Ying Qian, "Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2023)
New Books in East Asian Studies
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Debate Between Marxist and Modernist Filmmakers in 1930s Shanghai
The chapter explores the clash between the Hard Camp and Soft Camp of filmmakers in Shanghai during the 1930s, debating cinema aesthetics and societal roles. It compares the role of documentary production in Shanghai to that in other regions like the Soviet Union and Japan, emphasizing the significance of documentaries to left-wing and modernist trends in Shanghai's film culture. The discussion also touches upon propaganda in documentary filmmaking during the late 1930s and 1940s under socialist influences, challenging the simplistic Cold War notion of propaganda as state manipulation and evaluating its implications on political relationships and knowledge formation.
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