The shadow is another metaverse of life

Theme: Do we still need "Fans"? ——"Lost Shadow" new book online sharing meeting

Time: 19:00, December 22, 2021

Method: "Single Reading" WeChat video number connection

Guest: Cai Wensheng Ph.D. in Film Studies, University of Paris X, translator of Chinese "Lost Shadows"

Yang Li, Vice Dean of the School of Arts, Peking University

Richie Ph.D. in Film Studies, University of Paris III

Organizer: Wuhan University Press, Lushu, One-way Space

This article introduces the culture of "fan shadows".

"Fan film" used to be a kind of enthusiasm that belonged to France, and film fans not only read countless films for it, but also dedicated their bodies and minds - exchanging eloquence, writing reviews, meeting directors, starting newspapers, and even hosting film clubs on the films they saw. It is said that it was this very special atmosphere that made the great directors of the 20th century famous in Paris between the liberation of France and 1968. To a large extent, it is precisely the so-called fan culture that "produced" Hitchcock, Hawkes, Rossellini, Renoir and many other film artists, and it was fans who put them among serious authors and intellectuals, thus becoming the creators of 20th-century culture like Aragon, Picasso, John Cage and others.

Just like When Bazin showed Chaplin to the workers of the Renault automobile factory, told them about some movies that they could understand, and showed them the goodness of those movies, this spirit is the essence of the fan culture - that is, to make people's souls continue to rise, so that people can become better by watching movies. This process of transformation is the essence of the fan culture.

The concept of "fandom" also exists for China, especially for film culture in the Internet age. Fan film culture is not only needed by young people, but also needed by middle-aged people, it is the link between middle-aged people and young people, connecting the past and the present, a person's memory and a person's vision of moving forward.

Where is the origin of the fan culture

Li Qi: As far as I know, Mr. Li Yang was the first to translate the term la cinéphilie into "fan shadow", which seems to be translated as "fan" in the dictionary. I think that so far everyone is still relatively vague about the concept of "fan shadow", and I have summarized several situations in general:

The first is to feel dismissive, to think that you are hyping up a concept. Usually this attitude is held by some intellectuals, even some scholars in film schools, and most of them are people who are older than us. They went through the process of absorbing Western literature and art in the late 1970s and early 1980s, arguing that "we have long been obsessed with these things, and we don't need you to come up with such a concept to define us."

The second is more confusing. Young students think they just love to watch movies, movie fans, isn't that enough? Is there a difference?

The third is rare, but it does. They are relatively close, or even completely "shadow people". They are the situation in the books, or what we see in the West, but they are not aware of it, they do not have a clear understanding of this definition. But they will judge, "This is my kind of person" and "those ordinary audiences are different from me."

So, Cai Wensheng, as a translator, where do you think the distinction between these situations I mentioned above is?

Cai Wensheng: This is a bit like what we said on the back cover of this book, "shadow" was originally related to France, it comes from the French art criticism tradition around the 17th and 18th centuries, that is, the old system period. In other words, it involves not only the phenomenon of cinema, but also the question of whether cinema is art or not, as well as other issues related to criticism.

I think, as a person, seeing light and shadow, seeing movie stars, hearing good music will make you think, but there is a context here, it comes from France after World War II. Although the word "ciné-club" associated with fans and fans did not appear after World War II, it existed long before Langlois founded the Film Archive, that is, in the avant-garde period of the 1920s, so why did Antoine DeBac start talking about fan culture from 1945 onwards?

In fact, the fans of the 1920s were more elitist, and it was not too directly related to passing on the love of movies to the public. But after World War II, not only did a large number of film clubs appear, but also a very important figure appeared - Andrea Bazin, a great film evangelist. He wrote film reviews in major newspapers and also recruited a group of younger film critics, such as Truffaut, Houmai, Chabrol, Levitte, etc. who would later become the core of the Film Handbook. He takes everyone to the movie, and the focus is not only on the plot or the theme ideas in it, he also tells them how the cameras in the film move, when the editing should be and when it should not be, and when to have the soundtrack, that is, some questions related to the film format. His film reviews inspired their love of cinema, and that love had to do with form and with spiritual technical content.

In addition to these two major reasons, the other more important are political and economic reasons. After World War II, France's economy was sluggish, and it signed some agreements with the United States to have a certain broadcast rate for American films, which led to a large-scale invasion of American films. Compared with the old-fashioned domestic films in France at that time, these American films were too much for "children" to like. We know that Godard, who was born in the 30s, was just a teenager at the time, and they were not in charge of ideas, and the timely appearance of these American movies was appetizing them. History happens to some great people, who in turn make history, which forms a culture of fandom.

What is the essence of fan culture?

Cai Wensheng: Before I went to France, I watched a lot of tidbits of my favorite New Wave directors through some channels, such as how Jean-Pierre Léaud went to the interview, how Godard and Truffaut got into an awkward relationship over "Day and Night", and so on. When I watched the Paris premiere of Deux de la vague, Debac's documentary, I wondered why these things were made, as if nothing was new. When DeBac was asked questions from the audience, some people said that he was repeating the same cliché, but unexpectedly, his answer made me immediately admire. He said that he did not make these for some happy few, that is to say, this film is not only aimed at elites or a few people who understand, he actually wants to pass these precious and moving stories through the medium of movies. So, it's about a transfer problem.

This struck me a lot at the time, meaning that it wasn't elitist. Its content can be very elite, but just like when Bazin showed Chaplin to the workers of the Renault automobile factory, telling some movies that they could understand, and taking them to see the goodness of those movies, this spirit is the essence of fan culture. That is to say, if you want people's souls to continue to rise, so that people can become better by watching movies, this process of transformation is the essence of fan culture.

In fact, this is the same as the feeling I first saw the word "shadow", we Chinese often talk about a rhetorical method called "transposing", in the West there is a proper noun called "substantivation", that is, this word itself is a noun, but it is like the big stone in the church that Bazan said, the stone seems to be immobile, but there is a thing lurking in it, a good movie is to stare at this stone, stare for a long time, The soul in the stone will be seen by our viewers. What appears to be a noun is actually a verb. So at that time, I saw that Teacher Li Yang translated the word la cinéphilie into "fan shadow", and I thought it was translated very well. Because we speak of going from the soul to the spirit, this involves a process of love. The root of the word "fan" is ciné plus philie, which is actually "film love", which is a thing related to love, and anyone involved in love must move.

Teacher Li Yang's "fan shadow" first achieved the role of nounization, and the second retained the two words "film fan", but did not let it stay in the stage of "fan" and "movie gluttony". We know that on the side of Henri Langlois, cinéphage (a voracious filmmaker) and a cinéphile (a man who loves movies) are two completely different concepts. The former is to watch a lot of movies, know a lot of film history, know the life of many film directors, and even some gossip, but he does not have the courage and courage to take the initiative to interpret, and does not have the impulse to "blaspheme". Because he has no love, he has only a metaphysical biologicality. But back to the "shadow" translated by Teacher Li Yang, it has a problem of transmutation in it, which involves the soul, and the soul can be transformed into a spirit, then it is related to love. According to Langlois, the real cinéphile, their films are life, or we can borrow Houmai's saying, "life is the big screen", in other words, movies and life are actually "heterogeneous".

"Fans" exist in Chinese communities in the Internet age

Li Qi: Brother Li Yang, when you wrote "The Cultural History of Fan Film", your vision was very broad, and it has been extended to the prehistory of cinema. "Shadow" is a concept of development, what do you think of this before and after process of its development? Or, in China, does this group really exist? Where is it?

Li Yang: Let me first correct that the word "shadow" is not the first time I have proposed it. Before me, an author wrote a film culture survey article in the 21st Century Economic Herald called "The Shadow Generation", but the "Fan Shadow" in his title is not a translation of la cinéphilie, but a movie fanatic who communicates and shares through the film community on the Internet as the "Fan Movie Generation". After reading DeBac's book, I found that la cinéphilie did not have a corresponding translation in the Chinese, but did not want to translate it as "movie fan", because "movie fan" also has a word in English called "moviegoer", which refers to people who often go to the cinema and have the habit of watching movies.

The meaning of la cinéphilie goes far beyond this concept, they pay more for the film, dedicate their lives and lives to the film, the art they love the most, and will form a strong culture, and ultimately act on the development of the film itself. Therefore, I felt that "fan" was not particularly accurate, so I borrowed the word "fan" from the title of this article to translate. I was not the first to use the word, but only the first to translate the French concept of la cinéphilie and to articulate it as a phenomenon of film culture and film history.

During my study abroad in France, the students around me were not a professional direction, so I met a group of friends who like movies through the Internet. These people are distributed all over the world, in Japan, the United States, Singapore, Germany, Australia, etc., we do not know each other, just in the forum to share film knowledge, exchange good movies, form a very stable small circle. Most of the people in this circle were students, but some later became film critics, and some became directors, screenwriters and curators.

It was also at this time that I read DeBac's "Lost Shadow", and I felt that the "shadow" he described was a very specific historical concept, that is, from 1945 to 1968 after the end of the "May Storm", or a little later to the 1980s, to the period of Serge Dane, which was DeBac's "shadow" in the academic sense. But in my experience, "fan shadows" also exist in the Chinese community in the Internet age, and there is no doubt that this concept exists for China, especially for the film culture of the Internet age. As we all know, people like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, although they are not French, they are also pure fans, and what they do in addition to creating movies, such as restoring movies, participating in film reviews, introducing Asian films to the United States, etc., are all things that fans do. Therefore, although the history of "camouflage" may not be continuous, it should appear more or less in every period and in every country.

Although the concept of "fan film" is a very specific cultural concept in the history of French cinema, I still hope to promote it to all parts of the world. When I wrote "The Cultural History of Fan Film", I actually wanted to tell every friend who likes movies that we have a common identity, and that in France thirty or forty years ago, in the most magnificent era of movies, there were many great names with us.

"New FanDom" is a new way to love movies

Richie: I have a problem, I learned along the way, and found that the group of fans is actually "amateur" in the first place, or appears as an "amateur", but this "amateur" can reach a very high standard, he can be a scholar, a very strong critic, or a thinker, or a very professional director. Is there irreconcilability between these identities? Is there a problem such as split personality, that is, repeated switching between several personalities?

Li Yang: When I was in France for my PhD, I was completely absent when I was studying for a doctorate in France, when I was completely immersed in the atmosphere of studying movies, watching movies, and studying movies, without thinking about other issues. But this split personality did emerge later, probably in recent years, and more obviously, between the identities of "shadowfinder" and "scholar." In fact, I am the most staunch supporter of fan film culture, but I also find that movies are changing, especially today, the environment in which movies grew up is completely different from that of the 1960s and 1970s.

There are two reasons why I might consider focusing my identity on the perspective of a scholar today:

One reason is that the domestic film academic community is relatively closed, and the contact and exchange with other humanities disciplines, such as Chinese, history, and philosophy, is relatively not as full as in France, and domestic film scholars are a relatively closed circle, teachers and students of other disciplines are actually full of interest in film, and they also want to discuss film in the academic research of their own disciplines, but they do not have film scholars who can talk, or rarely, and can not find the right opportunity and angle. Therefore, I think that in order to develop the academic research of film, it is necessary to get out of the fandom represented by the "centripetal" culture, that is, to do the "centrifugal" movement - to leave the film, go outward to a broader cultural field, and take the initiative to open up. So I don't want to be a guardian of cinema, or even a cinematic "fundamentalist" in a sense.

The second reason is that the ecology of film is changing. In the 1960s and 1970s, the big screen was the throne of all pop culture. Only movies that go to the cinema to watch are the most contagious. But now, after the movie is screened in the cinema, it will enter the video platform and become a show to be selected, and it will be put together with all kinds of short, low-quality, and entertaining content, that is, on the same platform, the movie has no advantage. Therefore, the film must face this new image ecology. When we only talk about the movies that we see in the cinema, and build a culture around those movies, maybe we're going to a dead end. If we get out of the movie theater-centered fan film culture and face various forms of online dramas, internet universities, and netizens' self-made videos, will we be able to promote the survival of movies in the new era and live with dignity?

It was on this motive that I compiled the "New Lost Shadow Series.". "New fans" is not to say "no fans", but to love movies in a new way. So I translated articles on film in philosophy, sociology, and history, hoping that everyone could discuss film culture from different perspectives and release the influence of film on the humanities.

I've spent the last two years studying film philosophy, and I've spent a lot of energy studying so-called art theory, but I'm not sure, I'll probably go back to my favorite movies next year, but when I come back, I'll probably come back with a lot of new things. So I thought I might study a lot of things that had nothing to do with movies, but I would never leave movies.

What is the true spirit of the lost

Richie: Wensheng Tsai, do you think Antoine DeBac will have problems in this regard?

Cai Wensheng: DeBac said in interviews more than once that the two people who had the deepest influence on him were Serge Dane and Godard. One was to influence him in writing and running magazines, and the other was to inspire him to think about film in terms of practice and filmmaking (such as making essay films and prose films). On the one hand, De Buck has a special love for the word "shadow", but he also has a deep sense of love because of this, which means that he will also feel that the word "shadow" is too centripetal, too much about movies, or too Truffaut. We know that when he was the editor-in-chief of the Film Handbook in 1997, he had this consciousness, and he felt that film should be "crossed", for example, he would invite many philosophers or people of insight from other fields to write about the Film Handbook.

In addition, for example, Alain Badio's "On Film" translated by Teacher Li Yang was compiled by Antoine DeBac. In other words, he seems to be just a collator of archives, without much interpretation, as if he only has a large amount of historical materials, and always seems to be writing something that everyone knows. But the truth is that he often implants some small thoughts in it, using a delicate needle thread, or a special layout of the narrative to influence our thoughts. From this point of view, he is a very high-end, ultra-expert fan, that is, cinéphile averti, or ultra-cinéphile, who actually transcends the barriers of classical fans and so-called new fans. This kind of thing has always been continued in France, so they can be both classical and avant-garde.

In an introduction to the Chinese edition of "The Lost Shadow" written by Antoine DeBac, he mentions what the true spirit of the shadow should be, that is, every film, or every moment of viewing, you can find the opportunity to embed it back into the historical context. Only that moment is the love of the movie. Speaking of which, I would like to mention Bazan again, who has a very great concept of "impure cinema", which is a very avant-garde, very innovative, very destructive concept. In fact, the film has always had the potential to "break its own territory", it will continue to absorb other arts, and then let itself "implode", and then throw those arts out and suck them in. It's like committing suicide, but it's being reborn.

DeBac's latest book is called Movie Dead, Long Live Movie!" 》（Le cinéma est mort， vive le cinéma！ ）。 The movie is dead, but long live the movie, it's weird. In its history, the film is a process of constant suicide and other killing, but there are some people like us who are willing to pay for the film, so that watching the movie like watching oneself, watching the movie is constantly practicing self-cultivation, and the movie can have a way to flourish. And this kind of film is definitely not a fundamentalist film, it is Bazin's "impure film", it is actually constantly expanding itself, but also let us constantly reflect on what people are, what is watching movies, what is creation. This is the true spirit of fandom.

Young people need a fan culture even more

Audience: Which age group needs more inspiration from fan culture?

Li Yang: I think young people need fan culture more, because film is an art that needs to be supported by young people more. Cinema needs to burn with passion, to create, to spread this art. But it's not that middle-aged people don't need to like movies, but the way middle-aged people are obsessed with movies will be different. There have always been some young film fans on the Chinese Internet who continue to appeal for films, such as cheering for niche films and forwarding film festival program lists, but they will not have the strong influence of the mid-20th century.

Cai Wensheng: I agree with Teacher Li Yang, and I would like to add that in addition to passion, I think that in addition to passion, someone needs to teach them how to watch movies. For example, De Buck mentions a question in the introduction to the book, "Is it possible to learn to watch?" Although watching movies is a way of self-cultivation, it still needs a teacher to teach them, or a good predecessor to be a model, such as the three models mentioned in the book:

One is Andrei Bazin, who teaches people to write film reviews. It should be known that Truffaut's article was revised for nearly two years under bazin's guidance, and he taught Truffaut to change the article more roundedly and avoid leading to a public opinion war. That is to say, an elder with grace and wisdom is needed to educate the younger generation.

The second is Langlois, in terms of fetishism, he showed everyone what a first-class collection fetish is - this is not a pure linear collection, for example, we know that Langlois's most classic initiative is curation, his curatorial thinking is not so linear, is to create a kind of montage space, and this is the premise of igniting everyone's creative flame.

The third is the model at the practical level, that is, the problem of the director. A good author who can make endless interpretations is Hitchcock.

In other words, young people need good film critics, good curators, and good directors to lead. Without this kind of leadership, this enthusiasm will either burn out in the wrong place or there will be no good opportunity to enter the stage of history. For example, if Truffaut had not met Bazin, the history of cinema may have to be rewritten, or if Bazin had not met Truffaut, history may have to be rewritten, and we know that many of Bazin's works were compiled by Truffaut Zhangluo.

From this point of view, young people need film culture, why not the older generation? There is also a key point here, many people love movies when they are young, and in middle age, they think that movies are things that I did when I was young, and finally I began to scold the next generation for liking movies. I think a country's cultural literacy is very important, and the shadow is another metaverse of life. To study film, to some extent, is to learn how to understand our lives. We teach movies as teachers who teach students how to live. The inheritance of film culture plays a pivotal role in the tempering of a nation's soul, so Bazin is a great educator. I think that the fan culture is not only needed by young people, but also needed by middle-aged people, it is a link that connects middle-aged people and young people, connects the past and the present, one person's memories and one person's vision of moving forward.

Finishing/Rain Station