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EDITORIAL: China
killing Hollywood magic
Imagine what literary classics such as George Orwell¡¦s 1984, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn¡¦s The Gulag Archipelago or Vasily Grossman¡¦s Life and Fate would
have been like had the authors consulted with state censors and bureaucrats
before launching their creative efforts.
This is now increasingly happening within the movie industry. Hollywood and
other, smaller, bastions of the silver screen are bowing to pressure from China
in order to access the world¡¦s second-largest movie market after the US.
As the New York Times reported on Monday, moviemakers seeking access to China¡¦s
market have two choices: either avoid subjects that could hurt Beijing¡¦s
sensibilities and submit a final product for Beijing¡¦s ¡§approval,¡¨ or they
co-produce with a Chinese company and do some shooting in China to increase
their Chinese appeal.
In both instances, censorship becomes an inevitable component of the final
product. So much so, that silence from the State Administration of Radio, Film
and Television (SARFT) can be construed as an answer. It has become unacceptable
for US fighter aircraft to engage in a dogfight with MiGs on film, which
Paramount Pictures experienced with its new 3D version of the classic Top Gun.
The remake of Red Dawn is another example.
In another example, the Times has reported that filming in China for Iron Man 3
has been taking place under the ¡§watchful eye¡¨ of Chinese bureaucrats (so much
for executive producers) who were ¡§invited¡¨ to the set and asked to provide
¡§advice¡¨ on creative content.
This should serve as a serious warning to Taiwanese filmmakers who increasingly
cooperate with China on movie productions.
This has long been in the making. When the Taipei Times sat down with Taiwanese
producer Will Tiao (¤N·¶¯à) in August 2010 to discuss his movie Formosa Betrayed,
he already mentioned the risks of growing Chinese influence in Hollywood. Sadly,
producers and movie studios do not seem to be as resilient as Tiao expected, and
that¡¦s bad news for all of us.
Director Steven Soderbergh of Traffic fame can use all the euphemisms he wants
(he likens the participation of Chinese censors to ¡§people¡¦s interpretations¡¨ of
one¡¦s story), but the more we sacrifice our ideals, or simply good elements of
storytelling, on the altar of the Chinese market, the poorer the entertainment
industry will become.
As millionaire moviemakers and publishers yield to the great wall of censorship,
those few Chinese artists who dare to speak the truth and who stand on the side
of justice will feel all the more abandoned, all because of our inexcusable
appetite for capital.
The industry already suffers from a near-terminal dearth of freshness and ideas.
By prostituting themselves to the SARFT, the Communist Youth League and the
Women¡¦s Federation ¡X not to mention wealthy Chinese who make the ¡§right¡¨
productions possible ¡X moviemakers risk forsaking all claims to artistic
integrity and being purveyors of truth and justice.
Granted, like literature, not every movie must serve a purpose, and productions
can be pure entertainment. However, think of the classics, those movies that
stay with us. Very few are pure entertainment. In most cases, true classics
become so because they speak to something that lies deep inside us all. That is
what gives Hollywood its magic, not computer-generated special effects.
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