BEIJING — Watching the furious tale of the overthrow of the despotic Qin dynasty by the founders of the Han dynasty 2,200 years ago in a plush cinema in central Beijing, it was hard to see exactly why the censors had barred the film from Chinese screens for nearly five months.
True, there were perhaps some uncomfortable overtones to “The Last Supper,” which premiered here on Monday night. In mid-November, China experienced a power handover, with Xi Jinping, the son of a storied revolutionary, replacing Hu Jintao as leader of the ruling Communist Party. While the succession clearly went more smoothly than the armed rebellions that led to the founding of the Han, it was a rough business in its own way, with plenty of plotting behind the scenes as political players scrambled for influence.
Word among producers and directors was that the new movie by Lu Chuan could not be shown until the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party, which appointed the new leaders, was over.
Why, exactly? Did censors fear the impact on viewers of the bloody machinations of Lu Zhi, the wife of the first Han emperor, Liu Bang, as she spied on and plotted against some of his top generals and aides in a fit of what looked awfully like paranoia, or perhaps just evil? After all, Chinese people this year had followed, agog, the arrest and trial for murder of Gu Kailai, the ambitious wife of Bo Xilai, one of the country’s once most-powerful politicians. Xinhua, the state news agency, declared that Ms. Gu was mentally unstable.
Or was it the line in the film that warned the new Han ruler, “We didn’t overthrow the Qin emperor to become like him,” a reference, perhaps, to how power too easily corrupts, to the relentless cycles of rebellion and despotism and rebellion that have characterized Chinese politics for thousands of years, which some commentators say the country has not yet broken free from?
Whatever it was exactly, producers are concerned the delay may have undercut the movie’s prospects at the box office. Originally scheduled for release in July, its opening this week coincided with another strong offering, Feng Xiaogang’s “Back to 1942,” an epic about a wartime famine in central China, and just a week after the release of Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” China’s current top-grossing movie, which 20th Century Fox estimates has taken in 65 million renminbi, or $ 10.5 million, so far.
The delay points to a central quandary regarding culture in China today. Officials want to impress the world with its richness, but they also want to manage it as they have managed the economy, and this constant meddling leaves culture in a deeply uncomfortable place, suspended between genuine creativity and political correctness, between greatness and mediocrity.
In film, weak ideas, often because of political restraints and bowdlerized scripts, and delayed openings because of lengthy censorship are weakening the ability of Chinese directors to attract audiences. As foreign imports increase, people are voting with their feet and domestic movies are slipping financially.
At a recent news conference during the congress, two top officials offered a clear illustration of the problem.
Amid the statistics-heavy presentation on how brilliantly the culture industry was doing, Tian Jin, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said that since China agreed in February to import 14 additional foreign films each year, the market share of Chinese-made films had dropped and now accounted for 41.4 percent of ticket sales. (This year to October, the market was worth 12 billion renminbi, he said.)
“The dominance of domestic films in the Chinese film market has been shaken,” he warned. “The domestic films are facing great pressure. The objective reason is that the foreign films have dealt a blow to domestic films.”
To try to change that, film bureaucrats said last week that the National Film Development Fund would return its 5 percent cut of box office takings to theaters that show more domestic films, in a kind of reward.
Yet in a sign of what officials really intend, at the same news conference, Sun Zhijun, deputy head of the party’s Propaganda Department, said: “Some media organizations and people believe that deepening the cultural reform is for the purposes of making the culture an industry and wholly market-based. This is not true.”
The state would strengthen public cultural institutions, but it would also help cultural entities ensure “social stability and harmony,” he said.
That’s precisely the kind of “help” filmmakers say they could do without, since it is weakening them at the box office.
In June, Mr. Lu spoke for many Chinese directors when he expressed frustration at the censorship system.
“We need a fair, relaxed and comfortable environment to be creative, like Hollywood,” he said at a forum during the Shanghai International Film Festival. “Their movies can have aliens attacking Los Angeles, even flooding the White House. Film should not just be a propaganda tool.”
“This year is a crisis year for Chinese films,” he added. “If we lose today, it’s possible more funding will go to Hollywood, not China. And what happens next year?”
Letter from China: State Meddling Stifles China's Film Industry http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif
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