In Lee’s description of the 1930s Shanghai cinema, the term “compromise” can summarize the audience behaviors, the evolution of film culture, and the native filmmakers’ methodologies. Film magazines of the time provided guidelines for movie tastes and listed appropriate behaviors when visiting the cinema, projecting a social background in which western lifestyles and etiquette were sought after. The upper-class ladies of Shanghai, especially, seem to have forsaken their individuality. The cultural authenticity of the early Chinese cinema stood fragile in the crevice between Hollywood’s grand productions and a puppetized audience. In contrast, adaptations of western film language also had to be limited to compensate for the audiences’ liking for traditional narrative rhythms and representations of old popular sources of opera, fairy tales, folklore, etc. In efforts to explore a contemporary native Chinese tradition, eclectic practices such as balancing conveying ideological content with appealing to audiences and trying to achieve better narrativity with “craftsmanship” despite budget restraints portray the major picture.
In essence, the infant stage of Chinese cinema depicted actions to compromise in a contradictory market where financial issues restrict free elaborations on film techniques and audiences attempt to mimic modern behaviors while maintaining a conventional esthetic conception.
Chen Chun 3035974690
Nice original response to Lee’s writing- I like how you used the term “compromise” to summarize the reading and demonstrate the state of early Chinese cinema, and explained how all these different influences from traditional theatre, Western soft power, to financing have shaped this state of compromise.