Book contents
- Revolutionary Transformations
- Revolutionary Transformations
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Revolution and the Transnational
- Part II Domestic Governance
- Part III Legitimacy and Local Agencies
- Introduction to Part III
- 8 Anxiety in the Revolutionary Turn
- 9 Letters from the People
- 10 Cadres, Grain, and Rural Conflicts
- 11 How the CCP Has Failed to Obtain Control over China’s Collective Memory on the 1950s
- 12 Postscript
- Index
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
- Revolutionary Transformations
- Revolutionary Transformations
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Revolution and the Transnational
- Part II Domestic Governance
- Part III Legitimacy and Local Agencies
- Introduction to Part III
- 8 Anxiety in the Revolutionary Turn
- 9 Letters from the People
- 10 Cadres, Grain, and Rural Conflicts
- 11 How the CCP Has Failed to Obtain Control over China’s Collective Memory on the 1950s
- 12 Postscript
- Index
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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- Revolutionary TransformationsThe People's Republic of China in the 1950s, pp. 198 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023