, commerce networks, and the power of multinational corporations—as well as the reach of criminal organizations— have forced a reexamination of territorial state sovereignty, with a debate ensuing about whether the new technology erodes or enhances it. If defined as “socially constructed practices of political authority,” sovereignty may exist nonterritorially, “in scattered pockets connected by flows across space-spanning networks” (441). The relationship between territory and sovereignty has weakened, some argue, and is being replaced by “a networked system of political authority that challenges territorial state sovereignty as the singular face of effective sovereignty” (442).10 Political authority can be centralized or diffused.11 Building on the humanities debate about postmodernism and applying its insights to the modern state and system of states, John Gerard Ruggie (1993) reevaluates territorial sovereignty from the perspective of advanced capitalist societies as described by Jürgen Habermas (1981), Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984), Andreas Huyssen (1984), Fredric Jameson (1984; 1989), Ihab Hassan (1987), Manuel Castells (1989), and David Harvey (1989). As Ruggie shows, systems of rule historically have not necessarily been defined by or fixed through territory; it was only in the thirteenth century that the notion of firm boundaries took hold, although it took several centuries before the system was fully actualized and for the king to be

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recognized as possessing the sole sovereign right to make war (149–154).12 By contrast, the medieval ruling class of Europe was “legitimated by common bodies of law, religion, and custom expressing inclusive natural rights,” or a “universal moral community” (150). Furthermore, in Qing China, “law was a concept central not only to the operation of power but also to the construction of sovereignty,” although massive changes took place in the twentieth century (Ocko and Gilmartin 2009, 57). The central dichotomy of “rule of law” (fazhi) versus “rule of man” (renzhi), which was an important aspect of Confucian ideology during the Qing dynasty, changed in the modern period when “China’s rejection of Confucianism in the name of establishing for itself a new place in international order threw this association into confusion” (90). Pointing out that “sociopolitical collectivities of very long historical standing remain vital today without being contained in territorial states,” Ruggie (1993) nonetheless argues that the modern state has more or less succeeded in driving out alternatives, at least when compared to the past (167).13 Under economic globalization, Ruggie finds unbundled territoriality to be a useful concept in exploring postmodernity and sovereignty. By means of this second short detour through the changing concept of sovereignty, we can reconsider the way in which political authority works in Zhang Yimou’s early films, and the differing ideological implications of the Red Trilogy and the transitional films starkly come into view. In the former, the three patriarchal figures may have strong authority within a small arena, but they surely do not have the ability to wage war, nor can they be imagined as anything more than minor representatives of a widespread patriarchal social structure. In Red Sorghum, the smallness of the context—almost like a different world or a utopian dream that Jiu’er forms on her arrival—becomes clear when the Japanese invade, whereas in Judou and Raise the Red Lantern, suggestions of an outside exist but are quickly contained, and the presence of external political authority is downplayed or erased. Only in Qiuju do actual representatives of the larger political system first appear. Qiuju’s land trajectory, with increasing levels of government authority appearing the farther one

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travels, suggests a kind of territorial sovereignty, although the idea is not well developed. Like Qiuju, To Live includes low-level and some higher-level government representatives, but the story unfolds with very little travel through space, and thus very little reference to territorial sovereignty. The one exception is when the Nationalist military conscripts Fugui and his friend Chunsheng. Before long the troops lie dead and the Communist army is swelling forward in the distance, with the result that Fugui and Chunsheng are captured and held at gunpoint. The puppets are strewn on the ground, and the solder picks up a warrior on a horse with his bayonet and holds it to the sun (see figure 14). This stark image of a tool of military violence propping up a highly detailed, delicately colored piece of a living cultural form—a form that continues to be meaningful to a fearful population—suggests both the fragility of culture and its evocative power. Even with the primacy of the puppets, the sun behind alludes to the ubiquitous presence of Mao Zedong, who was symbolized as the sun throughout communist-era popular culture, film, and literature. The image brings together the emblem of the people’s culture with this pervasive sign of the ultimate sovereign. After Fugui’s reunification with his family, the first visit by a government official is that of Town Chief Niu. A far cry from Village Chief Wang Shantang of Qiuju, Niu is a kind and friendly man who has helped Jiazhen find a job in Fugui’s absence. He informs Fugui that Long’er will be criticized in an upcoming meeting and tells him to come along and learn something. Refusing to relinquish part of the home he won from Fugui to the government, Long’er got into a fight with a cadre and then burned down the home. “Typical counter-revolutionary sabotage,” Niu says, mentioning that the wood of Fugui’s house was excellent, burning for several days. “That wasn’t our wood,” Fugui responds cleverly. “That was counter-revolutionary wood.” Ironically, Long’er—who came by his riches through gambling—is criticized as a landlord in a mass meeting and executed. With the stage on which the enemies of the state will be attacked in the distance and the masses surging, the government representatives are impossible to identify. This scene illustrates perfectly the

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dictatorship of the proletariat: no one other than the people themselves seems to be guiding the action. Yet the large, amorphous upwelling of the people and the small-scale experience of the individual caught in the surge are presented as radically different, creating a deep-rooted sense of fear. Jiazhen and Fugui are consumed by this fear. As he tries to urinate, Fugui jumps in fright and clutches a post when he hears the executioner’s shots, urinating into his pants. He rushes home, where he and Jiazhen desperately try to figure out what their status is: they certainly cannot be landlords, having lost the title to the home to Fugui. After a terrified discussion, they decide they must be commoners, and because Fugui has participated in the revolution, they are a special category of commoners. Jiazhen finds Fugui’s certificate of participation in the laundry and they carefully spread it out to dry.14 The film informs us that we are in the 1950s, and soon after jumps to the Great Leap Forward of 1958. The need for metal to manufacture industrial machinery, as well as to produce weaponry for the imaginary war effort against Taiwan and other capitalist nations, demands that everyone must donate whatever iron utensils they have. Chief Niu is in charge of this effort, and he shows up to examine the pile the residents have collected. Laughing as he loads the woks and other utensils on a cart, Niu tells them that communism will bring them canteens where they can fill up on fish and meat. The toddler Youqing pulls out the puppet box and points to the metal parts of the box and the puppets. When Fugui protests that there is hardly any metal there, Chief Niu proclaims, “There’s at least enough for two bullets. If we go to liberate Taiwan, we might just need these final two bullets.” Desperate to save the puppets, Jiazhen asks if the steel workers enjoy opera, and Fugui proclaims that he performed for the people’s Liberation Army and the next day they excelled in their struggle. Niu then agrees that the puppets should be saved. This scene directly presents the conundrum of culture: although it seems to exist and function within an autonomous realm, with its own value system that is divorced from the more instrumental aspects of life,

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it nonetheless is inevitably connected to those systems. As is brought out by shots that clearly show their high level of carved detail, ornate construction, and color, the puppets have a striking material presence. They also provide comfort and entertainment, and their performances offer relatively nonpolitical opportunities for the development of a communal social fabric. Yet hidden within their structure is a link, here in the form of metal parts, to the military and industrial efforts that supposedly are part of a different sphere. The mutual imbrication of these various aspects of social life, of which the puppets or, more generally cultural performances and culture in general are part, complicates the possibility that culture alone could drive resistance. While the puppets are valued for the relief from political life that they bring, their existence outside this system is largely imaginary. The iron smelted from the items donated comes into the town wrapped in red silk and with the double happiness symbol (generally used for marriages) above it. Chief Niu congratulates everyone and comments that with this effort, China will overtake England and the United States, expanding the significance of the iron-smelting program and contextualizing China within a new world order. The film moves on to the 1960s and June 1966, the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as the text on the screen informs us: “It lasted ten years, and left no family unaffected.” Chief Niu walks in the street to rousing music, and turns into the home of Fugui and Jiazhen. With a poster of Mao in the background next to several certificates and Fugui’s proof of participation in the revolution, Chief Niu informs him that he must burn the puppets because they represent counterrevolutionary tendencies. He passes out the latest editorial. However, Niu also ironically fills the role of of matchmaker that is colorfully illustrated in traditional and modern fiction, brining the good news that he has found a husband for Fengxia. Wan Erxi is a leader of the Red Guards and a factory worker, although he has the disadvantage of a lame leg. Wan visits and puts his gifts—Mao badges, a hat with a badge on it, and the works of Mao—on the table. Representing the powerful Red Guards, Wan walks determinedly

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with several others through the streets, all wearing bands on their arms. Wan and Fengxia paint a picture of Mao Zedong at her home, and inside the courtyard, Wan has painted a large mural that states “The worker class leads everything.” The wedding takes place with a pile of Mao paraphernalia on the table, and Chief Niu introducing the band. The song they sing together has the following lyrics. Nothing compares to the party’s benevolence Chairman Mao is dearer than father and mother There’s nothing as good as socialism No ocean as deep as class feeling Mao’s Thought is revolution’s treasure trove Whoever opposes it, we take as our enemy The photo with the ship of revolution and the family bowing to the Mao mural brings to the surface the implications of the pre–Cultural Revolution physical environment, where faded posters of Mao often are partially visible through a doorway. In To Live, the role of the Red Guards is to make transparent and clear the role of the murky sovereign, bringing his image and ideas to the surface. In the Red Trilogy, the patriarchs were entrenched within a life-defying system, thus appearing as evil and intransigent. Qiuju Goes to Court presented commoners as well able to access governmental authority and the law, but these organizations as unable to saturate local forms of political life, and the negotiating cadre feels himself inadequate to the task. By contrast, in To Live, Chief Niu is well able to handle the crises of the community until the very end, when he too is detained. The powers behind the stage, as represented by the local officials, the images of Mao, and symbols such as the ship of revolution appear benevolent. What has changed is the abstracted distance between subject and ruler, and the subjective reach of political power, which is hard to identify or capture but near complete and all-encompassing. Fugui first appears in the disdainful position of the wealthy in prerevolutionary society. Unwilling to be productive, he gambles away the family fortune with ample help from

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the gambling house, and his arrogance disappears. Similar to Tianqing in Judou, Fugui is hence a timid man whose obsequious political attitude directly or indirectly contributes to the death of his children. As is the case with many female protagonists in Zhang’s films, Jiazhen has more spirit and more common sense, objecting to the excessive political demands on the family. Nonetheless, she also ultimately acquiesces and lives in fear. The question of whether the foreboding political atmosphere holds anything for the future, including the possibility of resistance or transformation, depends on the interpretation of the final scene. After Fengxia’s wrenching death, with her mother sobbing over her, a totally black screen appears, lasting for several seconds. The word “later” appears and the alleyway comes into view. Fugui is pulling a cart, and Mantou—son of Fengxia and Wan Erxi—walks beside him. They turn into a courtyard and Fugui sets the cart down in front of a wall painting of Mao with the rays of the sun around him, the paint peeling. Fugui tells Mantou to take the medicine he is carrying to Jiazhen, and he runs through the courtyard, disappearing into a doorway. The camera lingers on the courtyard, with yet another disintegrating wall picture of Mao looking to the side, the colors faded (see figure 15). Jiazhen lies on a bed, covered with heavy padded quilts and clothed in a thick sweater. The small room is overwhelmed by an abundance of revolutionary icons, including statues of Mao, a large round image of the leader, and posters with images from revolutionary opera. Smaller pages are tacked to the wall under and around everything else, functioning like ideological wallpaper. Jiazhen mentions that she would like to visit Fengxia’s grave again. In the next scene we see from a distance the trio, along with Erxi pushing the bicycle on which Jiazhen rides, heading along a country road. Mantou carries a box of chicks. They take dumplings to Youqing’s grave, and a new picture of Mantou to Fengxia’s grave. “If only I hadn’t given the dumplings to Dr. Wang, he could have saved our Fengxia,” Fugui says. “He always carries on like this,” Jiazhen says to Erxi in a resigned and indulgent tone of voice. When they arrive home, Erxi goes to make dinner, and Mantou asks about a home for the chicks. Fugui pulls out the puppet box

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and transfers the chicks inside. “When will they grow up?” Mantou asks. “Uhh…when they grow up, they’ll become geese, when the geese grow up they’ll become sheep, and when the sheep grow up they’ll become oxen.” In response to Mantou’s question of what next, Jiazhen replies that when the oxen grow up, Mantou will also grow up, and ride on the oxen. “Not just that,” Fugui adds. “When Mantou grows up, he will ride on trains and planes, and life will get better and better.” The music starts, Erxi brings food, and the credits roll. Behind the credits, the family eats noodles and steamed bread, chatting happily (see figure 16). Zhang Yimou is often criticized (and sometimes praised) for tacking on upbeat endings or for integrating unrealistically happy aspects within his films. As I have discussed, other critics point out that for better or for worse, this disastrous story ends in a positive moment of human connection and warmth, and expresses a hopeful gesture implying the possibility of a better future. Yet the scene contains many notes of caution. The density of revolutionary images on the wall and desk is the first oppressive note, especially considering the way in which such images formed the shadowy environment of fearful subjectivity throughout the film. The wall affords virtually no open space within which to imagine something even slightly different, and the busts, statues, and other paraphernalia are crowded on the desk. Although the puppets were sacrificed to revolutionary ideology, Fugui has kept their box, which sits empty out of view. He brings it out as a home for the chicks. Whereas this act could be thought of as a positive, life-renewing symbol of the continuation of life under difficult circumstances, several aspects of the situation belie that interpretation. The puppets are inanimate until activated by the puppeteer and enlivened by the music and sounds of the performance. They embody and represent human agency in the material world, or the making of culture and the development of sociality, which gives them a different role from that of simple biological life, as represented by the adorable chicks. The framework of containment, which speaks to the disciplined crafting of

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ways of life and cultural forms, in the case of the chicks becomes a jail, or a box that they will eventually outgrow. The narrative supplied by Fugui and Jiazhen imagines that the chicks become other animals as they grow, turning into geese, sheep, and oxen, and leading to the maturation of Mantou and his outward movement. Riding on the oxen that the chicks will become, Mantou will escape the containment and enter a time when technology has replaced the oxen as a means of transportation. Yet the low level of material development has been addressed throughout the film, with mostly human cart-pullers rather than the oxen featured in the creation of a future for Mantou. The dinner we see the family consume may prevent starvation but it is far from nutritional, the shabby surroundings are crowded and uncomforting, and the memory of the human ox throws the vision of the final voiced narrative into question, contradicting the positive future imaginary. The third and most important negative aspect of the final scenes is the resignation expressed by Fugui and Jiazhen, both of whom have been lively (if fearful) characters. From the moment we see her in bed, through the grave visit, and back into the home, Jiazhen is robotic, resigned, and blank. Her spirited and determined response to disaster when Fugui loses the home shows her taking on the role of the oxen, delivering water, and this again becomes the job that Fugui later fulfills. But when the family visits the grave, Jiazhen’s tone of voice is calm and level, suggesting acceptance and distance. Her expression features a mechanical smile and the acquiescence of the elderly, along with the tendency to frame Fugui’s continuing remorse as nothing more than a personality quirk about which nothing can be done. The utter erasure of spirit in the important female lead that up until now always has anchored resilience, as well as the detached and unreal imaginary of the technological future, combine with the pervasive and clear Maoist images and the replacement of the puppets by the chicks to project a disheartening image of any hope that this form of social life can sustain and further develop a vital cultural imaginary. I agree with Ban Wang (2004) that overall the film “projects an end-of-the-world sense of doom,” and find that the ending

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in particular strikes a morose note far from the positive, future-oriented direction that some see in this small family home. Figure 13. Fengxia looking at puppet.

Figure 14. Puppet on bayonet.

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Figure 15. Courtyard with Mao.

Figure 16. Life will get better and better.

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Notes 1. Quan Jiongjun (2013) notes that Yu Hua was involved in the transformation of the novel into the film, as was script writer Lu Wei and of course the director Zhang Yimou. When Quan asked Yu Hua who had the greatest input in term of the significant alterations, however, Yu Hua only laughed and did not respond (198). To Live was banned in China for years, and Zhang Yimou and Gong Li were banned from film making for two years after its completion. 2. Glossed by Liang Shi (1999) in this way: “As a verb, huo has two basic meanings: 1) to have life or to be alive, as opposed to being dead; 2) to live, in the sense of passing life in a certain manner. Zhe is a particle that, when used in combination with a verb, indicates either an action in progress or a certain state continuing to exist…The phrase huozhe, therefore, may mean to continue to live, to be living, or to stay alive. Depending on the particular context, any of these meanings can contain positive, negative, or neutral denotations. ‘To live’ can be associated with the subjective states of joy and misery, with the material conditions of wealth and poverty, or with the ethical realm of good and evil. ‘Living’ may suggest the cyclical business of doing one’s daily chores, the anticipation of getting up every morning in order to enjoy the delight and realize the promise life has to offer, or the mechanical habit of performing the same routines each day without hope or resignation. ‘To remain alive’ could imply the will to live, the struggle to survive, or the biological instinct of prolonging life” (3). 3. In this quoted paragraph, Chow refers to Louis Althusser (1971): “What is represented in ideology is…not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live” (165). 4. The understanding of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (2002) and more generally the Frankfurt school is that the twentieth century must be viewed as a continuation of Enlightenment ideology, with humans, and their rationality, replacing magic (religion) as master of reality. Twentieth-century mass culture, state capitalism, Stalinism, and National Socialism are the expressions of the failure of Enlightenment ideals.

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5. Although not addressed in this film, the Anti-Japanese War is the most commonly recreated traumatic historical event. Professor Zhu Dake of Tongji University notes that with 70 percent of TV shows being war dramas, in 2012 alone, sixty-nine TV dramas and 100 films with antiJapanese war content were approved for filming. In May 2013, officials from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, fed up with the excessive brutality of the films, ordered “more serious” treatment of the topic. For more information, see David Lague and Jane Lanhee Lee (2013). 6. As opposed to Qiuju Goes to Court and To Live, the Red Trilogy often is criticized as set in indeterminate times, which is interpreted as suggesting that the social flaws shown are irremediable. However, the clothing and historical references such as the Japanese invasion (Red Sorghum) and the schooling in which Songlian participated (Red Lantern) contextualize them within the twentieth century, if not marking the time exactly. 7. For a discussion of this episode and other aspects of the novel having to do with fate, see Christopher Lupke (2005, 312–322). 8. Xu not only explicates Zhang Yimou’s desire to present a narrative in which politics leads to human catastrophe, but also contends that Yu Hua has a fundamentally different approach to life (48). Because Yu Hua is interested in mysterious coincidences (as evidenced by his story “Mistake on the Riverbank” [2010]) and accidental occurrences, he refuses to clearly attribute a causal link to events in the novel. 9. The phrase “emperors, ministers, scholars and beauties” was used by Mao Zedong as part of his attack on old forms of culture. According to an edict he produced on September 27, 1963, the Opera Journal and the Ministry of Culture were the culprits in supporting the continued influence of old culture: “There was a time when all Opera Journal did was to broadcast ghosts and snakes. The Ministry of Culture did not take care of culture, which was full of feudal things, full of emperors, ministers, scholars and beauties. The Ministry of Culture paid no attention. In terms of cultural work, especially opera, most of which is feudal, backward material, with very little socialist material. On the dance stage there is little but emperors, ministers, scholars and beauties. The Ministry of Culture should handle culture and pay attention to these problems. It must investigate and get seriously correct these tendencies. If it does not, the Ministry of Culture should change its name to the Ministry of Emperors, Ministers, Scholars and Beauties, or the Ministry of the Foreign Dead.” On December 12, Mao criticized the cultural world,

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10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

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expressing his belief that in all areas, including drama, music, storytelling and chanting, the fine arts, dance, film, poetry and fiction were full of problems and controlled by “dead people.” On January 3, 1964, the Central Communist Party organized a meeting for more than thirty cultural workers, during which Liu Shaoqi presented Mao’s edicts on culture. Peng Zhen explained that culture was the most backward social sphere, and Zhou Yang explained that the problem was fundamentally one of “recognition” (renshi) of historical development. Jiang Qing also criticized the “ancient sentiment” (gushi de ganqing) of cultural work. See “The Meeting of the Central Literature and Art Workers” (1964). Agnew here refers to Arjun Appadurai (1996). In the rest of his article, Agnew maps currency regimes onto sovereignty regimes, the later with Classic (despotic and infrastructural power within bounded state territory, as in China) and Globalist (sovereignty within and beyond national borders, as in the USA) sovereignty representing stronger central state authority, and Integrative (coexistence between different tier of governments, from national-state to subnational region, as in the EU) and Imperialist (central state authority in question, infrastructural power weak, as in the states of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America) representing weaker state authority. He argues that currency regimes include the territorial, the transnational, the shared, and the substitute, which map onto regimes of sovereignty. Two viable successors to medieval rule were the Italian city-state and the Hanse, an alliance of towns and traders in northern Europe (Ruggie 1993, 156). See also Ruggie (2004). The example is the “so-called Arab nation” and the reference is to Albert Hourani (1991). As we can see from these examples, in the film, history is random and unpredictable, rather than determined by a specific progress, a notion that embeds within it a critique of Marxist historical theory. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

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Chapter 6

Keep Cool After Anhong I was born in Beijing, China and moved to the United States at the age of 9. Been home to Beijing several times since and loved it each time. One of the many things I love about Beijing is the people and the ambiance they bring to the city. “You hua hao hao shuo” (which translate more accurately to “if you have something to say, say it nicely”) delightfully and truthfully captures that feeling of Beijing. I suppose you would have to have lived in and kinda understood Beijing and its people to get the most out of this movie, though you might enjoy it regardless. The story is not complicated, intentionally kinda quirky, and captivating. I will leave it to unfold by itself and not tell you too much except some comments. Each detail, from the pictures on the wall, to the decorations, the streets, and restaurants feels like home. (Zhang Yimou most likely shot everything “on location”) But more importantly, the characters - our “hero”, the girl, the kind-hearted but unfortunate “laptop man”, and the night club owner are each native to Beijing and lovable in their distinct ways. Their conversations really capture the essence of each character. The story, mostly driven by situations and conversation (save the

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Zhang Yimou brilliant bafoonery [sic] near the end) is intriguing and always interesting. I am 21 now. My parents and I love this movie. We are always so amazed by Zhang Yimou's ability to transform ordinary people into believable screen characters, and everyday life into extraordinary situations. — Blogger “addgarlic,” 1999

Keep Cool (1996) was virtually unknown outside of China and barely made it in the domestic market. Based on a novella by Shu Ping called Evening Paper News, the film featured strong performances by well-known actors including Jiang Wen (1963–), Li Baotian, and Ge You.1 The jerky handheld camera from Qiuju Goes to Court has intensified, with a new tilted camera angle signfiying a break with Zhang’s past style.2 The plot, set completely within an urban environment, consists of two main parts, the first of which features a beautiful young woman named Anhong and a stuttering but handsome bookseller, Xiaoshuai. Xiaoshuai is trying to reestablish his on-again, off-again relationship with Anhong, who has taken up with the manager of an entertainment club, Liu Delong. Liu and his men locate Xiaoshuai, lure him toward their car, and beat him in broad daylight, in front of many people. Xiaoshuai grabs the bag of a bystander and throws it at the thugs, destroying the new laptop inside. In the second part of the film Anhong disappears completely, and the relationship between laptop owner Qiusheng and Xiaoshuai replaces the romance as the film’s main focus. Although Zhang Yimou decried the censorship that pushed the film toward comedy rather than the more thoughtful treatment he had in mind, Keep Cool nonetheless revolves around serious issues. These include the rapidly evolving monetary basis of life, which drives the creation of a new kind of person that accepts the novel environment and negotiates within its parameters. Both stylistically and thematically, the film captures the subjectivity of city dwellers, who quickly and spontaneously develop relationships with those around them. The theme of justice, so prominent in Qiuju Goes to Court, also is important, although in a very different way.

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Another important aspect of Keep Cool is the rejection of history— even local history as laid out in Qiuju Goes to Court and To Live, let alone the deep history that motivates the Red Trilogy—as a basis of cultural authority and a road into the future. Keep Cool’s intensely close, jiggling camera transforms not only the temporal but also the spatial perspective of the director’s earlier films as it rejects the open, invadeable land of Red Sorghum, the contained village and dye mill of Judou, and the claustrophobic structures and distant gaze of Raise the Red Lantern. The film develops typical urban characters—the coquette, the worker, the manager, the intellectual—and brings them into contact, allowing the resulting interactions and their immediate contexts to take up the entire screen space. Keep Cool’s presentation of the uncanny relationship between commodification and affect also marks a new approach. Although the characters never question the substantial role of capitalism in their lives, the force of their interactions as they pursue economic benefit belies the power of money. In other words, although innocent of overt ideological intent, the characters become entwined within an affective economy of human relations that develops a powerful non-financial trajectory. Ultimately allegorizing human connections in an imminent world, the sense of community and connection that Keep Cool creates relies on a mode of bonding that transcends class and joins disparate peoples. This urban environment can be more easily identified and understood from the viewpoint provided by another very different film with similar themes: Sixth Generation director Jia Zhangke’s The World (2004), like Keep Cool, features the urban poor, in this case migrant workers who have come to the capital city to look for jobs. Visually and imaginatively, The World also effectively evokes (and twists) a monumentality and symbolism that Keep Cool carefully avoids. Although not a theme in all or even most of Jia Zhangke’s work, The World expresses a deep interest in the performance of culture. This interest, along with the film’s highly gendered structure and focus on the urban environment, helps reveal the contrasting focus of Keep Cool. Whereas The World is interested in the

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actual conditions of the migrant workers’ lives and thus is depressing in tone, Keep Cool explores the conceptual possibilities of ahistorical, local, non-elite daily life, looking for clues that it can authenticate a contemporary cultural foundation.

Emotions for Hire Keep Cool begins with the sound of a car engine turned over a few times before it finally catches.3 A disconnected voice talks about how to drive cars safely, and a drumming sound can be heard. The first image is of a young woman and a young man, separately, with the camera close and jerky. The woman anxiously turns around to look behind her. She gets on a bus and the man follows. He sits next to her, and asks her to stop running and have a meal with him. She responds with hostility and takes off, with him close behind, through a tunnel under a street, onto a bike that she rides in a short tight dress, finally disappearing into a set of apartments where he loses track. He sits in the center of the complex and sees a peddler drive by with his cart. On the side of the cart tied on with a rope is a board, and on it is a picture of a woman in a strapless shoulder-baring shirt, looking out. The picture is damaged and dirty, and the ragged edge where the board is cut off is visible. The thick print board functions as a temporary barrier holding the items on the cart in place (see figure 17). The image of a young modern woman held in place with a rope across her bare skin and moved around as a commodity holding together used consumer items—with skyscrapers askew in the background—is uncannily apt for the next scenes, when the first “performance” begins. In order to find out in which apartment the woman lives, Xiaoshuai hires the peddler, asking him to repeatedly yell out the woman’s name so that she will make an appearance at the window and reveal her location. They bargain about the price and the number of times that the peddler needs to perform, and he finally begins to shout her name, “Anhong! Anhong! Anhong!” Xiaoshuai then asks the peddler to escalate the plea by yelling,

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“Anhong, I miss you!” “I’m embarrassed,” the peddler protests, but as soon he sees an additional five yuan, he screams out the phrase. In order to enhance the success of the performance in accomplishing the work he wants it to do, Xiaoshuai purchases a bullhorn and hires another man, taking his new hire back to the complex, where he instructs him to call out messages to Anhong. Although we might imagine that Xiaoshuai’s reluctance to proclaim his love on his own is related to his stutter, when children throw water on him from above, he has no problem shouting.4 This displacement of the labor of crafting affective connections—in this case very obvious because Xiaoshuai sits in the shade and watches while the hired hand does the work—is a theme in Keep Cool that is also taken up in a different way in its successor, Happy Times. The hired hand is embarrassed to perform Xiaoshuai’s longing, but given how quickly he takes on the task when he sees the money, the implication may be that anything can be for sale, including the performance or expression of the deepest emotion. The embarrassment, however, is noteworthy: the hired hand expresses a mild resistance to the performance of emotion for financial gain, even though he quickly succumbs. The camera then moves into Anhong’s room, where she changes her clothes repeatedly and closely investigates her face and hair in a mirror. A woman we cannot see complains about the constant racket below. Romantic music and a hint of a smile on Anhong’s face indicates that she may enjoy what she is hearing, and the next scene shows her talking with Xiaoshuai. Her gentle tone and affectionate demeanor tell us that she is affected by his show of attention, even if it is contracted out. They clearly have some kind of a preexisting relationship, and we later learn that they were a couple until Anhong decided to leave Xiaoshuai to get involved with a wealthy man. Sporting an “MTV” quick-moving style, the jagged close-ups of the camera are quite different from the far-away lens of Qiuju Goes to Court.5 The close-ups prevent us from seeing the background, forcing us to sit in uncomfortable proximity to the two lovers: the story is

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a romantic tale about them, it seems, and the possibility that they will come together as a couple. Although Anhong has told Xiaoshuai that she already has a boyfriend, she nonetheless invites him to her room, strips down to her underwear, and throws herself on the bed. He insists she has misunderstood, and the odd angles of the scene, as well as Anhong’s coquetry—played to the hilt by actress Qu Ying— and Xiaoshuai’s bumbling sincerity, evoke humor and irony. When she pushes him down on the bed, the bullhorn recommences, and she breaks into laughter. Xiaoshuai rushes downstairs to stop the yelling, but he is unsuccessful: an entirely different hired hand reads into the bullhorn from a script, barely able to make out the words. It turns out that after Xiaoshuai arranged for the migrant worker to come back and plead the case on his behalf, going so far as to write out a script for him, the hand turned this labor over to another worker, paying him only a third of what Xiaoshuai originally had given him. This new laborer has never met Xiaoshuai and rejects his insistence that it is he who wrote the script. Rebuffing Xiaoshuai’s claim as “boss” to defining the meaning of his labor—which he has appropriated and now owns—the worker insists on completing his task, in doing so bringing the bullhorn up to his mouth and arguing his position through amplification, as if he is speaking not only to Xiaoshuai but to the entire world. Xiaoshuai tries to pay him off, but the worker retorts, “This isn’t just for money.” “What, then?” Xiaoshuai demands to know. “To save someone’s life,” he says, pointing up toward Anhong’s apartment. Apparently the original laborer invested the job with a significance that transcended mere monetary compensation. This investment parallels the inquiry into emotion and performed culture in which the film engages, opening the door to a new possibility: not only does the laborer reject economics as the sole rationale of his performance, he also reinvests the work with an imaginary significance. While they are arguing, Anhong appears in slim jeans, a tight top, and high heels, and haughtily walks away. Xiaoshuai glimpses her and takes chase. In his black t-shirt emblazoned with the English words HOT COOL, Xiaoshuai stutters, “I really don’t

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understand, just now, and then…” “Then was then and now is now,” she says and orders him to “Go away!” With great purpose in his stride, Xiaoshuai walks back and grabs the bullhorn away from the hired hand, smashing it to the ground. The over-the-top characterization and camera work pushes the story into a low-key absurdity that barely avoids spinning out of control. Because he has hired someone to proclaim love on his behalf, and because that person then hires someone else, Xiaoshuai loses the ability to manage his self-presentation. Whereas the public love song is an accepted form of expression for a male suitor, having been acted out long before in the globally known Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet that has been performed and adapted frequently in China, the transfer of the love declaration to a hired hand brings in a contemporary, postmodern element that is enhanced by the visual style of the film.6 The tilted camera drives home the idea that things are deeply askew and lack a stable core. Hiring out the performance of emotions turns out to be dangerous business, with meaning and significance increasingly corrupted as one performer is replaced by the next, moving farther and farther away from the origin. And yet, this scene is the first instance in the film of a theme that runs through Keep Cool and Happy Times: an individual is inserted into a commodified scheme, but transforms the transaction by interpreting it, proclaiming it, or acting on it as a transcendent narrative of human emotions and nonmonetary relationships (see figure 18). Xiaoshuai languishes by the side of the road, at this point apparently having given up the chase. When he leans over to offer a man in an expensive car a light for his cigarette, the man slugs him. Several others jump out and began to beat him. Bloodied and bruised, he grabs a bag from a bystander and throws it at the men. It hits a cement post and flies to the ground, where the men smash it with their feet. Much of this scene cannot be detected because it is filmed with cars going back and forth between the camera and the actors, and blurred action that evokes the chaotic, off-center urban life moving at a dangerously rapid

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speed. With the camera looking up from the ground-level viewpoint of the fallen suitor, we see one of the men, dressed in a suit, tie, and sunglasses, who says, “We beat you so you would understand. I’m none other than Liu Delong. If you keep causing problems for me, next time I’ll take your life!” With blood dripping, Xiaoshuai threatens to cut off Liu’s hand in retribution. The next scene is of a middle-aged man in large black glasses looking down and asking questions about the extent of the injuries and receiving muffled responses. We might assume this man is a doctor, but as he sits down next to the bloody, bandaged suitor, he proclaims that the injuries are minor and it is time to “settle our affairs.” He turns out to be the innocent bystander whose bag, containing a new laptop computer, was grabbed by Xiaoshuai to throw at the thugs. The chaotic leap from scene to scene and the seeming lack of organic connection dictate the action, and a new character with no preexisting link to Xiaoshuai has appeared. Unsurprisingly, this man has an economic claim: his computer was destroyed in the struggle, and he wants remuneration. This random and spontaneous interaction supplants Xiaoshuai’s pursuit of Anhong as the main story, pushing the only female character out of the narrative and replacing her with exchanges between the three men—Xiaoshuai, Qiusheng, and Liu Delong. The humorous, tedious, and repetitive argument as each pleads his case continues when Qiusheng locates Xiaoshuai’s room and learns he is a bookseller. Full of purposeful obfuscation, Xiaoshuai stubbornly insists that Liu Delong should pay, whereas Qiusheng uses pan-academic terminology to convince Xiaoshuai that the ruined computer is his responsibility. Qiusheng finally proposes that Xiaoshuai accompany him to talk to Liu, who is the manager and owner of a large entertainment club. They show up at the extensive bar and club, and ask to see Liu. Xiaoshuai is large and muscular and Qiusheng is small and slight, a physical difference that becomes meaningful as the worker-versusintellectual binary begins to define the two main characters. They walk

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through the hall, and we hear Liu talking on the phone. As they enter his office, Xiaoshuai immediately attacks Liu with a cleaver, trying to cut off his hand as he promised to do, but is restrained by Qiusheng. The scene switches to a police station, where a policeman lectures Xiaoshuai in a bored but didactic and mannered way. Words appear on the screen, letting us know that Xiaoshuai has broken a law against disturbing the peace and been jailed for seven days. The policeman’s routine and predictable formalism is humorously underplayed by the famous actor Ge You. Along with Xiaoshuai’s humble acquiescence, the scene mimics an all-too-familiar social ritual in which the correction of the state is humbly accepted while in reality, the culprit has no intention of following its advice. The implication of understanding on both sides —expressed by a bored ritualism for the policeman and an acted-out cooperation with minimal engagement for the “criminal”—marks this exchange as ceremonial. At the same time, the residue of a specific, wellunderstood relationship between the individual and the state is in full effect, enhancing the comedy. A fuzzy picture of urban culture begins to form. The frenetic urban environment, the haphazard and coincidental meetings, and the crazed camera already suggest that deep relationships between people are not easy to understand or maintain. They certainly are not supported by preexisting, organic connections that evolve from family or small-town familiarity. The possibility of violence, while generally downplayed, always exists, and once we understand that Xiaoshuai has decided to cut of Liu Delong’s hand, suspense and fear join ironic excess and understated black humor. The characters are far from exemplary citizens and, other than Liu Delong, belong to the ranks of the urban poor but not desperate. As Jun Bing (1999) notes, Because of the casualness and confusion of the action of modern urban people, to a great degree they have the flavor of scattered “extraneous people.” Without meaning to, they go against society, with problems everywhere. In Keep Cool, Anhong and Xiaoshuai are representatives of the “extraneous people.” The casualness

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Pointing to the highly crafted and self-consciously performative nature of the film, Jun Bing argues that it is neither an urban love story nor a realistic depiction of life in the city. Zhang Yinghui (1998) criticizes the film as immature and simplistic, contending that Keep Cool is an allegory of the city that came out during a time when such “city-life” films were all too common: Those living in the city already had their fill of films that recreated the city’s hubbub, crowdedness, and fast pace, and they had no desire to experience the feel of the city on the screen again. Since 1995, many imported blockbusters were more than enough to impart that heart-shaking dynamism or heart-clutching rhythm: True Lies (1994), Speed (1994), The Fugitive (1993), Outbreak (1995), Police Story 4: First Strike (1996) Die Hard (1988), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996), and so on. Satellite broadcast, smuggling and other methods of communication allowed people to experience all kinds of urban murders, violence, sexual desire, and insanity. And the completely commercialized packaging increasingly was branded as entertainment alone. True art films should have some restraint in the expressive methods.

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Otherwise, they cannot avoid harming their artistry and the expression of ideas. In the magnetic field of the city, Zhang Yimou has kept his own voice, and tried to express his own attitude toward the city. He wants to keep cool toward the city and use the voice of Zhang Qiusheng to speak his piece. He also uses the language and action of Zhao Xiaoshuai, Anhong, and Liu Delong to express himself. In this, we can see Zhang Yimou’s construction and crafting of an allegory of the city. (25) Although Jun and Zhang accurately identify many disorienting aspects of the film and point out the corrupting influence of the city, the underlying warmth in the characters and their random interactions overwhelms the violence. It rises to the surface not by becoming a contrast to the skewed nature of the city, but by becoming part of it: a story of true affection and genuine regard overcomes the hustle for wealth. The hired hand’s insistence that his actions transcend money, the policeman’s humorous diatribe and Xiaoshuai’s humble acquiescence, a flicker of honesty and affection in both Anhong and Xiaoshuai, the way in which random strangers become genuinely interested in and involved in the action, and most importantly, the growing friendship between Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng all suggest that the film is not a deconstruction of urban decadence and moral failure. A comparison with The World, which has a far more negative presentation of the city and the emotions of those involved in it, reveals the film’s confrontation with capitalist expansion and its tendency to turn affect into performance, nonetheless finding a redeeming kernel in a fundamentally difficult environment. This issue lies at the heart of Keep Cool, and marks it as the most optimistic and hopeful of the films directed by Zhang Yimou since Red Sorghum.

The Glistening City-Orb With his realistic, semidocumentary techniques in Pickpocket (1997), Platform (2000), and other films targeting provincial cities, Jia Zhangke gained a strong following among intellectuals and film critics. The World

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moves to the national capital, positioning the city as a backdrop for his close look at the lives of migrant workers in the theme park Beijing World Park at the edge of the metropolis. In that it continues to focus on the lives of those from the provinces, the film has not abandoned the provincially based vision that characterizes the director’s earlier work. The World paints a devastating portrait of the effects of globalization on migrant workers, who come to the capital—the glistening city-orb —seeking work, only to be encapsulated within an artificial world that produces a powerful, ongoing fantasy of cosmopolitan global mobility. In this respect, like Anhong and Xiaoshuai, the workers are “superfluous” people who play a minor role in an environment in which they have few choices, mostly unattractive ones. What they encounter is not freedom or fulfillment, but the absence of any opportunity to be truly mobile. The parameters of their existences are defined by that which is unglamorously demanded by the necessity of sustaining life or enforced by violence. A subtheme that brings a query on globalization, culture, and urbanization into sharper focus also is part of The World, indirectly examining the implications of nationally identified culture displayed for the pleasure of an audience. In the way that it isolates the performance of culture in specific forms of dance, costume, and song on a stage, The World is reminiscent of Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine (1993), which directly queries the implications of cultural performance under coercion and duress. Whereas Farewell My Concubine initially uses the unwelcome presence of the Japanese invader to form the coercive environment, The World situates performance within a park identified by the many markers of national identity and culture across the globe, including mini versions of the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, World Trade Center, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and other easily recognizable sites from famous cities and ancient civilizations. This artificial world thus more directly suggests the global nature of the stage. The World shows cultural performance, here on a shrunken and imagined global platform, to be all about an artificiality that is completely accepted and expected by the audience, whose members are delighted to participate in the illusion of a welcoming place, attractive

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performers who act for their benefit, and safe, affordable access to the architectural, ethnic, and sensual delights of the world. This understanding of cultural performance is related to domestic and international tourism, which changes it from being an embodiment of local human connections, traditions, rituals, and ceremonies into an exhibition, generally for profit (Church and Coles 2007; Ryan and Aicken 2005). Performances for tourists can be understood along a wide, nonlinear spectrum that includes aspects of aesthetic exploration, display of cultural heritage, and commercial enterprise, with a confusing conglomeration of motivations. In keeping with the director’s central emphasis on provincial or migrant workers, the focus in The World is not on the audience but on the performers, whose fragmented, hopeless lives juxtaposed against the tourist park—with the city of Beijing in the background—bear witness to the disintegration of any notion of authentically performed, deeply embodied culture. Notwithstanding the brief shots of the performers on stage in their finery, in The World, the attractive fantasy that Zhang Yimou’s film Hero projects through the colorful, engaging, spiritually embodied, and morally rich presence of the assassins is almost nonexistent, replaced by depressing backstage scenes that fill up the screen space and overwhelm official representations of happy ethnicity. Off the stage, The World implies, cultural performance thinly veils coercion enforced by violence, vulnerability, and need: the male security guards and construction workers in the theme park work in an environment of petty corruption and lax safety standards, and the women find that their upward mobility comes only through prostituting themselves to the wealthy men who frequent bars in the area, or by becoming the bedmates of their bosses. Two themes of The World provide insight into the metropolis under globalization, and shed light on Keep Cool. First, the dream of seamless global access through physical mobility anchors the characters’ sense of independence and autonomy, and travel by plane—completely out of the realm of possibility for most of the performers—exudes the fantasy of

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radical possibility and change. Second, the world appears as a network of metropolises that, like flying, seems to offer glittering if rarely attained hope and possibility. The most elusive and desirable of these cities is Paris, whose Eiffel Tower clone features most notably in the film. Its evil twin is the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, a relatively nearby city that functions like a migrant worker sponge, absorbing those who travel to find work. Although it does not rise to the level of the architectural monuments and ethnic performance of the national-cultural sites featured in the theme park, for migrant workers, Ulan Bator stands as a true prospect among cities, a route of upward mobility. As such it is not merely a worksite, but also is permeated with the emotional intensity, melancholy, and alienation of the migrant workers’ subjective grasp of its possibilities for altering their lives. The reality of Ulan Bator contrasts with the artificiality of the cities featured in the park. Paris and Ulan Bator are two sides of the same coin, one bright and shiny through lack of real-life use, the other tarnished but still inviting.7 The film establishes the poles of entrepreneurship/exploitation, love/ opportunity, cosmopolitan city/migrant worker city, and flight-as-travel/ flight-to-work, not setting up clear-cut categories but showing how these areas overlap and mutually interact in the globalized cityscape. The hyperrealistic use of flash animation produces not just the illusion of mobility, but also alienation and desolation. The two main characters, Zhao Xiaotao and Cheng Taisheng, anchor networks of experience that provide contrasting views of how work life in the global metropolis is understood.8 Whereas Cheng Taisheng has seen through everything and realizes that honest living will not help him improve his life, Zhao Xiaotao lives in denial, clinging to her belief that by doing things right, she will construct a positive, authentic, and satisfying life that will include happiness in the present and hope for the future. There are many revealing similarities and differences between The World and Keep Cool. The nervous camera, rapidly changing scenes, and blurry action imply mobility in both films. Although they also both

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debunk mobility as a false hope, in Keep Cool it becomes a style absorbed by both the characters and the camera, which presents a constantly moving landscape without direction or goal. This vision of the city differs considerably from that of The World in other ways as well. Although skyscrapers come into tilted perspective, the audience experiences the city as thoroughly nonmonumental. We do not see or envision the great buildings of the city, its governmental institutions, or its recognizable areas or statues. Instead the space is dominated by the arcade and the small space inside buildings and rooms (including Xiaoshuai’s bedroom, Anhong’s bedroom, the restaurant, and the police station), where the frenetic activity of the city is infused into the subjectivity of the characters. Xiaoshuai’s obfuscating refusal to take responsibility for his actions speaks to this urban capriciousness, whereas his stubborn sense of vengeance expresses an ethos of the street. At the same time, his containment within a small room walled with books that he sells but does not read robs the abstracted global city of the greatness that the characters in The World imagine can be theirs, turning it into a series of small interactions between individuals and groups. This smallness marks the urban setting of Keep Cool, distinguishing it from the imagined grandeur of the metropolis and its performed global culture in The World. The difference between Anhong of Keep Cool and Xiaotao of The World presents a striking contrast. The migrant workers of The World work within the discourse of progress and think of the city in terms of its promise and betrayal. By contrast, the city dwellers in Keep Cool are just trying to get by, with the film emphasizing the here and now both in subjectivity and in action. Whereas Xiaotao of The World is an anticoquette who refuses to trade her ideals—the extension of a moral and historical model into the future—for a dubious jump ahead in the present, Anhong of Keep Cool is the perfect coquette. She captures the breaking of traditional relationships enhanced by the city’s fractured spaces and rapid tempo, translating it into a self-representation that cannot be fixed. Within the small jerky spaces of Keep Cool, Anhong can readily move from one place to another, but clearly she is not going anywhere in terms

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of organizing her relationships or goals in life. In the first part of the film, she becomes one emblem of a disjointed jumpiness that infiltrates the visual style and the characters’ mentalities. Dangling consent before her lovers but never really committing, Anhong extends the notion of play, artificiality, and performance into the future indefinitely. Her refusal to engage, or insistence on engaging only in an indeterminate way, is what must be vanquished before a new possibility can emerge. It is the elimination of the female coquette that opens the door to a transformation of urban skittishness and violence into a tapestry of emotional connections that form a community.

Consent and the Coquette Whereas Xiaoshuai sells books in an arcade stall and stores the books in his one-room dwelling, Anhong lives with someone else, probably her mother or her parents. She acts coquettishly and dresses provocatively, in short tight clothes and high heels, and behaves with a casual, flirtatious attitude toward relationships and life in general. When she and Xiaoshuai repeatedly are interrupted in their courtship, she treats these intrusions as the upsetting of a carefully constructed game in which she plays the desired, always-elusive capture unless conditions are exactly right. Again and again, she returns to taunt Xiaoshuai, who slowly gets discouraged. Although Anhong is a character only in the first third of the film, her game-like relationship with Xiaoshuai establishes the playfulness and irony of the entire film. Necessary to bring the males together, the coquette can be abandoned after she plays her important role, with her erasure from the screen paralleling the death of Jiu’er in Red Sorghum, the implicit death of Judou in Judou, the sidelining of Songlian in Raise the Red Lantern, the emotional devastation of Qiuju in Qiuju Goes to Court, and the resignation of Jiazhen in To Live. The lasting relationship is not that between Anhong and Xiaoshuai, but that between Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng. This new friendship surges into the future, replacing the old

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and cementing the central significance of males in cultural transmission, if without the crucial foundation of reproduction through sons.9 The association of the vices of the city with corrupting decadence has a long global history. The coquette, the prostitute, the flâneur, the dandy, and the thug are all male and female stereotypes for the damaged or otherwise mutated city dweller. Yet although Anhong and Xiaoshuai both exist within the margins of the city with minimal professional position or economic resources, Xiaoshuai’s stubborn and earnest mission—despite its self-destructive aspect—is the opposite of the casualness that seems to drive Anhong’s behavior. Thus although both Anhong and Xiaoshuai may be the city’s “extraneous people,” their personalities and behavior implies different possibilities for the direction of the future. Anhong is eliminated from the story because the film’s construction of community as a prime value violates the logic of the coquette, who must suspend commitment and consent in favor of the floating, unanchored self-representation of the city. By contrast, Xiaoshuai’s street vengeance is a male ritual that ultimately leads to a warm and sustaining brotherhood. As Gillian Brown (1997) shows in her analysis of Hannah Webster Foster’s novel The Coquette (1797), what “makes coquetry a dubious tactic for women’s self-determination is the disparity that it enacts between a woman and her word, or between her different self-representations” (628). Furthermore, by “characterizing Eliza as a coquette, Foster invokes a long-standing identification of women with deception” (628). Women’s supposedly inherent weakness, coquettishness, contradictory excessive desire and innate modesty all were discussed at length by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979 [1762]), who explained such qualities as God-given and biological. Rousseau argues that because women are natural coquettes, unless proven otherwise by a witness, they must be assumed to consent willingly to sexual relations. Foster’s portrayal of Eliza Wharton as a coquette also focuses on the issue of consent: What most bothers Foster and her feminist contemporaries about the coquette is her use of deceit—her pretense of consent—to

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Zhang Yimou realize her ambition to rule. She dallies with suitors, alternately intimating and revoking her consent to a series of men. In effect the coquette takes on the role of the seducer, engineering courtships to suit her pleasure. Ambiguous in her language and her acts, the coquette obfuscates the self-representational mission of consent. She further undermines consent’s purpose as a vehicle of selfrepresentation by detaching it from consequentiality. Her word is not a warranty of what can be expected from her. Coquetry takes the consequentiality out of courtship and consent, leaving uncertain the aftermath of a woman’s acts. (633)

Brown notes that “Foster portrays Eliza as never quite saying yes or no,” which defines the essence of the coquette (639). One problem for the flirtatious coquette is that as soon as she makes her relational intent clear—in other words, once her self-representation is fixed—she loses the ambiguity that turns courtship into a game, installing herself in a fixed relationship within a household. In her study of prostitution and masculinity in Chinese fiction, Paola Zamperini (2010) has shown that the two identities most commonly available to traditional women were, first, through marriage, in which case they were understood as a tool to regenerate family lineage, or second, if deflowered out of wedlock, as a body available for purchase for the purpose of sexual pleasure. In both cases, identity is quickly decided upon through the interpretation of overt or implied sexual consent. The city offers Anhong, a modern young woman, the choice of postponing the decision and playing off her young-female assets. She tantalizes Xiaoshuai, refusing to say yes or no, pushing him away just enough to maintain some distance but not decisively enough to make him truly give up. She twice goes along with his overtures and then calls it quits only because the setting and scene are interrupted. The artificiality of Anhong’s self-representation, along with her illogical and flighty way of deciding which course of action to take—based not on beliefs, authentic sentiment, passion, or principles but on circumstantial alterations—is a strong contrast to the relationship of the two male main characters.

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Another model of artifice through which to evaluate the significance of Anhong’s role is the dan 旦 , or the female impersonator of Beijing Opera. In interpreting Anhong’s behavior and her resulting eviction from the narrative, what makes the male dan particularly illuminating is not only its historical position within Chinese theater, but also its emphasis on artistry and artificiality in self-representation. The female impersonator in China dates back hundreds of years, most likely to the Han dynasty, and was alternately banned and allowed up to the present time, a history that ran parallel to the banning and allowing of biologically female performers (Tian 2000, 2012). While female impersonators were banned in the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1277–1367) and replaced on stage by women, they returned in the Ming dynasty (1368–1643), when various Han theater practices were reinstated. After Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) again banned women from performing on stage in 1772, the genre of female impersonation flourished, encouraging a revival that lasted into the twentieth century and produced the virtuoso Mei Lanfang (1894–1961): In general, female impersonation—especially role types such as zhengdan (proper lady), laodan (old lady), and wudan (female warrior)—was not considered as dangerous and subversive as performances by real women, because Confucian doctrine put more emphasis on the segregation of women from men to preserve the patriarchal social hierarchy. Thus Chinese antitheatrical thought was morally and socially oriented, and its specific position toward female impersonation was less consistent than religiously oriented English arguments against female impersonation such as those fervently posited by John Rainolds, Stephen Gosson, William Prynne, and Philip Stubbes. These arguments, drawing on biblical codes and classical patristic tradition, were primarily essentialist and ontological as well as moral and social. (Tian 2000, 81)10 Because “sexual appeal is inherent in the art of female impersonation” and male dan (especially those who played huadan, the flirtatious coquette) often had sexual relationships with their admirers, throughout

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the twentieth century, the impersonators were attacked as engaging in a decadent, immoral performance that showed China in a bad light (82). Eventually they were replaced with female performers, who surprised people with their ability to master the dan roles as well as the male performers. The reason for this surprise is related to the way in which female impersonators were understood to grasp and project femaleness. Male dan and their admirers did not understand their performances as realistic, but as idealizations of female essence that were beyond the reach of biological females, who would rely too much on their “natural” tendencies, they argued. Developing out of cultural and social fantasies and ideals, the coy performances of the male huadan present a powerful imaginary about women. The traditional connection between female performance and sexual display was aestheticized in the huadan, and the relationship between female performance and prostitution was maintained within the long tradition of xiadan or dallying with dan (Tian 2000, 82). Anhong’s teasing behavior and provocative dress is not only related to commodified urban culture but also part of a long tradition in which women or their impersonators perform sexually by implying their availability through appearance, language, and behavior.11 While this sexualized, performative quality defining female essence has been normalized to the extent that it hardly raises an eye in contemporary China or elsewhere, in Keep Cool, it an important driver of the narrative.12 Eventually it indirectly opens the door to a friendship anchored in oldfashioned morality, as well as a more vital and positive perspective on coincidental and spontaneous urban relationships. It also encourages us to reconsider the female leads of the earlier films, who, up until Keep Cool, have struggled against various oppressive patriarchal forces and abuses. From the angle that Anhong provides, we can more clearly evaluate the pattern wherein the female protagonists manipulate sexual display to get what they want—or, as Gillian Brown (1997) puts it, to realize an “ambition to rule” (633). Jiu’er and Judou express coquettishness to escape abuse at the hands of their husbands and attract a male who can help

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them, abandoning it after it serves their needs. During her moments of heightened awareness, Songlian of Red Lantern realizes that coquettishness is part of the competitive game that has entrapped her and decries it as false, while nonetheless finding it irresistible at times. For Meishan, the performance of the opera star is merged with life performance, producing the seemingly perfect coquette who is invested in almost all displays, while internally rejecting their artifice.13 Keep Cool’s Anhong merges her flightiness with the rapidly changing and skewed vistas of the city, internalizing the coquette’s refusal to give consent and turning her flirtatious behavior into a near-constant mode of self-presentation. Although the acted culture of The World, which is performed by costumed women on the stage, seems to contain elements of the coquette’s inauthenticity, deceit, and coyness, the film’s central female character Xiaotao is not at all like Anhong. In the face of multiple assaults on her positive frame of mind, Xiaotao refuses to give up her constant striving for her high moral ideals. Xiaotao believes in the value of authentic emotions, faithfulness, social morality, and always keeping alive a hope for the future, which can be symbolized by “flying.” She is possessed by dreams of flying, and mobility is the mechanism of her optimistic spirit. She earnestly participates in the illusions of movement that sustain her faith, from riding on a virtual flying carpet to snuggling with her boyfriend in the pilot’s seat of a grounded airplane. When Xiaotao argues with Taisheng, who obsessively uses his position as security chief in the theme park to track her in both time and space, she angrily lists her options for independent movement: bus, train, taxi. Her outlook derives not only from the possibility of spatial movement but also from a fundamental temporal confidence that allows her to believe that the future will be better. Movement from the present to the future, from the fake world in which she works to the real world outside the park, is a powerful motivator for Xiaotao. However, although she and others often travel up and down the elevator in the Eiffel Tower, Paris remains only a distant, inaccessible and unimaginable foreign metropolis. Her dreams of crossing and expanding space are centered on Ulan Bator, the Mongolian

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capital that is the topic of the film’s theme song, “Nights of Ulan Bator.” Originally a Mongolian folk song, the words and tune were altered by the director and his crew to produce a contradictory and melancholy sense of isolation, movement, speed, and stillness, thus capturing the hope and the lonely desolation of the migrant workers. For women, one way out of the meaningless life in which they are entrapped is prostitution, in which the Russian dancer Anna is forced to engage, and the trading of sexual services for career advancement, which Liu Youyou de facto accepts as she climbs the career ladder by hopping into bed with Manager Mu. As the anticoquette, Xiaotao’s word is as good as gold, and she expects consent to engender honesty and truth. She withholds consent only to make sure that it will support the unfolding of her idealistic world view, not for the purpose of teasing or prolonging ambiguity. The narrative of progress within which Xiaotao is embedded—from rural to urban, provincial city to capital, single to married, and stuck on the fake world stage to flying freely around the world—makes her guardedly withhold the one weapon she has until she is sure that the trajectory is in place. One striking scene occurs when Xiaotao and Taisheng are in the airplane that has “landed in World Park after making many international trips,” the World Park announcer proclaims, and is “preserved in its original form so as to allow you to experience the beauty of air travel.” Sitting in the pilot’s seat with Xiaotao on his lap, Taisheng fondles her and she pushes him away. He claims she is looking for someone better, and she insists he has misunderstood. Lao Song, Taisheng’s black-market collaborator, calls and Taisheng says he must go to his house. Xiaotao decides to go along so that she will not be “stuck here all the time, like a ghost.” At this point the film switches into flash animation, with Taisheng on his cell phone in the plane taking off and Xiaotao in her flight attendant uniform flying across the Beijing sky with a smile on her face. The difference in their modes of flight, with Taisheng in control of a large machine and Xiaotao moving through the air on her own power, suggests that Taisheng’s fantasy is of control and power, whereas Xiaotao dreams of an abstract and pure mobility. Various aspects of

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Beijing appear below, most strikingly Tiananmen Square with a picture of Mao, several revolutionary placards, three national flags waving in the breeze, a colored balloon in the corner, and the city painted red in the background. This hyperrealistic association of Xiaotao with the visual apparatus of revolutionary optimism secures her position within the film as someone who displaces her real lifeworld with the dream of flying, or a deep belief that new opportunities and freedom will be hers. For Anhong, perpetual deferment is a long-term state that must be sustained, preventing her from assuming a fixed position and allowing her to float between options. The presence of the coquette and her eventual banishment from the film reiterates the idea that cultural strength and continuity lie mostly in the hands of males, although the forwarddirection of the males often must be sparked by females. The exclusion of the coquette becomes the condition upon which positive culture is constructed. Genuine emotion and honest communication exist, the film implies, as long as the refusal to commit can be forced to the side. While the artifice of freedom in the present motivates Anhong to sustain her coquetry, the same possibility cautions Xiaotao to make sure her consent supports the future that she desires. In one rare moment Anhong displays a touching sense of affection without pretense. After Xiaoshuai is beaten, she shows up at the book stall dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, wearing sneakers, carrying a backpack, and looking anything but the flirt. With her simple asexual clothes and embarrassed expression, she signals both Xiaoshuai and the viewer that this exchange will not be infected by playacting and artificiality as were the other interactions. Stating that she heard and feels bad about the beating, she offers to buy all of Xiaoshuai’s books and puts a wad of cash down on the table. “This has to do with him and me...nothing to do with you,” he responds, following with, “I don’t really get you, why you insist on, just by yourself...huh? You insist on, just by yourself...insist on, just by yourself.” Alluding to Anhong’s refusal to commit, he comes across as touched by his emotion, and struggling to express his genuine affection.

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“I was a virgin,” Xiaoshuai proclaims. “Before you, I hadn’t been with anyone.” This moment is soon over, however. Anhong and Xiaoshuai agree to meet that evening and end up in his room. The romantic setting, which includes music, slow motion, horseplay and candles, flowers, and Camus XO Superior, goes well until it is interrupted right before the first kiss when Qiusheng shows up at the door. Although Qiusheng’s arrival is hardly Xiaoshuai’s fault, Anhong gets up and leaves, slapping Qiusheng on her way out. After this point, the relationship between Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng takes over, and we do not see Anhong again. Flighty female behavior thus marks the excessive artificiality of urban relations; it is also the catalyst that launches the males into a more emotionally authentic connection. The jousting debates and interactions between Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng bring into the picture a more solid type of relationship, anchoring the film’s search for a popular basis for a viable cultural life.

Male Bonding and the Rhythm of the City A restaurant is the scene of the next meeting between Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng, who explains that he has arranged for Manager Liu to come to the restaurant and hand over 50,000 yuan to resolve the disagreement over who should pay for the computer. A young woman begins to sing —we see a close-up of her face and of the karaoke video with words on the screen—and Xiaoshuai asks Qiusheng to rate the woman. “What are you talking about?” Qiusheng asks. “Assign her points,” Xiaoshuai says. Qiusheng finally figures out what he means and says, “No more than 60%.” Xiaoshuai argues that it should be 90%, which is the beginning of a long discussion about women. Qiusheng’s gender ideals, which value character, spirit, and cultural development or training, emerge directly from a combination of Confucian and socialist culture. Xiaoshuai, in contrast , argues by means of the traditional phrase “Virtue in a woman is to be without talent.” “But what is virtue?” Qiusheng quickly asks. To Xiaoshuai’s crude response of physical beauty as defined by commoners, Qiusheng hotly retorts, “It’s Confucius who said this, and you don’t even

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understand what virtue really is.” Wagging his finger in Xiaoshuai’s face, Qiusheng explains the qualities of virtue: not appearance, but knowledge and culture. Quoting Mencius, he separates exterior and interior and defines proper social behavior. This discussion is a foray into the developing friendship between an older man who values moderation and the pleasures of the intellect, and a younger man who lives by street values of loyalty and vengeance. As the gender discussion suggests, the contrasting understandings of women’s role anchors this bond, even though the two men have radically different viewpoints. When Xiaoshuai appeals to a timeless popular culture, Qiusheng attempts to provide a historical and high-culture foundation. This melding of perspectives in an intriguing relationship that developed out of a violent encounter and a demand for monetary compensation raises the possibility that a new urban hybridity is emerging, bringing opposites together and engendering a positive result. Through this involved discussion on women and on the nature and necessity of vengeance and revenge, the two men cement their friendship. Yet as they avidly drink and chat, Qiusheng realizes that Xiaoshuai still intends to cut off Liu Delong’s right hand. “That’s right,” Xiaoshuai says when confronted. After a long discussion in which Qiusheng tries to convince Xiaoshuai to relinquish his plans, and in which he eventually gets up to leave and is restrained by force, the setting slides into the fantastic. Although the restaurant is almost empty, a large group of middleaged women dressed in pink satin costumes pour in. Behind the earnest, horrifying argument about whether or not Xiaoshuai should cut off Liu’s hand, men in yellow satin costumes come in with drums and the women set themselves up at tables. Qiusheng, throwing his arm around Xiaoshuai and claiming he is trying to help, attempts to convince Xiaoshuai that hitting Liu’s hand with a brick will suffice. The extreme close-ups give only a glimmer of the activity going on behind the two men as Qiusheng again uses pan-academic arguments to convince Xiaoshuai to opt for a less serious injury, thus saving himself prison time. As he presents his

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plan, Qiusheng completes his argument, quickly pulls back as if it is a done deal, and pats Xiaoshuai on the back in a way that “addgarlic”— quoted in the epigraph of this chapter—may identify as “loveable.” The women performers rush over and confront Xiaoshuai when he tries to smoke, and he clutches the knife. They pound their fists on the table and angrily protest the smoke pollution. As a cacophony emerges from the women, who have started to sing, Xiaoshuai indicates that he nonetheless intends to go forward with his plan. The camera turns to the heavily made-up and ornately costumed middle-aged women, who sing their karaoke songs, again with the ubiquitous Camus XO Superior sign in the background (see figure 20). “You can leave,” Xiaoshuai tells Qiusheng. He takes out a package and hands it over: the computer, along with extra peripherals. While grateful, Qiusheng refuses to leave. Despite Xiaoshuai’s admonition, Qiusheng goes outside and frantically tries to make a phone call, angering a woman whose phone he rips out of her hands. “Let me tell you one thing,” Qiusheng says to Xiaoshuai. “Until you gave me the computer, my goal was only the computer, I wasn’t interested in you, I told myself this man has no connection to me whatsoever, but the moment you gave me the computer my attitude toward you changed, now I don’t care about the computer, I don’t care if you give me the computer or not, I’m doing this for you, just for you, I want to help you!” “I don’t need your help!” Xiaoshuai stutters. Just as the third man hired to proclaim love to Anhong insists on his own understanding of his performance, Qiusheng also removes the originally commercial connection that he has with Xiaoshuai, replacing it with a narrative of human concern, even though he barely knows Xiaoshuai. At this point, multiple scenarios develop and the situation degenerates into absurdity. The woman whose phone was snatched appears; she speaks up for Xiaoshuai and insists that Qiusheng is mentally ill. The light in the restaurant has gone red, giving the scene an eerie feeling (see figure 21). “Is he really sick?” the manager asks. The tilted camera, the red light, and the “Above all Camus XO Superior” sign

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in the background—Camus XO Superior being a persistent presence in the film—enhances the ludicrousness of the scene. Yet along with the chaos and cacophony, what emerges after Anhong’s disappearance is a slowly woven tapestry of spontaneous relationships. The powerful, delightful karaoke singers—seemingly irrelevant to the plot—inaugurate a new sensibility where the social field is a knotty fabric, with anonymity leading to chance encounters that morph into interactions laced with genuine feeling. The implication that any person can comfort another results not in alienation, but rather in tenderness: the exchanges project a part-socialist, part-village, part-communitarian sensibility that ranges from honest concern to busybody nosiness, from genuine reciprocity to the manipulation of expected norms for self-benefit. In the post-Anhong world, exchanges express cultural norms: specific ways of talking, relating, and assuming a position within the community. Thus what “addgarlic” refers to as the ambiance, the typicality, the quirky delightfulness of Beijing is exactly the cultural community that the film unfolds. The characters and scenes are far from realistic, but contain enough reality to spark recognition: “I suppose you would have to have lived in and kinda understood Beijing and its people to get the most out of this movie, though you might enjoy it regardless,” addgarlic writes. “Big sisters” and “uncles” abound, and each person is granted a rich interior life that can produce an unexpected trajectory. Two scenes unfold as Xiaoshuai, who has convinced the manager that Qiusheng must be gagged and tied after he is brought upstairs, dances down the stairs to join the singers. Liu Delong enters in a white suit and sits at a table, looking around suspiciously. The second scene develops upstairs, where the cook accuses Qiusheng of touching one of the female staff and tells him that the last person who did this had to find his teeth on the ground. Assaulted by the cook, Qiusheng fights so hard that he pushes a heavy rack over, which in turn topples an air conditioner onto the floor below. It lands on Liu Delong, who is rushed away by the staff. The air conditioner dangles in front of the karaoke TV, as a woman sings a song “In a good mood.”

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Going upstairs, Xiaoshuai finds a mess in the room where Qiusheng was held. He hears a scream and finds his friend in torn underwear rushing after the staff with a cleaver. After various attempts to stop him, Xiaoshuai then offers his hand for Qiusheng to cut off, saying he will count to three. He gets to “eight,” with the staff laughing in the background, and the action stops (see figure 22). After an interlude with soft music and no visuals, the police station scene repeats itself, with the same wry policeman and a similar set of questions. Instead of books, the policeman tells Qiusheng that without a human brain, the “electric brain” (computer) won’t do a thing: “You need to understand the law, to understand the law, you need to know the law, to know the law you need to obey the law, and once you obey it, you need to get others to do the same thing. If everyone knew and obeyed the law, this society —” When Qiusheng gets out of prison, a car is waiting for him, along with a sentimental letter from Xiaoshuai. Moved and happy, Qiusheng instructs the driver to take him to Xiaoshuai’s address. The two men come to a mutual understanding and develop affection for each other. However, as their relationship develops, the film brings in increasingly incongruous background scenes, each of which takes on its own significance and develops its own narrative value. Scenes that quickly pop up—the singing women, the stranger affectionately called the “older sister,” the cook’s threats—expand into what seem to be tangents that become intertwined with the two men’s story. The randomness and coincidental nature of city encounters, seemingly spun out of air, become the fabric of community. In this way, the removal of Anhong allows for the flightiness of the urban coquette to be captured in a different realm, and to change into a creative spontaneity that has the power to inspire a transformation. The reversal of roles for Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng deepens their alliance, and they become mirror images of each other as Xiaoshuai tries to convince Qiusheng to put down the knife, not long after the latter has spent days trying to convince him of the same thing.

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Ultimately the absurdity, fantasy, and black humor of the film enhance the idea that city life, with its fractured anonymity and deconstructed structures of kinship and community, can engender a unique and positive sense of being. The way in which similar concerns of alienation and violence in the city come to different ends in The World also shows us how Keep Cool uses the city not to decry its ability to destroy, but to imagine how even under these circumstances, a creative and dynamic local culture can emerge and thrive. In The World, the female character Xiaotao anchors a recognizable and desirable subjective and experiential system. Yet her morality has no material basis: in the theme park, women are only commodities to be displayed and used, whereas men are disposable physical laborers. The list of debts the male character Little Sister composes on his deathbed expresses the social role of men, who are charged with career and nation-building—at one time through revolutionary leadership and actions but more recently through economic activity—as compared with women, who are freer to recognize inequity and imagine the ideal, while not as able to actualize their heightened consciousness in positive action. A comparison with The World exposes the spatial and temporal dimensions that lie behind the visual and narrative presentation of Keep Cool. The World establishes the global city as a subjective state in which cultural performance cannot be anything other than a show for profit or an unreal fantasy of smooth access to the delights of the world. The actual Beijing is visible and apparent only as an imaginative monumental icon and a real-life system of oppression. By contrast, the Beijing of Keep Cool is nothing more than a lived reality, full of chance, serendipity, and possibility. The World presents a grim certainty in which women and men alike are trapped in a historical bubble that pushes them forward according to need, with no escape through good will or good faith. The brutal reality of progress means that many are cast aside, and only the deluded can imagine that something else is possible. Keep Cool turns the chaos of the city into a principle that can, if favored by good luck, produce something positive, as long as its refusal to commit—in the form of the

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coquette—is excluded. Its typical characters—the coquette, the worker, the intellectual, and the manager—along with the exceptional and absurd narrative tangents that become relevant as they unfold, imply that it is precisely the generative ability of the people that creates culture. The film, therefore, displaces both recent and deep history in order to consider another way of locating the authentic and genuine creative ability of the people themselves. In Keel Cool, we see some of the optimism of Red Sorghum return. Although the implications of wide-open space have been replaced by a claustrophobic emphasis on subjectivity and closely cut encounters, the two men combine specters of the Confucian and socialist past with the crazy cityscape. In the new possibilities for a vital social life, the urban context of violence, street smarts, and spontaneity can be transformed by the moderating influences from the past. Yet although the result is encouraging, the hope for the future in the form of sons has disappeared. This concern is taken up in the next film I discuss, Happy Times (2000). Figure 17. Peddler (played by director Zhang Yimou) riding by with picture of woman.

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Figure 18. The perpetually tilted camera.

Figure 19. Anhong on her bike.

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Figure 20. Costumed women singing.

Figure 21. In the restaurant.

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Figure 22. “Eight.”

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Notes 1. Shu Ping is the penname of Wang Shuping. Wang received the Changbai (Baekdu) Mountain Literary Prize for Evening Paper News and wrote the script for Keep Cool, later collaborating with Jiang Wen on several scripts including Devils on the Doorsteps (2000). Although the film is available on YouTube, it is difficult to access on DVD, and I have not found a subtitled version. I have provided additional detail about the plot to help readers who may not have seen the film. 2. Zhang also commented on the failed marketing of the film. He does not take credit for the style, noting that similar styles have been used in European films and in MTV. See Chen Yan (1997). 3. As we learn late in the film, the name of the suitor/bookseller is Zhao Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng is Zhang Qiusheng. To avoid confusion, I will call the suitor/bookseller played by Jiang Wen “Xiaoshuai,” and Qiusheng/computer owner played by Li Baotian “Qiusheng.” 4. Jiang Wen has an actual stutter, which he magnified for this part. According to Zhang Yimou, the actor made this decision on his own, and Zhang found that it worked. See Chen Yan (1997), 71. 5. Zhang Yinghui (1998) argues that the MTV style betrays a “simplistic notion of urban life” (25). 6. For more on Shakespeare in China, see Alexa Huang (2009). 7. Ulan Bator, a city of around 2.6 million, has endured an influx of people looking for work over the last decade. Between 2000 and 2006, 220,000 people moved to the city, many of them living in traditional tents organized into informal communities. Anti-Chinese sentiment was on the rise in the country and its capital when The World was made. See Victoria Whall (2007) and “Anti-Chinese sentiment” (2005). Yet the remote city, one of the coldest capitals of the world, appears several times in the film, in a complex and ambiguous role. Although Ulan Bator cannot stand with Paris, New York, London, or Rome in offering the imagined global pleasures of a cosmopolitan city, it is a true possible destination for a migrant worker seeking to improve his or her work conditions. In its poetic form as the theme song’s “Nights of Ulan Bator,” the city symbolizes the emotional fragility—expressed in tender hopes, the desire for friendship, quarrels, betrayals, crying bouts, accidental death, family

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9. 10.

11.

12.

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dysfunction, and ultimately suicide—that characterizes the mentality of the migrant workers in the “world.” In an unpublished paper, I argue that the animation sequences do not so much buttress the depressing realism as they provide a fantastical opening into the agency and subjectivity of the migrant workers. See Wendy Larson, (2015a). Kaja Silverman’s (1992) Male Subjectivity at the Margins is still the best source for a thorough explanation of how the general tendency to demand more of and center males pervasively structures social life. John Rainolds (1549–1607) was a Puritan who taught at Lincoln College in Oxford and participated in developing the King James Bible. Stephen Gosson (1554–1624) was an English satirist who criticized melodrama and comedy as vulgar and socially corrosive. William Prynne (1600– 1669) was a prominent Puritan, political figure, and lawyer who published a great deal, including Histriomastix (1632), a criticism of actresses and stage plays. Philip Stubbes (1555–1610) published A Christal Glass for Christian Women (1591), The Anatomie of Abuses (1583), and other pamphlets criticizing immoral social practices. When in her apartment listening to both Xiaoshuai’s hired voice and the complaints of an unseen woman, Anhong repeatedly tries on different clothing, some with tags, and obsessively picks at her hair and face while looking in the mirror and checking out her appearance. Both the coquette or flirt and her apparent opposite—the woman kept away from the gaze of men through veiling or cloistering—are defined via their sexual relationship to men. These two models exist on a spectrum in which identity is established vis-à-vis male desire, which is either attracted or repelled. Qiuju is the first female lead of Zhang Yimou’s films that is not defined through sexual availability, and yet like the others, she also fails to realize her goals. Thus while it may be tempting to ascribe the failure of the first three female leads to the sexualized context under which the women live, Qiuju removes that framework.

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Chapter 7

Happy Times They Pretend to Pay Us and We Pretend to Work Although subjects within the capitalist universe experience themselves as free (free to make money, free to consume what they want, and so on), the system spares them the weight of the decision. We make numerous decisions every day concerning what to do, where to go, and what to buy, but none of these decisions occur outside the confines of the narrow limits of our given possibilities. The political decision, the decision concerning our way of life itself, disappears within the capitalist horizon. None of our everyday choices involve the risk of a radical transformation; instead, all offer the security of a well-known terrain. This security is the direct result of the belief in the substantial existence of capitalism, a belief that the system itself requires and sustains. —Todd McGowan (2013a, 4) Happy Times (2000) features a middle-aged, laid-off factory worker with little to offer in the way of match-making, and a subtext of a human emotional economy inextricably entwined with market values. As with Keep Cool, Happy Times revolves around demand for payment for goods or perceived service, made toward someone unable or unwilling to pay. In the earlier film, the sum is to cover a 50,000-yuan reimbursement for

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a destroyed laptop, and in Happy Times, it is the cost of marriage for Lao Zhao, who has found a willing partner but lacks the (same) 50,000 yuan for the wedding that she wants. In both cases, the market transaction is overtaken by what appeared to be only a tangent in the plot, and a new tale of authentic emotional and social connection takes center stage, bubbling up as a kind of narrative hope that something other than the apparently linear, unchangeable story of exchange value will prevail. However, there is a cost to this displacement. In Keep Cool, the female character Anhong is purged, and her relationship with Xiaoshuai is replaced by the brotherhood that forms between the two male characters. A striking coquette who toys with her target, Anhong personifies the duplicity of performance. Her exclusion opens the door to the friendship of men, but this does not bode well for Xiaoshuai’s ability to move into the future via offspring or more specifically, sons. And yet, although the cost is high, the bargain seems to have been struck, and the outlandishly dissimilar men end up with a strong bond. In Happy Times, Lao Zhao’s empathy and willingness to care for Xiao Wu deepens as he is booted out of his fiancée’s apartment and life, also implying a choice between the blind girl’s welfare and his future familial position as husband and symbolic father of a son. As opposed to the relatively happy ending in Keep Cool, here the film concludes with the main characters left bereft and without resources. Both protagonists, Xiaoshuai and Lao Zhao, do not enter willingly into the new role of potential helper. Each is pressured, the first by the irritating persistence of Qiusheng, and the second by the exasperating demands of his fiancée. In both cases, the past, present, or future female lover disappears from the picture as the new tale of friendship and caring takes shape, implying that this elimination is what it takes to force the male protagonists into a communal realm where a different sociality can emerge. And although reproduction through sons as an allegory for creative cultural vigor and hope for the future still exists in a shell-like form, the possibility or actuality of the stories’ central males assuming

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their roles in that all-important task also weakens. In Keep Cool, the malemale relationship will not produce sons, and in Happy Times, not only is Lao Zhao ejected from his beloved’s home, but he also loses the possibility of having children, either adopted or biological. Had he succeeded, his fiancée’s son is so obnoxious as to call this “save the children” mode into question.1 The point of saving the children is to imagine a new and better future, but if the offspring are not innocent but have been tainted by the evil ways of the present, that future will never emerge. In Happy Times, another unprotected female character is at the center of the story. The blind girl Xiao Wu’s utter vulnerability begs a comparison with Judou, the battered female who bares her wounds in an appeal for help. Both female characters suffer from the absence of a parent who should function either as a protector or a caregiver. Judou’s parents do not exist in the film, and Xiao Wu’s father has taken off, leaving her bereft of funds, emotional support, and communication. Until Lao Zhao comes along, she is completely isolated. Judou has been turned over to her violent husband, and Xiao Wu left in the hands of her heartless stepmother. Although these similarities alert us to oft-revisited themes, important differences between the two films suggest a new and revealing affective structure. The first is the absence of erotic attraction between the vulnerable female and her helper in Happy Times, which positions the relationship between Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu differently than that of Tianqing and Judou. The second is Xiao Wu’s blindness, which removes the potent return gaze that could be directed at both the peeper and the film viewer. Judou’s famous return gaze launched her mission to secure Tianqing’s help. By contrast, Xiao Wu can be seen but she cannot see, eliminating the possibility of a direct petition in which the person who is looking at her suddenly finds himself or herself gazed upon. These new conditions also put the film audience in a different position. I analyze these two substantial differences between Happy Times and Judou in the first section, engaging critiques that interpret Happy Times

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as an indication of the director’s renewed concern with ethical communal life and his supposed move away from allegory. Although I recognize a stylistic change between the early films and this middle period, as well as a focus on a different population and a setting in contemporary China, I find that the films nonetheless continue to be structured as allegories. Their apparent interest in a daily life formed through human cooperation rather than the competitive values of capitalism is not so much a concern with commoners as it is a part of the query about what resources can be deployed in the construction of a positive future. Like Red Sorghum, Keep Cool has a relatively happy outcome for some of the characters; like Judou, Happy Times does not. In Keep Cool, one resource turns out to be the Confucian and socialist pasts, which can positively inform the spontaneous, haphazard relationships of the metropolis. Happy Times extends the inquiry into socialism as a possible foundation for a vital social life. Through an emphasis on vision and sight, the film asks whether Chinese socialism—the cultural heritage of contemporary China when the film was made—can be mined for values that will offer a strong basis for constructing something healthy, vigorous, and appealing. Inherent in this effort is the recognition that transnational capital not only has shaken the affective and transactional relationships that form the basis of society, but has also pulled the rug out from under the population’s conviction that they hold the tools to forge for themselves a dynamic future. Within the massive transformation that capitalism has enacted, the film understands socialism as both historical and therefore real, and as illusionary and therefore false. In addition, within this conundrum, Happy Times locates agency, its lack, and its pretensions as major themes. From this viewpoint, Xiao Wu’s blindness could be a bid to make her even more pathetic: the power play inherent in gazing and being gazed upon, which Judou desperately tries to engage through exposure of her wounds, has transformed into a one-way street that could lock Xiao Wu in the position of victim, standing in for all traumatized and destroyed by economic transformation. Yet the third difference between the two female characters—Xiao Wu’s superpowers—belies her vulnerability,

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and offers a covert historical angle. The blind girl’s heightened sense of touch, hearing, and smell allow her to perceive aspects of reality that are not evident to others, or that others do not wish to recognize. As such, the superpowers suggest that there exists a level of reality accessible only to those whose conventional senses are partially blocked. The nature of the block becomes evident as we isolate the moments when Xiao Wu exercises her skills, times when everyone around is invested in sustaining a world view contaminated by artifice and falsity. Although most are caught within that contradiction with no possibility of action, Xiao Wu has a way to “see through” the surface carefully constructed for her benefit, using her superpowers in order to act. Her extraordinary capabilities become historically meaningful when understood within the context of the socialist residue that accrues in the film, as opposed to the story by Mo Yan (1998, 2001) on which the film is based. The film combs the socialist legacy for options: is it possible that a noninstrumental basis for a culture that has a strong historical presence can be found? Happy Times expands and revises the play within a play, supercharged scenes in which the meaning of who watches, who acts, who understands that they are watched, and who judges looms large, with local, regional, and global implications. The performances act out options, in the process making emotional claims on the viewer and testing alternatives to the status quo, which can be multilayered, more or less perceptible, and more or less pernicious. In Happy Times, the status quo is the capitalized mode of personal relations, a de facto environment of exchange-based human relations, within a society in the throes of commodification. In this transitional period, the new chaos-wreaking system is seen in all of its negative realities and positive implications. As an alternative, however, socialism does not get off easy either, with communal values engendering not only connection and concern, but also hypocrisy and deceit. In Happy Times, the play within a play is a mechanism by which the gaze and return gaze can be probed, and also a harsh staging of the socialist residue. The film features the kind of performances that were ubiquitous in socialist culture, which can be symbolized via the

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Soviet joke, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”2 The two economic regimes are intertwined within the film, which stages both capitalist- and socialist-style performance, including the “play” of managing a large hotel that Lao Zhao puts on to enhance his fiancée’s affections, the “happiness hut” that Lao Zhao and a friend create as a money-making scheme, and the “massage parlor” created by Lao Zhao and his former factory colleagues for the purpose of allowing the blind Xiao Wu to believe she is working. In the third section, I evaluate recent research on “gaze theory,” which began with Laura Mulvey’s (1975) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and has evolved via postcolonial and poststructural theory into a provocative set of contentions regarding gender, agency, relative power, and interaction with or knowledge of the Other. The relationship between performance and the gaze in Happy Times both resonates with Judou and also expands the concerns of Keep Cool, in which the skewed urban environment is a kind of performance in itself. In that film, until redeemed by the male friendship, the city does not encourage relationships based on selfless empathy and concern but rather on fleeting encounters without commitment. The identification of this falsity with the coquette allows for a resolution to the problem, although the solution will only work in the present, eliminating a road into the future. In Happy Times a similar confrontation takes place, with important differences brought into the picture by Xiao Wu. Her blindness engenders questions about vision and its role in capitalism, and revises the gaze/gazed-upon implication of power positioning. If, as we see in Judou, the return gaze is insufficient to spur ethical behavior, and if the stimulation of sexual desire is no longer an option, what tools are left for the vulnerable and weak? In contrast to the novel, the film expands and enhances the socialist legacy of communitarian values as a rickety but still-standing source of ethical value and simultaneously, of anachronistic, tender amusement, testing it against power and wealth. Yet the experiment does not lead to a constructive result, with two different endings showing the difficulty of sustaining a positive cultural vision developed out of the socialist past.

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The ideological implication is that performance, with its implications of duplicity, competition, and self-benefit, is not really a choice but a mandatory condition of culture under globalization.

Judou and Happy Times: Erotic Attraction, Ethics, and the Return Gaze In Happy Times, the exposed and vulnerable blind girl contrasts sharply with Judou—Zhang’s most famous exposed and vulnerable female—even though Xiao Wu is but one year younger than Judou when the latter is purchased as a wife. While Judou comes across as a sexually and psychologically mature woman, Xiao Wu seems like a child, both in her undeveloped body and in her emotions. Happy Times invokes the increasing pessimism, performativity, and sexuality of the Red Trilogy, while, like Keep Cool, considering alternatives. Whereas Judou uses the promise of sexual delight to lure Tianqing into helping her, Xiao Wu has nothing to offer. Her suffering stands starkly alone, unable to offer itself for complicity in an unspoken agreement of mutual benefit. At first no one is touched by Xiao Wu’s plight; in fact, she is only in the way for Lao Zhao, his unnamed fiancée, the fiancée’s son by an earlier marriage, and Xiao Wu’s absconded father. When his fiancée complains about the difficulty of taking care of the blind girl, Lao Zhao flatters her for being so kind, declaring that were it his decision, he would send Xiao Wu back to her father. His initial gesture of helping Xiao Wu has more to do with his desire to meet the expectations of his fiancée than with any altruistic concern. The two-males, one-female triangle that exists in Zhang Yimou’s first four films has transformed itself in Happy Times, where the triangle becomes two women (the fiancée and Xiao Wu) and one man. Lao Zhao takes on the role of the good male, and the fiancée slips into the position formerly assigned to the evil male characters. Even more importantly, although like the other good males Lao Zhao is motivated by sexual desire, it is focused solely on his fiancée, not on the vulnerable female

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who desperately needs his help. The choice of a thin, childlike actress (Dong Jie) to play the blind Xiao Wu enhances the character’s innocence and removes her as a target of Lao Zhao’s sexual desire.3 As a result, a possibility that never existed in the Red Trilogy emerges: he has an opportunity to help Xiao Wu simply because he wants to do so, not because he is attracted to her. He can, if he wishes, completely deny self-gain in favor of pure human empathy. The elimination of an erotic connection between Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu, which motivated Tianqing to help Judou, also alters the bidirectional gaze. Although in Happy Times we find issues of seeing and being seen, the film does not insert Xiao Wu into a transactional erotic economy as Judou did with the female protagonist. Judou must barter her sexual charms for her life, whereas Xiao Wu cannot. Her utter lack of options becomes thoroughly clear to the viewer through several scenes in which she appears to be at the mercy of her physical limitations: when she hurries to the bathroom, unaware that anyone is watching; when she touchingly describes the brain tumor that resulted in her blindness; when she sweetly acts as a massage therapist in the fake hotel; when she desperately searches for familiar objects in the room her stepmother has redone for her son; and when she stands amidst speeding cars, having rushed away in despair and anger (see figure 23). She is filmed often rubbing her fingers as if anxious and afraid. The three primary differences between Xiao Wu and Judou—the removal of the erotic attraction/vulnerability continuum, the blindness or inability to look back, and the heightening of sensual perception, or the superpowers—suggest that the creation of Xiao Wu is a twist in the allegory of cultural performance, continuity, and the possibility of a new future. Considering that sexual allure has been transferred from the vulnerable woman who needs help to the insufferable and unattractive fiancée, thus opening the door for help based only on empathy, it is not surprising that critics find in Happy Times a tendency toward the identification of an ethical vision among ordinary people, and a marked departure from the visually dramatic allegory of the earlier films. In his

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analysis of the film’s devastating portrayal of the extensive reach of capital into all aspects of human life, David Leiwei Li (2007) nonetheless locates some redemption in the daily choices of commoners.4 Li examines what he describes as the director’s move away from sovereign subjects toward the average person struggling for survival under the onslaught of a new system that rapidly gobbles up earlier forms of social life, as indicated by the shuttered state factory and the laid-off personnel. Highlighting the pervasiveness of the new capitalism, Li describes the social context as “an ascending cross-border consensus of culture after the end of the Cold War and the near disappearance of alternative political economies” (295). He contends that Zhang’s earlier films (he singles out Red Sorghum) focus on sovereign subjects as allegorical representatives of capitalism, but with Qiuju Goes to Court came a radical shift toward the masses that points to the director’s new interest in older types of social collectivity. Happy Times, then, offers the possibility of tapping the socialist experience to reconstruct a more human social contract that is based on nonexchangist values: “Unlike [Red Sorghum], Happy Times is not an allegory of able bodies achieving autonomy in the competitive market…Zhang Yimou is increasingly concerned with the endangerment of older forms of social collectivity and with the role of cinema in cultivating more humane and enabling communities” (304; 302). Although Happy Times and Red Sorghum have a similar allegorical form, Li finds Happy Times to be a significant “cinematic correction” of the director’s earlier fondness for capitalism and individualism, in that it offers a recovery of communal against exchange practices and values (304). Rey Chow (2004a) links Qiuju Goes to Court, Keep Cool, Not One Less, The Road Home, and Happy Times together as a move toward realism with, she also points out, a focus on commoners. As in the case of To Live, the implication is that the nation “is no more than a bunch of well-meaning, kindhearted people who collectively are putting on a show to appease the downtrodden and powerless” (684). Additionally, the film documents the appearance of “a new, relentless regime of power” that is none other than the encroachment of capitalism within which seeing, like almost all

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forms of experience, has become part of the economy (685). However, the optimism of the film lies in its moral perspective, which shifts it from an ethics of visuality—Zhang’s earlier approach that Chow analyzed in her book Primitive Passions (1995)—to an ethics of postvisuality, in which it is ethical implication rather than a heightened visual aesthetic that has the power to lead to new knowledge (687). Chow finds it remarkable that the film removes from sight the claim to truth, clarity, and wisdom that is its philosophical inheritance, as well as the claim to authenticity and transparency, which is the legacy of realism and mimesis. If I understand their arguments correctly, both Li and Chow see in the film some resistance to what Li calls the disappearance of alternative economic systems. They identify a nonexchangist or ethical option that carries and projects the implication that even under these dire conditions, human beings can reject economic gain and material comfort, opting instead to reestablish and privilege community over money making. However, despite the insight that the readings by Li and Chow offer, the contradiction between mandatory capitalism and the hope for different social values—possibly emerging from the socialist past and certainly escaping the overarching framework of exchange value—is not resolved within the film. And as I explain later in this chapter, no matter which of the two endings we choose, the utter failure of Lao Zhao’s efforts to help Xiao Wu brands the supposedly more ethical, noncapitalized experiment as a disappointment. Like Li and Chow, I also find that the film provocatively addresses questions of vision, power, and community that similarly motivated some of Zhang Yimou’s earlier films. However, I question an interpretation that focuses on resistance, ethics, and alternatives emerging from the legacy of socialism. In terms of communal solidarity, although images of the laid-off factory workers devoting time and energy to Xiao Wu are gratifying, their effort appears from the start to be quixotic and unsustainable, and they ultimately fail to trick her into believing that she has a real job. They know and state that they are only buying time, a

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phrase that suggests the impossibility of this vision turning into a longterm solution. And although Lao Zhao eventually helps Xiao Wu without there being any benefit to himself, he is a reluctant traveler who enters the ethical utopia via selfish motives. “You all hate me…you’re doing it all for her,” Xiao Wu states as she and Lao Zhao sit on a bus, exposing the truth on her way to her first “job.” Lao Zhao comes across as a kind dreamer or loser whose biggest motivation is to find a wife. But once trapped, he does try to improve things for Xiao Wu, although the way he goes about it throws even more suspicion on the socialist legacy. We therefore must suspect that the ethical option is not a true prospect, but an actor brought in to play a part in the allegory of possibilities, with its success never likely or simply doomed from the start. In the very first scene of Happy Times, as Lao Zhao and his fiancée sit in a stylish café and she presents her terms for marriage, it immediately is apparent that the noninstrumental possibilities for human relations do not compare well to the capitalist cornucopia of wealth and material comfort (see figure 24). To further test and evaluate the poles of selfgain/self-sacrifice, individual/community, and performance/ethics, we need to take a closer look at the moments when a blind Xiao Wu and a seeing Lao Zhao come together. We also must investigate what I call superpowers. As Rey Chow (2004a) has suggested, one understanding of these nonvisual modes of perception is to view them as providing another way of knowing, which potentially could open the door to a richer ethical position. Despite this potential, it turns out that the special abilities to “see through” trickery that the film grants to Xiao Wu end up casting a light not only on her stepmother’s obvious cruelty, but also and in a more concentrated way, on the well-meaning deception that emerges from the socialist world view. The socialist past, Happy Times implies, is barely hanging on, and offers no hope or possibility for redemption in what has become an almost thoroughly capitalist society.

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Superpowers and the Residue of Socialism In 1916, Hu Shih wrote a classical-style poem on his birthday, imagining himself with the superpowers of an immortal. In the poem, he travels to Heaven and discovers magical drugs, unknown to other immortals, which he hopes to transport back to Earth and use to cure disease and illness. As Ying-shih Yü (1993) notes in his discussion of radicalization in China, “Obviously, his ‘Heaven’ is America and his ‘human world’ is China” (131).5 Expressing amazement that by the time Hu Shih returned to China after studying for seven years in America, he and others were able to regard earlier reformers such as Yan Fu, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Zhang Binglin, and Liu Shipei as conservatives or even reactionaries, Yü notes the way in which the “inner logic of the world of thought” was virtually unrelated to outside social realities (133).6 This gap between a utopian imaginary and a demanding and obfuscating material world also gives special meaning to the plot and construction of Happy Times, whose main character is still motivated by socialist ideas of language, community, and morality. Lao Zhao’s take on how humans should think and behave is so anachronistic as to be simultaneously amusing and pathetic, and yet also projects a nostalgic charm, especially when compared to the mercenary nature of his fiancée. This socialist residue, with its implications of a historical legacy burdened by both positive and negative connotations, does not exist in the Mo Yan story on which the film is based. Although the married Ding Shifu, the protagonist in the story, is initially slightly embarrassed by the sexual implications of the Happiness Hut, he quickly adapts and even joins in; not only is he titillated as he listens to the sounds of couples making love, but he also finds new sexual vigor himself. His sole concern is not whether what he is doing is right in any moral sense, but rather that the police will find out about his illicit business. The marriage proposal, the blind Xiao Wu, and the fake massage parlor do not exist in the literary text. In Lao Zhao we see a motivating layer of socialist habits of thought and ways of being in the world, and these bring together various performed

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illusions. The two sides of socialism—on one hand, the idealism that motivated belief in a positive future through self-sacrifice and communal life, on the other the artifice that sprang up to sustain that vision when the material world did not follow through—are in full effect. And, as in Hu Shih’s poem, a covert part of the illusion is the fantasy that help will come from the outside, miraculously solving the fissure between idealism and its actualization in a working social system. Lao Zhao has been laid off from his job, but through the application of revolutionary optimism in the evolving capitalist environment, he seeks a wife, apparently for the eighteenth time. In language that is reminiscent of Mao Zedong’s favorite fable, “The Foolish Man Who Moved the Mountain,” Lao Zhao tells his soon-to-be fiancée that even if he has trouble finding the money he needs for the wedding, he must “overcome difficulty.”7 “Comrade,” he calls out when the young couples shut the door of the broken-down bus that he and his friend Xiao Fu have remodeled as a love nest. “I forgot to tell you, you can’t close the door…this is regulated by the authorities!” Attributing his moral indignation at accepting money to provide a room where young people can have sex to an imaginary organization with rules emanating from above, Lao Zhao favors Mao-speak as a convenient mode of communication. In what may seem contradictory, Lao Zhao’s old-fashioned socialist language is both part of his genuine take on the world and also something he often invokes when he is actively lying to construct an illusion. This dissonance, however, refers to both the heartfelt idealism of Chinese socialism as well as to its deceits, which were embraced as temporary. His explanation to Xiao Wu that his modest apartment belongs to both him and to the workers—because they are like a big family—is an example of the studied hypocrisy of Lao Zhao’s socialist referents. But when his girlfriend asks where to put the flowers he has brought as a token of his esteem, he responds with genuine emotion that when party leaders visit a sick person, they put the flowers by the bed, so that is where they should go. Much as socialist culture at its worst made a show of pretense, with inflated quotas and hyped-up success stories, Lao Zhao works hard to

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present a false veneer that will make him appear more appealing to his fiancée, altering the cheap carnations to look like expensive roses, wearing the same high-quality shirt at every visit despite his poverty, complimenting her bratty son, and bragging that he is the manager of a large hotel when he is, in fact, unemployed. The merits of the fiancée, which appear as deficits to the audience—obesity, vulgarity, cruelty, as well as her two previous marriages and selfish son—he interprets as positive, noting that thin women do not provide the coziness he needs, that she has deep life experience, and that after all, the boy is still a child. When Lao Zhao’s friend Xiao Fu comments on the fiancée’s weight, however, Lao Zhao admits that thin women do not like him, exposing his optimistic understandings as part of a strategy. Although Lao Zhao’s optimism may be based on a socialist legacy of shining, if thin, façades, he comes across as a fundamentally good person trying to do more than he can accomplish—a well-intentioned loser rather than simply a liar. The film’s approach to the socialism that built and sustained the lived past—and that still powerfully informs Lao Zhao’s personality, directs his social understanding, and drives his behavior—is mixed. While recognizing honest intent, intellectual respect, and emotional affiliation, it also suggests that socialism was tainted with profound deceptions of all kinds. The in-between position of Lao Zhao and, to a lesser degree, his friends, speaks to this near-schizophrenic split. We see, for example, that Xiao Fu has less “residue” than does Lao Zhao. He lives in a well-outfitted. spacious apartment that contrasts with Lao Zhao’s small place, and often tries to escape the attentions of his former colleague. For Xiao Fu, Lao Zhao functions as a link to the socialist past under the evolving conditions of capitalism, which means that their former relationship demands that Xiao Fu help Lao Zhao, while he also must refuse to simply hand over money, which would violate the implicit rules of the new mandate. He therefore becomes Lao Zhao’s initial guide into this new world, developing the idea of the Happiness Hut, Lao Zhao’s first capitalist endeavor.

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When the bright red paint inside the Happiness Hut is dry, the donation box inside reads “Let your conscience be your guide,” expressing the difficult coexistence of the older moral code with the new entrepreneurial spirit. “I would rather not get married than let them lock the door,” Lao Zhao proclaims to his partner. But Lao Zhao may not be as pure as he claims to be. The second set of customers gives him one hundred yuan to purchase a watermelon for them, which would involve leaving the wooded area of the Hut to find a vendor. This pretense is so easy to decipher—and Lao Zhao himself wryly comments that the amount is out of line with the cost of a watermelon—that we have no choice but to suspect that even though Lao Zhao seems truly troubled by the breech in moral values, he is also perfectly willing to be tricked. Self-benefit plays a part here as well: he accepts the money and uses the opportunity to get away to call his fiancée. Thus sexual desire paves the way for systemic transformation, as we have seen in some of Zhang Yimou’s earlier films. The ease with which the ploy is perpetrated suggests that Lao Zhao embodies both the positive and negative aspects of the past. At this point, the strong presence of socialist mores in Lao Zhao’s personality works in two directions: on one hand, his moral perspective prevents him from making the money he needs, and on the other, he is full of well-meaning subterfuge. He has at his fingertips all the tools of deception and illusion common to socialist culture. When he approaches Xiao Fu for help in finding a job for the girl, her blindness becomes an advantage for the schemers. Much as the construction of positive appearances designed to transfer the utopian future into the present drove the socialist ethic, Xiao Fu realizes that all they need to do is to pretend that they have a job for Xiao Wu. The building of a pretense, veneer, surface, or sensory façade is the gist of their machinations. “Whatever you tell her, that’s the way it is,” Xiao Fu proclaims. The first deception is the attempt to convince Xiao Wu that the Happiness Hut is in fact a hotel where she can work. The strategy Lao Zhao uses resonates uncannily with those of socialism’s weak side:

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interpret lack as surplus, negative as positive. “The older and more broken down it is, the more people like it,” he tells Xiao Wu as he leads her through the trees to the Happiness Hut. When they arrive, however, workers are “beautifying” the area and hauling the Hut away. To hide the ruse, Lao Zhao pretends to be a disgruntled manager who was not informed of renovations. But he does not succeed in fooling Xiao Wu, who informs him on the way home that it did not sound like renovations to her. At this point, Lao Zhao is still focused on his efforts to appease his fiancée, and he appeals to Xiao Wu for help. He does not want to have to tell his fiancée that he has failed in finding a job for the burdensome girl. To support his marriage proposal, he must appear to be doing everything he can to help his fiancée resolve this problem. But his attempts to get the girl to cooperate meet with failure. She has become suspicious and refuses to prop up his deception. When they arrive at the fiancée’s apartment, she has been doing renovations of her own, fixing up the room that Xiao Wu once stayed in for her son, abolishing clutter, and replacing her old socialist-style decor with bright new pieces with minimalist lines. Implying future sexual rewards for Lao Zhao, the fiancée implores him to let the girl stay at the hotel, insisting that there is no room for her in the apartment. Xiao Wu runs out of the apartment and at his fiancée’s urging, Lao Zhao gives chase. She calls out behind him, “Don’t bring her back here again.” This is a crucial moment: should there be any doubt that Lao Zhao has his own self-benefit in mind, his attempt to kiss his fiancée while her son lies asleep in her lap serves to expose the motivations of both Lao Zhao and his fiancée. She claims inconvenience, a malleable term in this case implying the inability of the couple to become intimate without a private place. Thus, Xiao Wu’s eviction becomes necessary for the marriage to reach consummation, and by withholding her affections, she transfers this responsibility onto Lao Zhao. However, although it is true that until Xiao Wu runs off, Lao Zhao’s assistance is for his own benefit, at this point he changes. “I know you don’t trust me, but I’m different from her,” he implores Xiao Wu after he guides her out of the middle of the street,

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where she stands alone amidst speeding cars. “I’m disappointed in her too,” he says, referring to his fiancée. Lao Zhao appears to have gained some perspective on his desire to appease his fiancée and thereby pursue marriage and its sensual pleasures no matter what the greater human cost. But now he has another problem: his fiancée has ordered him to not bring Xiao Wu back, and yet he has no other place for her to stay; the hotel is, after all, only a figment of his greater deception. He thus takes Xiao Wu back to his small apartment. Here he keeps up the ruse, claiming first that it is his, and when she questions the lack of expensive appliances, again resorting to socialist jargon and stating that it belongs to the workers and to him as one happy family. Lao Zhao leaves Xiao Wu in his apartment and goes off to find another place to sleep. He soon realizes that he has forgotten his blanket and thin rattan pad. In one of the most stunning sequences of the film, Lao Zhao fails to make his escape before Xiao Wu, dressed only in an undershirt and underpants and looking very much like a child, emerges from the shower and walks through the living room on her way into the bedroom. Although she cannot look directly at him and thus cannot deliver a return gaze to force recognition on both Lao Zhao and on the audience, the vulnerability that Judou expressed to Tianqing is contained in her slender body and child’s underclothes, as well as in her tentative forward motion as she moves through the apartment. With each step, Lao Zhao backs up, fearful that she will discover him (see figures 25–28). Just as Tianqing gazed at Judou, Lao Zhao can see Xiao Wu. Although Judou knows that Tianqing is there, he does not know that she knows until she bares her wounds to him. Xiao Wu cannot see Lao Zhao, and despite her superpowers, she does not sense his presence. This is, then, truly a one-way gaze, but a gaze that neither objectifies its target for its own pleasure nor enhances ethical self-awareness, at least not in any obvious way. Rather, Lao Zhao is afraid that he will be “seen,” and the audience is invited to share this discomfort. Camera angle, lighting, and perspective make Xiao Wu’s head appear bigger than it should be, giving her a slightly unreal presence. Despite her childlike immaturity, Xiao Wu’s round, flat face and blindness allow her

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to aggressively take control of the cinematic space as she moves through the room. Almost without any decision on his part, just putting one foot in front of the next, Lao Zhao has committed himself to the deception, which backs him helplessly into the bedroom, where he ends up sleeping outside on the balcony. While the scene alerts us to the no-return-gaze situation, Lao Zhao’s seemingly innocent quandary also teases out a visual see-or-be-seen logic of the socialist legacy. This performance of socialist values includes the careful sculpting of presentation that was one aspect of living in China during the Maoist period.8 With the destruction of the Happiness Hut, Lao Zhao moves on to a new idea, again using the approach of “let’s pretend.” Enticing his fellow workers to construct a fake massage parlor so Xiao Wu can believe she has a job, the workers, once gainfully employed in a state-run factory, quite literarily construct the new bogus business with the cast-offs of the old socialist economy, itself once built on the repeating myth of wildly successful production that would overtake England, America, and other advanced industrial societies. Lao Zhao makes every effort to construct a convincing scene, sending his friends through with eyes shut to feel out problems. While Xiao Wu temporarily is convinced that she is working in a massage parlor, when the tape that Lao Zhao’s friends have recorded to mimic the sounds of the street suddenly stops, she begins to wonder where she really is. She initiates an investigation of her surroundings and learns not only that there is no ceiling to the massage room, but also that once she steps out of the door, she is in a quiet place, not along a busy street as the recording implied. The film’s far-away shot of Xiao Wu standing at the door of a rusty, run-down factory with weeds growing outside is a snapshot of the actual situation (see figure 29). This is the reality that Lao Zhao and his comrades are trying to hide. By this point, the film in totality begins to appear as an allegory of socialist production and society, in some part from the past, and in some part as it exists under the new conditions of global capitalist expansion.

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It is shortly after Xiao Wu grasps how she has been tricked that Lao Zhao runs out of money. His former coworkers, all retired or laid off, have little to contribute. His attempts to borrow money from the work unit do not succeed, and we can hardly fail to note the “work” that his superior is doing, reading a paper and drinking tea as he tells Lao Zhao to go ahead and fill out a form even though there is no money to be had. The pretend work that Xiao Wu is doing resonates with the work of the superior, who has nothing left to do now that the factory is about to be demolished. Although Lao Zhao and his comrades go to great lengths to make sure that the sensory input of the fake massage parlor is accurate, visiting a massage parlor to see exactly what it feels and sound like, finding fabric to cover the metal walls, and recording street sounds to play in the old factory, they eventually resort to cut-up pieces of paper to stand in for money. Xiao Wu runs her fingers across the money, feels its edges, and brings it to her nose to smell it (see figure 30). Although she smiles and there is no indication that she has learned that the money is a replica, Xiao Wu later informs Lao Zhao that he should never have imagined that he could trick her with paper. The girl’s ability to discern between real and fake money is an important moment. It is money—the harsh symbol and mechanism of capitalist exchange—that brings the fantasy of socialist camaraderie and community screeching to a halt. The goal of the workers is to continue the deception until some other means of handling Xiao Wu can be found. This emphasis on delay encourages us to extrapolate and consider both the ruse and Xiao Wu’s discovery metaphorically. Xiao Wu’s superpowers allow her to pierce through the idea of delay. Yet there is another kind of delay: the postponement of material improvement that was common under socialism, where the economy was based on a utopian imaginary that figuratively transported the wealth of future production into the present. Even before this incident, of course, the issue of money is never far from the surface, since the entire narrative is structured around its absence or scarcity. The outrageous price of imported ice cream, the cost of the wedding, and the sale of Lao Zhao’s television to raise money all point

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to the problem. Each step along the way of her journey from being a nuisance to gainful employment, independence, and knowledge becomes an opportunity for Xiao Wu to see through the subterfuge: she can tell the paper bills are phony, she understands that Lao Zhao is not a manager, and she hears him enter the apartment and remove something. Through memory and touch, Xiao Wu recognizes that the television is gone. The camera lingers on her face to show her breaking understanding of the larger situation suggested by these realizations. Through the combination of her blindness and her ability to discern the truth via her other senses, Xiao Wu escapes the grip of the wide-ranging deception, in which the do-gooders deploy every physical, emotional, and intellectual strategy that they can think of. It is only Xiao Wu’s ability to “see through” to the truth that allows her to shatter this feat of comprehensive environmental engineering. Considering the workers’ careful construction of reality and the intricate fabric of props they arrange, as well as the film’s attempt to bring a query directed at socialist practices into a very different story by Mo Yan, we may want to connect the Maoist idea of “correct ideas/knowledge” to the overall situation. Proposed in a talk by Mao Zedong in 1963, “correct ideas/knowledge” reached an extreme during the Cultural Revolution, spanning a meaning that ranged from thorough acceptance of and identification with certain ideals, to playing along, which itself ranged from hope to cynicism.9 Although Xiao Wu’s face expresses surprise when she realizes she has been tricked, she vacillates between appreciating the efforts that Lao Zhao and the others make on her behalf and thus playing along, and recognizing the innate falseness and unsustainability of the endeavor. Zhang Yimou prepared two endings to Happy Times, one for the showing in China and another for abroad. In neither ending does Xiao Wu continue her “work” for the laid-off factory employees, indicating that the experiment in community building will not continue. In the domestic version, she and Lao Zhao are left alone with no means of continuing the deception; in the international version, she walks off alone. Possibly, Xiao

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Wu will continue her search for her father, who told her when he left that he would find employment and a cure for her eyes. The imaginary that locates this cure in either the United States, as Xiao Fu says, or from Beijing, as Lao Zhao corrects him, is a central theme through which the film brings in a non-local, outside measure of progress.10 The externality of modern medicine and the implied necessity of economic growth that underlies it forces a comparative context that Xiao Wu, Lao Zhao, and Xiao Fu all recognize, bringing into relief the pressure that the new economic regime puts on the old.11 It is through Xiao Wu’s ability to discern both her actual situation and the existence of an outer structure that makes her our guide as we slowly comprehend that Happy Times is indeed a devastating allegory of socialism that investigates the reasons why it is impossible, at the present moment, to locate the hope of a future within its ethical framework.

Gaze Theory and the Meaning of Performance In a 1975 article that has become a film theory classic, Laura Mulvey (1999 [1975]) described the “male gaze” as a masculine point of view that confers power and mastery. The male gaze is structured by active/looking and passive/being looked at and is heavily gendered, with implications of pleasure in looking and pleasure in being looked at. Mulvey describes the three different “looks” specific to film—the camera, the audience, and the characters—that produce a sense of reality: The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience. Without these two absences (the material existence of the recording process, the critical reading of the spectator), fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth… The camera becomes the mechanism for producing an illusion of Renaissance space, flowing movements compatible with the human eye, an ideology of representation that revolves round the perception of the subject; the camera’s look is disavowed in order

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The “controlling and curious gaze” that takes others as objects and subjects them to voyeuristic scrutiny is enhanced, Mulvey argues, by the darkened theater, which produces the “illusion of looking in on a private world” (835–836). In this gendered, eroticized arrangement, the male role assumes a greater-than-life agency, becoming “the active one of forwarding the story, making things work” (838). Women become passive raw material for the active gaze of the male protagonist, and the audience; they are the essence of “to-be-looked-at-ness” (843). The male gaze, which Mulvey later qualified as the only gaze available, is political and ideological, structuring power relations along gendered and erotic lines.12 The epigraph of this chapter is from the work of Todd McGowan (2013a), who argues that the “capitalist gaze” naturalizes a choice by implicitly linking it to human nature. That link provides a rationale for the failure of communism—which supposedly violated the rules of human nature—and for the success of capitalism—which emerged from the essence of human biological nature, or self-interest and its corollary, competition.13 The political decisions that actually produced the capitalist system itself then vanish, leaving a sense that things are the way they are by nature. Within an economic system that normalizes into the “way of the world” or the “background of pure animality,” sight and vision play an important role, boosting the illusion of naturalness, according to McGowan (7, 9): This appearance of naturalness is more pronounced in the visual field than in any of the other sensory fields. While touch, taste, hearing, and smell often result from an evident and active decision—someone moves forward to embrace us or bakes us a cake to eat, for instance—sight most often makes use of what lies before our eyes apparently without any act that forges what we see. In the other sensory fields, it is easier to discern the subjective distortion or decision that constitutes the field…With vision, the situation is

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much more difficult. What I see and how I see it appears to exist in front of my eyes, and the role that my desire plays in constituting this scene is not at all evident. The vision field, in other words, does not appear distorted by desire. I assume that others, standing where I stand, will see what I see in the way I see it. Vision, in other words, does not seem to be just a question of taste. The illusion of naturalness renders the subjective distortion of the visual field— its reliance on our act of seeing to constitute it—almost impossible to detect. But it is not quite impossible. We see this distortion of desire primarily in works of art such as films or paintings, where the constitutive role of our subjectivity can become more prominent…The gaze is political in the sense that its exposes the unnatural status of the apparently natural visible world.14 (10–11) McGowan argues that our investment as spectators skews the visual field, but we are oblivious, generally perceiving it as naturally the way it is rather than as a result of our decisions (13): “Visual reality successfully presents itself as a background against which and in which we desire rather than as a field thoroughly colored by our desire” (17). Discussing work by Laura Mulvey, Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry, and others, McGowan (2003) shows how these foundational film theorists have worked within a misunderstanding when they claim that “film, like the mirror stage, is an imaginary deception, a lure blinding us to an underlying symbolic structure. Within their methodology, the gaze becomes the key to the deception that takes place in the cinema. Hence, the task of the film theorist becomes one of combating the illusory mastery of the gaze with the elucidation of the underlying symbolic network that this gaze elides” (28). McGowan contends that this approach, derived from the work of Jacques Lacan, overlooks Lacan’s later revision, which considers the gaze not as mastery but as the moment when mastery fails. Cinema and art, then, nudge the gazer enough that the tendency to understand and master according to a dominant narrative is shaken. Another participant in gaze theory comes from postcolonial criticism, which begins from the observation that “colonized bodies were indeed filmed as entomological or zoological specimens” (Amad 2013, 49). The

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right to look without being looked at, as well as the disciplinary power that comes from looking, according to Paula Amad, is counteracted by the return gaze or the “evidence of the camera being acknowledged by the subjects filmed” (51). Amad develops the term “visual riposte” to designate not just the return gaze, but intent within the subject to challenge the camera’s dominance or, “the refusal of spectatorial gaze theory” (52; 62). Citing difficulty in knowing what the return gaze signifies, problems with being embedded within Western discourse, and overuse in avant-garde film, Amad points out that only after World War II did the return gaze become “possible, inevitable, desirable, fashionable, or fetishizable” (60). Yet even with the negative connotations of several of those terms, she rejects the idea that the theory of the return gaze is nothing but a fantasy of Western guilt. Ultimately she ends up confirming the value of the postcolonial return gaze as a mode of questioning that the field of film studies has not yet undertaken: It is precisely this unfinished, nondeterminate questioning, rather than too easily presumed condemnation, of visual evidence, that film studies still owes to postcolonial theory and its application for colonial history…If the tactic of visual riposte is to be more than the automatic redemption of the early cinema’s sins or another opportunity to condemn vision tout court, then it must be mobilized in a context that resists assuming, and restarts the more difficult task of interrogating, the relation between colonial vision and power. (73) These three gazes—the male gaze, the capitalist gaze, and visual riposte as a demanding return gaze—are relevant to my analysis of Happy Times in different ways. The film straddles two economic and cultural regimes, a transitional position that, despite showing a clear temporal direction, disallows the audience complete identification with either. The male gaze, or the perspective of Lao Zhao, which could be assumed by the viewing audience, is made schizophrenic through its allegiance to these two regimes, the socialist arena and the new encroaching capitalism. The later sphere, wherein lies the future, contains Lao Zhao’s dreams

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of libidinal pleasure and the wealth necessary for their realization. Here also lies the imagined cure to Xiao Wu’s blindness, which is located either in Beijing, a city standing in for a more advanced China, or in America, the site of hypermodernity. On the negative side, excessive focus on self-benefit and the pursuit of style, or the modern “look” that Lao Zhao’s fiancée has captured in her redecorated apartment, as well as disregard for the suffering of others, also belongs to this realm. The obesity of the fiancée and her son also points to consumerist “stuffing” under the capitalist regime.15 Countering is the socialist location of value within the community, a perspective rooted in a vision of caring and helping others, in common moral standards, and in a collective history that has produced affective bonds and a shared world view not based on consumerist accumulation. Yet on this side we also see many lies, tricks, and avoidances as the performance of socialism overtakes its reality. The pretense of work when no work is to be done is the key deception that is carried from the receding world of socialist relationships into the new arena, where the laid-off do-gooders build, participate in, and gaze on the pretend job that Xiao Wu undertakes. The male gaze in its erotic dimension, or Lao Zhao’s active search for a marriage partner, charts the road into the sphere of money-making, and this is one way in which the capitalist gaze becomes relevant to Happy Times. In the transitioning environment, Lao Zhao’s search for marital happiness naturalizes the overarching value of making money and the visual pleasure associated with this normalization. In the initial scene of the film, the visual glory of capitalism comes to the viewer in the café, made delightful, enticing, modern, and all-encompassing by the natural plants framing the image, the ornate furniture, the detailed stain-glass chandeliers, the cars and high rises in the background, the fiancée’s gorgeous red outfit, and the smiling coy interaction between the two lovers. Sight and blindness are themes that inform the large and small, with Xiao Wu’s blindness figuring as the central motif and other smaller issues of sight.

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Lao Zhao’s fiancée and her son are emblems of capitalism: conniving, selfish, cruel, and focused on appearances. Their avarice contrasts with the innocence of Xiao Wu, who is motivated by affection for her father and belief in his promise. She lives in a world of childhood innocence that is ripe for trickery. Even so, the bogus job that the comrades develop for Xiao Wu is sustainable only through the girl’s blindness, collapsing when she uses touch and smell to discern the authenticity of the fake paper money. Although her inability to see allows Xiao Wu to fall for the ruse that she can support herself, it is money—the indicator, symbol, and lubricant of capitalism—that prompts her other senses to spring into action and discern the truth. Xiao Wu’s first glimmer of the root of her deception comes when she realizes that in going to so much trouble, Lao Zhao and his friends actually care for her. As this knowledge dawns on her, she smiles in satisfaction. The second understanding, however, is devastating. Symbolized by Xiao Wu’s frail body with the defunct factory behind and weeds growing in the front (see figure 29), this shot is filmed from a distance that implies a comprehensive vision. It focuses on the larger situation within which the goodwill effort is doomed to fail, and on Xiao Wu’s developing understanding that she is helpless in the new system of exchange value. In McGowan’s terms, the “fakers,” who themselves are slowly being absorbed into the capitalist regime, can, with a great deal of labor, distort and conceal the brutal and cruel conditions to some degree. They manage to convince Xiao Wu that she has launched into a capitalist mode of independence and self-sustaining work. Although the comrades by and large are happy to participate in the trick, they call Lao Zhao on the unsustainability of it several times, and often seem irritated by his demands. At one point, in order to get them to continue, he has to threaten them with the police, stating that since they have gone along up to this point, they will be blamed if something happens to Xiao Wu. Their grumbling points the finger at Lao Zhao as the ultimate embodiment of false hopes. Although blindness has allowed Xiao Wu to be fooled, it also allows for her other senses to reveal the truth, not only for her but for everyone involved. In this way, Xiao Wu

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is more able to see than is Lao Zhao, who fails to realize that under the new system he is identical to the blind girl, with little to exchange and therefore no hope of finding a wife. Because he is both formed by and immersed in illusion and also without means to fulfill his desires in the new society, Lao Zhao cannot help the blind girl in any sustainable way. The various gazes and performances suggest that Happy Times is a powerful allegory of socialism under the new conditions. The film asks whether it is possible to go back in time, recoup the values of the socialist past, and move into a sustainable future, or to in any way live outside the massive transformation that capitalism has wrought. It is here that the third gaze, the challenging return gaze or visual riposte, and the staging of performance, can reveal yet another degree of meaning. The play within a play in Happy Times consists of the entire deception of Xiao Wu, and in particular her fake employment in the massage salon. She is the unwitting performer, and the workers who help Lao Zhao set the salon up are the viewers (see figures 31–32). This performance, which consists of the actor unknowingly playing a part in a prearranged play, parallels the relationship of the “actor” in the colonial films described by Paula Amad. Just as the performances of the colonized evoke a heartening warmth in the minds of the colonizers, Xiao Wu’s “work” provides a comforting spectacle to those whose factory could not make the transition from socialism into capitalism. The former factory workers happily find their self-value confirmed in Xiao Wu’s performance, and they struggle to keep that relationship of knowledgeable spectator to innocent performer alive. However, is there a return gaze or any form of visual riposte? The answer to that question draws us to the moment when Xiao Wu realizes that she is not really working. Her choice upon this realization shifts the grounds of the gaze to the nature of the performance itself. When Xiao Wu hears the disruption in the soundtrack, she launches into action, finding a long stick to probe for the non-existent ceiling of the massage parlor and eventually making her way outside the building and coming face to face with her true situation. Despite this new awareness,

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which lays bare her manipulators’ intent and her role in the performance, Xiao Wu decides, with some ambivalence, to continue as if she does not understand. This decision snatches agency from the laid-off workers and their leader, Lao Zhao, and places it squarely in Xiao Wu’s hands. In her decision to continue the farce even though she knows she is not working for wages, Xiao Wu prioritizes the goodwill that Lao Zhao and the others are extending to her through their efforts. Although she does not return the gaze, she concocts the continuation of her performance for their benefit, essentially establishing the conditions for them to watch her. In term of “return” or “riposte,” we also could say that by continuing her work even though she knows she is not accomplishing her goal of earning wages, Xiao Wu momentarily shines a harsh light on the capitalist endeavor. To substitute this warm human feeling in exchange for finding her father and curing her eyes, however, is not a possible long-term solution. As I have mentioned, Happy Times features two endings, one for Sony Pictures and the international audience, in which Lao Zhao is hit by a truck and at the brink of death, and the other, for the domestic Chinese audience, in which the abandoned factory is demolished, leaving Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu standing by the massage table. Both versions feature the reading of a fake letter written by Lao Zhao to Xiao Wu in the voice of her father. The imaginary father of the letter promises all of the fatherly comfort and support that Xiao Wu needs. As David L. Li (2007) states, both “denouements pronounce the apparent death of utopia and an end of happy times” (308). However, because Xiao Wu strikes out on her own in the international version, he sees a conflicted affirmation of selfsufficiency, independence, and the efficiency of the market, whereas in the domestic version, the destruction wrought by capitalism is clearly depicted, leaving the bond and relationship between Xiao Wu and Lao Zhao highlighted against the social devastation, and establishing them as historical subjects (310). Li notes that “Old Zhao’s words of commitment and assurance to Wu hold tangible hope for their continuing affiliation despite the wreckage of the massage parlor. Happy Times shows us that

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the economic in the form of border-transcending capital has indeed played havoc with traditional psychic habits, but that the cultural as a mode of noncommodified difference and social practice is not entirely drained of its resistance” (310). Although it may be going too far to call this bleak ending “resistance,” the domestic version does point to a continuing if difficult relationship between Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu as the positive, life-giving residue of a once-embodied socialist experiment. When juxtaposed against Keep Cool, however, we see that in terms of charting a road into the future, the possibilities afforded to Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu, when compared to those afforded to Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng, have shrunken yet further. The latter friendship, also brought together by a letter at the end of the film, continues without deceit, hypocrisy, or ruse; despite profound differences, Xiaoshuai and Qiusheng genuinely enjoy each other’s company. For Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu, the fake letter stands in the way of recognizing and accepting the truth, an actuality that does not change in the version created for the domestic market. In other words, in order to recoup the past and move forward, Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu must reaffirm the hypocrisy of a loving father striving afar for the cure of Xiao Wu’s blindness. But if we try to regard the future for Lao Zhao and Xiao Wu as the symbolic prospect of an uncommodified lifestyle, or the progressive heritage of socialism, what remains as a positive legacy in either ending? Xiao Wu has little hope for employment and clings only to the imagined far-off agency of her father, whom she believes will rescue her and earn enough money for a cure for her blindness. The relationship with Lao Zhao does not successfully supplant that utopian expectation. The Sony international version is, in some ways, more brutal than the domestic ending, as it shows a young woman walking out into space with virtually no hope; in reality, the father has long since abandoned his daughter and the letters, like the job, the massage parlor, the roses, and the hotel, are fake.

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It is difficult, therefore, to read Happy Times as a move away from allegory. In this film, the narrow presentist scope of Keep Cool is placed against both a greater temporal range that includes the socialist past and the capitalist transformations of the contemporary world, as well as within a more expansive spatial environment that allows us to visualize the rusty abandoned factory shells dotting the land. The strategy of aesthetically enacting social questions through a staged performance permeates the film, and the relatively optimistic vision of Keep Cool— sustained only through the skewed lens of the present, the narrowed urban field, and the exclusion of the future—here takes on a more jaded hue. Happy Times revises Mo Yan’s novelistic approach to construct a new allegory, somewhat nostalgically confirming the impossibility of sustaining a healthy basis for life within the ideals and embodied past of socialism. Figure 23. Xiao Wu amidst speeding cars.

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Figure 24. The capitalist cornucopia.

Figure 25. Lao Zhao pressured by the presence of Xiao Wu.

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Figure 26. Lao Zhao further pressured.

Figure 27. Lao Zhao tries to retreat.

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Figure 28. Lao Zhao stuck in the room with Xiao Wu.

Figure 29. Xiao Wu outside abandoned factory.

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Figure 30. Xiao Wu smells the fake money with authentic factory surfaces in the background.

Figure 31. Former factory workers happily watch Xiao Wu working.

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Figure 32. Xiao Wu in fake massage parlor.

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Notes 1. “Save the children” is the last line of Lu Xun’s (1918) “The Diary of a Madman” and is generally interpreted as a plea to look toward the future, not the past. For an analysis of the role of children in China’s emphasis on evolutionary theory, see Andrew Jones (2011). 2. Daniel Rosenblum (1997) alludes to the joke in the title of his article on arrears in wages. See also Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw (2008). 3. In presenting this chapter in talks, I have run into suggestions that Xiao Wu is a prepubescent sexual object. While I understand that contemporary audiences may quickly see this possibility, and even that the director may be aware of such an interpretation, I see no evidence in the film to point viewers in this direction. We also should be cautious of the tendency in the West to interpret all representations as sexual, which is a legacy of Freudian theory (Larson 2009). 4. The emphasis on commoners has drawn a great deal of attention. In addition to the work discussed in this chapter, see Jun Bing (2003), who analyzes Happy Times, Not One Less, and The Road Home as exemplars of Zhang’s new interest. 5. See also Hu Shi (1988), 162–163. 6. It was not long after this that Hu Shih also was dismissed as a backward reformer in revolutionary China. 7. “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountain” was referred to in Mao’s concluding speech at the Seventh National Congress on June 11, 1945. 8. The Lei Feng phenomenon is a typical expression of this problem. After Lei Feng was killed and his diary revised and published, many seemingly ardent diaries were purposefully lost and found, bringing recognition to the apparently genuine expression of revolutionary idealism. See Larson (2008b). 9. Mao Zedong’s famous article, “Where do correct ideas come from?” was written in May, 1963 and translated in 1966. See Mao Tse-tung (1966). 10. Despite Lao Zhao’s insistence on locating a Chinese source of power and wealth, he also invokes foreigners when he tells Xiao Wu that he lives in a mansion with foreigners all around. 11. The contemporary reluctance of Chinese citizens to reject capitalism, with its material benefits, is not surprising. Only a small number of

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13.

14.

15.

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people who have the opportunity to engage in the benefits of modernity continue to scorn “progress,” sometimes forming societies (such as the Amish) or developing specific practices based on this rejection. One example is in the area of modern medicine, whose life-and-death significance is difficult to ignore. But modern medicine sometimes is shunned for religious reasons. In addition to these forms of direct resistence, however, various forms of critique often are built into all systems, and capitalism is no exception, and seek alternatives to the status quo. The development of “alternative” medicine, which has morphed into “complementary” medicine, which again has morphed into “integrative” medicine, is one such example. Integrative medicine practitioners choose treatments from all areas, including traditional Chinese herb medicine and acupuncture, sometimes avoiding the high cost of pharmaceutical remedies. See “What is Integrative Medicine?” In Roberta Sassatelli’s (2011) interview with Mulvey, Sassatelli asked the question, “So you can’t escape from the male gaze as it is ‘the gaze,’” Mulvey responds, “Yes…However, I would make the following points… People could and did watch a Hollywood film, against the grain” (128). McGowan (2013b) also argues that the dynamic of constant change is the same in both science and capitalism. Although McGowan overstates the relationship between vision and capitalism—all systems naturalize their values within various sensory spheres—he shows how the normalization of capitalism identifies and highlights certain qualities in the visual field. McGowan (2013a) argues that Jacque Lacan’s use of the term “le regard” to refer to the distortion that desire produces in the visual field opened Lacan “to a horrible misunderstanding that derailed Anglo-American film theory for decades” (10–11). In Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity, Robert Albritton (2009) analyzes the food industry from a Marxist perspective, arguing that capitalism simultaneously produces obesity and hunger.

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Chapter 8

Dismantling the Myth of Cultural Power Hero In terms of the domestic market, Hero is without doubt an extreme oddity, a fairy tale. There is now no way to calculate how many “firsts” it has achieved among Chinese films...At the same time, this film has met with unprecedented debate. From December 2002 to February 2003 we can only describe the newspaper, journal, radio, television, and internet media coverage and critique as “filling the sky and covering the ground” —Zhang Jianyong (2003, 5) When Nameless arrives at the Qin palace, he initiates a series of narrative interactions between himself and the king.1 What minimal physical evidence exists—Nameless’ apparent ability to put into action a special killing method that depends on proximity—indicates that the king’s alternative narrative, supplied to correct the initial explanation provided by Nameless, is most likely correct: Nameless is not an assassin-murdering imperial supporter as he claims, but is the best of the killers, a man who has woven together an intriguing set of encounters in order to make his way into the palace and close to the king. Yet if that is the case, why

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does Nameless at the final moment abandon his opportunity to kill the Qin king, who called himself the First Emperor and is now known as the First Emperor of Qin and the founding father of China? And before him, what happened to Broken Sword, who also lost his will in the process of fighting the king, describing his change of heart with one word, tianxia (天下; our land)? These questions, along with intense spectacle, heightened technical virtuosity, and self-contextualization within the martial arts or wuxia 武 俠 film tradition specific to Chinese culture, has turned Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002) into one of the biggest blockbusters and most widely discussed film productions of the last ten years.2 Along with Zhou Xiaowen’s The Emperor’s Shadow (1996) and Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin (1998), Hero sets as context a fundamental historical event, the founding of the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE and the unification of China, or the symbolic beginnings of the Chinese empire. As the first emperor of China, the Qin king to this day is known and vilified for having violently coerced the “Warring States” of Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qin into unification under his leadership. Because of this troublesome legacy, Qin Shihuang has long been plagued with a contradictory reputation. While he is given credit for pacifying the Warring States, linking northern fortifications—in the process creating an incipient Great Wall to protect China against the “northern barbarians”—and most importantly for creating China, he carried out his mission through ruthless suppression and the obliteration of difference. In the writing system, coinage, weights and measurements, and intellectual expression, the Qin emperor rigidly enforced standardization, outlawing different ways of writing the same character, enforcing legal codes with cruel punishments, burning contrary books, and killing dissident scholars. Qin Shihuang is a source of both pride and revulsion, and his nature and motivation, as well as his status as the first emperor, have been investigated and interpreted in many stories, plays, and films.3 As Yuri Pines (2014) puts it,

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Of manifold controversial figures in Chinese history, the First Emperor of Qin occupies pride of place. He is depicted alternatively as a hero or a villain—the proud creator of an empire that lasted for two millennia or the savage destroyer of China’s traditional civilization, a model universal ruler or a reviled tyrant. The controversy about his role and that of his short-lived dynasty in the history of Chinese civilization has continued unabated since the fall of the Qin, and it will no doubt continue for the foreseeable future, as it is fueled less by disagreement about basic facts of Qin imperial history than by conflicting moral and ideological evaluations of the First Emperor’s grand enterprise. As such, the ongoing debate over the Qin Empire concerns not just the past, but primarily, the present: it is the debate about how China is to be governed, how much autonomy is to be accorded to each of its parts, what role intellectuals should have in society, and what means are legitimate in restoring China’s glorious position as a powerful and awe-inspiring polity. (227) In Hero, although the refusal of first Broken Sword and then Nameless to kill the king pays reference to both a historical fact (the king was never killed by his would-be assassins) and a long interpretive history (the king’s accomplishments have produced a positive as well as a negative legacy), it also revises the xia 俠 code of honor (always fight on behalf of the weak against the strong) and contradicts another historical fact (there are no records of assassins deciding that the king was doing the right thing and losing their will).4 The two assassins’ rationale for letting the imperialistic king go is not completely clear, but after a tortuous process of self-cultivation and physical struggle, they both ultimately accept a concentration of power in the king and recognize something unavoidable or even commendable in his ability to unify the warring states, an apparent affirmation of violent and authoritarian state power for which director Zhang Yimou has been widely criticized. In the context of the two male assassins’ refusal to kill the king of Qin, Hero’s excessive pleasure in the delights of fantastical xia aerobatics, some argue, is a clear indication of the director’s acquiescence to the

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allure of fascist aesthetics, which has long been thought to represent the most damning example of the direction art goes when it becomes excessively politicized or linked to a regime of political violence. In a seminal analysis, Susan Sontag (1980 [1975]) argues that the work of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is essentially fascist in motivation. While somewhat lengthy, the following quote from Sontag’s article contains many of the key ideas of so-called filmic fascism: Fascist aesthetics include but go far beyond the rather special celebration of the primitive to be found in [Riefenstahl’s 1974 photographic book] The Last of the Nuba. More generally, they flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/things around an allpowerful, hypnotic leaderfigure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, “virile” posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death. Such art is hardly confined to works labeled as fascist or produced under fascist governments. (To cite films only: Walt Disney’s Fantasia, Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here, and Kubrick's 2001 also strikingly exemplify certain formal structures and themes of fascist art.) And, of course, features of fascist art proliferate in the official art of communist countries which always presents itself under the banner of realism, while fascist art scorns realism in the name of “idealism.” The tastes for the monumental and for mass obeisance to the hero are common to both fascist and communist art, reflecting the view of all totalitarian regimes that art has the function of “immortalizing” its leaders and doctrines. The rendering of movement in grandiose and rigid patterns is another element in common, for such choreography rehearses

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the very unity of the polity. The masses are made to take form, be design. Hence mass athletic demonstrations, a choreographed display of bodies, are a valued activity in all totalitarian countries; and the art of the gymnast, so popular now in Eastern Europe, also evokes recurrent features of fascist aesthetics; the holding in or confining of force; military precision. (91–92) That Sontag’s description of aesthetic fascism, as well as her pithy concluding statement—“The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the aim is ecstasy, the fantasy is death”—could apply to Hero has not been lost on commentators like Evans Chan (2004), who finds that the film has succumbed to the temptations of fascism.5 The film’s lack of character development and plot, as well as the abstraction of its locale and historical reality, also has provoked the criticism that it is little more than an apology for the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party.6 Similar to the leaders of China today, critics argue, the film presents Qin Shihuang as reasonably stating that “what looks like his cruelty, authoritarianism and oppression of his people is actually for their own good, so that he can enforce peace and unity to bring greatness to the people of China” (Harrison 2007).7 Although she recognizes the ambiguities of the film, cultural critic Cui Weiping (2007) still interprets its strategy as a kind of fascist aesthetics that produces its own singular pleasure; especially notable to her is the fact that the film contains no commoners, and does not project a sense of peace despite its overt ideological stance.8 Notwithstanding Zhang Yimou’s disavowal of political intent and publicly expressed surprise about the way in which Hero became a political hot potato, the film has been relentlessly attacked domestically and internationally for having “a deep servility inside,” for silently condoning Qin Shihuang’s slaughter of entire villages for “extolling despotism, unilateral militancy and misguided patriotic fever,” and for supporting “all the worse aspects of Chinese communism.”9 Other critics have been more circumspect in interpreting the film as working along one political line, and have insisted on its richness and

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ambiguity of meaning. Kevin Lee (2007) finds himself going back and forth between the view of the director as a “commercial hack who sells Orientalist imagery to push a pro-authoritarian Chinese agenda” and a “gifted visual and dramatic critic,” ultimately concluding that merely branding Zhang Yimou as a sellout is insufficient. Hero, Lee argues, shows Qin state formation as devastating and tragic, and he argues that popular appreciation of the film does not mean that the contemporary commoners were duped but speaks to more complex meanings in the film. Guan-Soon Khoo (2007) admits to mixed feelings upon seeing the film, especially its focus on the concept of “our land” (tianxia). Robert Y. Eng (2007) reverses the most common critique of Hero, claiming that “not only is it not a paean to authoritarianism, it is a sharp rejection of it.” Eng interprets Hero’s stark depiction of the Qin army as a critique of fascism, and finds no indications within the film that unification under the Qin will bring about justice and peace. Arguing that the master of the calligraphy school is the true hero of the film, Eng nonetheless does not provide an interpretation of the central dilemma and challenge of the film, and the one act that could instantly erase most criticisms: the decision by Nameless and Broken Sword to spare the king. Rather than agree with its sharpest critics that the relationship between the highly aestheticized, lyrical assassin world and the Qin empire is one of covert support (fascist aesthetics), I interpret Hero as theorizing the relationship between culture and aesthetics on one hand, and political power on the other, under the conditions of the nation-state and the “community of nations” to which modern countries belong, even as globalization is underway. It also includes a hypothesis about the role of culture under globalization that imagines the latter to be not a new political form, but a subtle extension of the nation-state structure. The global nation-state mandate is that each nation must have a set of distinct cultural practices, ideas, and forms that inspire love and delight in the homeland, are readily represented, and ideally, are powerful enough to lure and capture the gaze of the outsider while simultaneously appearing undiminished and authentic in the eyes of the insider.10 While

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contested, Benedict Anderson’s (1983) concept of imagined community to some extent springs from and is sustained by a shared notion and practice of culture, which can include language, traditional cultural forms, architecture and spatial organization, appearance, food and habits of consumption, kinship models, ways of understanding and existing within time and space, and in the contemporary world, tradition updated and reworked.11 The fundamental contradiction inherent in this mandate is that culture must be traditional enough to imply continuity with the past and yet modern enough to forge a path into the new global order. The question, then, may be not to what degree the film indulges in and expresses cultural nationalism, but what position it takes on the question of whether culture can really do its job in representing the “soul” of the people and the “essence” of the nation, thereby carving out a strong position for a meaningful representation of (in this case) China and its peoples among the cultures of the world.12 And yet, although the film foregrounds stereotypical manifestations of Chinese culture such as martial arts, music, games, and especially calligraphy and the uniqueness of the written language, it does not zero in on the particular value of Chinese culture as much as it delves into the role and nature of culture in a symbolic sense. Under both the nation-state political form, and under developing globalization where the nation-state may undergo modification in size or structure, can culture contribute to a strong modern foundation? Interpreting Hero as an inquiry into the viability of culture shifts the meaning of the seemingly obvious and clear-cut surrender of Nameless and Broken Sword toward recognition of the limits of culture, which is, I argue, a central position of the film. It aims the film’s binary of cultural versus political/military power toward a question seminal to the oft implicit and sometimes overt cultural positioning that exists in the nation-state model, which requires as a badge of authenticity that each nation have a distinct essence that expresses itself in culture, “marks” the nation and its inhabitants, and garners respect, equality, and power for the abstract entity and its concrete citizenry and territory.

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The confrontation between the Qin king and Nameless, therefore, is not just a struggle between two people but a meeting of worlds, each carrying its own logic. The film’s unreal two-world structure, presented to us as historically determined, argues against the possibility that agents who rely on a cultural foundation as their source of strength will win in the fight for political power. In this sense, the film’s critics are correct in stating that the assassins back down to political and military power. Yet the film’s emphasis is not so much on the inevitability of authoritarianism as it is on the limits of what culture can do, limits that can be understood both abstractly (for all nations of the world) and specifically (for China). By staging a conflict between a pure, direct, and undeniably violent form of political power in the Qin king and his warriors, and the culturally rich, evocative, ethereal xia, the film puts into contention two kinds of power that are supposed to be closely entwined and mutually supportive, exposing the fallacy of cultural integrity and its function at the foundation of the political state. Hero gives the lie to the importance of culture implicit in the nation-state political form—and still central in discussions of soft power and cultural imperialism under globalization—or more specifically, the implication that a unique and attractive culture will garner recognition and power for the nation, in the process dismantling one of the formative myths of culture in the modern period.

Two Kinds of Power The contrast between the two worlds of the Qin regime and the assassins is stark and shocking. The Qin military apparatus is visually and aurally presented as ruthless, mechanical, precise, robotic, and orderly, while the reconstructed scenes of the assassins, as imagined or remembered by Nameless and the king, are poetic, lush, emotional, and wild. This striking aesthetic contrast structures the film throughout, with frequent switches between visions of the Qin military machine and the assassins.13 Although Nameless represents the assassins and the king leads the imperialistic state of Qin, in order to fully understand and address the power that the

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other has, each moves away from the set of values that characterizes his area and toward the values of his opponent. Because of the mediation that occurs through this movement, the dichotomy between the two worlds and their representatives unfolds as a complex and subtle set of interactions through which the Qin king and Nameless recognize and toy with each other’s’ knowledge, understanding, and desires. The structure of the film is not straight-forward, but is presented mostly as a series of non-chronological imaginary or remembered scenes, often brought onto the screen through narrative exchanges between Nameless and the king and confused by story-within-story plot lines. Before I discuss the strategies and positions that Nameless and the king bring into their exchange, I want to highlight three aspects of the film’s structure and presentation. First, Hero presents one entire worldview— that of the xia—largely through the mechanism of story-telling. This is not true of the Qin regime, which appears not only in these visualized stories, but also at the beginning and end of the film. This structure, which brings the xia world to the viewer as springing into life almost entirely through narration—whether imagined or otherwise (with the sole exception of Nameless, who is shown traveling to meet the king and engaging in dialogue with him)—points to the constructed, idealized nature of the xia imaginary.14 It also dramatizes the central question that the film poses about culture, since the fighting xia, who deploy various cultural strategies to increase their power, can be thought of as culture at war. Second, as the two sharply conflicting worlds—the Qin world of uniformity, crudeness, mass behavior, military might, and allegiance to an authoritarian ruler, and the xia world of mystical cultural depth, subtlety, “home,” emotion, lyrical beauty, gorgeous landscapes, and the intrigue of desire—emerge as a symbolic thematic opposition that is strengthened by the lack of realism and character development, the xia gain the audience’s interest and sympathy. Although the king wins the struggle, the film sides heavily with the aesthetics and ethos of the xia, whose creativity and passion present a much more attractive and ethical position than does the cold militarism of the Qin regime. Finally, it is

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precisely the aestheticization of this contrast as highly visual, aural, and sensual that foregrounds the question of how one should interpret the lush lyricism of the narrated scenes, demanding that their highly crafted presentation be explained as more than just candy for the senses. The heightened aesthetic spectacle that the assassins provide is much more than a pleasant distraction or a cover, functioning as an integral part of the film’s central query into the meaning and power of culture.15 Hero brings the two kinds of power—itself enveloped within the historicizing text at the beginning and end of the film—into collision through the encounter between Nameless and the king. All of the imaginative flights of fancy visually spin off the stories that Nameless and the king tell. This structure may seem to indicate a clear positioning of overwhelming state power in the king and challenge to that power in Nameless, and thus motivate the critical outcry. Yet that effect is little more than an aura produced by the xia mythology and its translation into spectacular imagery. Both the assassins and the king embody power, but locate the source of their strength in different areas. As opposed to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), a film that often comes up in discussions of Hero, in this film only one story can win. This is because the film focuses on power as opposed to truth, oft claimed as Rashomon’s primary thematic emphasis.16 One kind of power represented in the film, political power backed by military force, can be attacked from without or eroded from within, but is basically crude and violent. Powerin-culture is anchored on a spiritual base and thus may appear to be more subtle and profound than power-in-politics. However, the skill of the xia relies on a violent, utilitarian deployment of the mythical power of culture, a contradictory twisting of a spiritual value toward a military end. At the same time, the king’s willingness to listen to stories and even concoct his own puts him in great danger. Whereas the xia capture and refine cultural spirit and turn it into fighting skill, concentrating it in a small number of magical yet troubled assassins, the Qin state militarizes the entire landscape, transforming thousands of commoners

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with individual characteristics into soldiers who all look, act, and talk alike. Because they fight, the xia edge closer to the ethical stance of the politically powerful, who through their leader make use of the tools of culture—imagination and narrative—to engage their enemy. What makes the encounter between these two worlds intriguing is not only the king’s exploitation of the cultural strategies of narrative and imagination in order to probe the nature of his opponent, or Nameless’ development of uncanny fighting skill in order to bring down the king. The two-world structure is complicated by the simple but much-debated fact that Nameless and Broken Sword develop the ability to win on the king’s turf both literally and figuratively—in other words, through physical combat—but voluntarily relinquish their potential victories. The process by which Broken Sword comes to this change of heart is mysterious, and with Nameless it is represented only through the imagined or remembered sequences, suggesting that is a fundamentally cultural or aesthetic process that relies on narrative, imagination, and visual enactments. The military power that stands behind political power is presented as straightforward. The film’s extreme depersonification of the CGI (computer generated imagery) soldiers who make up the Qin fighting machine, the monotony of their uniforms, the blank look on their faces, their precision in movements, and their vocal and unthinking call for the execution of Nameless present a devastatingly cold and brutal depiction. All of the film’s interest and spectacle lies with the assassins. Although they could not be more different than the Qin troops, when they must confront political power based on military might, the xia have no choice but to resort to physical violence. The visual enactments that spring directly from storytelling, which is the most productive part of the encounter between the king and Nameless, hold the key to Hero’s harsh stance on the viability of culture as a realm within which it is possible to craft a position of power. Therefore, I now turn to the narrated world

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and the relationship between narration and the spectacle, which will illuminate many aspects of the film’s position on cultural power.

The Narrated World and Aesthetic Excess Despite their apparent difference and the distance between the worlds they represent, both the king and Nameless have access to the same narrative-producing technique, and their stories, once expressed visually, feature the identical highly aestheticized cultural forms of fantastical martial arts, calligraphy, Chinese chess or go, music, and Daoist mental virtuosity. When they talk, both the king and Nameless initially unfold their strategies on the cultural field, where subjective and imaginary experience and the power of discourse reign, and scenarios spin out that experience, and imagination explodes into color, movement, and form as if it were real. Fighting in this world takes on the characteristics of the imaginative realm in which it is embedded, and these scenes are the most spectacular of the film. One important sign of the ultraaesthetic nature of the narrated world—and an indication that it can stand in as a metaphor of abstracted cultural essence—is the embellishment that the king and Nameless add to their stories. They seem to forget why they are telling the stories and their overt aim of understanding and/or manipulating the opponent, adding subplot upon subplot, presented to the audience as pleasure-producing visuals.17 These fanciful scenes are unnecessary to their goals and often seem counterproductive, but they raise the stakes by granting attractive and formidable powers to aesthetic imagination. They serve the dual function of foregrounding culture as the important grounds on which the battle (supposedly) will be decided, while at the same time showing how cultural representation seems to contain the seed of its own destruction in its tendency toward excess. In other words, embellished storytelling is a test of the way in which cultural power works: will it allow Nameless to kill the king and “win,” or will it fail? For example, Nameless describes a scene in which he and Sky mentally fight without movement in the courtyard, and relates the poetic fight of

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Flying Snow with Moon (literally “Like-the-Moon”) in a field of leaves. This gorgeous scenario is repeated and expanded upon by the king as he fabricates an imaginary battle over a lake between Nameless and Broken Sword after Flying Snow’s death. These three scenes all allow the poetic surplus of the cultural world to burst out in luxuriant imagery, and illustrate for the viewer the allure, for both Nameless and the king, of the creative urge toward the imaginary. The exuberant and colorful scenes allow the viewer the opportunity to fully indulge—sensually, emotionally, and visually—in the embodied world that underlies the xia mythology. The segments of the film imagined or remembered by Nameless and the king, many of which are color coded, could not be more different than the images of the Qin army and the king in his reallife surroundings (see figures 33–34).18 Movement in this world is fluid as opposed to static and architectural, and daily life is infused with highly expressive beauty in a drop of rain, the movement of a brush, the strategy of a chess game, or the sound of a qin 琴.19 Emotions and their alluring intrigues are allowed free rein, a deep loyalty to place and people informs daily life, and a nostalgic imaginary of “home,” a space without the contamination of political power enforced by violence, infuses the imagination. Time can readily slow down or speed up in this space, indicating that culture as envisioned in the film is strongly lodged within subjective experience. Fighting and violence in this world, however, are not only highly aestheticized, assuming the poetic, colorful, emotive qualities of culture at large. They are also developed to defend the very values that culture—in this case, exemplified as a unified view emanating from the state of Zhao—embodies and projects. In this sense, one aspect of the martial arts imaginary includes the fantasy that through its particular form, people can confront abuses of political and military power and restore the primacy of culture (i.e., daily experience, home, and lived aesthetic forms). Therein we find the carefully honed fighting skill that allows assassins such as Nameless, Flying Snow, and Broken Sword to approach the king. Whereas the Qin emperor and his military forces derive their power from wealth,

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organization, and authoritarian command, the xia gain power from a mysterious force inherent in deep cultural practice. In analyzing why audiences love the film while critics despise it, Hu Ke (2003) argues that Hero deploys a central social contradiction from daily life, the simultaneous existence of the worship of power and the dream of resistance. Implicitly referring to another contradiction within the xia imaginary, or the position of those who must deploy violence on behalf of their way of life or cultural values, Hu also interprets the film as an intellectual vision in which physical struggle is abandoned in favor of enlightenment. This, Hu claims, is a significant revision of the historical presentation of the xia figure. For intellectuals, Hu contends, Hero’s revisions to the stereotypical martial arts film bring to the surface the skills of negotiation and discussion, which are the tools of their trade. However, as he notes, the film ultimately favors fighting over language, picking up on a Chinese tendency to aestheticize violence, in this case by “mentalizing” it (23). Hu’s analysis alerts us to the strong sense of aesthetic creativity in the spoken and visualized narratives that spring to life between Nameless and the king. Another example of narrative embellishment occurs during the encounter between Nameless and the king. Nameless’ initial story is relatively direct and clear-cut: as a Qin supporter, he killed three anti-Qin assassins, and brings their weapons as proof of the kill when he comes in to claim his reward. His story is followed by a more convoluted tale generated by the king, who counters by claiming that the three assassins collaborated with Nameless in their own deaths to allow Nameless to get close enough to the king to kill him. Nameless responds by constructing yet another even more twisting account that accepts the king’s revision but alters it, through the faking of the three assassins’ deaths by means of a special sword technique Nameless has developed, and through the introduction, via Broken Sword, of the crucial concept tianxia, generally referring to all of the territory and peoples under one rule. The term also

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carries an emotive connotation, which comes through in the translated subtitles as “our land.”20 Why does Nameless introduce the third story? Although it provides details about the collaboration between the assassins, it does not change the fundamental reality that the king has discovered and narrates in his imagined tale: that Nameless is another assassin out to kill him. One significant aspect of the third story lies in the information it provides: Broken Sword’s “awakening” and subsequent refusal to kill the king. Additionally, we see the beginning of a position that the film takes on the weakness inhering in a political stance based on cultural power: narration itself, as an aspect of cultural life replete with poetic and visual creativity, has contaminated both Nameless and the king, the latter who nearly brings death on himself by continuing to spin tales after he has discovered the truth of Nameless’ mission. The tales themselves pique his interest and spur him to greater efforts. Neither the king nor the assassin can resist the persuasive call of the story, as Nameless continues to relate this third tale to the king. Similar to but even more extravagant and counterproductive than the aesthetic excess in which the king indulges, this third story is truly unnecessary if Nameless really wants to kill the king. He already is within ten paces. A passion for, identification with, and belief in the value and power of deep culture underlies the assassins’ ethos and practice and is clearly expressed in the imagined scenes, where culture includes the clear markers and practices mentioned earlier, as well as the common or daily life culture of strong emotion, a longing for love and “home,” and the importance of subjective experience in general. While Nameless’ narration initially begins as a strategy developed for the sole purpose of moving him toward his goal of killing the king, it spins out of control, allowing or promoting the erosion of his will and the destruction of his straightforward march. As I discuss in the next section, words, both in the form of discourse and in their graphic representation in the art form

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of calligraphy, are the simultaneous vehicle of the empowerment and downfall of both Nameless and Broken Sword.

Words and Transformation The notion that intrinsic to the basic cultural act of narration of the imaginary is a tendency toward excess and self-corruption becomes more relevant when we consider the narrated confrontation between Nameless and Broken Sword in which the latter tries to convince the former to spare the king. At this point, despite the pleas of Broken Sword and Moon, we see no wavering in Nameless. By the time he tells his third story to the king and relinquishes the chance to strike, something has changed his mind. Although initially more determined than Broken Sword, Nameless suffers from three encounters with words, all of which transform his will and deter his quest. The first is the king’s statement that he has no intention of stopping with the conquering of the Six Kingdoms. Although Nameless’ expression changes only subtly at such an admission, it clearly takes him by surprise. The second encounter with words, which predates the first within Nameless’ journey, is Broken Sword’s plea that Nameless consider the meaning of tianxia. This plea reappears when Nameless backs down from killing, and its invocation at this point, critics argue, is evidence that director Zhang Yimou, represented by his filmic minions Nameless and Broken Sword, has capitulated to the totalitarian vision. Indeed, the king learns about the writing of tianxia in the sand only because Nameless insists on bringing it into the story. And as Nameless sits before the king and even before he describes Broken Sword’s plea that he not kill the king, the flames of the candles begin to waver. As the king accurately states, Nameless is losing his will, and this hesitation has rippled outward from his mind with a physical effect, influencing the sensitive flames. The billowy silk cloths that the king hid behind and manipulated in his narrated fight with Broken Sword are gone, and the king sits on the throne in an unadorned hall, surrounded by the stone pillars and

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thousands of soldiers outside and his servants and bodyguards inside. While sitting before the raw power of the state, Nameless repeats the words that Broken Sword supposedly told him. The third encounter with words occurs when the king states that he will go much farther than just the Six Kingdoms, and that he will wipe out the nineteen ways to write the word “sword,” connecting narrative unification with subjugation. Nameless’ expression subtly changes, and he then quickly abandons his quest to kill the king of Qin. The film again identifies words, whose power is illustrated graphically in the imagined scenes and brought out through the structure of narration and discourse, as the crucial motivator through which Nameless loses his desire to kill the king. Hero offers many other clues to help us understand the nature of the confrontation. It should not be surprising that calligraphy stands in a pivot point as the aesthetic representation of the dangerous power of words. While Broken Sword has gone through in-depth training in calligraphy in order to hone his fighting skill, we are left to wonder how Nameless has honed his. Perhaps because he sensed jeopardy in cultural training, Nameless became a good fighter simply by practicing fighting, although it is difficult to imagine that the two unique skills he has developed—the ability while fighting to pierce his opponent’s body without harming any internal organs, and the ability to kill if he can get within ten paces—emerge from regular military training. The limited abilities of the Qin soldiers, who can be easily overcome by the assassins, and even of the king of Qin, who must be the best fighter of the kingdom but who still cannot match the skill of the best assassins, show that fighting unmolded by meditation, philosophy, mysticism, emotional depth, and aesthetic immersion is simply no match for what the assassins have trained themselves to be and do. Yet although we are shown Broken Sword’s calligraphic training, the film does not show us Nameless practicing calligraphy or meditating. Another difference is the elaborate collaboration of assassins that propels Nameless through the streets to an audience with the king without

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violence, which contrasts with the experience of Broken Sword and Flying Snow, who fight their way through swarms of Qin troops on the palace steps. Flying Snow is willing to become a pure and simple killer, but Broken Sword backs away. Her role in the calligraphic training that has empowered Broken Sword clearly is secondary. We never see her wield a brush and as a result, her job is to hold off the doltish soldiers while the well-trained Broken Sword advances to meet the formidable king, at the last minute deciding to spare his life, much to Flying Snow’s dismay.21 In Broken Sword’s case, his training has not only perfected him, but also ruined him, eroding his will to kill. The film does not explain exactly how this works, and in contrast to the confused soliloquies on peace that the king provides to Nameless, for Broken Sword the king explains very little. It seems that Broken Sword’s awakening is the result of his arrival in the center of the Qin regime. This single direct confrontation appears to have given him an understanding of how the political power of the state works. Without any other indication of why Broken Sword changes his mind, we can only see that as he moves among the silk cloths hanging from the ceiling of the Qin palace and block the king from his view, what eventually appears in their place are the stone pillars, which cannot be cut away. Possibly Broken Sword understands that killing the king would not destroy the existence of the state, but merely open a vacancy that he himself, as most powerful man in the land, would then be qualified, and possibly mandated, to fill. Broken Sword’s change of heart appears to recognize only the existence of a powerful regime. When Nameless arrives the decorations are gone, and the king sits on the throne unadorned by veils that could provide a hiding place for an assassin. Thus naked and exposed to be a pure exemplar of state power, the king engages Nameless in verbal sparring with the goal of detecting the nature of his opponent. If cultural power, with its force of imagination, and political power, with its violent potency, occupy opposite positions within the film, it is not just the assassins who must hone their fighting skills. In order to meet, the assassins and the king both must move toward the position of the other. In claiming he has

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killed the other assassins, Nameless presents himself as just another Qin soldier, albeit more highly skilled. In rewarding an exemplary subject and allowing that subject an audience, the king moves closer to the people, an act he expands when he joins Nameless in narrating stories. However, this relative movement toward a center does not belie the final judgment of the film, which undercuts the “soft” authority of culture in favor of political power backed by military strength. Both the king and Nameless implicitly recognize the necessity of physical combat. In order to sustain and expand his political power, the king of Qin develops an immense army of loyal fighters. In order to defend the homeland of Zhao, the people produce a small number of excellent fighters. The defense of culture, which is so abstract and multivalent as to be nearly impossible to defend in real life, depends on its embodiment within and by representatives with superpowers sufficient in scope and range to defeat fully staffed armies. Those fighters are xia, the lonely knights who have extracted and captured the essence of cultural spirit, transformed it into fighting skill, and use it to defend the homeland. Calligraphy, an intellectual art that contains a legible message as well as an aesthetic form, is the cultural form deemed most potent by the assassins.22 The most unrealistic and inspiring fight of the assassins comes in defense of the calligraphy school, whose old master sits framed among written characters, brushes, and other accoutrements of writing (see figure 35). When Nameless tells the king that he studied Broken Sword’s calligraphic rendition of the character “sword” to gain secret understanding of his fighting skills, he allies himself with the power of the brush-written word (although later, he admits that he never could crack the code). At this point, Nameless appears to be a pure killer merely making use of an intellectual strategy that gives him access to the power of culture. Unlike Broken Sword, Nameless does not practice calligraphy, but comprehends it intellectually, and transforms it into a strategy to lure the king, who is intrigued by the possibility that a character could contain a secret to fighting. Yet the king immediately coopts the character “sword” and places it above his throne. When he asks Nameless whether

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he was able to understand Broken Sword’s fighting skill through his writing of the character, Nameless responds “not yet,” and the king studies the character himself, claiming that he has deciphered its hidden meaning. The character contains no clue, the king proclaims, following this discovery with a befuddled soliloquy on peace. The king turns out to be the superior strategist and Nameless, like Broken Sword before him, is thoroughly disarmed. When the king decides to execute Nameless, he clearly is affected by the sacrifice the xia makes, and his emotional response indicates that unlike his soldiers, the king is not merely a fighting machine. Yet he does not go so far as to follow the xia code of reciprocation and allow Nameless to live; to do so would force the king deep into the xia world and eventually may require that he relinquish his claim to the throne or more generally, to the political power necessary to conquer the various states and unify the country under the name of Qin (see figure 36). Twice the male assassins have the opportunity to kill the king, but they back down both times. Their passion, loyalty, and resolve reveals that this is no simple breakdown of will, but a deeper philosophical understanding of what will happen if they kill the king. While the word and concept of tianxia is pivotal, the meaning of that term is far from clear, with a variety of historical permutations involving metaphysical, moral, and political implications at the cosmic, state, and familial levels. Because its practical possibilities can encompass a spectrum from empire building to transnational leadership, tianxia has been picked up by a range of contemporary thinkers, who deploy the term to indicate anything from Chinese ultranationalism, to a transnational alternative to a Westinvented world order composed of nation-states, to a new valuation of traditional Chinese values and culture. As Feng Lan (2008) describes, Hero takes advantage of the tianxia-inflected desire for empire and the brutality it can justify, fed by a Legalist belief that human nature will breed nothing but chaos unless controlled by forceful laws. Yet the film also recognizes the people as the ultimate source of authority in any vision of tianxia, which validates a Confucian rather than Legalist perspective.

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The breakdown of Nameless and Broken Sword, which allows the king to move forward with his plans to unify the Warring States, could suggest this internal conceptual incongruity.23 If the two xia had killed the king, the film would be engaging and inspiring, if historically inaccurate. In Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Jewish resisters kill Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels by trapping them in a theater and burning it down. The film’s fanciful revision of history was not universally welcomed, however, and the director’s vision was criticized: Tarantino...doesn’t see cinema as a way to look at reality, but —ever the child abandoned in front of the television set, ever the video-store geek—as an alternative to reality, a magical and Manichean world where we needn’t worry about the complexities of morality, where violence solves everything, and where the Third Reich is always just a film reel and a lit match away from cartoonish defeat. (Leibovitz 2009) Allowing Nameless and/or Broken Sword to kill the king could result in similar accusations centering on the futility of indulging in imagination and fantasy to address abusive power. If they had fought and been killed, the film merely would have confirmed the authoritarian power of a tyrant and turned the film into an ordinary power-and-resistance struggle. By giving the choice to kill the king or to let him live to those who have a combination of the best training and the most passionate desire, the film presents an uncanny situation that confounds expectations. Hero provides fodder for many interpretations. The contrast between the distasteful Qin soldiers and the intriguing xia speaks against the glorification of power, and yet the willful and unexplained failure of Broken Sword and Nameless implies that there is no way to mentally resist the king. However, when we understand the visually contrasting arenas as embodied worlds, the film’s refusal to explain the meaning of tianxia make sense. The intricately developed connection between writing and violence, as indicated in the calligraphic training of Broken

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Sword, Nameless’s study of the sword character for Broken Sword’s secrets, and the profound interest of the king in the same brings the two worlds into direct confrontation. Only by having the assassins voluntarily back down can the film focus attention on the limits of the cultural mandate, one of the primary myths of the modern nation-state.

Culture and Power in the Contemporary World A great deal has been written about the film and its stance on state power and authoritarianism (Fung and Chan 2014).24 Pointing out that the director has linked the film to the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, Zhang Yiwu (2003b) argues that Zhang Yimou has thoroughly departed from his previous focus on the specifics of Chinese culture.25 This focus, Fredric Jameson (1986) has claimed, is a persistent perspective of third-world countries, which have no choice but to allegorize their relationship to the first world in their cultural products, which forever speak to the imbalance of power through metaphor, plot, and aesthetics. Although in the face of the thoroughly mystified Chinese culture that the film presents such an assertion may seem odd, I completely agree with Zhang Yiwu on his latter point: although the film addresses the way in which culture can or cannot embody and enact a politically powerful stance, the main issue is not Chinese culture per se. Hero deconstructs an authoritative myth about the kind of power that culture can wield, in the process deromanticizing a peace conceptualized as the equality or equal existence of cultures. This deconstruction can be understood philosophically and abstractly, or concretely and specifically. The film encourages the viewer to suspect that the only road to equality is through relative force, thus gutting conventional hopes of the coexistence of radically different and yet equal cultures and languages. In this way, Hero offers a negative evaluation of a central mandate of modernity and the modern nation-state, which is that each nationstate must conceive itself through a unique culture that can be perceived, felt, and recognized by its born-and-bred population, whether from

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within or without. The equality of nations rests on the equality of cultures; modern tourism is partially based on the appreciable difference in national cultures, and nations often seek to represent and project their cultural identities through images in films, in advertisements, on nationally controlled products such as stamps, and more generally on television; music with identifiable characteristics of traditional sounds; architecture that references earlier forms; literature, art, and popular culture with recognizable qualities; specific styles of clothing, hair, and personal appearance; language politics; and finally, theories of abstraction, aesthetics, philosophy, history, and political relations that could carry aspects of cultural essence in their very form. This situation is not unique to China, and has spawned numerous debates about authentic culture, imitation, and modern life. To give just one non-Chinese example, in nineteenth-century Russia, debates between Slavophiles and Westernizers centered on what Russia could possibly contribute to world culture that was unique. As early as the 1820s, Dmitry Venevitinov argued that “it was not possible to build a national culture with external forms imported from the West,” and Ivan Kireesky claimed that in order for Russian literature to be significant to the rest of the world, “it had to reflect the Russian way of life.” Writers, critics, and others sought to promote the “development of a genuine Russian culture,” a demand that arose from the comparison of Russian culture with that of Western Europe (Rabow-Edling 2006, 36–37). This pattern has been repeated in many nations, where, as in the case of China, cultural authenticity has been widely debated and continues to be an important topic of discussion into the twenty-first century. Inspired by postcolonial theory and cultural studies, intellectuals have spoken out against Orientalism, cultural universalism, Americanization, and other aspects of modernity that do not recognize or allow for the international recognition of a fully embodied—aesthetic, intellectual, emotive, and political—Chinese culture (Yingjie Guo 2009).26

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Does the same situation hold in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as a globalization driven by capitalism is underway? Whereas Tsui Hark’s wildly popular 1990s film series Once Upon a Time in China never fails to put forward the richness and sheer exuberance of Chinese culture, always showing directly and comparatively how an equality of cultures is both necessary and ideal, Zhang Yimou throws a wrench into this basic nineteenth and twentieth centuries belief (Larson 2012a). Simply speaking, Hero tells us that the cultural strength that appears to be a requirement for any nation that wishes to obtain global recognition as a fully self-determined modern state does not actually matter. What matters are the brutal realities of political and military power, and no amount of cultural posturing, putting one’s culture forth on the global stage, or self-conscious performance will change that reality. As Jon Solomon (2002) points out in his discussion of Liu Xiaobo, the nature of the people, and exile, sovereignty as a nation-state also is not a choice that China made, but one that was enforced by violence: In the face of the Western subject’s historic determination to maintain substantial superiority under a juridical façade of formal equality and normative sovereignty, the decision to “open” China or not has always been a false one that epistemic subjects, be they the Chinese government, Chinese intellectuals, or sinologists, construct out of their own fantastic relation to the discourse of sovereignty. In effect, since the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century, Chinese have had no choice but to open up and unlearn...The development of sovereignty reached its modern pinnacle in the notion that indivisible sovereignty ultimately resides in the people, the people of a nation, defined by the trinity of language, birth, soil (418).27 From this angle, debates about the authenticity of culture, national essence, imitation, and cultural parity are not wrong so much as they are irrelevant. The command embedded within the nation-state political form—that each nation have a unique culture that can and must be represented to the world—is similar, Hero implies, to the myth that

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motivates the assassins. Once Nameless and Broken Sword understand that under victory, culture deployed as power in the political world is no different from the violently enforced political power it seeks to overthrow, and under defeat it is weak and ineffective, they give up. At the moment of killing, the promise of the fight that is inherent in the xia ethos appears to be false. Hero suggests that in the global world of transnational entertainment, reliance on culture to proclaim authenticity and forge a road ahead has dangers as well as advantages, and may be a ticket to an untenable “catchup” position.28 If we understand the film in this way, the hauntingly beautiful imagined/recollected scenes are not simply camouflage, but rather aesthetic and thematic statements about the jeopardy of overreliance on a cultural stance to make one’s way through the new global environment, despite an internal longing that such a stance should be effective. As described by Zhang Yiwu (2003b), the film to some degree expresses the cultural logic of capitalism as it takes over the world and sets up the conditions for a new order in which the nation-state may diminish in importance, but the most powerful nation-states will have inordinate power in constructing the new order: This “philosophy of the powerful” has already become a “universal” (tianxia) structure exactly for the purpose of addressing the order of the post 9/11 world. In this, justice seems to be the “absolute justice” of today’s “anti-terror,” and “peace” is then the recognition of the world order of the powerful, or peace and security under the king of Qin. The “universal” order is greater than the misery and hopelessness of the country of Zhao, so the powerful should have everything, while the weak will have no choice but to suffer pain on behalf of the “universal” order. National animosity cannot win over the value of the universal, and the dissimilar historical understanding of Flying Snow and Broken Sword is only an internal struggle of the weak, which in the end diminishes their power. Herein has emerged a new system of values. The ability of the “universal” order to transcend the nationstate through its ubiquity is the foundation of the construction of

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The many meanings of tianxia—all under heaven, our land, the entire world, the cosmos, the universal—complicate Zhang Yiwu’s analysis, but his conclusion that the lonely mystical Chinese hero cannot survive in the face of universalizing cultural forces that accompany the spread of global capital is evident.29 Yet despite this overall cynical view of the brutal picture of universalizing forces and unequal power relations that Hero presents, Zhang Yiwu calls for a new intellectual response that does not get bogged down in either criticizing old ways of thinking or in praising the commercial success of the film and its blockbuster status. He identifies the character Sky in Hero as an intriguingly unresolved possibility that is still alive: We don’t know where Sky came from. This blank that Hero has left us makes us wonder. What will Sky do, what will he think? This is the possibility of an opening in the future, the opportunity of a choice. And does this world also offer a choice? Hero actually presents us with the real face of today’s world, and it cannot be ignored or evaded. We have to face this world…we must contribute the possibility of a new exploration. This is the brutal challenge left to us by Hero. (15) The recognition of Sky as an unexamined, undeveloped mark of potential is a provocative comment that sees hope in something yet to emerge. Because of the murkiness of exactly what that potential will bring, Sky represents both a “brutal challenge,” as well as an empty remainder—perhaps similar to the wooden puppet box in To Live—of the hope for a cultural vision.

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Figure 33. Leaf fight.

Figure 34. Qin soldiers.

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Figure 35. Calligraphy master.

Figure 36. King of Qin and Nameless before character “Sword.”

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Notes 1. Since I published an early version of this chapter as an article in 2008, several excellent articles on Hero and related topics have appeared. I have revised to take advantage of this new and exciting research, and to rethink my argument in light of my larger project. For the original article and a response by Nicholas Kaldis (along with my counterresponse), see Wendy Larson (2008a, 2009), and Nicholas Kaldis (2009). I also published a book chapter on the North American reception of Hero in Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley, eds (2014), and have incorporated some of that analysis into this chapter (Larson 2014). 2. Wang Yichuan (2003b, 10) also notes heavy media exposure, which led to an interest in the film, as well as viewers’ desire for a Chinese blockbuster along the lines of Titanic. The film therefore addresses the trends and visual hopes of an era rather than adopting any realistic perspective on history. See also the collection of fourteen chapters by different authors on various aspects of the film, edited by Rawnsley and Rawnsley (2014). For reception in various markets as discussed in this volume, see Sabrina Qiong Yu (2014); and Wendy Larson (2014). 3. For a wide-ranging study that evaluates new archeological findings about the Qin empire and analyzes them within the context of textual evidence, see Yuri Pines, Gideon Shelach, Lothar von Falkenhausen, and Robin D. S. Yates (2014). 4. The traditional martial arts film genre includes the subgenres of swordplay (wuxia pian) and kung-fu moves (gongfu pian). Hero alters the genre by reducing or eliminating a clear-cut distinction between good and evil or hero and villain, and by moderating the build-up between protagonist and antagonist. See Haizhou Wang and Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley (2014, 97–98). 5. See also an intriguing reading by Jason McGrath (2013), who uses Kristen Whissel’s idea of the digital multitude (which starts with sameness and multiplies into thousands) and Siegfried Kracauer’s notion of the mass ornament (which turns the human body into machine-like collections of identical parts) to complicate an interpretation of the film as fascist. McGrath analyzes the effect of CGI (computer generated imagery) in the film, noting that Kracauer interpreted the mass ornament as a “true aesthetic reflection of the capitalist mode of production” rather than as fas-

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6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

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cist (65). McGrath concludes that while the Riefenstahl film Triumph of the Will celebrates mindless obedience and military might, Hero presents no such pleasure in totalitarian power (71). It is interesting to wonder whether we would reinterpret the aesthetics of Triumph of the Will if we learned, for example, that Leni Riefenstahl had carried on covert antifascist activities. For a more general treatment of aesthetics, the state, and resistance, see M. Lane Bruner (2012); and Russell A. Berman (1989). For a discussion of the political implications of the film, see also Gary D. Rawnsley (2014). Harrison begins his critique thus: “Another film commentary, I wrote this…today. For the journal Millenium, published here in London. A favourite piece of writing about one of my least favourite films.” Despite her claim that Hero dips into fascist aesthetics, Cui Weiping nonetheless teases out many qualities and implications that audiences enjoy, showing how the film contains complexities that the pro-authoritarian interpretation fails to explain. Hero, Cui claims, thwarts audience expectations on three levels. First, it reverses hundreds of years of criticism toward the Qin king, presenting him sympathetically. Second, it changes the image of the xia, who pay for their life of wandering by lacking a home and family, but should gain in return a free, uncaring spirit and mentality. By contrast, although Nameless and Broken Sword give up hatred and violence when they let the king live, they gain no attractive mental or spiritual qualities in return, becoming the same as the king —a fact not unrecognized by the king himself, who sees them as kindred spirits. Third, today no one believes violent suppression will result in peace, so the message the film communicates is laughable. Echoing Cui’s comment on commoners is Feng Lan’s (2008) elaboration of the way in which the film rejects any meaningful social context such as family or community (28–29). For servility inside, see J. Kahn (2007); for condoning slaughter, see B. Marple (2007); for extolling despotism, see Chi Tung (2007); and for Chinese communism, see A. Klein (2007) In an interview about Hero, Zhang Yimou (2007) discusses his surprise that the film became a political debate. Kahn (2007) quotes a number of similar comments from journals and newspapers in China. For an elaboration of the cultural mandate in the nation-state political model see Jan Penrose (1995). Jenny Kwok Wah Lau (2007) uses the related term “cultured” in a different way when she argues that a primary goal of the film is to investigate the question of whether Chinese

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14.

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filmmakers can develop a cultured blockbuster that has a Chinese story and Chinese aesthetics. Lau argues that Hero represents Chinese culture with respect and style. For critiques of Anderson’s approach, see Neil Davidson (2014); also Anthony D. Smith (1998). Y. Guo (2004) explains the rewriting of history that took place during the 1980s and 1990s as interest in Zeng Guofan, Chen Yinque, Wang Guowei and others under the banner of New Confucianism exploded. What was at stake, Guo argues, was the general sentiment that “Confucianism, widely regarded as the heart and soul of Chinese culture, is now at the core of the ‘national essence’ that is being rediscovered, reinvented, and re-embraced today as an essential criterion for defining the community” (62). Guo also notes that Chen and Wang, two “towering officials of the late Qing,” have “enjoyed a comeback mainly on the strength of their personal integrity, their erudition, their insistence on academic autonomy and their whole-hearted culturalism,” a quality that seems to have special appeal (63). As regards “culturalism,” I take Guo to mean their focus on the importance of cultural authority, which is one aspect of culture as I define it in this paper. However, the emphasis of New Confucianism on locating a deep and fundamental cultural system from ancient China that can be updated and deployed as the cultural basis of new China is very much in keeping with this aspect of the nation-state model. Most scenes of the Qin army and the assassins are generated through the narrative spun by the king and Nameless, but there are a few of each that exist outside this narrative, although they nonetheless are encompassed within the historical narrative that begins and ends the film. For an analysis of the massing of the Qin forces through use of computer generated imagery (CGI), see McGrath, “Heroic Human Pixels.” In arguing that Hero embraces a Confucian (rather than Legalist) vision of tianxia, Feng Lan (2008) clarifies the difference between traditional martial arts films’ depiction of jianghu, literally rivers and lakes and referring to an alternative group universal codes of honor, loyalty, and justice among xia, and the more institutional and imaginary scenes and landscapes of Hero. Despite these differences, the romantic fluidity of the xia world is well represented, with extravagant leaps across natural lakes and deserts, unearthly movement through space, and an apparent ability to defy gravity (29-33). As Yuri Pines (2014) has explained, understanding the Qin empire as based on a Legalism that stands in opposition

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17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

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to Confucianism is somewhat misleading, as the Qin was an ideological mix that valorized Confucian values such as benevolence, sincerity, loyalty, and concern for the people’s welfare (28). Although it is not his main point, Feng Lan (2008) also identifies the xia in Hero as “culture heroes rather than mere swordsmen” (33). The fickle nature and unreliability of “truth” has become so associated with Rashomon that the term has come to indicate the problem of determining what happened in any situation. For a social science analysis of the film, see Wendy D. Roth and Jal D. Mehta (2002). There actually are five stories if we include the historical framing of the film that appears in text at the beginning and end. The viewers see all five, although the king and Nameless are actors in one and cannot “see” themselves. As I have mentioned, Broken Sword also narrates to Nameless his preparation for an encounter with the king, although his story is encompassed within the third story that Nameless tells the king. For a synopsis of the plot, see Rawnsley and. Rawnsley (2014), xvi–xviii. In a fascinating comparison of Zhang Yimou and Kurosawa Akira, Margaret Hillenbrand (2013) argues that the color coding of Hero is crucial to understand if we wish to decipher the theme of cultural heroism. Citing Zhang’s urge to “hijack” Kurosawa’s use of color and a deliberate reference to Ran (1985) especially in the competing model of kingship that Hero provides, Hillenbrand finds that “Hero is not simply a study of kingship within a would-be sovereign state, but an exposition of ‘all under heaven’: a statement about cultural heroism on the much more global stage” (134). Attributing the lack of color analysis in Hero to aesthetic chromophobia in the West, Hillenbrand locates dozens of relevant articles in Chinese. Her central argument is that by wedding single colors to “the conceit of unreliable narratology,” Hero aspires to wield color “as the tool through which to restyle or redesign the look and feel of blockbusting film along East Asian lines” (142, 140). Furthermore, recognizing the assignment of color to the assassins while the Qin empire is painted black, Hillenbrand points out that access to color “makes people human” (148). For an analysis of the musical score of Hero, see Katy Gow (2014). For an excellent article on the way in which tianxia has been deployed philosophically and politically to imagine a future world order in which China has an important role, see Zhang Feng (2010). In Hero, only Flying Snow holds to the ideal of killing the king. As is also often the case in Zhang Yimou’s films, however, the mentally strong

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24. 25.

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women do not have the necessary status to see their ideals through, and must appeal to men, who hold the mandate to direct society but lack the necessary spiritual strength. Hero goes much farther in defining male weakness as a potentially positive and necessary condition; in Happy Times, we see that Lao Zhao’s weakness becomes an odd form of strength, as he is the only character willing to help Xiao Wu, even though he is ineffectual. It is because males are culturally burdened to act that they have a more realistic and less progressive appreciation of radical action than do females. For an analysis of the role of women in Hero, see Louise Edwards (2014). Feng Lan (2008) notes that in Hero “calligraphy symbolizes the essential values of culture” (21). Feng Lan (2008) also points out that the three martial arts films directed by Zhang Yimou are all set before the Song dynasty, and centered in Xi’an. He interprets this as an “uncanny desire to privilege pre-Song China as representing the ‘authentic’ classical China” (23n9). For an interpretation of the film that focuses on the deployment of emotion, see Wang Yichuan (2003a). As my argument in this book indicates, I no longer agree with Zhang Yiwu’s (2003b) claim that Zhang Yimou’s early films use Chinese culture as a calling card. Yet his argument is not entirely without merit. One of Zhang Yiwu’s main points is that the film overturns the generally accepted Chinese cultural idea that force should be used against force. He argues that the xia tradition basically expresses this belief, as the xia fight on behalf of the weak against the strong. Revolutionary culture also was based on this notion and extended to include the globe, turning Hero into a commentary on the Chinese revolutionary position. B. He and Yingjie Guo (2000) note that in the “model of Chinese cultural identity, ‘the Chinese’ are defined as a community of Chinese speakers who share Chinese culture, in particular Confucianism, regardless of their ethnic origins and political beliefs” (5). Toming Jun Liu (2000) characterizes the 1980s as a period of opening up and enlightenment, and the 1990s as the victim of a state apparatus that “has been using all its power to create a collective amnesia for the era symbolized by Heshang [River elegy] and by the pro-democracy movement of 1989” (207–208). For recent discussions of cultural nationalism in other Asian countries, see Roy Starrs, R. (2004); and Timothy P. Daniels (2005). Solomon ultimately rejects the politics of sovereignty based on the notion of the subject, and the “juridico-institutional subject of sover-

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eignty and extraterritoriality,” and implicitly attacks the nation-state political model (415). 28. For a much-criticized exposition of how “belatedness” works with nation-states, see Gregory Jusdanis (1991). 29. For an argument expanding on the notion that globalization is simply the extension of capitalist logic and not the dawn of a new era, see Paul Smith (1997).

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Chapter 9

Where in the World is Kenichi? Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles In terms of how cultural exchange can take place under the discourse of globalization, the film points to the value of the local. Along with scientific and technological development, the development of modern transportation increasingly has led to higher frequency of international exchange. As the domestic scholarly world has become more and more concerned about postcolonial critique, the status of culture has emerged as an issue. The problem of cultural identity is connected to questions such as “who am I” or “with what do I identify”; it is a standard within which an ethnicity or bounded group establishes its own culture, and also the foundation of being settled for ethnicities and individuals. At a time when the old colonial system has disintegrated and the colonial aggression of the West toward the East mainly is expressed through a kind of cultural saturation and control, problems of cultural identity naturally incur the high-level attention of postcolonial critics. However, postcolonial critics don’t regard cultural identity problems as rigid or set, as something that can never change, but instead take an antiessentialist perspective…At the same time, China has started to say farewell to its modern position of weakness. Under the

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Zhang Yimou international environment of globalization and marketization, there is more space to work, and China needs a new cultural imaginary. Zhang Yimou’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles meets that need. —Li Guanying (2006, 86)

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005), produced a few years after Hero, begins in Tokyo.1 An older man played by Japanese action star Takakura Ken is sitting on a rock near the ocean, with a gray landscape around. In a voice-over, he laments his alienation from his son Kenichi, who has come down with an illness and is hospitalized. Thus begins a seemingly direct tale of regret and redemption, with universal themes of loyalty and caring, between both individuals and to some degree, nations. Takakura plays an introverted Japanese fisherman named Gouichi Takata, a stoic, taciturn man whose relationship with his son Kenichi is hopelessly damaged—they have not spoken for ten years.2 Riding Alone uses contrasting images to depict China as a land of immense natural beauty, while Japan remains shrouded in dreary and depressing hues. It may appear that the film suggests that genuine human vitality has been lost in Japan, but can be found in China. The plot seems to confirm this perspective. After Kenichi comes down with a mortal illness, his wife Rie provides Takata with a tape that Kenichi made in China, supposedly about his work as a ethnologist. Takata watches the tape and deduces that his son enjoyed travelling to China to see local opera in Yunnan province. Although Kenichi refuses to speak with him from his hospital bed, Takata comes to believe that his son was a strong admirer of a certain local opera and, in particular, an opera singer named Li Jiamin. The fact that Kenichi hoped but was ultimately unable to see Li’s performance opens the door for Takata to do something for his ailing son, despite their long estrangement. Perhaps China once offered a solution to life’s problems for Kenichi, and now will do so for his father as well. Thus motivated by a bright and hopeful chance to remedy the prolonged alienation between father and son, Takata initiates his journey to a foreign

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country. Although problems occur almost immediately, he perseveres. The first roadblock he runs into is that Li Jiamin turns out to be in prison for stabbing a man who called his son a bastard. Takata approaches the officials in charge to request permission to film Li performing in prison, and eventually succeeds. Yet when he finally makes it into the prison, instead of singing the opera as he agreed to do, Li begins to cry on stage. A mirror-like situation reflects Takata’s broken relationship with Kenichi back to him as he understands that Li has not seen his own son for seven years—that is, the boy’s entire lifetime—and misses him deeply, even though he has never seen him. Thus the actor is too sad to perform for his foreign visitor. Takata’s second journey, to find Li’s son Yangyang and reunite him with his father, reaches a modified form of success when he is able to show pictures of the child to Li, which reinvigorates the performer. Takata has to resort to pictures because Yangyang runs away and refuses to visit his father. Takata follows him and they build a warm friendship as they wait for rescuers in the picturesque hills. Kenichi’s wife Rie calls to let Takata know that his son is touched by his efforts. It now appears that Takata is on his way to victory, with some bridge of understanding built between Kenichi and himself, and the goal of recording the opera “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles,” as sung by Li Jiamin, within his reach. However, a problem pops up along the way: Kenichi has passed away. Nonetheless, Takata’s ultimate success in inspiring fatherly feelings in Li Jiamin appears to substitute for what he can no longer accomplish in Japan, turning the film into a celebration of universal human attachment, as Zhang Yimou collaborator Zhang Weiping describes: “The film narrates an emotional topic common to all people. It transcends national boundaries and politics” (Zhu Jie 2007, 149). Border-crossing friendships, the willingness of commoners to cooperate, sympathetic translators, and the open-mindedness of the officials bring the affective warmth of the film to the surface, resulting in praise for its heart-warming story and, of course, criticism for its sentimentality.

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Despite these indications of warmth and success, a closer look reveals that what unfolds in the film is hardly straightforward. Ultimately, the film’s focus on strategic communication, the search for authenticity outside familiar borders, and the potential duplicity of performance on and off the stage disrupts Riding Alone’s sentimental façade, beneath which lie convoluted layers of meanings that no single actor has the ability to fully grasp. Translation problems throughout highlight the space between native and outsider understanding of local culture, customs, and behavior, and also the complexity of agendas and their hidden referential past. The film shows that although performance and, by implication, culture, may be effective in producing and transmitting emotions, its truth value is almost always suspect. In Riding Alone, more than in any of his other films, Zhang Yimou brings out the mediated nature of cross-cultural interaction, and foregrounds the way in which cultural legitimacy is determined or experienced.

Strategic Communication and Cultural Authenticity Jürgen Habermas’ (1984, 1987) work on communicative versus strategic action is part of the Frankfurt School’s overarching effort to develop a theory of social life under modernity. Emphasizing the contextualization of the individual within the social body, Habermas counters Max Weber’s weight on the solitary subject, instead arguing that the primary goal of communicative action is to transmit and reform cultural knowledge, as well as to allow and encourage people to form an identity. Drawing on the concept of performativity, Habermas develops the term “lifeworld actors” to describe this social embedding of individuals and argues that the fundamentally linguistic structure of communicative actions is always in the process of degradation by “steering media” such as money and power, which destroys the implanting of the individual within social and cultural systems.3 Working within the context of Habermas’s theories, some researchers have argued that “communicative reasoning is the ‘default’ mode of communication.”4 Also relevant to Habermas’s

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implication that social life involves acting is the “presented self” outlined by the dramaturgical analysis of Erving Goffman (1959), who devoted his career to theorizing social interaction and face-to-face behavior, or the performativity of human life. Goffing contends that human life is a series of dialectic performances in which individuals “present” themselves to others, constantly modifying that presentation while also gathering information about those with whom they interact. While Habermas points to the instrumental or coercive nature of organizations, others have extended his argument into various kinds of professional contexts (Chriss, 1995). The recognition of acting, presentation, and performance that Habermas and Goffing develop is relevant to Riding Alone, which tests the meaning of cultural performance, transcending the sphere of the individual to examine performance and communication within small and large groups as well as between nations. Takata’s border-crossing includes linguistic and cultural breaches that thrust viewers into a complex and multilayered environment of subtle communicative and instrumental actions, highlighting the performativity of every encounter. Bordercrossing relations filter the interactions between characters through implications about the way in which cultural understanding and misunderstanding functions. Although all characters are embroiled in a conundrum in which sincerity and calculating presentation simultaneously occupy the stage, with narrow and broad utilitarian goals as well as what Habermas would call communicative action, the most revealing characters are Takata’s daughter-in-law Rie and his translator Lingo. These two characters, both of whom are anxious to create a smooth, feel-good social surface, anchor the film’s query into the way in which actions/acting governed by good intent share the instrumental duplicity common to all performances. Border-crossing only amplifies this instrumentality, reducing the possibility of genuine cultural communication— which cannot escape from multiple agendas and performances—and focusing our attention on the mute expressions of humanity and bodily processes as experienced by Takata and Yangyang when they are lost

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in the hills. All other communication is inflected through performative mediation, absorbing and expressing its potential duplicity. Rie directly announces her overarching intent to Takata: “I sincerely hoped that we could have a meal together, the three of us,” she says, referring to the ten years of alienation between Kenichi and his father. In her limited but important interactions with Takata, she subtly directs him on how to feel, think, and act, to the point where he eventually suspects some of her statements to be fabrications borne from her stated goal of levelling the antagonism between father and son. Rie’s influence appears in the initial scenes, where Takata is shown reading a letter by the overcast and gray-hued seashore. According to the voice-over, just as he was wondering how he could improve things with Kenichi, a letter arrived from Rie telling him about his son’s illness. What we see, however, is Takata after receiving the letter, which questions the order of cause and effect, suggesting that the letter itself may have prompted his thoughts. On a train to Tokyo to visit Kenichi in the hospital, the voice-over informs us that he is making the trip because Rie suggested that this may be an opportunity for father and son to directly speak to each other and break through the mutual resentment. Once Takata arrives in Tokyo, Rie reminds him that he hasn’t been there for ten years, the entire time of his separation from Kenichi, fortifying the message of abandonment. And as Rie enters the sickroom to inform Kenichi that his father is here, she disappears behind a screen, out from which come angry words of rejection: “Why should I see him? Who asked him to come here? Was it you?...I never said I wanted to see him.” Kenichi’s enraged, disembodied voice accuses Rie of organizing the reunion behind his back, never telling him about the impending visit of his estranged father. Rie has manipulated father and son, privileging her sense of how the relationship should be no matter what the views of Kenichi and Takata are on the matter, and this kinship model drives her actions. Takata is upset by Kenichi’s words and walks away. Rie follows, handing him a VHS tape that she states was made by Kenichi in China,

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with the comment, “Please have a look at his work.” After a fairly long scene involving a workman installing a VCR—which confirms Takata’s separation not only from his son but also from modern life, while simultaneously implying that he has entered some sort of stasis— he watches the short tape. The recording is a treasure trove of cultural implication and assumption. As we watch with Takata on the TV screen, it immediately becomes obvious that as in the hospital scene, we never see Kenichi but only hear his voice. When the opera actor Li Jiamin explains who Lord Guan is,” Kenichi quickly identifies the fictional character from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The announcer picks up on the unusual situation: a foreigner knowing about one of the most famous literary/historical texts of China, a text that embodies the loyalty and perseverance of Lord Guan on a journey to the southwest to help his sworn brother Liu Bei. Despite Kenichi’s urging, Li Jiamin declines to perform, claiming that he has a cold. Shortly after the aborted hospital visit, Rie calls and informs Takata of Kenichi’s diagnosis of terminal cancer. He says nothing, but the voiceover informs us that he almost instantly feels “compelled” to go to China, even though he “doesn’t know what’s about there” and is “not good with people.” Although Rie’s act of providing the tape provokes the trip, when Takata calls from China she is surprised, telling him that she gave him the tape only so he could learn more about Kenichi and his work. She asks Takata to return to Japan but he demurs, additionally requesting that she keep his trip a secret from Kenichi. What Takata could not do at home he believes he can accomplish in China, possibly setting the stage for a reunification with his son. Takata’s next contact with Rie comes when he is at the banquet the villagers have put on for him. He steps aside to take a phone call, and Rie appears on the screen, informing him that she told Kenichi of his father’s trip to China, defying his request to keep it a secret. Rie states that although Kenichi said nothing, he “looked different.” She also now explains that the opera was never that important to Kenichi; rather,

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he was simply being nice to the actor Li Jiamin. The scene does not clarify whether Kenichi directly told this to Rie or whether she is simply expressing her own interpretation, again with her agenda of bringing father and son together. After asking Takata to please return home, Rie seems to forget that she had mentioned Kenichi’s lack of a verbal response, and tells him that Kenichi said the trip to China was the most wonderful thing his father had ever done for him, insisting that “those were his exact words.” Although he wants to believe Rie, Takata is suspicious, not only because of the contradiction of her words, but also because if Kenichi actually voiced these words, it would be “the first compliment from my son in many years.” The next call comes shortly after Takata decides not to take Yangyang to the prison. Rie, still in Japan, appears on screen in dark clothing, and tells her father-in-law in a halting voice that Kenichi has passed away. According to Rie, the day before he died, Kenichi was happy and wrote his father a letter. The camera switches to profile view of Rie and she begins to read, but her voice fades out and is replaced by that of Kenichi. For the first time, the audience is treated to an explanation of why Kenichi and Takata were at odds for so many years. According to the letter, Takata left Tokyo after his wife died, and Kenichi blamed him for his absence. “I never expected you to go to China for me,” the voice says. “I was really moved.” With the camera on the empty hospital bed, the voice continues: “No one has ever understood my obsession with folk operas. I am attracted to them because they mirror my life. I have come to realize that I am the actor behind the mask…Father, it is not the opera that is important. I now see that loved ones should not mask their true feelings for one another. I await your return, I want us to embrace each other once again.” This message of warmth and reconciliation eerily mirrors Rie’s words at the beginning of the film, when she expressed her desire that the three of them share a meal. Considering that Kenichi angrily rejected his father only a few days earlier, and recalling that the film does not show Kenichi’s face to the audience, we must suspect that

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Kenichi’s transformation from irate to loving son is fabricated by Rie, who is anxious to construct a narrative of reconciliation. Although never actually see Kenichi’s face, a sole diegetic encounter with the voice of Kenichi comes in his angry rejection of his father from his hospital bed. It is unclear whether the voice from the dead that replaces Rie’s in the reading of the letter—itself not penned by Kenichi but supposedly “taken down” by his wife—should be interpreted as a manipulative suggestion by the daughter-in-law or as Kenichi’s actual sentiment. Through her uncanny production of the imagined reunification of father and son, through the forced hospital meeting that she has neglected to mention to Kenichi, and through the recitation of what she presents as Kenichi’s words, Rie uses suggestion and illusion to remedy a bond that has been almost completely severed. Because of her unreliability and desperate tendency to smooth over the break, we cannot know how successful Rie actually has been in fixing the damaged emotional connections between Kenichi and Takata. Even if we take Rie’s report of Kenichi’s turnabout at face value, and even if we believe that Takata has experienced the same thing, the new connection is never enacted face-to-face, but is mediated through Rie’s desires, interpretation, and voice, and mostly via technology, in this case the telephone. The film begins with the dilemma of estrangement between Takata and Kenichi, but before long this plot line metamorphoses into another. After his first encounter with Li Jiamin in the prison, Takata has convinced himself that his imagined resolution will have no chance of success unless he, like Rie, can be the agent of a different father-son reconciliation. We can think of the Li-Yangyang problematic as emerging from the Takata-Kenichi rupture, as a conceptual doppelganger, or as a distorted mirror image. We may wonder why Takata does not take the direct and potentially more painful route of forcing a confrontation with Kenichi, but we have little reason to doubt his sincerity.5 By contrast, in the case of Li Jiamin, the villager leaders regard his outpouring of emotion as nothing more than performance. They are actively suspicious of his

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newfound interest in his son and for that reason, initially refuse to acquiesce to Takata’s request. Whereas Rie is the go-between for Takata and Kenichi, and Takata is the go-between for Li Jiamin and his son Yangyang, Lingo is the main go-between for Takata and his experience in China. The first father-son relationship (Takata-Kenichi) is mediated by Rie on the Japanese side, and the second (Li-Yangyang) by Takata, with the necessary addition of Lingo to account for Takata’s inability to function in China. In terms of the substitute relationship between Takata and Yangyang, which stands in for both Takata’s failed relationship with Kenichi and for Yangyang’s disavowal of his biological father Li Jiamin, Lingo is the guide, essentially becoming a cultural facilitator. Despite Lingo’s nearly complete lack of Japanese language ability, skilled translator and tour guide Jasmine asks him to take over as Takata’s translator when she reaches the end of her assigned duty. Like Rie, Lingo appears to be a kind—if less communicatively skilled—person whose ultimate goal is to smooth over the difficult interactions between Takata and the Chinese systems with which he interacts. The village leaders and the prison officials poke a hole in the performance, loudly proclaiming that Lingo doesn’t understand any Japanese at all and dismissing his efforts. Jasmine, who is constantly on call by phone, is a knowledgeable and pragmatic interlocutor who tells Takata that his quest to record Li Jiamin in prison is simply too difficult, especially for a foreigner. The audience, but not Takata, has access to her frank assessments as she speaks to Lingo in Chinese, advising him to send Takata back to Japan. A naïve facilitator, Lingo stands at the boundary between the two cultures, a translator who has little ability to mediate. Lingo’s sincerity, similar to Rie’s, is yet another level of “smoothing out,” and involves his participation in several direct but well-intentioned lies. For example, he tells Takata that “Kenichi is my friend,” adding “very good friend,” even though later Jasmine explains that Kenichi had no friends in China and that Lingo doesn’t know him either. Lingo arranges

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for an opera actor to perform for Takata as Li Jiamin when he knows full well that this actor is not Li Jiamin. Challenged by Jasmine, Lingo says, “It does not have to be Li. Other actors can also play Lord Guan.” He tries to convince Jasmine that there is no need to recruit Li Jiamin for the performance, saying “All the actors are very good. Once the mask goes on, it doesn’t matter who is behind it. Even a native can’t tell the difference between the voices. So how could a Japanese person?” The statement is not only true but also revealing: Lingo uses the murkiness caused by linguistic and cultural barriers to fudge the authenticity of cultural experience, with the goal of avoiding potential conflict and appearing to bring Takata’s plans to fruition, at least on the surface, which is as far as they need to go. And yet, despite his two-faced approach to negotiating the desires and understanding of a foreigner, Lingo understands local culture better than Jasmine. It is he who explains the story of Lord Guan and the significance of the masked opera to Jasmine, and who knows that Li Jiamin was far from a devoted father before his outpouring of emotion for his estranged son. Lingo’s efforts to smooth things over for a foreign guest offer a calculated mix of sincerity and mediation that is located in overlapping realms of authenticity, sincerity, inauthenticity, and duplicity. Always a fractured and contested term but even more difficult to parse as globalization breaks down linguistic, cultural, social and political boundaries, authenticity is nonetheless a useful concept as we consider the Lingo’s strategy in managing the cross-cultural encounter, and as we abstract the various forms of masking and performance.6 The initial understanding of both Lingo and Jasmine in their dealing with Takata is that he is similar to a tourist, and should be treated as an outsider. Jasmine quickly becomes frustrated by Takata’s demands, which she initially views as troublesome and impossible to meet. At the same time, her professionalism does not allow her to lie to Takata. Less constrained than Jasmine by the requirements of professional behavior, Lingo fully exploits the vast space that exists between insiders with linguistic and cultural knowledge, and outsiders who may bear good intentions but have little functional

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understanding. As a result he readily indulges in machinations and lying to meet Takata’s seemingly impossible demands. The mask stands not only for its ability to hide the identity of the performer, as Lingo states, or as the barrier preventing emotional connection, as the voice of Kenichi contends. It also is a performative membrane that blends sincerity and duplicity, authenticity and inauthenticity. In the first segment of their interaction, Lingo and Jasmine both regard Takata is a tourist, and after Jasmine’s abdication, Lingo spends his efforts in the organization of surface experience to make it seem authentic. In this example, he does not worry about the objective authenticity of the performer, but only about whether Takata will perceive the performance to be authentic for the purpose of his recording. In fact, Takata is a kind of tourist. He directly indulges in touristic behavior when he casually films performances on the street as he prepares to record the actor he thinks is Li Jiamin. However, this quest for an authentic performance by the one and only Li Jiamin is complicated by the fact that unlike a pure tourist, Takata does not want to experience a genuine performance of the opera himself, but rather to record it. His journey is primarily for the purpose of capturing an authentic performance, which he will present to his son in an effort to show his intent and mend their relationship.7 Takata’s belief that he can do something important for Kenichi—even though it allows him to avoid facing his own complicity in the separation and absolves him of the necessity to face his son and make a heartfelt apology—is sincere, but is simultaneously built on layers of duplicity and confusion, enhanced and solidified by the mediation of recording and transmitting devices. He decides that he must go to China on Kenichi’s behalf, even though he lacks any clear understanding of Kenichi’s experience there. This irrational belief points not to a logical progression of Takata’s thinking, but rather toward a mystical motivation that is not dissimilar to what tourists may hope for when they travel abroad. In his now-classic study of tourism, Dean MacCannell (1999) argues that in addition to feeding

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modern nostalgia and other desires, the act of tourism provides a sense of communion and collectivity: Presumably sightseeing, along with religious fervor and patriotism, can be important for the development of a certain kind of mind...Tourism and participation in the other modern alternatives to everyday life makes a place for unattached individuals in modern society. The act of sightseeing is a kind of involvement with social appearances that helps the person to construct totalities from his disparate experiences. Thus, his life and his society can appear to him as an orderly series of formal representations, like snapshots in a family album. (15) The film highlights the positive results of Takata’s trip: the turnaround that Jasmine and Lingo experience as they come to both appreciate the earnestness of the Japanese man’s quest and even willingly return the money he has given them; the fatherly feelings that Takata has elicited in Li Jiamin; the urge toward friendship that develops in Yangyang; the change in Director Li’s mind about the prison visit; and the willingness of the villagers to work with him. Yet at the same time, the film also undercuts this warm narrative of personal, human, and cross-national connections by implying that it comes only at a loss, with wide-ranging implications. It turns out, for example, that the original VHS tape that mysteriously inspired Takata’s sudden desire to travel to China may itself have been nothing but social performance, or the recording of a polite interaction. Yet Takata quickly adapts that interaction to his needs, understanding his son’s failure to record Li Jiamin’s performance as a hole in Kenichi’s rich cultural experience in a foreign country. He creates an opening, a gap that he hopes to fill with his recording. But even that cultural experience turns out to be an illusion fostered by multiple levels of misunderstanding and mediation: Kenichi’s rich life and rewarding work in China, Takata learns via telephone, was not what he imagined. In another example, Jasmine provides crucial information that should alter Takata’s interpretation, informing him that neither she nor Lingo knew

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Kenichi well, that he did not have many friends, and that he spent most of his time staring blankly at the mountains, obliquely suggesting that Kenichi’s relationship with China was a function of his own troubled mind. Even so, Rie tells her father-in-law that Kenichi is touched by Takata’s efforts to record the opera performance, offering yet another possibility: even if Takata’s efforts are misguided, they could have a positive result. Rie’s obvious mission of bringing father and son together one more time, even at the cost of the truth, drives her narration, giving Takata good reason to suspect that the change of heart in Kenichi that his daughter-in-law has reported is a fabrication. And finally, even the banquet held in Takata’s honor in the village where Yangyang lives is suspect. While it may be true that the villagers are innocent in their intentions and have generously held a banquet for a foreign visitor, the director’s filming angle highlights a long table with most of the villagers far away from Takata. This angle, along with close shots of Takata sitting awkwardly and mutely, lead us to suspect that the Japanese man’s presence may be an excuse for something the villagers want to do anyway: to get together for a good meal (see figure 37). But after all, as Kenichi’s absence has suggested, this trip has little to do with the son and everything to do with the father. With that focus in mind, we should consider what Takata’s failure to heed Rie’s call to abandon his search means about his journey, especially after he learns of Kenichi’s terminal diagnosis. If he really wants to reconnect with his son before it is too late, shouldn’t he rush back to Japan? In a stunning substitution, Takata proclaims that his effort to reunite Li Jiamin and Yangyang is as important as the recording of Li’s performance for his dying son. This new goal, in which he becomes completely immersed, prevents him from returning to Japan in time to see Kenichi before his death. In other words, the touching interaction that Takata has with Yangyang and Li Jiamin comes at the expense of his relationship with his son. Interpreted generously, perhaps Takata believes that Kenichi’s knowledge of his efforts will effect a change of heart, which could be as valuable as a face-to-face reunion, especially if Kenichi still does not

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forgive him. But his doubts about the truth of Rie’s words should throw a shadow on that possibility. We also could conclude that authentic crosscultural communication and experience is realized only at a tremendous cost, which would be a powerful critique of the influence of globalization on culture and on the sense of having a home.8 However, comparing Takata’s experience in China with that of Kenichi, who was an expert on masked opera, the father’s satisfaction is all the more mysterious. Whereas Takata finds fulfillment in his trip to China, Kenichi found only loneliness and alienation. Apparently Takata’s breakthrough with Yangyang and Li Jiamin is more satisfying than what his son, China expert Kenichi, was able to achieve. Indeed, although Takata is unable to connect with his son, he appears to have made a genuine, authentic human connection with Yangyang during the night they spent in the hills. His failure at home and success abroad point to a subjective feeling of freedom and authenticity as one kind of experience in cross-cultural boundary crossing—at least as long as one does not know too much either about the culture in general, or about the people with whom one interacts. As researchers in tourism studies have documented, modern travelers whose sensibilities have been dulled by a predictable daily life routine at home often hope to gain the sense of something new and real in an unfamiliar environment. However, authenticity comes in many different packages, and is not necessarily easy to discern. Objective authenticity exists in genuine cultural items or forms, and cannot be replaced by a copy: an inauthentic object will produce an inauthentic experience. Symbolic authenticity allows the tourist rather than the site to determine what is authentic, and recognizes a more fluid experience that may incorporate ritual and performance to a greater degree. Existential authenticity may be unrelated to genuine objects or forms, but nonetheless relies to a greater degree upon the subject’s emotional experience. Postmodernists reject authenticity, arguing that we live in a space of inauthenticity, the hyperreal, and the simulacra. Tourists with this understanding of their trips fully accept the inauthenticity of tourism, and admire performances explicitly staged for the tourist.9

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Takata’s purpose in traveling to China is to record a performance by a certain opera actor and no other is a reference to objective authenticity. The eventual perversion of that mission suggests that Takata eventually realizes that the simple capturing of an authentic performance may not be what he is really seeking. His refusal to return home for one final meeting with Kenichi, his gradual substitution of a connection with Yangyang for an emotional bond with his son, and his subsequent management of the father-son reunion involve both symbolic and existential authenticity. He seems to have accepted the loss at home, and values what he has gained in China over even a final farewell to Kenichi. Although Riding Alone seems sentimental, many aspects of the film contradict this warm and fuzzy feeling. Despite this apparent dissonance, the film does not present a surface-depth binary structure as much as a thick layer of affective interactions that turn out to possess similar clarity or murkiness for all. In other words, those who have substantial cultural and linguistic understanding within a given context are as vulnerable as those who do not. Authenticity exists more in intention than in any other realm, and meaningful cross-cultural communication can occur only through the sincerity of all parties.10 This honest and direct affective link between different peoples and cultures itself, however is subject to criticism in the film. The affective influences of Takata’s journey, which draw him to the plight of Li Jiamin and Yangyang, imply a sincere and childlike heart. Yet they also speak to his failure to undertake the necessary long-term emotive and political work to live a grounded life at home. Takata’s detachment from Kenichi—essentially erasing his presence—and attachment of himself to Yangyang questions the way in which meaningful cross-cultural encounters can occur. Simply speaking, his refusal to work hard to regain the confidence of his son, while at the same time “crossing five rivers and killing six generals” (as does the main character in the play he hopes to record) to inspire fatherly feelings in Li Jiamin and to reunite Yangyang and his father becomes a series of misplaced priorities. These so-called successes, presented sentimentally, encourage viewers to moderate their

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understanding of Takata’s cross-cultural victories through an extended context that recognizes displacement as one aspect of his encounters.11 The duplicity of cross-cultural travel, with its alluring yet deceptive promise of accomplishments that can surpass those of home, comes across not only thematically, but even more convincingly through the film’s emphasis on mediation and the simulacra. Rie and Takata communicate mostly via telephone, the videotape and recorder feature in many scenes, and the TV is an important form of projection. With the exception of the near-mute affective link between Takata and Yangyang, which occurs “in the wilds” without the intervention of phone, TV, or recorder, direct connection between human beings appears impossible. With its ubiquitous insertion of local agendas, cultural misunderstandings, and interceding devices, the film slyly pulls the rug out from under our sentimental expectations. The emphasis on mediation also could refer to the fourth level of authenticity in tourism, which recognizes the role of simulacra. Viewers could accept the fact that much of crosscultural communication, even that which appears most genuine, is to some degree staged. A key moment in the film comes as Takata, desperate to gain the cooperation of the authorities to enter the prison and record the opera “Riding Alone” as performed by Li Jiamin, concocts a performance of his own. In the official’s office where he goes to make his case, Takata notices colorful banners on the wall, and learns from Lingo that they are expressions of gratitude. When he fails to convince Director Li, who is in charge of approving a prison visit, he notices a store selling banners and decides on the spot to have his own banners made. In an expressive plea that references his sick son and their long estrangement and ends in silent tears, Tataka shows his banners, which thank Director Li for his help. However, this plea does not happen in person, but on a television through a VHS tape that Takata has recorded. Lingo is in charge of setting up the encounter, and waits outside Director Li’s door for hours. As the tape is played, he translates and narrates, holding up banners

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to complement those that Takata shows on the screen (see figure 38). The phrase on the banners, “xiezhu” can be translated literally as “thank help,” and more colloquially as “thank you for your help,” in this case in advance. Facing the banners, the characters on the right read “Director Li,” and on the left are the characters for Takata’s name. Kwai-cheung Lo (2010) argues that through this scene and through the fact that Takata can communicate with Lingo and others only by writing Chinese characters, the film highlights the cultural debt that Japan owes to China. In this particular scene, according to Lo, the characters xiezhu 谢助 are close to xiezui 谢罪 (apology for crimes), which is the term used when China demands that Japan recognize and apologize for war crimes that occurred during the Anti-Japanese War.12 The scene then becomes an imaginary staging of a Japanese apology to China for its wartime atrocities, and a filmic attempt to find a resolution to the “historical entanglement” of China and Japan (79). While that interpretation may be a stretch, the geographical range of Chinese characters beyond national borders is relevant to the communicative difficulties that become fodder for the plot, and the truncated map of the world in the upper left of the screen reminds us that this apology, and indeed, all of the interactions between Takata and his Chinese hosts, have global implications.13 Behind the television is a Chinese painting of plum blossoms, which bloom in the winter and traditionally symbolize endurance, a seminal quality in the story “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.” Wiping his eyes, Director Li judges the performance to be genuine and grants Takata’s request. Ironically, the performance on film has impressed the authorities more than meeting with Takata face-to-face. It also has allowed Takata to reveal more about the reason for his unique request, to admit his distress over Kenichi, and to accept blame. It appears that communication mediated through the distancing lens of film or television not only opens the door to more direct and honest content, but also may be more effective than any plea made in person. Validated by Director Li’s response, the stammering emotional presentation on the screen seems to express authentic feeling. At the same time, however, Takata’s illogical

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setting aside of a final meeting with Kenichi, as well as other niggling confusions and twisting decisions along the way, implies that producing an emotional response may be a relatively easy form of cross-cultural communication, especially in the absence of deep understanding. The title of the opera that Takata wants to records, “Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles”—as well as the title of the film—is based on a story in the foundational epic and historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo 2014).14 The tale takes place at the end of and following the Han dynasty, beginning roughly in 180 AD. The story “Riding Alone” relates Guan Yu’s attempt to reunite with his sworn brother and leader Liu Bei, in which Guan Yu “traveled through five valleys and killed six generals.” Scholars recognize that this part of the Three Kingdoms is a fabrication, for there is no historical record of Guan Yu actually having traveled through five valleys (impossible considering his destination) or killing six generals (Lu Shengjiang 2007). Nonetheless, the story became a foundational tale of Chinese culture, exhibiting the values of emotional intensity and loyalty. The film’s highlighting of emotion as driving action, in both warm and duplicitous ways, is woven into the fictional story’s history, with the implication that a riveting performance—this time, through a textual narrative—can inspire emotions that may drive beliefs, behavior, and ideology. But in terms of the “facts” it presents, it also may be fundamentally wrong.

Performance and Authenticity Issues of performance and authenticity came to the fore outside the film when the players who acted in the opera performance at the jail protested that the film misrepresented local culture. Whereas Zhang Yimou originally had planned on using Guansuo Opera from the Chengjiang area of Yunnan, the film’s music director, Guo Wenjing, at the last minute decided Guansuo Opera would not show well on the stage, and used Anshun Local Opera from Guizhou province, instead.15 However, promotional materials for the film continued to play up the opera as Yunnan

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Chengjiang Guansuo, and posters touted the mystery and beauty of Yunnan in the opera, including its costumes and masks. In the opening scenes, as Takata views the tape of Kenichi in China, the announcer also refers to the opera as from Yunnan (see figure 39). The success of the film, with its Japanese star Takakura Ken and its renowned director Zhang Yimou, brought fans to Yunnan to see Chengjiang Guansuo Opera instead of what was actually performed, with credit going to the more famous Yunnan province instead of its relatively unknown neighbor, Guizhou province. To make things more complicated, the actor who plays Li Jiamin in the film is an actual Yunnan Opera performer in real life, but the masked actor performing on the stage in the prison in the film is a different person: Zhan Xueyan, an Anshun Local Opera actor. Those acting with him in prison garb are also Anshun Local Opera actors (see figure 40). When the opera actors learned that their performance was advertised as Guansuo Opera instead of Anshun Local Opera, they felt betrayed. They argued that the soul of culture is in transmission, and ethnicities survive only through culture. Demanding an apology, they claimed legal protection under the “Temporary Law to Protect the Transmission and Management of National-Level Non-Material Culture” (line 21), which states: “The use of national level intangible cultural heritage items in order to carry out artistic creation, product development, travel activities, and so on, should respect the original form and cultural content, and prevent misuse and misappropriation.”16 What ensued was a “cultural battle,” online and in print, in Guizhou and Yunnan, about the proper attribution of the film and the way the actors were used (Wang Chunlan 2007; Zhang Donggang 2006). Although they did not succeed in their suit, this reallife debate mimics the query into cultural representation, performance, and authenticity that the film vigorously undertakes. The difficulty of adequately defining, describing, or evaluating ownership, possession, or violation of tangible cultural heritage—let alone intangible heritage—has stimulated debate and disagreement about which items are worthy or in need of protection, and exactly what protection means. The transition of

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daily life and sacred items into a different sphere of understanding that can range from museum conservation and spectatorship to the global market can destroy their meaning and efficacy within cultural practice.17 The Riding Alone actors who felt their culture had been dishonored stated that they were embarrassed to appear before their fellow villagers once the film came out. The apparently careless misidentification of the opera’s provenance violated their ability to continue performing within the environment in which they lived and worked. What is the “new cultural imaginary” that Li Guanying (2006) locates in Riding Alone (86)? Although I have shifted focus from the apparent warmth of the film’s unexpected human encounters—often enhanced by swelling music—to the problems that they seem to elide, I agree with Li that the context of globalization and cross-cultural contact, and the emphasis on how culture can have meaning within these contacts, forms the broad topic of the film. The film’s imaginatively addresses performance and mediation as integral parts of cultural exchange on all levels, as well as the duplicities that these elements allow and even encourage. It is along these lines, with a nod to the multiple valences of insider knowledge, that characters such as the prison warden appear as both humorous and touching. His stiff manner and cadence in language, which echoes that of the policeman played by Ge You in Keep Cool, will quickly be recognized by local audiences as a certain type. In explaining to Lingo and Takata that the recording of a play involving Lord Guan is a good way to spread Chinese culture, and by stating that Lord Guan is not a state secret, the warden refers to a complex history of tight control of cultural products and representations, and of cultural xenophobia. As opposed to Hero, Riding Alone questions not the ability of culture to accomplish what it should on the global stage, but rather, whether or not any performance on or off the stage—especially a play where the audience and performers are separated by different cultures and languages—can contain truth value, be authentic, or represent something real. Through persistently raising questions and doubts in narrative and visual presentation, Riding Alone forces us to closely examine the validity

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of the endeavor and the complex trail of conflicting desires that shift and alter through the cross-cultural experience. It also adds a twist to the query about culture in which many of Zhang Yimou’s films engage, suggesting that looking abroad for inspiration too intently may obscure losses at home. Figure 37. Banquet table.

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Figure 38. Takata’s videotaped plea with Lingo in person.

Figure 39. Tape from Rei of Kenichi in China.

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Figure 40. Zhan Xueyan on stage with other Anshun Local Opera performers.

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Notes 1. A shorter version of this paper was published in 2012 (Larson 2012b). I have greatly expanded the article here, and also altered important aspects of the argument. 2. Li Jinchao (2006) argues that Riding Alone is Zhang’s first film without a female lead, although “the personality of Takata nonetheless possesses a special characteristic that the women in Zhang Yimou’s films all have, that is to say the quality of ‘backbone’” (165n1). As we will see, the emphasis on sons is maintained. 3. For a set of illuminating essays on Habermas’ theory of communicative action, see Axel Honneth and Hans Joas (1991). Habermas (1991) responds to the essays in the final piece, noting his subsequent focus on the “relationship between law, morals and ethical life” (214). For a somewhat different application of Habermas’ theories of communication to the film, see Li Ailing (2006). 4. See Michael Shaefer, Hans-Jochen Heinze, Michale Rotte, and Claudia Denke (2013). The authors also argue that “strategic reasoning is associated with reduced activation in brain regions previously described as the moral sensitivity network and to areas linked to emotional processing, most likely pointing to the selfish and less social character of this logic” (6). 5. There are some indications that Takata may to some degree hold Kenichi responsible for their breakup. His suspicion of Rie’s reportage indicates a long-term wariness of his son’s motivations. And the reason Takata fled Tokyo after his wife’s death is never fully explained, leaving us to wonder whether his abandonment of his son was more complicated than it seems. 6. These terms have an extended presence in the history of Western philosophy, art, and literature. The concept of authenticity was taken up at length by Martin Heiddeger (2010) in his 1927 work Being and Time. Heidegger argues that uncanniness, or a state of unease, is pervasive in human life, which tries to escape the constant burden of upcoming death by fleeing into everydayness (alltäglichkeit) or complacency, routine, and conformity, leading to a voluntary inauthenticity. However, Heiddeger also relates authenticity to culture. As Dorothy Leland explains in her analysis of Heidegger’s concept of the social as under-

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7.

8.

9. 10.

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stood by Charles Guignon, “Authenticity and inauthenticity refer to ways in which one takes up and takes over one’s cultural heritage—its possibilities, its patterns of living and doing, its stories and interpretations” (Leland 2001, 110). See also Michael E. Zimmerman (1986); and Charles Guignon (1993). For a summary of the way in which authenticity is discussed in philosophy at large, where it is an important concept for Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others, see “Authenticity” (2014). According to Charles Taylor (1989, 1991), the “discovery” of a hidden true or individual self itself morphed into a value in not only in psychology but also in popular culture. The terms “self” and “individual” also have been widely discussed among scholars of traditional China, with a debate about their relevance. Although many emphasize the collective context of familial, social, and political relations and therefore argue that the Chinese integrated individual is radically different from the Western atomized self, others point to the Confucian emphasis on self-cultivation as evidence of self-authority and self-determination. See Roger Ames and David L. Hall (1998); Stephen Angle (2002); Joseph Chan (2002); and Karyn Lai (2007). Early research on tourism focused on authenticity, while later scholars argued that in the age of the simulacra and the hyperreal, the concept of authenticity—which implied the existence of an original— had to some degree lost its value. See Anne Buchmann, Kevin Moore, and David Fisher (2010); and Jillian M. Rickly-Boyd (2012). Russell Cobb (2014) argues that whereas digitalization and globalization have resulted in a rejection of the possibility of cultural authenticity and the embracing of the idea that everything is simulacra, they also have produced a desire for genuine cultural products. Although in his well-known The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005), Thomas Friedman states that globalization was supposed to “flatten our cultural and political differences, creating a homogenous world where the cold logic of the marketplace dictated what films we watched, what music we listened to, and what literature we read,” we retain our desire for authentic culture (3). At the same time, the calculated production and performance of supposedly authentic products and experiences has become common and profitable. For a summary of theories about authenticity in tourism research, see Ning Wang (1999). On the issues of sincerity and intention, Li Jinchao (2006) comments, “In Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, strong force gradually is weak-

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11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

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ened, because the director ultimately merges the suppressed with those who tenaciously hold on to the value of emotion (qing) in human life. So we see that no matter if it concerns Takata as father to son Kenichi, or the bureau chief and the villagers, they all come around to support and understanding after a temporary bout of resistance. Therefore, we can see that when Takata comes by himself from Japan to China to film the Nuo opera Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, and when we see the honest recognition of this good man come from afar on the part of the tenacious bureau chief and the good-hearted villagers, isn’t this another kind of semantic interpretation of ‘riding alone for thousands of miles?’” (173). There is substantial research on “home” not only in tourism scholarship, but also in diaspora studies. See Leroy S. Rouner (1996) and Gabriel Sheffer (2003). For diaspora within home, see S. Charusheela (2007). Kwai-cheung Lo also claims that Lingo has reversed the order of the characters, although it is possible that he has held up the sign for the opposite character that Takata is holding, making the phrase readable from left to right or right to left (79, 88 Note 22). Thanks to Bryna Goodman for suggesting that the scene also could imply Asian brotherhood between Chinese and Japanese men and by extension, the two nations. The novel is attributed to Luo Guanchong, who lived around 1330-1400. The text has been translated by Ronald C. Iverson (Luo Guanchong 2014). For detailed information and analysis, see Kimberly Ann Besio and Constantine Tung (2007). Guansuo opera has been studied extensively by Sylvie Beaud-Kobayashi (2012a). See also her related work (2010, 2012b, 2014). Beaud-Kobayashi’s work helped me think through the affective meanings of ritual, and concerns regarding identity and performance. I am grateful for her generous and energetic engagement in e-mail exchanges over the last few years, and for explaining her ideas about Guansuo opera. The law was passed on October 25, 2006, and enacted on December 1 of the same year (“Temporary Law” 2006). These issues were widely discussed at the International Conference on Protection of Cultural Property in Asia, Thimphu, Bhutan, February 15– 18, 2013, to which I was invited based on my interest in intangible cultural heritage. The presentations and discussions were focused on tangible culture, in particular the stupas and other sacred items taken from remote areas or unguarded temples and sold on the global marketplace.

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Yet the way in which cultural objects are experienced, and their roles in daily life, is also related to the importance of intangible culture.

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Conclusion

National Culture on a Global Stage The 2008 Beijing Olympics The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. —Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1986, 3) The fact that a well-known feature film director was chosen to develop and direct the opening and closing ceremonies to the Beijing Olympics provides us with a remarkable opportunity to view a display of something imagined as representing the nation on an indisputably global stage.1 Via its hosting of the Olympics, China sought to express its integration in the “family of nations” while projecting a positive and friendly image (Qing 2010, 1830).2 Among his detractors, Zhang Yimou’s choices for this

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important event only confirmed their judgments—criticisms include a stereotypical, predictable display of traditional culture and a lackluster presentation of contemporary culture, excessive Hollywood-style specularity, paucity of imagination, a big and soul-free imaginary, and a sense of mechanical repetition (Ho 2011, 7). Yet reactions to the ceremonies among critics and the public were mixed, with extravagant praise as well as harsh critique directed at the vision and execution of the complex show. Lu Yunting (2010) describes the Olympic ceremony as the culmination of a long dream of genuine national status within the world for China. The enthusiasm of the population is documented in the large numbers of volunteers (close to one million) for a limited number of slots (100,000). Julia Lovell (2008) also documents the exuberant patriotic emotion expressed upon the announcement that Bejing won its bid to host the Olympics, and the large number of people who took to the streets to celebrate. She traces a conflicted national identity that boasts of an old and glorious civilization along with a contemporary world culture inferior to others. Rodanthi Tzanelli (2010) cites the great pride among Chinese leaders when Beijing was chosen as the 2008 Olympics site, and also provides an excellent summary of various interpretations of not only the Beijing Olympics, but also of various modern sporting events and their pageantry. She connects the shape of the Olympic stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, to the hat worn by Mei in Zhang Yimou’s film House of Flying Daggers (2004).3 The Olympics is a global sporting event based on organization of teams by nation.4 By contrast, a professional team is organized through constant negotiation between resources and skill: it attracts the best players possible within the context of its financial abilities.5 As a national exhibition presented in the context of the world, the Olympics are ordered by the nation-state political model, with implied acceptance of international rules and standards and participation in the global network of nations (Finlay and Xin 2010).6 The structure implies that any nation can compete against another, or that there is an abstract and implicit parity between nations. The games also suggest a direct equivalence

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between the cultural traits and performances exhibited in the ceremonies and some imaginary of national essence. With the exceptions of cancellations in 1916, 1940, and 1944, the summer Olympics have an unbroken tradition that began in 1896, when the first global Olympics in Athens were declared open by King George I. In the 1908 London games, the Parade of Nations was added (Gardiner 2009, 5). Organized through representation by nation-state rather than through selection based on individual quality (although some pretrial competitions to prevent the lowest-level athletes from competing eventually were instituted), the first-ever Olympics attracted 241 athletes from fourteen nations, with forty-three events. The winter Olympics were added in 1924 and first held in France, and in 1992 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regularized the summer and winter Olympics so that they would be evenly spaced. In addition to the organization of athletes through nationality, the games have many ways to flag their allegiance to the nation-state as a fundamental form of political and social organization. The Olympic Charter requires, sometimes unsuccessfully, that the games be opened by the host country’s head of state, despite the fact that they are awarded to a city, not a country. Led by a bearer of the national flag, athletes enter the stadium as part of a national team, all clothed in the same traditional or modern outfit and often waving small flags of their own. Medal ceremonies fly the national flag of winners, and the national anthem of the gold medal winner is played. Although athletes do not need to wear their national uniform during the Olympics, medal winners must wear the clothes preapproved for their national team during the award ceremony. The flag bearers reappear in the closing ceremony, and the three national flags of Greece (the country that inspired the Olympics), the host country, and the next host country are flown. The opening ceremony of the Olympics itself has become a competition, expanding in cost, scale, and ambition. At least since the 1920 Antwerp summer Olympics, the ceremony has been understood to exhibit the Olympic ideals established by Pierre de Coubertin (1863–1937), as well as

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to showcase the historical accomplishments and culture of the host nation. De Coubertin’s Olympic philosophy included amateurism, valuing effort over results, and valorizing competitive sportsmanship and spirit. In the first half of the twentieth century, competitions in the arts paralleled those in sports. However, logistical problems with the definition of the amateur, as well as lack of audience, brought the competitions to an end by 1952, when the IOC decided in favor of cultural exhibitions over competition. This Cultural Olympiad is a program of cultural events that often take place over many years in the host country, intensifying in the year of the Olympics. The triad of sport, education, and culture envisioned by de Coubertin as the “spirit of the Olympics” involved the cultivation of the body, the intellect, and the spirit, which together made up the “harmoniously educated man,” values that are still part of the Olympic Charter (Garcia 2002, 5). The Olympics have been widely researched in sports studies, with special attention to their structure, form, and politics, as well as the demonstration of cultural essence that the ceremonies have come to represent. Rodanthi Tzanelli (2010) notes that “in an increasingly interconnected world, the need to demonstrate cultural specificity without shutting down the lines of communication can only be satisfied by ritualised expression” (217–218). The staging process of the games involves a complex development of cultural rituals, signs, and images. Organizing committees are starkly aware of the difficulties involved in identifying and choosing cultural values, not to mention in representing them for both local and global audiences at the same time, especially in the age of instantaneous transmission and commentary. This emphasis on display is a necessary part of any city’s winning bid for the Olympics, and after the site is decided, a national committee generally takes over. The aim of the committee is to present an event that is trouble-free, gains admiration for the nation, and showcases cultural values. The committee for the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics in Norway, for example, sought to show the world a “typically Norwegian” set of cultural traits, while watching the eyes of others to see what needs to be improved in the

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Norwegian “way of life and culture” (Tzanelli 2013, 362). Finding means to “summarize the political and cultural personality of the host country in a way that is both representative in the eyes of the local community and easy to understand by foreigners” is the goal, although the media can easily interject its own interpretations and alter the original intent (362). Cultural representation often includes a selection of cultural values, which are manifested through the arts, architecture, popular culture, and folklore. The process involves an image strategy that may include not only the abstract representation of a culture and the values associated with it, but also the creation of a tourist destination and more generally, a product or a commodity. The issue of choosing and representing cultural identity, therefore, can become mixed up with the goals of various constituents such as tourist agencies, athletic organizations, media, commercial sponsors, the International Olympic Committee, and other such groups, complicating the message. The domestic audience has access to various events over years, but for the international audience, the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, which are televised globally, are the most important cultural event. The emphasis on “international projection” has been intense in recent years, especially in Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004), and Beijing (2008) (372). In Munich, Seoul, and Beijing, all countries “with a marked military past,” where the ceremonies became a way to improve global image (Garcia 2002, 9). China began to build sports competitions in the late Qing dynasty and early twentieth century, through missionaries and the YMCA, which promoted sporting as an important aspect of modernization. The participation of competitive Chinese athletes has long been mediated by the perception that China had lagged behind in the global race for national power. Development of a visible performance of national power was behind the Chinese push to send athletes to the Olympics, to win medals, and finally, to hold the Olympics in China. Comparing the 2008

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Chinese Olympics with the 2006 German World Cup, David Schrag (2009) argues that the historical lack of democracy in Germany and the present lack of democracy and a robust civil society in China resulted in a muted national display, albeit in different ways. The overall message of the Beijing Olympics, Schrag states, was an affirmation of Confucianism as the ideology that would “harmonize the contradictions of capitalism and communism” (1096). Although overt reference to militarization and political power were thus avoided in both cases, critics nonetheless found them lurking in the aesthetic presentation of the opening ceremonies. The most common critique is directed at the “art of the square”—the massing of hundreds of performers in a plaza or square executing precise synchronized movements—that is sometimes considered to be part of a “Zhang Yimou brand” (Lu Yunting 2010).7 Many have noted that the 1975 deconstruction of the “fascist aesthetics” of Leni Riefenstahl by Susan Sontag (1980 [1975]), often invoked in critiques of Hero and discussed in Chapter 8 of this book, could easily be applied to the opening ceremony. In particular, apt descriptions would include the “extravagant effort,” the “characteristic pageantry,” the massing of groups of people, who often are turned into things, the multiplication or replication of things, and choreography that “alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, ‘virile’ posing.” In addition, the “grandiose and rigid patterns” designed to express and rehearse the “very unity of the polity,” and finally, “mass athletic demonstrations, a choreographed display of bodies,” with its “holding in or confining of force” and “military precision” could be descriptions of the opening ceremony in 2008 (91–92). Yet these artistic characterizations and spectacles cannot automatically or uncritically be transformed into ideological positions, but must be carefully analyzed within both the creative work and the context of the times.8 As King To Ho (2011) has explained, the Olympic strategies of Zhang Yimou and his team, developed over three years and in two thousand meetings, were to divide the ceremony into two major parts, the historical and the contemporary, with the intention of integrating ancient aesthetics with new technology, while “refusing to

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use the semiotic signs that are familiar to the West” (5). These Western semiotic signs turn out to be individual autonomy, authenticity, and individuality, which are rejected in favor of communality and cooperation, as well as making “Chinese culture and aesthetics more accessible to the world” (5). In the West, there was a great deal of discussion about the substitution of the attractive young girl Lin Miaoke, who lip-synchs for another girl, Yang Peiyi, deemed less photogenic. Yang, who is a good singer and yet is banished behind the stage and replaced by Lin, is an example of counterfeiting and fakery typical of China, many argued.9 According to Christopher J. Finlay and Xin Xin (2010), this criticism is a perfect example of the West’s emphasis on individual autonomy and authenticity: We contend that the media flurry about the lip-synching did not progress into new or self-reflective territory. Instead, it reignited Cold War rhetoric that pitted the apparently obvious benefits of neo-liberalism against the dubious outputs of collectivist societies. Further, Western commentators continuously tried to take the moral high-ground, arguing that China’s collectivism was inhumane. Sympathetic portrayals of both girls as victims of a nefarious Chinese Communist Party were supplemented by stories about Chinese performers who were forced to wear adult nappies so that they could perform during the four-hour opening ceremony without taking a break. As in the Cold War, collectivism was implicitly framed as exploitative, where individuals were forsaken for the glory of the nation-state (885). They note that Sinologists and other experts interpreted the debate around this issue as a cultural conflict pitting individualism against communal values and results, or those from one society “working together to create the best possible outcome” (885).10 Two other concerns widely discussed in Western media were the fireworks display, which was digitally augmented for the television audience, and the fact that the fifty-six children representing the fifty-six minorities in China did not

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all belong to the ethnic groups they represented. Both issues elicited cries of inauthenticity. Comparing reaction to the ceremony among Chinese and Western audiences is difficult, since difference segments of various populations within these groups reacted with both positive and negative assessments. According to some, the intellectual critics in China were even more dismayed than those in the West, and in fact, the overall reaction in the Western press—which generally admired the precision and execution of technologically complex formations formed with hundreds of participants—was positive enough to “save” the ceremonies from total repudiation (Lu Yunting 2010, 17). Ironically, some Chinese commentators criticized Zhang Yimou for the apparent display of communality, which they perceived as inhuman. However, another kind of criticism, as shown in an article published by Ai Weiwei (2014), suggests that according to some critics, it is exactly the immense cost and effort that went into the ceremonies, as well as the spectacular result, that branded them as inferior. Ai, who was an artistic consultant for the Bird’s Nest but later withdrew from the same role for the opening ceremony, compares the ceremonies at the 2012 London Olympics with the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Of the London ceremonies, he comments: Brilliant. It was very, very well done. This was about Great Britain; it didn’t pretend it was trying to have global appeal. Because Great Britain has self-confidence, it doesn't need a monumental Olympics. But for China that was the only imaginable kind of international event. Beijing’s Olympics were very grand—they were trying to throw a party for the world, but the hosts didn't enjoy it. The government didn't care about people's feelings because it was trying to create an image...In London there were more close-ups—it didn't show the big formations. It had the human touch. In Zhang Yimou’s opening ceremony there was almost none of that. You could not push into a person's face and see the human experience. What I liked most with this was that it always came back to very personal details. And that's what makes it a nation you can trust; you see the values there. Anyone who

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watched it would have a clear understanding of what England is. (2014) Known as a provocateur that attacks the government through his art, Ai Weiwei condemns the excessive spectacle and the emphasis on mass formations at the expense of more personal glimpses of and into the individual.11 Ai faults the Beijing ceremonies for trying too hard while congratulating the London ceremonies for their nonchalance, branding the precision, control, and expert execution of the 2008 performance as excessive self-consciousness. Yet neither is this self-consciousness, if it actually exists, easy to interpret. Whereas for Ai Weiwei, the anxious outward gaze, in addition to the overstated striving toward precision of execution, brands China as inhumane, untrustworthy, and unconfident. However, it also could be a side-effect of the perceived and actual hierarchy of power as embodied in nation-states or, as I will discuss later, an attempt to create a global sense of a non-Western Chinese identity. The Olympics ceremonies, developed by a French baron, are based on an “agreeable European/Hellenic civilisational model” complete with “native touches,” a model of cosmopolitan aesthetics deriving from the Kantian sensus communis, “the moral universe of human solidarity and togetherness” (Tzanelli 2010, 220–221). After Red Sorghum, many of Zhang Yimou’s films express doubt in the potential of culture as an agent of equality, or even as a powerful tool through which people can transform their subjectivities and imagine new worlds. Some films go even farther, implying that cultural essence is a false concept, an important ruse emerging from the nation-state political form, a trick through which imaginary parity is built. Under globalization, culture at its worst has become a game of watching and being watched, evaluating and judging, and self-consciously presenting oneself. This new bad culture, life-world, or way of life—despite glimmers of hope—has become saturated with the inauthenticity of salesmanship, some of the films imply. In other words, over the twenty-odd years during which the films I discuss were produced, culture seemed to offer no answers to deeper questions about

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the future, and little foundation on which to build. Yet while a feature film offers an opportunity for a more nuanced and ambiguous presentation, the clear directive of the Olympics may allow no wavering. Perhaps the existence of different national cultures, with their languages and textual traditions, are leftovers that will eventually vanish, creating turmoil and loss in their wake.12 What could replace them, spurred on by digitalization, instant communication, and fast travel, eventually will be closer to a universalized culture than to a mélange of radically different and roughly equal cultural forms, which may continue to exist largely as tourist attractions. The variety of cultural ways of living in the world, with their distinctive way of embodying time and space, may become more integrated and similar over time. Over time, however, it may be inefficient and thus uncompetitive to maintain anything but the dominant culture as an authentic and embodied way of life; “the way we live and thrive,” or unique cultural life, may be much more thoroughly absorbed into the capitalist economy and fundamentally changed. Along the lines discussed by Amartya Sen (2007) and Helena Norberg-Hodge (Brooke 2001) in the introduction to this book, the cultural confidence to function in a globalized world may become attached to fluency in the dominant culture, with its textual traditions, intellectual milieu, and language competence, as well as to superficial marks of identity such as looking a certain way. Paper, printmaking, the compass, and gunpowder—the four great inventions of China that were featured in the opening ceremony—stand as the exemplars of Chinese culture on display to the family of nations in the Olympic ceremony. Along with the Chinese written form, also highlighted, these four inventions are expressed through precise and intricate inanimate formations made up of hundreds of individual human beings, and complemented by individual performances by people wellknown to Chinese audiences, including pianist Lang Lang, singer and professor Liu Huan (with Sarah Brightman), eight famous former athletes including Li Ning (winner of three gold medals in 1984), and a group

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of actors and singers that featured superstars such as Jackie Chan and Andy Lau.13 Most critics of the “art of the square” do not address the inclusion of these well-known individuals in the ceremonies, nor does Ai Weiwei (2014) discuss their presence, which is as universally recognized among Asian audiences as is James Bond, who was featured obliquely in the London 2012 ceremony among Westerners. But as Ai suggests, it may well be true that while the British find no need to tout their inventions before the world, a continual striving for parity, inherent in the Olympics’ organization, turns the opening ceremony into a less casual event for non-Western countries or for Western countries seeking to redress the past. Thus, whereas Zhang’s films do not make claims on behalf of the particular forms of Chinese culture, they search for deeper cultural life: the possibilities for rejuvenation, as genuine, raw lived material through which the imaginary of a viable new future could spring. They relentlessly query the meaning of cultural ritual and performance under coercion, duress, and misunderstanding. From these perspectives, the demand to positively perform cultural forms, ideals, or approaches specific to China on the very visible global stage of the Olympics is itself a conundrum, and not just for Zhang Yimou. Even if we consider only the questionable spectrum of collective-toindividual aesthetic forms, the problem remains: Ai Weiwei’s glorification of England’s personal, humorous, and individualistic performance in the 2012 Olympic ceremony suggests that pressure to go along with the style put forward by the West—as well as the tendency to interpret that style ideologically—is very strong. In the Olympics, the power differential between nations is not formally recognized, but it comes to the fore in the resources available to athletes and in the pool of athletes that can be prepared for competition. Yet an imaginary parity is in effect, and the opening ceremony helps smooth over the power differential by presenting culture, at least, as inherently equal. As the idea carried out in the “Journey of Harmony” taken by the Olympic torch, as well as spelled out with the character he in the segment on printing and moveable type, “harmony” was part of the

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overall Olympic theme of “One Dream One World.” It also has been a government keyword, and as such is widely ridiculed. In one art installation, Ai Weiwei took advantage of the homophones hexie 和 谐 (harmony) and hexie 河蟹 (river crab) to mock the governmental slogan by grouping over 3,000 porcelain crabs together (Binkovitz 2012). Harmony has been criticized by bloggers as equivalent to censorship, and the depiction of the concept in a Chinese character formed by a mass of 897 type blocks eventually were revealed to be human beings who waved at the audience was one target for the criticism that the ceremonies were little more than these scorned principles put into aesthetic form. Hero implies that global harmony is nothing other than the normalized hierarchy of powerful and weaker nations, each accepting its position and recognizing the position of others: the implicit organization of the Olympics, hiding under a veneer of parity. In Riding Alone, cultural encounters in a foreign country are a way to evade communication at “home,” and inspire the illusion that there is a solution somewhere else. Happy Times features a protagonist who relies on the residue of socialist values, which no longer function in their idealized form and probably never did. An odd combination of Confucian moral codes, street smarts, and socialist comraderie contribute to the friendship that strikes a positive note in Keep Cool, but only when Anhong and the symbolic birth of sons is excluded. The absent but all-powerful sovereign determines subjectivity in To Live, creating a robotic resignation. Qiuju Goes to Court shows the mutual imbrication of culture and politics, questioning any autonomous realm for the former while illustrating the limits of rule by law under contemporary rural conditions. In Raise the Red Lantern, affective relationships are gutted by a performative logic that also erases the spirit and will. The weak male first appears in Judou, which also presents the sour note of an ethical void, making self-benefit the precondition for progress. Only in Red Sorghum do the people have the ability and will to build an equitable community based on human values, to stand up to the invaders, and to weave a positive story for the future.

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It would be a mistake to cast an all-encompassing interpretive narrative over the legacy of Zhang Yimou. In this project, I have analyzed less than half of his work, and new films continue to appear. Yet it is fair to say that at least in the subset of films discussed in this book, some tendencies stand out, many of them shared by other Fifth Generation directors to some degree. An interest in the cultural resources available to people as the societies in which they live undergo rapid change is a recurring feature, along with a disinterest in valorizing any specifically Chinese cultural trait. Everything is game in this search, with various films addressing deep spirit, hybrid cultures, and history both recent and farther in the past. The films over time move from an interest in problems inherent in local power structures to a simultaneously metaphysical and practical consideration of sovereignty and subjectivity, from the family despot to the larger political body. The most important feature, however, is the inclusion within the films of a global perspective that changes how culture works. How the knowledge of being watched changes behavior, of the ethical aspects of performance under duress, and of the potential duplicity of cultural display and interaction are pervasive aspects of these films. Thus globalization and the subject of culture—with all meanings for the term “subject” apparent—is an apt phrase for the intriguing and provocative films that Zhang Yimou and his collaborators have produced.

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Notes 1. Zhang was joined by codirector and choreographer Zhang Jigang, who was the former director of the Song and Dance Ensemble of the People’s Liberation Army. Zhang Jigang also worked as choreographer on Yellow Earth with director Chen Kaige. 2. Official CCTV DVDs of the performance are readily available, as are DVDs produced by other TV networks. My comments are based on a viewing of the CCTV DVD. For an English summary of the event, see “Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony: A comprehensive break down of the production work on this summer's spectacular Olympic games in Beijing” (2008). 3. See also Rodanthi Tzanelli (2013) and Mariana Gardiner (2009). 4. For a broader view of the relationship of sport to the building of the modern Chinese nation, see Zhouxiang Lu (2011), who notes that in the 1920s, retaking sovereignty over sporting events from Westerners promoted national unity and state sovereignty, enhancing China’s international profile (1049). See also Zhouxiang Lu (2010). 5. There are some checks on this process, which could lead to the strong becoming too strong and diminishment of the excitement of competition. For example, the National Football League in the United States give teams with the worst record a chance to hire the best players by means of rules establishing the order of recruitment. See “Draft Site” (2012). 6. For the idea that performed culture is soft power, see Joseph Nye (2004). 7. Lu Yunting does a good job scanning the web for Chinese blog discussions of the opening ceremonies, but ends up comparing the results with comments about the ceremonies from Western political figures or descriptions published in mainstream Western papers, which does not capture popular comments or ideas. This comparison leads to the questionable conclusion that Westerners supported and thus “saved” the ceremony from total repudiation, while the Chinese audience strongly disapproved of it. 8. Among scholars working in the history of sport, the meaning of the ceremonies in Beijing has been actively debated. For a sense of the various positions, see Luo Qing (2010); and Luo Qing and Giuseppe Richeri (2012).

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9. For an example, see “Official: Child Singer Not Pretty Enough for Olympics Opener; Girl Lip-Syncs Her Song,” (2008); and Richard Spencer, (2008). As at least one writer pointed out, Western nations have engaged in similar deceits, but they were not called on it as was China. See Richard Jinman (2008). 10. King Tong Ho also has a detailed analysis of the interaction between the two approaches to social life, collectivism or individualism, in “Behind the Hyperreality Experience” (2011). Ho notes that scholars and bloggers do not necessarily agree that collectivism has been successfully integrated into capitalism in China, and that any binary developed out of these categories is simplistic and most likely mythical. 11. For more on Ai Weiwei, see William A. Callahan (2013, 31–34). For his artwork, see Christain Sorace (2014), who describes Ai as “ArtWorld's most influential artist of 2011, winner of the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent, and media darling of the West” (397). 12. According to “Disappearing Languages,” by 2100, over half of the more than 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will have vanished. 13. Due to concerns about length, the singing and dancing segment was not part of the televised ceremony.

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Chinese Character List

after (hou) 后 Ai Weiwei 艾未未 ancient sentiment (gushi de ganqing) 古时的感情 Anhong 安红 Anshun Local Opera, (Anshun dixi) 安顺地戏 apology (Qiuju Goes to Court) (shuofa) 说法 apology (Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles) (xiezui) 谢罪 ball (qiu) 球 Baopuzi 抱朴子 Beijing World Park (Beijing shijie gongyuan) 北京世界公园 Big Brother Luohan (Luohan dage) 罗汉大哥 Broken Sword (Canjian 残剑) Changbai (Baekdu) Mountain Literary Prize (Changbai shan wenyi jiang) 长白山文艺奖 Chen Yuanbin 陳源斌 Cheng Taisheng 成太生 Chinese race (Zhongguo minzu) 中国民族 Chu 楚 chuanqi 传奇 Chunsheng 春生 Communist (gongchan) 共产 Correct ideas/knowledge (zhengque sixiang) 正确思想

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Cui Weiping 崔卫平 Cui Yingying 崔莺莺 Cuiqiao 翠巧 Dai Jinhua 戴锦华 Ding Shifu 丁师傅 Dong Jie 董洁 Douguan 豆官 Dr. Gao (Gao yisheng) 高医生 Emotion (qing) 情 entering the world (jinru shijie) 进入世界 ethnic spirit (minzu jingshen) 民族精神 Ethnic/national (minzu) 民族 Evening Paper News, (Wangbao xinwen) 晚报新闻 fake foreign devil (jia yanggui) 假样鬼 Feilan 飞澜 Feipu 飞浦 Fengxia 凤霞 First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang) 秦始皇 Flying Snow (Feixue) 飞雪 Fourth Wife (si taitai) 四太太 Fugui 富贵 Ge You 葛优 Gong Li 巩俐 good films (haokan dianying) 好看电影 Gu Qing 顾青

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Guan Yu 关羽 Guansuo Opera (Chengjiang guansuo xi) 澄江关索戏 Guo Baochang 郭宝昌 Guo Wenjing 郭文景 Han 韓 Han 韩 Hanhan 憨憨 Hanshu 汉书 Harmony (hexie) 和谐 He Saifei 何赛飞 head (tou) 头 “Horns” (xiangqi) 响器 Huang Shixian 黄式宪 huozhe 活着 In a good mood (Xinqing bucuo) 心情不错 Jia Leilei 嘉累累 Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯 Jiang Qing 江青 Jiang Wen 姜文 Jiuer 九儿 Jolt the Sedan (Dianjiao ge) 颠轿歌 Judou 菊豆 Kang Youwei 康有为 Lang Lang 朗朗 Li Baotian 李保田

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352

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Li Datou 李大头 Li Ning 李宁 Liang Qichao 梁启超 Lin Hongtong 林洪桐 Lin Miaoke 林妙可 Little Sister, Go Boldly Forward (Meimei ni dadan de wang qian zou) 妹妹 你大胆地往前走 Liu Bei 刘备 Liu Chang 刘畅 Liu Delong 刘德龙 Liu Huan 刘欢 Liu Shipei 刘师培 Liu Wenfeng 刘文峰 Lu Wei 芦苇 Luo Guanchong 罗贯中 Master Chen (Chen Laoye) 陈老爷 Mei (Xiao Mei) 小妹 Meishan 梅珊 Meizi 妹子 Miss (xiaojie) 小姐 Moon (Ruyue) 如月 moving toward the world (zou xiang shiji) 走向世界 Murderers’ Gulch (Qingshakou) 青杀口 My Grandpa (Wo yeye) 我爷爷 Nameless (Wuming) 无名 Nights of Ulan Bator (Ulan batuo zhi ye) 乌兰巴托之夜

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Chinese Character List

353

One Dream One World (Tong yige shijie tong yige mengxiang) 同一个世 界同一个梦想 Party (dang) 党 Peng Zhen 彭真 pot (hu) 壶 Qi 齐 Qin Shihuang 秦始皇 qin 琴 Qin 秦 Qingbai 清白 Qinglai 慶來 Qiuju 秋菊 Qiusheng 秋生 Qu Ying 瞿颖 Rashomon 羅生門 recognition 认识 Red Trilogy (hongse san bu qu) 红色三部曲 River crab (hexie) 河蟹 Romance of the Western Chamber (Xixiang ji) 西厢记 Roots literature movement Xungen wenxue 寻根文学 rule of humans (renzhi) 人制 rule of law (fazhi) 法制 Sanpao三炮 Sha Lin 沙林 shadow play (piying xi) 皮影戏 copycat-ism (shanzhai) 山寨

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354

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Shu Ping述平 Shuofa 说法 Si taitai四太太 Sky (Changkong) 长空 Something you didn’t know before (Shuo dian ni bu zhidao) 说点你不知道 Songlian颂莲 spiritual victory method (jingshen shengli fa) 精神胜利法 thank help (xiezhu) 谢助 “The Story of Yingying” (Yingying zhuan) 莺莺传 The Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi) 三国演义 The Wan Family’s Lawsuit (Wanjia sugong) 萬家訴訟 Tian Zhuangzhuang 田壮壮 Tianqing 天清 tianxia 天下 tower (lou) 楼 traveled through five valleys and killed six generals (Wuguan zhan liuzhang) 五关斩六将 Tsui Hark (Xu Ke) 徐克 Virtue in a woman is to be without talent (Nüzi wucai bian shi de) 女子 无才便是德 walk (zou) 走 Wang Shantang 王善堂 Wang Shifu 王實甫 Wang Shuping 王述平 Wei 魏

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Chinese Character List

355

Where do correct ideas come from? (Ren de zhengque sixiang shi cong nali lai de) 人的正确思想是从哪里来的 wild union (yehe) 野合 Wine (jiu) 酒 Wives and Concubines (Qiqie chengqun) 妻妾成群 wuxia 武侠 xia 侠 xia 侠 xiangqi 响器 Xiao Fu 小傅 Xiaoshuai小帅 Xie Jin 谢晋 Xigouzi 细狗仔 Yan Chunjun 颜纯均 Yan Fu 严复 Yan 燕 Yaner 燕儿 Yang Jinshan 杨金山 Yang Peiyi 杨沛宜 Youqing 有庆 Yu Hua 余华 Yuan Zhen 元稹 Yue opera (yueju) 越剧 Zhan Xueyan 詹学彦 Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 Zhang Feng 张锋

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356

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Zhang Jigang 张继钢 Zhang Junzhao 张军钊 Zhang Qiusheng 张秋生 Zhang Sheng 张生 Zhang Weiping 张伟平 Zhang Yimou myth (Zhang Yimou shenhua) 张艺谋神话 Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 Zhao Jiping 赵季平 Zhao Xiaoshuai 赵小帅 Zhao Xiaotao 赵小桃 Zhao 赵 Zhou Yang 周扬 Zhu Shoutong 朱寿桐 Zhuoyun 卓云

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Zhang Yimou Feature Film Filmography (as director)

1987 Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang) 红高粱 1988 Codename Cougar (Daihao Meizhou bao) 代号美洲豹 1990 Judou (also Ju Dou) 菊豆 1991 Raise the Red Lantern (Dahong denglong gaogao gua) 大红灯笼高高挂 1992 Qiuju Goes to Court (Qiuju da guansi) 秋菊打官司 1994 To Live (Huozhe) 活着 1995 Shanghai Triad (Yao a yao, yao da waipo qiao) 摇啊摇，摇到外婆桥 1996 Keep Cool (You hua haohao shuo) 有话好好说 1999 Not One Less (Yige dou buneng shao) 一个都不能少 1999 The Road Home (Wode fuqin muqin) 我的父亲母亲 2000 Happy Times (Xingfu shiguang) 幸福时光 2002 Hero (Yingxiong) 英雄 2004 House of Flying Daggers (Shimian maifu) 十面埋伏 2005 Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Qianli zou danqi) 千里走单骑 2006 Curse of the Golden Flower (Mancheng jindai huang jinjia) 满城尽带 黄金甲 2009 A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Sanqiang paian jingqi) 三枪拍 案惊奇 2010 Under the Hawthorn Tree (Shanzha shu zhi lian) 山楂树之恋 2011 The Flowers of War (Jinlu shusan zhai) 金陵十三钗 2014 Coming Home (Guilai) 归来

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2016 The Great Wall (Changcheng) 長城

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Other films cited

1950 The White-Haired Girl (Baimao nü) 白毛女 (Wang Bin 王滨 and Shui Hua 水华) 1983 One and Eight (Yige he bage) 一个和八个 (Zhang Junzhao 张军钊) 1984 Yellow Earth (Huang tudi) 黄土地 (Chen Kaige 陈凯歌) 1988 Die Hard (John McTiernan) 1990 Die Hard 2 (Renny Harlin) 1991 Once Upon a Time in China (Huang Feihong) 黄飞鸿 (Tsui Hark 徐克) 1993 Farewell My Concubine (Bawang bieji) 霸王别姬 (Chen Kaige 陈凯歌) 1993 The Blue Kite (Lan fengzheng) 蓝风筝 (Tian Zhuangzhuang 田壮壮) 1993 The Fugitive (Andrew Davis) 1994 Speed (Jan de Bont) 1994 True Lies (James Cameron) 1995 Die Hard with a Vengeance (John McTeirnan) 1995 Outbreak (Wolfgang Peterson) 1996 Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma) 1996 The Emperor’s Shadow (Qinsong) 秦颂 (Zhou Xiaowen 周晓文) 1996 Police Story 4: First Strike (Jingcha gushi 4 zhi jiandan renwu) 警察故 事4之簡單任務 (Stanley Tong 唐季禮) 1997 Pickpocket (Xiao Wu) 小武 (Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯) 1998 The Emperor and the Assassin (Jingke ci Qinwang) 荆轲刺秦王 (Chen Kaige 陈凯歌) 2000 Platform (Zhantai) 站台 (Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯) 2002 Devils on the Doorsteps (Guizi laile) 鬼子来 (Jiang Wen 姜文)

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360

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2005 The World (Shijie) 世界 (Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯) 2009 Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)

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评 [Critique of the discourse of globalism and ethnicity in contemporary Chinese film]. Theory World 5: 134–135. Young, Iris Marion. 2005. “De-Centering the Project of Global Democracy.” In Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations After the Iraq War, edited by D. Levy, M. Pensky, and J. Torpey, 153– 159. London and New York: Verso. Yu Hua 余华. 2010. Hebian de cuowu 河边的错误 [Mistake on the Riverbank]. Beijing: Zhongguo renmin gongan daxue chubanshe. Yu, Sabrina Qiong. 2014. “Camp pleasure in an era of Chinese blockbusters: Internet reception of Hero in mainland China.” In Global Chinese Cinema: The culture and politics of Hero, edited by Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, 135–151. New York: Routledge. Yü, Yingshih 1993. “The Radicalization of China in the Twentieth Century.” Daedalus 122 (Spring 2): 125–130. Yue, M. 1996. “Visual Agency and Ideological Fantasy in Three Films by Zhang Yimou.” In Narratives of Agency: Self-Making in China, India, and Japan, edited by Wimal Dissanayake, 56–73. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Zamperini, Paola. 2010. Lost Bodies: Prostitution and Masculinity in Late Qing Fiction. Leiden: Brill Publishers. Zhang Donggang 张东钢. 2006. “Dianying: Minjian de shuochang: Yingpian Qianli zou danqi pinglun” 电影: 民间的说唱: 〈千里走单骑〉 评论 [Film: The voice and songs of the people: The film Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles]. Journal of the Beijing Film Academy 4: 73–76. Zhang Han 张翰. 2012. “Diren Zhang Yimou? Zhishi jie yu Zhang Yimou 25 nian de jiuge” 敌人张艺谋？知识界与张艺谋25年的纠葛 [Making an enemy of Zhang Yimou? 25-years of intellectual entanglement with Zhang]. Cinema World 1: 26–27. Zhang Feng. 2010. “The Tianxia System: World Order in a Chinese Utopia” China Heritage Quarterly 21, March. Accessed June 11, 2014. http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/tien-hsia.php?searchterm=0 21_utopia.inc&issue=021.

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Zhang, Huijun. 张会军. 2008. Xingshi zhuisuo yu shijue chuangzao: Zhang Yimou diangying chuangzuo yanjiu 形式追索与视觉创造: 张 艺谋电影创作研究 [Formal recourse and the creation of visual form: research on Zhang Yimou’s filmic creation]. Beijing: China Film Publishing Company. Zhang Jianyong 张建勇. 2003. “Zhuchi ren daoyu” 主持人导语 [An introduction]. Contemporary Film 2: 5. Zhang Mingfang 張明芳. 2002. Zhang Yimou dianying lun 張藝謀電影 論 [On Zhang Yimou’s films]. Beijing: China Arts Research Institute. Zhang Shengliang 张胜良. 2012. “Lun Zhang Yimou xilie yingpian dui Zhongguo chuantong yinyu de zhongai—yi Dahong denglong gaogao gua yu Hong gaoliang weili” 谈张艺谋系列影片对中国传统音 乐的钟爱—以《大红灯笼高高挂》与《红高粱》为例 [On Zhang Yimou’s affection for traditional chinese music in a series of films— with Raise the Red Lantern and Red Sorghum as examples]. Movie Literature 12: 130–131. Zhang Yinghui 张应辉. 1998. “Xiang chengshi jinjun: xunzhao xinde huayu—Zhang Yimou dianying Youhua haohao shuo” 向城市进军： 寻找新的话语—张艺谋电影《有话好好说》解析 [Advancing toward the city: seeking a new discourse—an analysis of Zhang Yimou’s Keep Cool]. Fujian Arts 5: 24–26. Zhang Yiwu 张颐武. 2001. “Zaidu xiangxiang Zhongguo er quanqiu hua de tiaozhang yu xin de ‘neixiang hua’” 再度想象中国而全球化的 挑战与新的 “内向化 [Reimagining China and the new “inwardness” of the challenge of globalization]. Film Art 1: 16–21. ———. 2003a. “Gudu de yingxiong: shinian hou zaishuo ‘Zhang Yimou shenhua’” 孤独的英雄：十年后再说 “张艺谋神话 [A solitary hero: Reconsideration of the ‘Myth of Zhang Yimou’ after ten years]. Cinema Arts 4: 26–33. ———. 2003b. “Yingxiong: Xin shijie de yinyu” 英雄：新世界的隐语 [Hero: a metaphor of the new century]. Contemporary Cinema 2: 11– 15.

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Zhang, Xudong. 1997. Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms: Cultural Fever, Avant-garde Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press. ———. 1997. “Ideology and Utopia in Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum.” In Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms, by Zhang Xudong, 306–328. Durham: Duke University Press. Zhang Yimou. 2007. “Zhang Yimou wuxia xinfeng” 张艺谋无下新风 [The new style of Zhang Yimou’s wuxia]. Interview with Zhang Yimou. Chinese Culture. Accessed March 1, 2007. http://big5.cri.cn/ gate/big5/gb.cri.cn/3601/2004/07/14/342@231104_1.htm. Zhang, Yingjin. 2002. Screening China: Critical Interventions, Cinematic Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. ———. 2010. “Transnationalism and Translocality in Chinese Cinema.” Cinema Journal 49.3 (Spring): 135–139. Zheng Longfu 郑隆福. 2007. “Jia Zhangke dianying zuopin Shijie liang banben bijiao” 贾樟柯电影作品《世界》两版本的比较 [A comparison of two version of Jia Zhangke’s film The World]. China Art Criticism, April 22. Accessed September 10, 2008. http://www. zgyspp.com/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID+5835.. Zheng, Zhuyuan. 1990. Behind the Tiananmen Massacre: Social, political, and economic ferment in China. Boulder: Westview Press. “Zhonggong wenyi gongzuo huiyi” 中央文艺工作会议 [The meeting of the central literature and art workers]. 1964. January 3. Accessed June 10, 2012. http://dangshi.people.com.cn/GB/151935/176588/1765 96/10556213.html. Zhu Jie 朱洁. 2007. “Dianying Qianli zou danqi, He ni zai yiqi de shi tan” 电影《千里走单骑》，《和你在一起》得失谈 [What you gain and lose from the films Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles and Together With You]. Journal of the School of Chinese Language and Culture (Nanjing University) 12 (4): 149–153. Zhu Shoutong 朱寿桐. 1988. “Yuyi choulou de “man” ciji: tan Hong Gaoliang deng tansuo dianying” 愈益丑陋的“蛮”刺激：谈《红高粱》

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等探索影片 [ Even uglier “barbarian” stimulation: A discussion of Red Sorghum and other experimental films]. Cinema Art 7: 34–37. Zimmerman, Michael E. 1986. Eclipse of the Self: The Development of Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity. Athens: Ohio University Press.

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Index

abuse, 9, 79, 82, 86, 90, 136, 146, 216 Administrative Litigation Law, 151 aesthetic, 3–5, 7, 10, 27, 32–33, 71, 94, 138, 140, 156–157, 178, 209, 216, 242, 278, 280–281, 283–285, 287, 289, 293, 295, 299, 343–344 aesthetic chromophobia, 302 fascist aesthetics, 274–276, 300, 338 ultraaesthetic, 282 affection, 29, 47, 50, 52–53, 55, 70, 90–92, 115, 207, 219, 224, 258 agency (negative agency; new agency), 5, 9, 11–13, 15, 26, 34, 37–38, 55, 59, 79, 81–82, 88–90, 158, 162, 190, 231, 236, 238, 254, 260–261 Ai Weiwei, 340–341, 343–344, 347, 349 allegory, 4, 6, 10, 72, 133–134, 137, 156–158, 160, 162, 206–207, 234, 236, 240–241, 243, 250, 253, 259, 262 Amad, Paula, 255–256, 259 American, 6, 13, 15, 17, 19–21, 38, 77, 96, 163, 269, 299 anachronistic, 164, 238, 244 Anderson, Benedict, 277, 301 Anshun Local Opera, 323–324, 328, 349 antagonism, 21, 37, 310 anti-Japanese, 68, 74, 99, 195, 322 art house film culture, 44 “art of the square,” 338, 343 Article V, 151

artifice, 108–109, 111–112, 114–116, 125, 127, 215, 217, 219, 237, 245 assassins, 209, 273, 278, 280–281, 283–285, 287–290, 292, 295, 301–302 authenticity, 11–15, 21, 26, 36, 46, 55, 59–60, 68, 84, 98, 109, 121, 124, 127, 129, 210, 214, 220, 226, 234, 242, 258, 266, 276–277, 293–295, 303, 308, 321–325, 339, 342 existential authenticity, 319–320 inauthenticity, 100–101, 108, 217, 315–316, 319, 329–330, 340–341 objective authenticity, 316, 319–320 symbolic authenticity, 319 authoritarianism, 157–158, 169, 275–276, 278, 292 authority, 33, 46, 53, 80, 135–138, 145–146, 148–150, 152–159, 164–165, 174–175, 181–184, 188, 196, 199, 289–290, 301, 330 Ba Jin, 66 barbaric, 66–68 Beijing Film Academy, 78 Beijing opera, 108, 215 Beijing World Park, 208, 349 Berlin Film Festival, 42 Berry, Chris, 11, 36 Berry, Michael, 169 blindness, 234–240, 243–244, 247, 249, 252, 257–259, 261 bodily harm, 85, 152

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Zhang Yimou

bonding, 53, 68, 112, 199, 220 bride, 47, 56, 59, 61, 70, 84–85, 110, 122 bruises, 81, 87, 89–90, 93, 203 calligraphy, 114, 276–277, 282, 286–289, 291, 298, 303 Camus XO Superior, 220, 222–223 capitalism, 1, 12, 19–20, 37, 40, 94–95, 97, 133, 194, 199, 233, 236, 238, 241–242, 246, 254, 256–260, 268–269, 294–296, 338, 347, 415 capitalist, 18–19, 29, 38–39, 71–72, 94–95, 98, 183, 186, 207, 233, 238, 243, 245–246, 250–251, 254, 256–258, 260, 262–263, 299, 304, 342 CGI, 281, 299, 301 Chan, Evans, 44, 275 Chen Huifen, 5 Chen Kaige, 3–4, 42, 208, 272, 346, 359 Chen Xiaoming, 6 Chen Yuanbin, 151, 349 Chengjiang, 323–324, 351 Chibber, Vivek, 96–98 children, 17, 50, 80, 139, 141, 149, 177–178, 189, 201, 235, 268, 339 China and Japan, 64, 170, 306, 311–312, 314, 318–319, 322, 331 China as a superpower, 22 Chinese aesthetics, 66, 301 Chinese culture, 2, 9–12, 26, 31, 42, 45–46, 66, 68, 74, 77, 82, 111, 128, 171, 272, 277, 292–294, 301, 303, 323, 325, 339, 342–343, 413–414, 416 Chinese history, 71–72, 175, 273 Chinese theater, 215 Chow, Rey, 9, 36, 66, 71–72, 95, 168, 194, 241–243

Civil War, 170, 172, 177 claims of superiority, 21 coarse culture, 42, 67 collective amnesia, 159, 303 colonialized mind, 12 color coding, 302 commodification and affect, 199 commoners, 71, 151, 156, 186, 188, 220, 236, 241, 268, 275–276, 280, 300, 307 communal experience, 55 communication, 52, 142, 183, 206, 219, 235, 245, 308–310, 319–323, 329, 336, 342, 344 communicative action, 308–309, 329 Communist, 9, 43, 48, 52, 58, 60, 63, 65, 67, 74, 167, 173–174, 185, 196, 274–275, 339, 349 Communist Party, 9, 43, 48, 52, 58, 60, 63, 65, 67, 74, 167, 196, 275, 339 community, 12, 16, 23, 27–29, 32, 35–36, 42, 44–48, 52–54, 57, 62–65, 67–68, 72–73, 79, 81, 83, 98–99, 106, 108, 112, 126–128, 135–137, 142, 145–148, 152–154, 157, 184, 188, 199, 212–213, 223–225, 242–244, 251–252, 257, 276–277, 300–301, 303, 337, 344 concubine, 71, 106, 111, 208, 359 Confucian, 80, 83–84, 90, 92–93, 98, 184, 215, 220, 226, 236, 290, 301–302, 330, 344 Confucius, 220 contestation, 148, 155 copycat-ism (shanzhai), 13, 353 coquette, 115, 124, 199, 202, 211–219, 224, 226, 231, 234, 238 corporate power, 19 cosmopolitanism, 14, 155, 162, 164

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Index cruelty, 59, 127–128, 148, 156, 178, 243, 246, 258, 272, 275 Cui Weiping, 275, 300, 350 Cultural Revolution, 1, 7, 71, 151, 167–168, 170–171, 173, 177, 180–181, 187–188, 252 culture, 9–10, 34, 45, 55–56, 62, 68–70, 74–75, 77, 79, 82, 89, 95–96, 101, 126, 177, 186, 190, 194, 241, 272, 290, 302, 305 abstracted cultural essence, 282 “ancient sentiment” (gushi de ganqing), 196 as artifice, 109 book culture, 46 cultural expression, 67 ‘deep’ cultures, 159 authenticity, 11, 13–14, 26, 36, 59, 84, 109, 127, 277, 293–295, 308, 315, 319, 323–324, 329–330, 339 sovereignty, 3, 46, 139, 151, 154, 157, 160, 164, 182, 185, 294, 345 equality, 341 authority of culture, 289 Chinese cultural identity, 303 folk culture, 84–85, 179 coarse culture, 42, 67 constitutive imbrications of culture, 138, 174 contemporary culture, 200, 334 corrosive effects of a culture that is performed, 129 cosmopolitan ‘flat culture,’ 159 cross-cultural communication, 319–321, 323 cross-cultural experience, 326 cross-cultural interaction, 308 cross-cultural travel, 321 cross-cultural victories, 321

401 culture (continued) cultural act of narration of the imaginary, 286 cultural analysis, 97 cultural authenticity, 11, 14, 293, 308, 330 cultural authority, 199, 301 cultural body, 84, 158, 164 cultural bomb, 333 cultural breaches, 309 cultural communication, 309, 319–321, 323 cultural confidence, 43, 342 cultural continuation, 88, 121 cultural continuity, 30, 157 cultural debt, 322 cultural development, 220 cultural difference, 2, 12, 28, 98 cultural environment, 2, 48, 72, 98, 127, 134, 141, 168, 181–182, 188, 199–200, 208–209, 238, 295, 306, 309, 319, 325, 333 cultural facilitator, 314 cultural forces, 296 cultural forms, 11, 17, 21, 48, 59, 109, 169, 181, 191, 277, 282, 342–343 cultural heritage of contemporary China, 236 cultural identities, 22, 159, 293 cultural imperialism, 6, 278 cultural inheritance, 100 cultural integrity, 278 cultural legitimacy, 308 cultural life, 28, 108, 138, 146, 220, 285, 342–343 cultural logic, 6, 295–296 cultural misunderstandings, 321 cultural nationalism, 3, 17, 277, 303

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402

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culture (continued) cultural nihilism, 8 cultural parity, 294 cultural performance, 187, 208–209, 225, 240, 309 cultural positioning, 277 cultural practice, 72, 284, 325 cultural products, 104, 292, 325, 330 cultural relationships, 164 cultural representation, 23, 26–27, 31, 84, 277, 282, 285, 287, 324, 337, 413 cultural responsibilities, 152 cultural spirit, 280, 289 cultural stance, 295 cultural strategies, 94, 279, 281 cultural strength, 219, 294 cultural studies, 11, 24–25, 27, 32–33, 37, 40, 104, 293, 413, 415 cultural traditions, 98 cultural training, 287 cultural trait, 168, 335–336, 345 cultural unification, 164 cultural values, 15, 65, 148, 284, 336–337 cultural versus political/military power, 277 cultural vision, 238, 296 cultural xenophobia, 325 culture and resistance, 187 culture at war, 279 culture of performance, 98 culture-power topos, 181 culture-reproducing, 153 deep culture, 44, 46, 63, 97, 209, 285 devaluing culture, 98 dominant culture, 342 equality of cultures, 31, 293–294

culture (continued) essential values of culture, 303 European culture, 14–15 folk culture, 84–85, 179 global cultures, 20 globalization and cross-cultural contact, 325 globalization, culture, and urbanization, 208 heroic view of culture, 98 high-culture foundation, 221 how culture works under different kinds of political power, 182 influence of culture, 98 intangible culture, 324, 331–332 exaggerated, formalized, and structured, 80 literati culture, 66 local culture, 19, 60, 143, 175, 180, 225, 308, 315, 323 Mao and culture, 195 Ministry of Culture, 195 modern Chinese culture, 171, 416 moribund culture, 108 mutual imbrication of culture and politics, 344 myths of culture, 278 national identity and culture, 208 performance as a life-andculture-defining principle, 128 performance of culture, 199, 208 performed culture, 109, 129, 202, 211, 346 politics and culture, 159 popular culture, 11, 24–25, 185, 221, 293, 330, 337

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Index culture (continued) positive, life-endowing culture, 109 postmodernist culture, 20 power and sovereignty as aspects of culture, 160 power of culture, 3, 7, 11, 13–15, 19–21, 23, 27–31, 37–38, 43–44, 46, 48, 60, 63, 65, 72, 93, 98, 111, 128, 134–139, 142, 145–146, 152–154, 156–160, 174, 176, 179, 181–182, 185, 199–200, 236–239, 271, 276–285, 287–289, 291–292, 294–296, 303, 308, 343, 345–346, 413 preexisting cultural practices, 156 presentation of culture, 43, 61 primitive culture, 108 rural culture, 43–44, 72, 85, 135 Russian culture, 293 shared notion and practice of culture, 277 Sinophone culture, 164 socialist culture, 7, 220, 237, 245, 247 subject of culture, 1, 345, 413–415 threats to genuine cultural life, 108 timeless, 159, 221 tools of culture, 281 traditional culture, 93, 108, 127, 334 twentieth-century culture, 168 under globalization, 2, 6, 17, 30, 38, 209, 239, 276, 278, 341, 414 unified cultural identity, 16 universalized culture, 342

403 culture (continued) urban culture, 17, 29, 42, 46, 108, 111, 134, 140, 143–145, 163, 167, 176, 196–199, 203, 205–214, 216–221, 224–226, 230, 238, 257, 262, 335–336 viability of culture, 277, 281 violence and modern Chinese culture, 170–171 Dai Jinhua, 5, 89, 350 dan (huadan, xiadan), 215–216 danger of globalization, 17 Daoist, 173–174, 282 Darwinism, 49 daughter, 86, 99, 107, 119, 143, 145, 147, 149–150, 261, 309, 313, 318 de Coubertin, Pierre, 335–336 death, 30, 47, 60, 65, 81, 83, 90, 98–100, 106, 119, 121, 123, 146, 152, 155, 158, 174, 177–178, 189, 212, 230, 260, 269, 274–275, 283–285, 307, 312, 318, 329 Deng Xiaoping, 1 Denmark, 16 Derrida, Jacques, 14 Dirlik, Arif, 19–20, 30, 95 disavowal of history, 19 Dong Jie, 240, 350 drunken, 54–55, 62 duplicity, 3, 60, 94, 101, 234, 239, 308–310, 315–316, 321, 345, 414 economics, 1, 6, 11–12, 16, 18, 24–25, 28, 30, 37–38, 71, 88, 99, 183–184, 199, 202, 204, 225, 236, 242, 254, 261 economic exchange, 61–62, 81, 94, 98, 100, 107–108, 128 economic privilege, 64 economic regimes, 238, 253, 256–257 global, 22, 94, 111, 128–129, 164,

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404

Zhang Yimou

economics global (continued), 213, 237–238 education, 37, 58, 72, 108, 110–113, 117–119, 124–125, 127–128, 151, 159, 336 Eiffel Tower, 208, 210, 217 endurance, 168–169, 175, 274, 322 Eng, Robert Y., 276 English, 3, 8, 10, 14, 36, 39, 75, 95–96, 162, 164, 202, 215, 231, 346, 414 Enlightenment, 6–7, 169, 173–174, 194, 284, 303 Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, 16 eroticism, 56, 86, 88–89, 100, 235, 239–240, 254, 257 “eternal return,” 85 ethnocentrism, 20 ethnographic exoticism, 9 Euro-Americans, 19 Eurocentrism, 15, 19–21, 36, 94, 162 European Union, 15 European values, 15 Evening Paper News, 198, 230, 350 evil, 81, 85, 128, 139, 147, 158, 160, 173–174, 188, 194, 210, 235, 239, 299 exposure, 53, 62, 86, 88–91, 168, 175, 236, 299 factory workers, 242, 259, 266 failures of socialism, 168 family-planning laws, 149–150 Fanon, Frantz, 27, 29 Farewell My Concubine, 71, 208, 359 Farquhar, Mary Ann, 9, 11, 13, 36–37, 90 fascism, 7, 44, 48–49, 70, 169, 299 fascist aesthetics, 274–276, 300, 338 father-son, 30, 47, 61, 91–92, 118, 120–121, 145–146, 177, 234,

father-son (continued), 239, 258, 306–307, 310, 312–315, 318–320, 331 February 28th Incident, 170 female characters, 88, 235–236 female impersonation, 215 female protagonists, 136, 145–146, 157, 174, 189, 216 female sexuality, 74 feminist, 5–6, 9, 89, 213 Feng Lan, 10, 290, 300–303 Fifth Generation, 4, 8, 42, 71–72, 78, 89, 345 fifty-six minorities in China, 339 fighting skills, 288–289 filial piety, 92 film as an inquiry into the limits of power, 162 flash animation, 210, 218 flirting (flirting, flirtatious, flirt), 46, 87, 90 flute, 118–120 flying, 210, 217–219, 283, 288, 295, 302, 334, 350 foot massages, 114 forbidden love, 70 foreigner, 311, 314–315 Foucault, Michel, 154, 158, 163 Fourth Generation, 3 French, 15, 341 friendship, 29, 207, 212, 216, 221, 230, 234, 238, 261, 307, 317, 344 gambling, 173, 176, 179, 185, 189 gaze, 66, 77, 86, 129, 180, 199, 231, 240, 260, 276, 341 capitalist gaze, 254, 256–257 controlling and curious gaze, 254 gaze theory, 238, 253, 255–256 gazed, 3, 6, 31, 89, 235–236, 238, 249

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Index gaze (continued) gazed-upon, 238 male gaze, 5, 253–254, 256–257, 269 no-return-gaze, 250 postcolonial return gaze, 256 return gaze, 82, 89, 235, 237–239, 249, 256, 259 spectatorial gaze theory, 256 visual riposte, 256, 259 Ge You, 198, 205, 325, 350 Geertz, Clifford, 16–17, 38 German, 15, 338 Gilbert, Jeremy, 19, 39 glistening city-orb, 207–208 global justice movement, 19 globalism, 19 globalization of capital, 160 go-between, 314 god, 50, 55, 57, 59–60, 62, 65, 213 Goffman, Erving, 309 Golden Bear, 4, 36, 42 Gong Li, 9, 46, 110, 135, 194, 350 gongchan, 58 Gramsci, Antonio, 11, 40, 96 Great Leap Forward, 172, 177, 181, 186 Grossberg, Lawrence, 24–27, 33–34 Guansuo Opera, 323–324, 331, 351 Guizhou, 323–324 Gullestad, Marianne, 16 Guo Baochang, 4, 351 Guo Wenjing, 323, 351 Habermas, Jürgen, 14–15, 20, 159, 162, 183, 308–309, 329 Han dynasty, 215, 323 Happy Times, 29–30, 134, 201, 203, 226, 233, 241, 344 Ding Shifu, 244, 350 Happiness Hut, 238, 244,

405 Happy Times Happiness Hut (continued), 246–248, 250 Lao Zhao, 234–235, 238–240, 242–253, 256–261, 263–265, 268, 303 Xiao Fu, 245–247, 253, 355 Xiao Wu, 234–240, 242–245, 247–253, 257–263, 265–268, 303, 359 He Saifei, 114, 351 hegemony, 11, 13, 21–22, 25, 38, 94, 162 help, 6, 24, 43, 49, 59, 63, 81–82, 86–87, 90, 93, 99–100, 112, 118, 120, 126, 137, 140, 148, 150, 170, 176–177, 180, 188, 210, 216, 221–222, 230, 235, 240, 242, 245–248, 259, 287, 303, 311, 321–322, 354 Hero, 2, 7, 9–10, 13, 30, 36, 44, 139, 157, 209, 275, 294, 296, 299, 303, 306, 325, 338, 344 Broken Sword, 272–273, 276–277, 281, 283–292, 295, 300, 302, 349 Flying Snow, 283, 288, 295, 302, 350 Nameless, 271–273, 276–292, 295, 298, 300–302, 352 Qin king, 272, 278–279, 300 hexie, 344 hierarchy, 3, 7, 15, 50, 64, 81, 83, 87, 126, 159, 169, 183, 215, 341, 344 Hillenbrand, Margaret, 10, 302, 414 historical memory, 171 history of violence, 171 Hitler, Adolf, 49, 291 Hollywood, 6, 8, 13–14, 269, 334 Holocaust, 169, 171

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406

Zhang Yimou

Hong Kong, 144, 170, 415 honor, 64, 85, 273, 301, 318 horn, 56, 66–67, 75, 351 hospital, 151–152, 306, 310–313 House of Flying Daggers, 334 Hu Ke, 7, 36, 284 Hu Shih, 244–245, 268 Huang Shixian, 7–8, 36, 351 human relations, 111, 136–138, 142, 152, 199, 237, 243 human rights, 16, 133, 135, 137, 162, 164–165, 168 human society, 45, 160 human/beast distinction, 82 huozhe, 168, 194 Hutnyk, John, 26, 40 hybridity, 14, 17, 38, 221 hyperrealistic, 210, 219 illiteracy, 71–72 imagined community, 277 imperialism, 6, 11, 69, 75, 97, 278, 333 impotent, 81 India, 12, 96 Inglourious Basterds, 291, 360 intellectual, 1, 3, 7, 15, 20, 32, 35–36, 45, 71–72, 85, 104, 158–159, 199, 204, 207, 226, 246, 252, 272–273, 284, 289, 293–294, 296, 340, 342 International Olympic Committee (IOC), 335–337 invisible eye, 129 Iraq, 15, 20, 38 Jameson, Fredric, 10, 20, 37, 95, 183, 292 Japanese, 30, 33, 47–48, 52, 57–59, 62–66, 68, 74, 79, 99, 120, 136, 159, 170, 184, 208, 306, 314–315, 317–318, 322, 324, 331 Japanese invasion, 46, 67, 173,

Japanese Japanese invasion (continued), 195 jealousy, 115, 117, 122 Jia Leilei, 8, 351 Jia Zhangke, 199, 207, 351, 359–360 Jiang Wen, 198, 230, 351, 359 “Jolt the Sedan,” 56 Joyce, Patrick, 23–24, 27, 37 Judou Jinshan, 79–88, 91–92, 99–101, 104, 106–107, 113, 120, 128, 146, 153, 159, 355 Judou, 5, 28–29, 56, 71, 73, 77–93, 98–100, 103–110, 112, 118–120, 128–129, 134, 136–138, 145–146, 148, 157–159, 184, 189, 199, 212, 216, 235–236, 238–240, 249, 344, 351 Tianbai, 81, 91–93, 100, 102, 120–121, 128, 146, 159 Tianqing, 79–93, 99–104, 106, 110, 112, 118–120, 146, 159, 189, 235, 239–240, 249, 354 justice, 19, 135, 138–139, 142, 150, 155–156, 164, 198, 276, 295, 301 Kafkaesque, 121 Keep Cool, 29, 134, 199, 209–210, 225, 233, 235–236, 238–239, 241, 262, 325 Anhong, 197–198, 200–202, 204–208, 211–217, 219–220, 222–224, 227, 231, 234, 344, 349 Liu Delong, 198, 204–207, 221, 223, 352 Qiusheng, 198, 204–205, 207, 212, 220–224, 230, 234, 261, 353, 356 Xiaoshuai, 198, 200–208,

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Index Keep Cool Xiaoshuai (continued), 211–214, 219–224, 230–231, 234, 261, 355–356 Kellner, Douglas, 11 Khoo, Guan-Soon, 276 kidnapping, 51 kinship, 56, 86–87, 99, 108, 225, 277, 310 Kireesky, Ivan, 293 Kumar, Krishan, 15 Kurosawa, Akira, 280, 302 labor, 12, 37, 48–50, 53–55, 62, 64, 81, 83, 87, 98–100, 112–113, 118, 126–128, 131, 138, 144, 150, 152, 179, 201–202, 258 Lacan, Jacques, 255 Ladakh, 18 language, 4, 9–10, 17, 26, 28, 36, 42, 95–96, 104, 116, 131, 163, 207, 214, 216, 244, 277, 284, 293–294, 314, 325, 342 global language, 164 national language, 164 socialist language, 245 Latin America, 22, 196 learned modern perspective, 110 Lee, Kevin, 276 leftist cinematic movement, 71 legal code, 151 Legalist, 290, 301 leper, 57, 70 Li Baotian, 198, 230, 351 Li Jinmei, 1, 4, 36 life force, 53, 80, 105, 108, 120 limited agency, 5, 88–89 lip-synch, 339 “Little Sister, Go Boldly Forward,” 56–57 Liu Bei, 311, 323, 352 Lo, Kwai-cheung, 322, 331

407 Lord Guan (Guan Yu), 311, 315, 323, 325, 351 Lovell, Julia, 334 Lu Xun, 67, 117, 170, 268 making love, 244 male desire, 90, 231 male heir, 135, 140, 147, 178 male imaginary, 88 manipulative, 5, 87, 93, 98, 117, 163, 176, 178, 223, 313 Mao Zedong, 8, 143, 148, 174, 176, 180–182, 185, 187–189, 191, 193, 195–196, 219, 245, 250, 252, 268, 413, 416 Maoism, 169 Maoist master narrative, 168 Maoist valorization of work, 42 marriage, 58, 60, 63, 70, 79, 83, 85, 214, 234, 239, 243–244, 248–249, 257 arranged marriage, 59, 109 China’s New Marriage Law, 143 marriage as economic exchange, 61 martial arts (wuxia), 272, 277, 282–284, 299, 301, 303, 355 Marxist, 11–12, 40, 96–97, 104, 131, 196, 269 massage parlor, 238, 244, 250–251, 259–261, 267 materialism, 40, 97 May Fourth, 127, 170 McGowan, Todd, 233, 254–255, 258, 269 McGrath, Jason, 10, 299–301 medicine, 189, 253, 269 Mei Lanfang, 215 memory, 159, 171, 191, 252 Mencius, 221 military, 37, 78, 111, 185, 187, 275, 277–281, 283, 287, 289, 294, 300,

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408

Zhang Yimou

military (continued), 337–338 Ming dynasty, 215 misogyny, 5 Mo Yan, 45, 237, 244, 252, 262 modern Chinese experience, 169 modern imperative, 111 modern legal system, 135, 151 modern woman, 110, 128, 200 modernity, 97–98, 128–129, 131, 134, 169, 171, 269, 292–293, 308 money (paper money, fake money, 30, 47, 61, 64, 83, 94–95, 98–100, 103, 106, 110, 117, 149–150, 179, 199, 201–202, 207, 233, 238, 242, 245–247, 251, 257–258, 261, 266, 308, 317 Mongolia, 210, 217–218 mother-daughter bond, 107 Mouffe, Chantal, 21–23, 38–40 MTV, 201, 230 multipolar global political order, 22 Mulvey, Laura, 5, 238, 253–255, 269 Musha Incident, 170 music, 26, 43, 56, 58, 60, 82, 86, 97–98, 119–120, 139–140, 142, 145, 157, 162, 187, 190, 196, 201, 220, 224, 277, 282, 293, 323, 325, 330 My Grandma, 74 narrative embellishment, 284 national essence, 294, 301, 335 national identity, 11, 208, 334 national myth, 168, 171 nationalism, 3, 15–17, 20, 38, 44, 159, 164, 277, 303, 413 nationally controlled products, 293 nation-state, 1, 3, 11, 14–16, 20, 22, 30–31, 38–39, 44, 154–155, 164, 278, 290, 292, 294–295, 300–301, 304, 334–335, 339, 341, 346

nation-state (continued) and the “community of nations,” 276 global nation-state mandate, 276 modification, 277 neoliberal, 19 new lyrics, 58–59 Ni Zhen, 4 9/11, 292, 295 nonexchangist, 241–242 non-Han, 42, 74 non-Western Chinese identity, 341 Norberg-Hodge, Helena, 17–18, 342 normative action, 160 northwest China, 42 “northwest wind,” 42, 69 Norway, 16, 336 Norway, 16, 336 nostalgia, 37, 317 obesity, 246, 257, 269 older man, 43, 58–59, 79, 142, 221, 306 Olympics, 337, 341–344, 347, 413 Beijing Olympics, 333–334, 338, 340, 346 first global Olympics, 335 Olympic Charter, 335–336 summer Olympics, 31, 335 winter Olympics, 335–336 Once Upon a Time in China, 294, 359 One and Eight, 3–4, 66, 359 opera, 108, 113–115, 117–118, 120–122, 150, 152, 186, 189, 195, 215, 217, 306–307, 311–312, 315–316, 318–321, 323–325, 328, 331, 349, 351, 355 Opera Journal, 195 opera singer, 117, 120–121, 306 oppressive universality, 160

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Index optimism, 41, 44, 78, 169, 219, 226, 242, 245–246 Orientalism, 9, 37, 43, 69–70, 167, 293 “other,” 5–7, 69 outsiders, 43–46, 62–63, 65, 67, 315 pain, 90–91, 169–171, 178, 274, 295 Paris, 210, 217, 230 patriarchy, 70, 80, 92, 98, 137–138, 145–147, 174, 182, 188 patriotic, 275, 334, 413 Peace of Westphalia, 16 peasants, 58–59, 70–71, 163 peephole, 86–88 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 78, 186, 346 performative rituals, 111 pessimism, 78, 106, 239 play within play, 31, 82, 109 play-acting, 117, 121–122 political authority, 153, 159, 174–175, 181–184 politicized imaginary, 167 popular sovereignty, 163 postcolonialism, 5–8, 14, 19, 21, 38, 40, 84, 89, 94–97, 104, 238, 255–256, 293, 305 postmemory, 171–172 postsocialist China, 2–3, 6, 129 postvisuality, 242 poverty, 71, 144, 194, 246 power, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14–15, 19–23, 27–31, 37–38, 43–44, 46, 48–49, 51–52, 60, 63–65, 72, 87, 90, 93–94, 98, 107, 111, 113, 116–118, 120, 124, 126–128, 134, 136–139, 142, 145–147, 149, 152–160, 162–163, 174–176, 179, 181–185, 188, 196, 199, 218, 224, 236, 238, 241–242, 253–254, 256, 268, 271, 273, 276–285, 287–292,

409 power (continued), 294–296, 300, 303, 308, 337–338, 341, 343, 345–346, 413 power games, 111, 117 pregnancy, 119–120, 122–123, 135–136, 139, 150, 152, 163 primitive, 18, 42, 44, 57, 66, 69, 72, 84–85, 105, 108, 137, 154, 242, 274 primitive China, 85 primitive societies, 154 primitivism, 70, 105, 108 prison, 177, 221, 224, 307, 312–314, 317, 321, 324–325 pro-democracy movement, 19 profit, 75, 209, 225 provincialism, 144 puppetry, 173, 176–181, 185–187, 189–192, 274, 296 Qin Shihuang, Emperor of Qin, 350 Qing China, 184 Qingshakou Bridge, 67 Qiuju Goes to Court Counsel Wu, 145 Director Yan, 151 Meizi, 139–140, 142–144, 147–148, 160–161, 163, 352 Officer Li, 143, 145, 147–149, 155–156, 158 Qinglai, 135–136, 141–142, 147–150, 152, 155–156, 163, 353 Qiuju, 29, 80, 105, 120, 131, 133–153, 155–163, 174–175, 179, 181–182, 184–185, 188, 195, 198–199, 201, 212, 231, 241, 344, 349, 353 Wang Shantang, 135–136, 141, 147–153, 155–156, 185, 354 Qu Yajun, 5, 88 Qu Ying, 202, 353

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410

Zhang Yimou

racist, 70 radical contextualism, 24 Raise the Red Lantern, 4, 8–9, 28–29, 56, 71, 79–81, 84, 88, 101, 105–106, 139, 174, 182, 184, 199, 344 Chen Laoye, 109 Dr. Gao, 115, 117–118, 120–121, 123, 350 Feipu, 118–121, 146, 350 First Wife, 109, 118 Master Chen, 109–110, 112–121, 124–125, 146, 153, 352 Meishan, 108–109, 113–118, 120–125, 129, 146, 217, 352 Songlian, 5, 85, 107–130, 134, 136–138, 145, 148, 157–159, 195, 212, 217, 354 Yan’er, 109, 112–113, 115–116, 118–119, 121–122, 124–126, 130 Zhuoyun, 109, 113, 116, 120, 124–125, 356 rape, 74, 170 Rape of Nanjing, 170 Rashomon, 280, 302 Rawnsley, Gary D., 10, 299–300 Rawnsley, Ming-Yeh T., 10 rebellion, 4, 43, 45, 51–53, 63, 65, 67–68, 70, 79–80, 134 reconciliation, 312–313 Red Guards, 187–188 Red Sorghum, 4, 9, 28–30, 41–42, 44–45, 60, 69, 72, 93, 105, 108, 128–129, 156, 158–159, 178, 195, 199, 207, 226, 236, 241, 341, 344, 413 Douguan, 47, 57, 66–68, 79, 81, 120–121, 350 Jiu’er, 5, 43, 46–57, 59, 61–65, 67–68, 70–71, 73–75, 78–79,

Red Sorghum Jiu’er (continued), 81, 83–85, 88, 90–91, 98–100, 107, 109–110, 112, 120, 134, 136–138, 145–146, 148, 157, 184, 212, 216 Li Datou, 46–54, 65, 79–81, 83, 91, 98–99, 106–107, 120, 153, 352 Luohan, 47–52, 55, 57, 62–65, 67, 74, 349 My Grandpa, 43, 46–57, 61–68, 73–74, 78–80, 84, 88, 90–91, 100, 118–120, 145, 157, 352 Sanpao, 47–48, 50–51, 57, 63–64, 98–99, 353 Red Trilogy, 4, 84–85, 90, 101, 106, 108, 118, 120, 126–128, 134, 136–140, 145–146, 156–158, 160, 174–175, 181, 184, 188, 195, 199, 239–240, 353 “Red White Blue” plastic, 4–5, 8–9, 28–30, 41–49, 54–58, 60–61, 65–73, 78–81, 83–85, 88, 90–93, 98–101, 105–112, 118–121, 126–129, 134, 136–140, 144–146, 156–160, 171, 174–175, 177–178, 181–182, 184, 187–188, 195, 199, 207, 212, 217, 219, 222, 226, 236, 239–241, 247, 257, 341, 344, 353, 359, 413 reductionism, 6, 24 reform-era China, 162 resistance, 9, 11–13, 19, 21–22, 30, 38, 40, 42, 45, 54, 62, 74, 94, 97–99, 109, 128, 148, 170, 178, 187, 189, 201, 242, 261, 284, 291, 300, 331 resistance to capitalism, 19 resolution, 157, 178, 182, 238, 313, 322

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Index revision of history, 291 revolutionary song, 58 rhythm, 75, 206, 220 Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, 101, 124, 330, 349 Kenichi, 30, 305–307, 310–314, 316–320, 322–324, 327, 329, 331 Li Jiamin, 306–307, 311–321, 324 Lingo, 309, 314–317, 321–322, 325, 327, 331 Rie, 306–307, 309–314, 318–319, 321, 329 Takata, 306–307, 309–325, 327, 329, 331 Yangyang, 307, 309, 312–314, 317–321 Riefenstahl, Leni, 274, 300, 338 rite of passage, 85, 143 Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 311, 323 Romance of the Western Chamber, 70, 75, 353 Romeo and Juliet, 203 Roots, 42–43, 74, 108, 131, 353 “rule of law” (fazhi), 184 “rule of man” (renzhi), 184 rural, 3, 5, 42–44, 68, 71–72, 74, 84–85, 133, 135, 137, 142–143, 167, 176–177, 344 Russia (Russian culture), 293 Said, Edward, 69–70, 75, 96 Schmitt, Carl, 21, 39 sedan, 46, 50, 52, 56, 61, 67, 70, 79, 84–85, 110–111, 146, 351 self-benefit, 93, 147, 223, 239, 247–248, 257, 344 self-subalternization, 9 Sen, Amartya, 12, 342 sensual fulfillment, 42

411 sexual, 9, 51, 53–54, 56, 79, 85, 88–90, 93, 100, 125, 128, 158–159, 206, 213–216, 218, 231, 238–240, 244, 247–248, 268 sexual (sexualized, 9, 51, 53–54, 56, 79, 85, 88–90, 93, 100, 125, 128, 158–159, 206, 213–216, 218, 231, 238–240, 244, 247–248, 268 sexual desire, 53, 88, 90, 93, 206, 238–240, 247 sexual object, 268 sexual rewards, 248 sexual vigor, 244 Sha Lin, 6, 353 Shu Ping, 198, 230, 354 shuofa, 131, 155, 162 significance of culture, 68 “site of performance,” 154 Six Kingdoms, 286–287 Sixth Generation, 33, 199 social performance, 317 socialism, 1, 4, 7–8, 14, 29–30, 42–43, 54, 68, 72–73, 90, 126–127, 129, 162, 168–169, 188, 194–195, 220, 223, 226, 236, 238, 241–243, 245, 247–253, 256–257, 259, 262, 415 socialist residue, 237, 244, 246, 261, 344 son, 29–30, 47, 61, 77, 79, 81, 88, 91, 93, 118, 120–121, 124, 134, 140, 145–146, 149, 153, 156–158, 176–177, 180, 189, 213, 226, 234–235, 239–240, 246, 248, 257–258, 306–307, 310–321, 329, 331, 344 Song “Nights of Ulan Bator,” 218 Song dynasty, 303 song, 45–46, 48, 50–51, 55–56, 60–62, 65, 68–69, 75, 80, 97, 108–109, 113–115, 120, 122, 139,

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412

Zhang Yimou

song (continued), 188, 203, 208, 218, 222–224, 228, 230, 303, 307, 346–347, 415 collect songs, 59 folk songs, 57, 59 humorous song, 58–59 song of hope, 59 Sontag, Susan, 171, 274–275, 338 South Asian studies, 96–97 sovereign power, 154, 175 sovereignty (de facto sovereignty, 3, 39, 46, 139, 146, 148, 151, 153–155, 157, 160, 163–165, 181–185, 196, 294, 303, 345–346 “spirit of the people,” 44 state power, 273, 280, 288, 292 strategy, 7, 46, 69, 81, 90, 93, 98, 138, 246–247, 252, 262, 275, 283, 285, 289, 315, 337 subversive, 62, 215 suffering, 67, 86, 90–91, 93, 169, 171–172, 239, 257 suicide, 18, 93, 231 suicide-murder, 93 superpowers, 236–237, 240, 243–244, 249, 251, 289 supranationalism, 15–16 survival, 43, 67, 71, 82, 85, 93, 98, 168–169, 173, 178, 241 Sweden, 16 Taiwan, 13, 170, 186 Takakura Ken, 306, 324 Tang Dynasty, 75 Tarantino, Quentin, 291, 360 teasing, 56, 85, 216, 218 territorial sovereignty, 153, 183, 185 territoriality, 153, 164, 184 the law, 46, 48, 133–134, 137–138, 147, 149, 151–156, 158, 188, 224, 331 The World, 199, 207–211, 217, 225,

The World (continued), 230, 330, 360 Third World, 8, 10, 15, 20, 95 Third World, 8, 10, 15, 20, 95 Third World literature, 10 threatening meaning of the song, 61 Tian Zhuangzhuang, 4, 71, 171, 354, 359 Tiananmen, 78, 104, 170, 219 Tianxia, 10, 272, 276, 284, 286, 290–291, 295–296, 301–302 To Live, 29, 71, 129, 134, 159, 168, 171–172, 175, 181–182, 194–195, 199, 241, 296, 344 Chunsheng, 174, 177, 185, 349 Comrade Niu, 180 Erxi, 178, 187, 189–190 Fengxia, 174, 177, 180, 187–189, 192, 350 Fugui, 167, 173–174, 176–180, 185–191, 350 Jiazhen, 178–180, 185–187, 189–191, 212 Long’er, 176, 179, 185 Mantou, 178, 189–191 Wang Bin, 177, 359 Youqing, 174, 177, 180, 186, 189, 355 Tokyo, 30, 306, 310, 312, 329 tourism, 209, 293, 315–317, 319, 321, 330–331, 337, 342 traditional culture, 93, 108, 127, 334 transformation of labor, 126 transformation of songs, 59 transnational, 11, 13, 16, 71, 164, 196, 236, 290, 295 trapped female, 5, 134 “trapped woman,” 54 trauma (history of trauma), 169–173 Tsui Hark, 294, 354, 359

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Index Tzanelli, Rodanthi, 334, 336–337, 341, 346 Ulan Bator, 210, 217–218, 230, 352 ultranationalism, 290 United States, 1, 3, 7, 15–16, 20, 39–40, 42, 44, 69, 72, 94–96, 170, 187, 197, 253, 346 universalization, 17, 30 unsavory view of China, 42 urban characters, 199 urine, 51–53, 55, 57, 62, 66, 186 utopia, 16, 31, 38, 81, 126, 131, 184, 243–244, 247, 251, 260–261 Venevitinov, Dmitry, 293 victim, 115, 137, 157–158, 236, 303 village life, 84–85, 134, 137, 141, 145, 149, 152 violence, 19, 38–40, 90, 93, 99, 131, 147, 149, 152, 154–155, 159, 169–172, 185, 205–209, 212, 225–226, 274, 281, 283–284, 288, 291, 294, 300 virtue, 21, 168, 220–221, 354 vision, power, and community, 242 visual style, 210, 318 voice-over, 306, 310 voyeuristic, 6, 86, 254 vulnerability, 5, 9, 81, 88–90, 144, 177, 209, 235–236, 238–240, 249, 320 Wang Yichuan, 6–7, 36, 44, 48, 50, 52–53, 69–70, 72, 84–85, 106, 108, 157, 299, 303 Warring States, 30, 272–273, 291 weak male, 134, 344 Weber, Max, 308 West its own imaginary about China, 69 West pandering to, 9 Western culture, 89, 94 Western imagination of China, 6

413 Westernization, 13–14 West-toadying aesthetics, 42 Williams, Raymond, 27, 37, 39–40, 74 wine, 46–53, 55–57, 61–66, 68, 74–75, 81, 83, 90, 99, 119–120, 128, 145, 355 “Wine God Song,” 50, 55, 62, 65 women, 36, 57–58, 104, 106, 115, 139–140, 144, 146, 157, 176, 214, 216–218, 220, 224–225, 228, 231, 239, 246, 254, 303, 329 damaged, eroticized women, 89 deception, 213 education, 124–125 exploitation, 9 middle-aged women, 221–222 myths of women, 88 on stage, 209, 215, 222 ownership of women, 64 provoking sexual desire, 88 representation of women, 5 resistance, 9, 11–13, 19, 21–22, 30, 38, 40, 42, 45, 54, 62, 74, 94, 97–99, 109, 128, 148, 170, 178, 187, 189, 201, 242, 261, 284, 291, 300, 331 rights, 16, 118, 133–135, 137, 148, 162, 164–165, 168, 174, 184 selling of women, 107 short hairstyles, 131 suffering women, 86 upward mobility, 209 women writers, 89 younger women and older men, 43, 79 World Trade Organization, 13 Xi’an Film Studio, 42 xia 俠 code of honor, 273

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414

Zhang Yimou

xiangqi (noisy instruments), 75 xiezhu, 322 xiezui, 322 Yan Chunjun, 7–8, 355 Yellow Earth, 3–4, 42–44, 57–58, 60–61, 66–67, 69, 71, 346, 359 yin-yang, 173–174 Yu Hua, 167–168, 176, 178, 194–195, 355 Yuan dynasty, 75, 215 Yunnan, 119, 306, 323–324

Zhan Xueyan, 324, 328, 355 Zhang Junzhao, 3–4, 356, 359 Zhang Yimou on Western films, 78 upbeat endings, 190 visual style, 201, 203 “Zhang Yimou brand,” 338 Zhang Yiwu, 6–7, 36, 84, 292, 295–296, 303 Zhonghua minzu, 45 Zhu Shoutong, 8, 56, 74, 356

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About the Author

Wendy Larson is professor emerita at the University of Oregon. She holds a PhD and an MA from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA from the University of Oregon. Dr. Larson’s previous publications include From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China, Women and Writing in Modern China, and Literary Authority and the Chinese Writer: Ambivalence and Autobiography, as well as many journal articles.

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Praise for the Book

“Complex and controversial, the director, cinematographer, and actor Zhang Yimou has defined Chinese film more than anyone else since the ‘opening up’ of China in the early 1980s. But do his films best define the real China or define the difficulty of defining ‘China’ and Chinese culture? Globalization is upon us, contending against nationalism and nationalists, and among other things modernizing Chinese cinema but also Hollywoodizing and de-Sinicizing it. Throughout his career, Zhang Yimou has both deSinicized and re-nationalized his Chinese cinema. Larson’s learned and entertaining engagement with Zhang’s evolving cinematic representations of Chinese culture looks at him and his films not only as agents of both hybridizing global forces and patriotic Chinese agendas but also as the product of both. Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture engages readers in an insightful reflection on the significance, the potential, and the limitations of film as cultural production in a constantly changing China.” —Jerome Silbergeld, Princeton University ***** “This is a splendid study of Zhang Yimou. One of the pioneers of Chinese cultural studies, Wendy Larson reveals to us here in a series of theoretically sophisticated and cogently argued readings the entanglement of culture, power, and history in the director’s major works—from Red Sorghum to the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony. By focusing on Zhang’s visual representation, the book offers in effect a deeply engaging reflection on the ambivalent role of post-Mao Chinese culture in a rapidly globalizing world. This

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Zhang Yimou exquisite book is a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese cinema and culture.” —Fu Poshek, University of Illinois ***** “Remarkably, Wendy Larson’s much-anticipated new book is the first single-author study of Zhang Yimou to be published in English, and it’s more than worth the wait—not least because this is in no sense a conventional auteur study. Larson sets out from the premise that Zhang is the most divisive figure in Chinese cinema; however, rather than weighing in on either side of the debates, she sees Zhang’s films as vital agents and agitators within our contemporary global culture wars. Moving through Zhang’s work in eleven finely grained and acutely argued chapters, Larson’s study demonstrates that display, duplicity, and coerced performance constitute the shared deep syntax of these films. Extraordinarily varied as it is, Zhang’s filmmaking is all about how—as Larson puts it—the ‘knowledge of being watched changes behavior,’ and Larson’s book masterfully shows that the thrill and pressure of having audiences everywhere ramps up that dynamic. In this sense, Zhang Yimou’s work could only have compelled and repelled audiences the way it does because it takes the cinematic image as its medium, and this superb book gets to the heart of that truth in revelatory ways. Larson’s brilliant insights in Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture prove beyond any doubt that Zhang Yimou’s filmmaking, whatever we may feel about it, constitutes a core mode of knowledge through which to approach both China’s relationship with the world and the inner life of Chinese culture under globalization.” —Margaret Hillenbrand, University of Oxford *****

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Praise for the Book

419

“Wendy Larson’s long-anticipated—and ambitious—book on Zhang Yimou provides insightful readings and acute observations of the controversial director’s films. More importantly, Larson’s study situates Zhang’s work within the larger—and invariably slippery— notion of culture to argue for an understanding of the enabling conditions underpinning what Larson has astutely captured as ‘our deep sense of the way we live and thrive.’ Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture is an important contribution to scholarship in Chinese cultural studies.” —Song Hwee Lim, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and author of Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness *****           “In this masterful study of Zhang Yimou’s entire oeuvre, Wendy Larson provocatively challenges existing scholarly misconceptions about his films. Through brilliant close readings of his major films, she develops a complex account of the imbrication of culture and politics in post-socialist China and its position in contemporary global capitalism. This is an important contribution to world film studies and Chinese studies that should also be of interest to readers curious about the politics of culture on the contemporary world stage.” —Pheng Cheah, University of California, Berkeley

*****

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Zhang Yimou “This is a much-needed study of Zhang Yimou’s films and their reception, both within and outside China—the first book of its kind. Wendy Larson, a leading expert on modern Chinese culture, combines historical context, methodological sophistication, and close reading. Larson resists characterizing Zhang’s work in term of consumerist production and places the films within culture broadly defined. Zhang Yimou has long been a central figure in post-Maoist culture and in world cinema, and Larson’s book is important for any reader interested in how the political sphere and visual culture redefine each other.” —Yomi Braester, University of Washington; co-editor of Journal of Chinese Cinemas

EBSCOhost - printed on 1/28/2021 2:36 AM via UNIV OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use