The New Cinema (xin dianying) is by far the most important development in Taiwan film history. Though it did not transform or rejuvenate the film industry, nor succeed in blocking invasions from Hong Kong or Hollywood, it nevertheless created the most vital cinema in Taiwan history and cultivated some of the finest filmmaking talent at the turn of the twentieth century.
New Taiwanese Cinema emerged in the 1980s in the face of a commercial industry in crisis, a loosening political climate at the end of the Cold War, and on the eve of Taiwan’s lifting of martial law. Departing from the romantic-themed “healthy-realism” and state-prescribed melodramatic narratives that characterized its predecessors, this new wave of Taiwanese films brought to the screen stories of ordinary people and their experiences amidst Taiwan’s social-economic changes.
The semi-official end of the New Cinema is seen as being in 1987, when they key filmmakers went their own way.
Factors behind the New Cinema:
By the 1970s, Hong Kong had come to dominate the Taiwan market, with imported films and TV, and the domestic market for Mandarin language films was dwindling. CMPC in the early 1980s attempted to rejuvenate the Taiwanese film industry, with a low-risk low-budget 'newcomer policy', giving younger directors a chance with the hope that they could rekindle the interest of local domestic audiences.
Cultural liberalisation was also gradually taking place. In early 1982 the GIO introduced a film law that reclassified cinema as a “cultural enterprise” rather than an “amusement enterprise’’ (comparable to bars, brothels, and dance halls). This change immediately upgraded cinema to a different, higher tier within government administration. Reduction of taxes and tariffs on film, as well as subsidy programs and relaxation of censorship were to be implemented; government was now obliged to assist rather than simply regulate film development. In addition, a two-tier classification system (restricted and general) would be implemented for the first time. This allowed a market differentiation in widening the scope of audience demographics in the hope of increasing film consumption. Second, the drop in pre-production censorship allowed a more efficient management of film production. Films could be made without submitting scripts to authorities.
The rise of a current trying to give a form and voice to a native Taiwanese cultural identiy was influential to the TNW, beginning in the mid-1970s, through the work of nativist literature. This was a re-telling of the historical narrative, a look anew at the history of the island through a completely different and alternative perspective, that of the quotidian, native and ordinary. The TNW would be in some ways the cinematic equivalent. We can think of Hou's films, both his series of personal autobiographical ones, and his 'historical' ones such as A City of Sadness, as re-centring history, form the grand narratives of key figures and events, onto the perspective of ordinary people who lived at that time, felt the consequences of these events, and were 'inconsequential' to it. In Hou's films the major events only happen in the background, get oblique brief mentions at the most, while in the foreground is the lives of ordinary people. It's a move away from a 'sinocentric' history/culture imposed on to the island, both its dislocated emigres and its indigenous and native population, by the KMT.
Taiwan-made films and television programs, though conformist and out-of-date, were guaranteed a large market share and were free from competition from imports. This warm bed for local media personnel became cold and threadbare in the 1980s with deregulation and a more open market. Hong Kong commercial videos carrying television programs with dazzling editing and fast-paced narratives captured the attention of the audience. New Cinema was thus an innovative corporate strategy to deal with this so-called 'crisis'. The New Cinema not only was supposed to win back the audience, it was also expected to raise the overall standards of domestic production. The new directors, like directors in the 1960s, were expected to fulfill the dual objective—the clichéd balance of art and commerce, propaganda and entertainment.
The Beginnings of the New Cinema:
Before the New Cinema, three mainstream filmmakers—Chen Kunhou, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Lin Qingjie—had begun incorporating similar “homeland” sensibilities into their genre films. Lin started a new “student genre” (xuesheng dianying) by casting young, unfamiliar faces in a series of films about high school life and romance, for example in 'My Classmates', written by Wu Nianzhen, which won the 1981 Golden Horse award for Best Screenplay. Another refreshing element could be seen in a series of romantic comedies made by Chen and Hou. They began their collaboration in 1978 when they both worked for the independent Young Sun (Yongsheng) production company. Young Sun was a midsized company established by a major distributor, Jiang Risheng, and a veteran director, Lai Chengying, uncle of Chen Kunhou.
"Themes incorporated elements of indigenous Taiwanese life [hence giving a voice to the much-repressed native Taiwanese cultural identity, and/or helping to form it], visible in language, literary adaptations, and rural subjects. Films of the New Cinema were made for a younger, more educated audience, specifically college students and young professionals. But questions remain. Was the New Cinema a movement, like Italian neorealism or the French New Wave? Was it a group style comprised by a number of like-minded directors, writers, and talent? Or, like healthy realism, was it a policy formulated by one or more authorities (e.g., the Central Motion Picture Corporation / CMPC, or the Government Information Office / GIO) charged with updating the film industry? Another possibility is the New Cinema as critical invention: influential critics and journalists who acquired cultural capital by defining characteristics of carefully chosen films and submitting these to scrutiny at international festivals. These various accounts are not mutually exclusive; Taiwan New Cinema in its formative stages was a combination of all these factors." [Page 56 of Taiwan Film Directors...]
"Directors such as Wang Tong (Wong Tung), Chen Kunhou, Wan Ren, Chang Yi; novelists and screenwriters Zhu Tianwen (Chu T’ien-wen), Xiao Ye, and Wu Nianzhen (Wu Nien-chen); editor Liao Qingsong, cinematographer Mark Lee Pingbin, sound designer Du Duzhi: these may not be household names, but they formed the core of this small, genuine homegrown film culture."
Reception and global context:
Taiwanese New Wave films have generally been unpopular at home while celebrated abroad. Some people have, unjustifiably, blamed them for the drop in local production during the 1990s. The shortfall can be explained by other factors: as with Mainland China, Taiwan's entry into the World Trade Organisation relaxed import quotas, increasing competition from Hollywood and Hong Kong cinema; consequently, Taiwanese investors preferred to fund Hong Kong films, which were more certain to be regional successes, as well as mainland films targeted at international art-house audiences (Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, Farewell My Concubine). Lack of support for local film production has led New Taiwanese Cinema directors to seek French and Japanese investment.
"New Taiwanese Gnema is formally very intriguing, and this seems to be behind its enthusiastic international reception. Hou's cinema is characterised by detached cinematography, long takes, elliptical editing, elaborate mises en scene and oblique narration. According to Yeh Yueh-Yu, Hou's films have a certain Orientalist allure to foreign cineastes, offering as they do 'a precious option outside the norms of Western cinema'. I would argue, however, that the pleasures which they offer lie in their innovative interpretation of modernist film aesthetics. Hou, like the Chinese Fifth Generation, ^eals with history through the perspective of the family, yet his use of family saga is non-melodramatic and his emphasis is on quotidian lives that have been brushed by historical events - all with the purpose of contesting the KMT's version of history." [Chaudhuri]
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