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8 - Anxiety in the Revolutionary Turn

Shanghai Film Personnel in the 1950s

from Part III - Legitimacy and Local Agencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2023

Anja Blanke
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
Julia C. Strauss
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Klaus Mühlhahn
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
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Summary

The transformation of the film industry was tightly bound up with the plan of the Chinese Communist Party for creating the new nation and its socialist culture and the “revolutionization” of film stars was an essential part of it. This chapter focuses on the story of one individual, the actress Li Ming, who started out as a military arts soldier in the New Fourth Army, to illustrate the everyday politics at the Shanghai Film Studio in the 1950s. Li Ming suffered an identity crisis as both actress and party cadre, witnessed the complicated relationship between the new nation and film stars, and experienced the impact of the “organization” on her new individual career. From a perspective of “the party’s own,” her story provides us with an intriguing way to understand the revolutionary cultural agenda, examine the degree to which the power of the Party permeated the grassroots, and comprehend the everyday politics in the socialist transformation of the urban culture.

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Chapter
Information
Revolutionary Transformations
The People's Republic of China in the 1950s
, pp. 198 - 211
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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