Raise the Red Lantern

Zhang Yimou, fifth generation director

-Report 7 : Raise the Red Lantern-

                Since we have been watching several films of Director Zhang Yimou, in this report I wanted to study and focus on his background and reputation in the film industry. About the movie, I will briefly summarize it in the end.

Director Zhang Yimou was born in 1950. When the first socialist revolution in Russia took place in 1917, many people believed that socialism could be achieved in reality. One of those people was Chinese Communist Party. The Communist Party drove out the National Party, and China was born again as a socialist’s country that has been continuing to this day.

          The movement of communist’s China led to literary genocide and Cultural revolution. In particular, the latter went in a wrong direction destroying both tradition and human nature in the name of breaking feudalism. This revolution has been around for 10 years from 1966 to 1976, and the fifth generation directors spent their teen during this time. It was dark time for many Chinese people since communist’s socialism that wasn’t aligned with true socialism but was proceeded under its name. Fifth generation directors realized that this was a terribly wrong ideology over time. This experience led to the fifth generation directors' criticism of feudalism and pursuing filmmaking’s purpose for human-beings.

The fifth generation refers to students who have graduated from a particular school, and does not refer to a group based on age like X generation or the N generation. That particular school is called the Beijing Film School, which opened after the end of the Cultural Revolution in China, and the students who graduated in fifth year are called the fifth generation. The reason they became bundled up to such word was because they had similar social experiences of revolution and wanted to make sensational films that broke existing orders of movies they learned. These beliefs can be seen in the early films of fifth generation directors.

The film of the fifth generation director who has been affected by the historical background and shows some common features. The subject of the film was thoroughly humanistic, and this is linked to the criticism of Cultural Revolution. In order to show the reality as it is, they also made public appearances in movies. This also implied the 'immortality' trying to exclude artifacts. Unnatural things such as struggles and classes were considered to be against beauty and directors tried to put blank to show beauty of space unlike conventional films. Finally, the most important feature is the 'formalistic style' that became the framework of criticism. They used symbolic and expressive color aesthetics through Mise en scene, and tried new shooting technique with new composition and angle that were not seen in existing films.