Our series this semester will feature six master works of the famed Soviet Russian film theorist and director Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948).  Eisenstein, the son of a middle-class architect from Riga, originally studied engineering and architecture at the Petrograd School of Civil Engineering.  During the October 1917 revolution, he broke with his family by joining the Red Army.  Within a year, he developed an interest in the Japanese language and after arriving in Japan, in kabuki theater also.  His career in films began with his residence in Moscow starting in 1920.  
    Eisenstein published his first monograph on film theory (on the film sequence via the montage, for which he became famous as a director) in 1923, the same year he directed his first film, [Glumov’s Diary].  He followed this film the next year with [Strike], and in 1925 made the internationally renowned [Battleship Potemkin].  These early successes made him, along with Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko, the leading film director of Stalinist Russia.
    However, [October], Eisenstein’s 1927 film made to celebrated the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, put him at odds with the Soviet film establishment and after a series of self-criticisms, he left for lengthy stays in the United States and Mexico.  Upon his return to the Soviet Union, Eisenstein made the allegorical biopic [Alexander Nevsky](1938), his first  film in more than a decade, and coincidentally, his first sound film.  This film was withdrawn from circulation due to the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 ([Nevsky], after all, dealt with the pre-modern Russian defense versus German invaders!) but was praised both internationally and domestically.  
    Eisenstein subsequently made the historical epics [Ivan the Terrible, Part 1](1944), [Ivan the Terrible, Part 2](1945), and was working on [Ivan the Terrible, Part 3] when his health broke.  His last two films received heavy criticism, doubtless contributing to the series of heart attacks that resulted in his death at age 50, in 1948.  He was buried as a hero in the prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
    Our program offers a comprehensive retrospective of Eisenstein’s career.  Three silent films, [Strike](1924), [Battleship Potemkin](1925), and [October](1927), show how the director perfected his assembly of montage.  In fact, more than one critic remarked that even if Eisenstein had never made a sound film, his place in the development of international cinema would yet be secure.  As it was, Eisenstein embraced sound only reluctantly, filming the rather one-dimensional [Alexander Nevsky] in 1938.  This film, however, provided him the chance to direct his final two classics, [Ivan the Terrible, Part 1](1944) and [Ivan the Terrible, Part 2](1946).
    Also included in the series is the astonishing experimental documentary film, [Man With a Movie Camera](1929) by Dziga Vertov.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 [Strike] (Soviet Union 1924) 82 min. B/W.  Wildcat Theater, 7pm
Director:  Sergei Eisenstein
    One of the outstanding directing debuts in cinema history, Eisenstein’s [Strike] was composed of six parts.  Triggered by the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow factory.  The managers, owner and the Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers unity.  Unsuccessful, they hire the police and, in the film’s most harrowing and powerful sequences, the unarmed strikers are slaughtered in a brutal confrontation.  This edition of [Strike] is digitally remastered from a mint-condition 35mm print made from the original camera negative and features new digital stereo music composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010  [The Battleship Potemkin](Soviet Union 1925)  65 minutes, B/W.  Wildcat Theater.  Director:  Sergei Eisenstein
    A landmark film about Russia’s 1905 revolution, [Potemkin] features what may be the most famous scene in cinema history (the Odessa Steps sequence).  Ironically, Eisenstein was disappointed when the film did not attract masses of viewers, but audiences responded more positively in a number of international venues.  In both the Soviet Union and overseas, the film shocked audiences, not so much for its political statements as for its use of violence, which was considered graphic by the standards of the time.  

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 [October](aka Ten Days That Shook the World] (Soviet Union 1927)  95 minutes, B/W.  Wildcat Theater.  Director:  Sergei Eisenstein  
    Officially produced to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the Russian Revolution, [October] quickly became another of Sergei Eisenstein’s experiments in film form.  As in his masterpiece [Potemkin], Eisenstein uses explosive montage to create the spirit of revolution—in this case the events in St. Petersburg during the months leading up to the Bolshevik revolt.  Eisenstein’s insistence on speaking the language of pure film thrusts his mad rush of images straight into the viewer’s eye.  A worker’s rebellion in the streets followed by the raising of bridges to isolate their neighborhood becomes a visual symphony of panic.  The film is also known by its U.S. release title, [Ten Days That Shook the World].  While its value as propaganda can be debated, as dynamic film art [October] has few equals.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 [Man With a Movie Camera](Soviet Union 1929)  65 minutes, B/W.  Wildcat Theater, 7pm.  Director:  Dziga Vertov
    Vertov’s experimental film, produced by the Ukrainian studio Vufku, presents urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities.  From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play and interacting with the machinery of modern life (thus the film is often compared to Chaplin’s [Modern Times]).  To the extent that it can be said to have “characters,” they are the cameraman of the title and the modern Soviet Union he discovers and presents in the film.  Vertov employs a wide range of cinematic techniques, including double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, and a self-reflexive style.  With a decidedly up-tempo musical score by Michael Nyman

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 [Alexander Nevsky](Soviet Union 1938)  111 minutes, Color.  Wildcat Theater, 7pm.  Director:  Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein’s first sound film depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by Teutonic knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by the Russian people, led by Prince Alexander, known popularly as Alexander Nevsky.  The film features beautiful imagery and a majestic music score by Prokofiev, and is perhaps most intriguing as a parable of 1938, when the film was completed (instead of 1242, the film’s historic setting).

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 [Ivan the Terrible, Part 1](Soviet Union 1944)  96 minutes, B/W.  Wildcat Theater, 7pm.  Director:  Sergei Eisenstein
    In 1940 Eisenstein was named Artistic Director of Mosfilm Studios, the Soviet Union’s largest and most prestigious film production facility.  Soon after he commenced work on his most ambitious, imposing effort: an epic multi-part chronicle of the 16th century czar, from coronation to defeat to reinstatement.  As it turned out, Eisenstein only directed two-thirds of his project.  While he earned a Stalin prize for this film, the sequel (Part 2) brought him public censure.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 [Ivan the Terrible, Part 2](Soviet Union 1946)  88 minutes, B/W.  Wildcat Theater, 7pm.  Director:  Sergei Eisenstein
    The fascinating image of Ivan IV and his country continues, in which he takes on the boyars in a power struggle.  This impressive film is just a shade below its predecessor, but gained greater notoriety when Stalin banned the film because of Eisenstein’s depiction of Ivan’s secret police.  [Ivan the Terrible, Part 2] was not screened for audiences until 1958, a full decade after the filmmaker’s death.

 PAST FESTIVALS

ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL XIX, WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY, FALL 2009: a New Generation of Chinese Filmmakers

(1) Wednesday, September 16, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH/NANJING NANJING (China 2009) In color and B/W, 132 minutes. In Mandarin w/English subtitles. Director Lu Chuan’s (b 1970) third feature film was completed last year but the China Film Bureau delayed its release until April 2009. City of Life and Death likely will be among the most popular films in China this year, with box office receipts exceeding RMB$150 million (about USD23m) in its first 15 days. The film takes place in 1937, during the height of the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were murdered. The film tells the story of several figures, both historical and fictional, including a Chinese soldier, a schoolteacher, a Japanese soldier, a foreign missionary, and John Rabe, a Nazi businessman who would ultimately save thousands of Chinese civilians.

(2) Wednesday, September 30, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm ARE YOU THE ONE?/FEI CHENG WU RAO (China 2008) Color, 100 minutes. In Mandarin w/English subtitles. Director Feng Xiaogang’s ( b 1958) newest comedy stars popular actor Ge You, as Qin, a man in his 40s, newly rich, looking to settle down and start a family. He does this by going on an infinite procession of blind dates. Qin finally meets Smiley, a solemn flight attendant played by Shu Qi. She is tormented by falling in love with a married man, waiting for him to divorce. She then rejects Qin on first sight before chasing after him. Have these two capable people finally found their true love?

(3) Wednesday, October 14, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm SUNFLOWER/XIANG RI KUI (China 2006) Color, 129 minutes. Mandarin w/English subtitles.

Director Zhang Yang (b 1967) offers a powerful and touching look at the compelling inner dynamics of one, post-Cultural Revolution family in Beijing and their struggle over thirty years to adjust to each other as the fabric, politics, and social mores of Chinese society change ever so rapidly. The film is split into three main segments. The first segment, in 1976, begins with the return of an artist, Gengnian, to his wife, Xiuqing and son after several years of re-education during the Cultural Revolution. He returns however, with injured hands and can no longer continue as an artist. He instead hopes to cultivate artistic aspirations in his son, Xiangyang, who has taken to hurling stones at strangers with his friends. Though he eventually follows in his father's footsteps, Xiangyang resents his father's pressures and the two soon fall out. The next segments, in 1987 when Xiangyang is a 19 year old, and 1999, when he is in his 30s continue to chart the course of Xiangyang and Gengnian's tense relationship and also his parents’ marital relationship. The sunflower plant returns throughout the movie as a theme.

(4) Wednesday, October 28, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm THE SUN ALSO RISES/TAIYANG ZHAOCHANG SHENGQI (China 2007) Color, 116 minutes. Mandarin w/English subtitles. Director Jiang Wen (b 1963) details four interconnected stories. First, the madness and mischief of a single mother drives her devoted son to distraction with her daredevil antics in pursuit of tranquility. The agile mom climbs tall trees and stands perilously astride a small earthen raft on the river. She treasures a beautiful pair of slippers that she is forever losing, and the son fears that, one day, the footwear will remain while his mother disappears. In the second story, two old friends find their friendship tested by rivalry over a woman. Doctor Lin is the mistress of one, Old Tang, but she finds herself drawn to the other, teacher Liang, who is catnip to beautiful women. Old Tang, who is a hunter, has a young wife who begins a relationship with the madwoman's son. One day, Tang overhears their noises of passion and his wife whispering that her husband says her belly is like velvet. He determines to shoot the young man but is given pause when the boy asks him, "What is velvet?" The final episode involves all the characters in a dreamlike sequence that brings their lives full circle.

(5) Wednesday, November 4, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm  TEETH OF LOVE/AIQING DE YACHI  (China 2006)  Color, 106 minutes.  In Mandarin w/English subtitles.                                                                                                                                                             Director Zhuang Yuxin’s debut feature tells the story of a woman's emotional pain from three failed love affairs. Split into three parts, the film follows Qian Yehong firstly through her tomboy teenage years in 1970s Beijing, during which she breaks the heart of an adoring boyfriend.  The drama then shifts to her early 20s, with her working as a doctor in a hospital. She has an affair with a married man. After this ends badly, she returns to Beijing to work in an abattoir and drifts into a marriage with a shy man called Wei Yingqiu, the relative of an old classmate. Sadly, although the couple has a child, Qian remains unfulfilled.  Each affair somehow manifests itself physically with the troubled protagonist, such as back pain in her teenage years and an abortion from her time with the married man.  Spanning 1977-87, the film parallels Qian's struggles with China's profound social transformations. Zhuang directs with a naturalistic, unobtrusive style, utilizing a palette of muted colors which heighten the gloomy atmosphere. The film's tension is further accentuated by a haunting soundtrack.

(6) Wednesday, November 18, 2009, WSU Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater, 7pm STILL LIFE/SAN XIA HAO REN (China 2009) Color, 108 minutes. In Mandarin w/English subtitles. Director Jia Zhangke’s (b 1970) film takes place in Fengjie, a city marked for flooding near the massive Three Gorges Dam. Into this dying town comes Han Sanming, a Shanxi coal-miner who has returned in search of a wife that ran away sixteen years ago. Upon arriving, he learns that his entire neighborhood is gone. Later he discovers that his wife and daughter (the real reason for his return) work downriver in Yichang but will eventually return. Sanming then befriends a local teen who helps him with a job with his demolition crew. Together the two spend their days tearing down buildings. The film then cuts to a second story. A nurse’s husband had left their home in Shanxi two years earlier and had made only superficial attempts to keep in contact. Shen Hong, the nurse, eventually enlists a friend’s help to find Guo Bin, her husband. The two finally meet, with unexpected results. The film’s final third returns to Sanming. Sanming has been working at demolishing buildings for sometime when Brother Mark, the local teen, dies mysteriously. Soon afterwards, Sanming and his wife meet. Sanming attempts to take his ex-wife with him, but is informed that he will have to pay 30,000 RMB to cover debts of his wife and daughter. He promises to do so, and makes the decision to head back to Shanxi to work in the mines. The film ends as Sanming prepares to depart. A man walking across a tight-rope appears in the background...

WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY SPRING 2009 ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL CHINA’S SECOND LIBERATION: FILMS OF THE EARLY NEW PERIOD 1979-1985

In Memoriam: Xie Jin (1923-2008)

Arguably China’s most distinguished filmmaker, Xie Jin’s career spanned more than fifty years. Xie gained international recognition with his first feature, [Woman Basketball Player No. 5] in 1957, and subsequently made the important films [Red Detatchment of Women] (1961), [Two Stage Sisters] (1964), [The Legend of Tianyun Mountain] (1979), [Garlands at the Foot of the Mountain] (1984), and [Hibiscus Town] (1986). In almost every film he made Xie treated sensitive topics with a sophistication that generated reams of film commentary in and out of China. Xie Jin’s healthy curiosity and earthly philosophy about the human condition made him a favorite interviewee for both film scholars and critics. His cinema legacy is assured.

LOVE ON LUSHAN [Lushan Lian] (1980) Shanghai Film Studio, Color, 90 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

A daughter of a Nationalist Army general, Zhou Jun, visits Mount Lu soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution. She comes seeking Geng Hua, a lover that she had met five years earlier, but was prevented from marrying due to political conditions. Now she learns that her father and Geng Hua’s father broke their friendship when the Nationalist separated from the Communists some fifty years earlier. Although Geng Hua agrees to meet her, can the two former lovers overcome their parents’ past differences? An enormously popular film, [Love on Lushan] won “Golden Rooster” Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress (Zhang Yu). Directed by Huang Zhumo

EVENING RAIN [Bashan Yeyu] (1981) Shanghai Film Studio, Color, 96 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

A poet named Qiu Shi, imprisoned for six years during the Cultural Revolution, returns by ship to Wuhan, his hometown. He is accompanied by two police officers, one a self-confident female named Liu Wenyin. Qiu is depressed over the bitter turn his life has taken: his wife died while he was in prison, and he has a young daughter he has never seen. Along the way, Qiu’s thoughts and actions shake Liu’s political convictions so that she resolves to help reunite the poet with his daughter, who unbeknownst to them is aboard the ship. [Evening Rain] brought actress Zhang Yu (who played the police officer Liu Wenyin) her second “Golden Rooster” award, and Golden Roosters were also awarded for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Music. Directed by Wu Yonggang and Wu Yigong

THE RIVER WITHOUT BUOYS [Meiyou Hengbaiode Heliu] (1983) Xi’an Film Studio, B/W, 94 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

Life is hard for raftsmen Pan Laowu, Shi Gu, and Zhao Liang. During the Cultural Revolution, they seek work where they can, and spend the rest of the time drinking and brawling. At one stop they learn that district leader Xu, an honest man, has been jailed and nearly persecuted to death. With the help of Pan’s former lover they medicate Xu and move him onto their raft, but encounter a ferocious thunderstorm enroute to safety. [River Without Buoys] marked the beginning of a second career for actor Li Wei, who had begun acting in films in the 1940s, and also put the formerly obscure Xi’an Film Studio on the PRC cinematic map. Directed by Wu Tianming

THE BLACK CANNON INCIDENT [Heipao Shijian] (1985), Beijing Film Studio, Color, 98 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

Engineer Zhao Shuxing sends a cryptic telegram mentioning a “lost black cannon” that arouses a postal worker’s suspicions. Soon Zhao is under surveillance by the Security Bureau and transferred from an important Sino-German joint venture project where he had served as interpreter and consultant. In his absence the project causes a serious loss for the Chinese side, a development that coincides with the resolution of the “black cannon” mystery. A rare political satire, [Black Cannon Incident] garnered a Golden Rooster for actor Liu Zifeng, who plays engineer Zhao. Directed by Huang Jianxin

AT MIDDLE AGE [Ren Dao Zhong Nian] (1982) Changchun Film Studio, Color, 110 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

Opthamologist Lu Wenting has worked for 18 years at the same hospital without a promotion. She and her husband, a research scientist, live with their daughter in the same 150 square foot apartment she was assigned when she began her career. Overworked and underappreciated, Lu suffers a heart attack. As she slowly recovers, Lu reflects back on a life of devotion to her patients and a sometimes neglected family. [At Middle Age] was only one of three films to receive both the Golden Rooster (critics) and Hundred Flowers (popular) award as Best Picture, and also garnered a Golden Rooster for actress Pan Hong for her portrayal of Lu Wenting. Directed by Wang Qimin.

THE LEGEND OF TIANYUN MOUNTAIN [Tianyunshan Chuanqi] (1979) Shanghai Film Studio, Color, 116 minutes, in Chinese with English subtitles

Youthful Luo Qun is a charismatic political commissar who inspires members of the Tianyun Mountain prospecting team as China in 1957, including two recent female college graduates, Song Wei and Feng Qinglan. Song falls in love with Luo, but he is soon labeled as a “rightist” and so she marries his accuser, Wu Yao. Meanwhile, Feng Qinglan comes to Luo’s aid and eventually marries him. Luo is loyal to the revolution but he and his wife suffer during the Cultural Revolution because of his past troubles. Once the Gang of Four is arrested and Luo is rehabilitated, Song and her husband learn of Luo’s fate and also that of his wife, the now-seriously ill Feng. A breakthrough film in its frank examination of political excesses associated with the Anti-Rightist campaign and the Cultural Revolution, and was the first film to receive both the Golden Rooster (critics) and Hundred Flowers (popular) awards. Directed by Xie Jin