Tony Rayns (International Reception)

Film historian, scholar and critic, with a particular specialisation towards East Asian cinemas. Was, in the 1980s, one of the most prominent champions of the Chinese New Wave films.


Relevant books/essays/articles:
The New Chinese Cinema: an Introduction (London: Faber & Faber, 1989)


Relevant quotes:

• "The trouble is, even “smart” people in Western countries know next to nothing about China’s modern history, and apparently lack the empathy to understand what it’s like to live in the space between authoritarian government and out-of-control profiteering. This wouldn’t matter a toss, of course, except that serious-minded Chinese filmmakers need a global audience to survive. There’s no state support for the “art” sector in Mainland cinema (both Taiwan and Hong Kong do now offer modest subsidies to selected filmmakers), and the all-powerful market with its new 18-screen multiplexes has no time for “art.” Worse, despite pressure, China still hasn’t introduced a proper ratings system—the thinking seems to be that all films should be “suitable” for all ages—while political and military censorship processes continue to exert a strong grip. Hence the need that Jia and his contemporaries have for distribution abroad. That’s getting harder to find, and less lucrative—as even the likes of Zhang Yimou have discovered. No Chinese filmmaker has been more thoughtful or adventurous in battling all these adversities than Jia Zhangke. Accepting commissions, as long as they allow him a completely free hand, is one of the main planks of his creative survival strategy. You’d think “smart” people would get it. Let’s open a parenthesis for a moment to consider the sad case of Chen Kaige. In 1988 Chen took his best film, King of the Children, to Cannes. He came away not only without a prize but also dumbfounded to discover that the huge majority of Western viewers knew nothing about the Cultural Revolution (and so weren’t able to supply the off-screen realities the film took as given) and had absolutely no sense of either the burden of China’s traditional culture or the imperative in the late ‘60s to follow a strict Maoist line. Since then, Chen has struggled in film after film to find ways of dealing with Chinese issues that will be intelligible to foreigners. He tried mythic abstraction (Life on a String, 1991), sexualized melodrama (Farewell My Concubine, 1993; Temptress Moon, 1996) and historical spectacle (The Emperor and the Assassin, 1998) before abjectly surrendering to Mammon with riffs on Billy Elliot (Together, 2002) and Lord of the Rings (The Promise, 2005). (He’s also struggled to overcome his inhibitions about dealing with sex, but that’s another story.) This sorry tale is just one of the many negative examples that Jia Zhangke has before him when he considers how to go on producing credible and innovative cinema in China. Close parenthesis." - in CinemaScope (http://cinema-scope.com/currency/currency-i-wish-i-knew-jia-zhangke-china/)
• "A dozen of the most innovative and exciting films made anywhere in the world in the last few years have come from China… These films have won Chinese cinema a much higher international profile than it has ever known before. The irony underlying these gains is that several of the ‘new wave’ films are now better known abroad than they are at home, where they have been attacked both for their failure at the box-office and for their suggestions of ideological deviation from CP orthodoxies." (from essay in Perspectives on Chinese Cinema)

Interviewed London august 2016.

The Three Major Film Festivals (International Reception)

Of key importance to the worldwide recognition of the Chinese New Cinema and other 'new waves' of world cinema, especially in the 1990s. In the 1980s, other, small festivals had already started the process. As Dudley Andrew writes: "As European art cinema was moribund, desperate festivals began looking elsewhere for signs of life. And life was found in what I call the Second Set of New Waves. By the early ’80s, as if sucked into a vacuum, came films from places never before thought of as cinematically interesting or viable: Mainland China, Senegal, Mali, Ireland, Taiwan, and Iran. This second set of waves is distinct from those of the 1960s not only in their provenance but in the way they functioned in a greatly changed international system."

Cannes
Held yearly in May. Initially founded in 1939, it only really took off as an international film festival in the post-war era.


Venice
Held yearly in late August/early September. Oldest international film festival in the world. Founded in 1932, under the title Esposizione internazionale d'arte cinematografica, it was under the influence of Mussolini's regime between 1934 and 1942, prompting the Cannes film festival to open as an alternative to its fascist rival.
In 1961, Ebrahim Golestan's documentary about an oildfield fire in Southern Iran, A Fire, edited by Forough Farrokhzad, was the first Iranian film to win a major international festival prize when it won the Bronze Medal.


Berlin
Held yearly in February. Set up in 1951by German and American authorities to show off to the world the success of de-nazification and of Germany's revival under American guidance.



"In the 1980s, the Big Three festivals were especially skittish about showing films from Taiwan for geopolitical reasons. Probably out of fear of being passed over for films by the Fifth Generation in mainland China, they did not want to antagonize the PRC which was trying everything to prevent Taiwan from gaining international recognition as the Republic of China. Berlin had invited Hou to show two films outside of the competition in 1985, but then withdrew the invitation for unspecified reasons. after Hou won at Nantes two years in a row, the big festivals clearly decided they could no longer afford not to show films from Taiwan, but they were presented in the non-competitive sidebars. Venice finally took the plunge in 1989 by entering City of Sadness in the competition. This changed the course of Taiwanese cinema, making it a true festival powerhouse in the 1990s" [James Udden, HHH (Suchenski), p130]



References:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/film/84968.htm (China)
Dudley Andrew, Waves of New Waves and the International Film Festival.
Bill Nichols, New Cinemas and the film festival circuit.