Generations of Chinese Cinema (Culture/History)

A categorisation system (generally devised by Chinese critics and historians) used to separate the history of Chinese cinemas into eras or 'generations'. These generations also came to be related with the generations of graduates at the Beijing Film Academy although they do not strictly correlate with every class of generations from there. In particular, the first three 'generations' are taken to split a historical period before the Academy was founded (in 1956), and though there have been more than one group of graduates from there since the 'fifth generation' graduated in 1982, the current era and cinematic movement of contemporary Chinese filmmakers is still called the 'Sixth Generation'. Xie Fei, for example, suggested that the 'Seventh Generation' would occur when Chinese directors could freely making films directly about Mao and his rule without censorship, indicating that they are split as historical labels of key periods.

• First Generation: Those who introduced film into the country and subsequently made films themselves (Zheng Zhenqui, Yang Shichuan).
• Second Generation: Directors who made films before Liberation (1949) and remained active for some time afterwards. 
• Third Generation: Those educated and who joined the film industry during the 17 years 1949-1966 (e.g Xie Jin).
• Fourth Generation: Those who came of age during the CR era but were only able to become filmmakers after it ended.
• Fifth Generation: Like all other educated young people of their age, they had been sent to remote areas of the countryside in the late 1960s, to ‘learn from the people’. The massive heritage of pre-Communist culture was as completely as possible suppressed to them. Tony Rayns writes of this group: "[They] have an impressive range and diversity. But they do have certain underlying elements in common. All of them reject the theatrical conventions that played so large a part in the ‘socialist realism’ tradition. They all minimise dialogue and trust their images to carry the burden of constructing meaning. They deliberately seek out subjects and angles that have been missing from earlier Chinese films… they are founded on a desire to forge a distinctively Chinese cinema, free of Hollywood and Mosfilm influences alike. Most important of all, though, they stand united against didacticism. They interrogate their own themes, and they leave their audiences ample space for reflection. After three decades of ideological certainty in Chinese cinema, they have reintroduced ambiguity…" Also notable trademark is symbolic use of landscape and colour.
• Sixth Generation: adopted a more documentary-style approach partly for aesthetic reasons but also out of the need for secrecy as they started out as an underground (not state-approved) movement. Films were contemporary-set and urban (in contrast to Fifth gen) and typically dealt with disaffected youths.

Of Fifth Generation in the 1990s and following generations: "Increasingly, Fifth Generation filmmakers have relied on foreign investment. While some have hailed them for creating a truly 'transnational' cinema, shaped and determined by myriad global socio-cultural and economic forces, others believe that the need to make films commercially acceptable to foreign financiers and audiences has made it harder to be stylistically and thematically adventurous - a line of attack particularly aimed at Zhang Yimou's films."

On the term 'Fifth Generation' the historian of Chinese film Cheng Jiuha declared:

"The term is inaccurate and inappropriate for these filmmakers. There are a number of filmmakers not included in the generally accepted definition who make films of equally high aesthetic value. Besides, we expect the works of the best directors to span more than a single generation" [asian film industry, 19]

"Facing this new phenomenon, people in Chinese film circles crowned it with a variety of names: 'New Chinese Cinema', 'Chinese Experimental Film', 'Exploration Films'" [asian film industry, 20]

"Despite the inaccuracy of such divisions (Chen Mei insists there are six, not five generations), and the seemingly endless disputes among scholars over the issue, the label 'Fifth Generation' has been so widely accepted that the arguments now seem academic." [asian film industry, 21]

"...the gradual diversification and increasing personalisation of Fifth Generation directors. The Fifth Generation did not form as a collective group with common goals and identical characteristics. There was no common agreement among them. In fact, these young people did communicate much with each other." [asian film industry, 26]