Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/10497
Title: The aural/visual synchrony: Opera film, close-up, and cinematic literacy in Mao-era China (1949-1966)
Authors: Prof. HE Qiliang 
Jiang, Lily Xiangxiang 
Issue Date: 2024
Source: CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, 2024, vol. 43(1), pp. 1-11.
Journal: CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 
Abstract: In the first two decades of the People’s Republic of China (PRC; 1949–present), the filmmakers were caught in a dilemma between a fast-growing film industry and Chinese moviegoers’ pervasive lack of cinematic literacy, that is, a proper understanding of cinematic techniques, such as the use of shots in films. To make motion pictures a mass culture by enhancing cinematic literacy among Chinese viewers, filmmakers produced over one hundred opera films—a filmic genre that resorts to cinematic techniques to represent Chinese theater on the silver screen. Considering Chinese audiences’ familiarity with China’s operatic arts, such as singing and music, filmmakers in post1949 China deftly synchronized close-up shots with operatic music/singing in opera films to highlight characters’ heightened emotions and thereby popularize a filmic mode of narration and presentation. This paper argues that close and close-up shots provided an avenue for a transition from stage to screen as a chief means of entertainment and a widely accepted mode of representation in the early years of the PRC.
Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Article
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/10497
ISSN: 2835-3188
2835-317X
DOI: 10.1353/cop.2024.a932318
Appears in Collections:History - Publication

Show full item record

Page view(s)

14
Last Week
4
Last month
checked on Oct 7, 2024

Google ScholarTM

Impact Indices

Altmetric

PlumX

Metrics


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.