Editor's note: As an artistic text with hidden power, film will play a positive role in the construction of cultural communities, and then promote the implementation of China's "Belt and Road" initiative. "Culture going out" has become the focus of the Chinese government.com. Since the introduction of Indian cinema into China in the middle of the last century, especially in recent years, realist films have been well received by Chinese audiences and aroused widespread concern about social phenomena. Liu Quan, a professor at the School of Communication of Nanjing University of the Arts, published a paper in the 4th issue of Media Observation in 2019, arguing that realist films, as the window of Indian culture, not only show the charm of film art, but also declare the power of cultural subjects, effectively arouse the cultural identity of Chinese audiences, and narrow the cultural distance between the two countries. The attitudes and techniques of cross-cultural dissemination of Indian films are worth learning from Chinese filmmakers.
Indian cinema, with realism to promote cross-cultural dissemination
◆ Liu Tsuen
With the deepening of the process of globalization, national image has become an important factor in promoting or hindering a country's cooperation in the world. Forced into an "asymmetrical participation in the world market" after being colonized by the British, the destruction of traditional society and the reconstruction of Western-style society have given Indian society and culture a unique look. Although India's economic and educational level has greatly improved after independence, there are still chronic diseases such as the caste system, the distortion of the operation of political power, the backwardness of basic education, and insufficient infrastructure. The current Indian government is committed to guiding the people of India to "become rational people and let them seek change and improvement". Indian realist films are unique in such a social context and have become an important cultural means to inspire the people's wisdom and establish the people's hearts.
Since the mid-century film "Wanderer" (released in India in 1951, premiered in China in 1955, and re-screened in 1978) into China, chinese audiences have not only learned about the reality of Indian hierarchical society, but also recognized the love between Raz and Lida beyond hierarchy, and the deep reflection of the Indian people on the concept of hierarchy. Subsequent films such as "Caravan" and "Nuri" also became the cultural memory of India Chinese at that time. In recent years, with "Three Treasures Bollywood" and "Wrestling! Daddy", "My God", "Mysterious Superstar", "Little Lolita's Monkey God Uncle", "Indian Partner", "Toilet Hero", "Generation Of Superstar Sanjay Jun", "Starting Line", "Lipstick Under My Robe", "Hot" and other realistic movies enter China through theaters or the Internet, becoming an important window for Chinese audiences to understand Indian society and identify with Indian culture. Daddy" and "Triple Treasure Bollywood" and so on. It can be said that Indian realist films as a whole have deeply impressed Chinese audiences with their artistic charm, and at the same time, they have shown the social development trend of India to Chinese society in cross-cultural communication.
Empathy triggers cross-cultural communication
The charm of the work of art is that "it succeeds in getting rid of the limitations of the individual, out of the dead end of the individual, breathing freely, without the appearance of the short breath of the individual". The function of art is to let the audience "seek truth, aesthetics, and be kind", so that the audience can obtain the washing of the soul and the development of the spirit in the process of enjoying the film and entertaining themselves.
As an artistic text, the film's "aesthetic pole is the realization of the text completed by the reader". The subjectivity of the audience determines the decoding of symbolic signifiers at the level of the audience's knowledge structure. As Jung put it: Indian film artists have transformed Indian culture into a cinematic language acceptable even to other peoples. The Chinese Tibetan writer Alai believes that the theme of foreign nationalities is not "pastoral pastoral" or "strange customs", such as our consumption of visual "wonders" such as Indian military parades and trains, so that "the vitality of the harsh life is softened into invisibility in a kind of intentional or unintentional whitewashing", but a real feeling of "joy and sorrow, happiness and pain" in Indian society and Chinese society... There is no big difference between here and there", "Even ethnic minorities do not live an alternative life." Through the standardized film language, vivid social reality and vivid national culture are more likely to make Chinese audiences have emotional resonance with Indian films.
The natural interweaving of tradition and modernity, the vivid setting of characters, the rational arrangement of the theme plot and the skillful use of audiovisual language make Indian realist films have an artistic charm that transcends national boundaries. Indian songs, dances, costumes and customs can always be organically integrated into its film structure and naturally revealed, becoming a unique means of Indian realist film narrative lyricism, and declaring to the world with a high degree of cultural self-confidence that Indian traditional culture is an indispensable part of Indian social life and culture and art. This cultural self-confidence and artistic text will play an important role in strengthening the imagination and identity of the national community. For example, in "Little Lori's Monkey God Uncle", the Pakistani mute woman Shahida met Pawan who sang and danced at the celebration of the god Hanuman, and As a believer in the god Hanuman, Pawan adhered to the doctrine of kindness, bravery, honesty and perseverance, and produced many jokes in the process of sending Shahida home, and suffered from incomprehension and abuse, but it was also his faith that made the people of India and Pakistan put down their mustard. "Toilet Hero" fully expresses the ritual connotation of "Holi Festival" and "Joyful", the heroine Jaye in this festival where people of lower social status can play tricks or even beat people of higher social status, through the song and dance of "stick beating" husbands to express the love and hate for their husbands; the family ceremony of the girl's coming-of-age ceremony in "Indian Partner", the joyful song and dance aggravate the concern for women's health. Even in films like "A Beautiful Life" set against the backdrop of new human beings and modern life, pictures or plots such as the elderly wearing national costumes and the young people shooting traditional songs and dances still appear many times in the film, it can be said that Indian culture has become a symbol of Indian cinema to distinguish other ethnic films. In terms of character settings, there are not only "Little Lori's Monkey God Uncle" and "WrestleMania!" The cute protagonists who are "paranoid" because of their persistence in "Daddy" also have the stereotypical but kind rural people in "Toilet Hero" and "Indian Partner", and there are also free, open and energetic Indian youth figures in "Mysterious Superstar" and "Lipstick Under the Burqa". These characters fully reflect the imagination of Indian filmmakers of the collective fate and spiritual destiny of Indians in social reality. The use of montages by the protagonist Saro in "The Lion" when he is searching for his hometown, and the rhythmic treatment of college students begging the head of the department to commit suicide without results in "Three Fools in Bollywood", reflect the indian filmmakers' skillful use of audiovisual language and artistic expression, directly hitting the audience's tears.
As developing countries with equally large populations, China and India may have similar social problems and cultural anxieties; various social problems reflected in Indian realist films also exist in China to a greater or lesser extent. The content and meaning of Indian realist films, while facing social problems, do not let the audience lose hope in life, the function of this realist film is to "get rid of that unnecessary thing", solve problems one by one in the illusory and dream world of film, and gradually solve problems and eliminate difficulties in life. When many Chinese audiences comment on Indian realist films, they will combine them with the reality of Chinese society, which in turn will trigger similar aesthetic imagination and spiritual resonance. The values and humanistic feelings carried by Indian realist films are more likely to arouse the empathy and recognition of audiences in developing countries such as China. It can be said that it is precisely the aesthetic satisfaction obtained by Chinese audiences through Indian realist films that makes Indian realist films stand out in the Chinese film market, resulting in their box office far exceeding the romantic films that the Indian film market is proud of, such as the "Baahubali" series known as "The Lord of the Rings" in India.
The Power of Art: A Declaration of the Subject's Existence
Starting from the concepts of "culture", "capital", "field" and "power", Bourdieu clarified the status of "cultural capital" and its possibility of transformation into "social capital" and "economic capital". As a cultural representation of a country and a nation, film is undoubtedly also part of cultural capital. It reflects the discursive expression of the subject of practice within a country and the spiritual outlook of the society as a whole, and will have a certain impact on the country's social capital, social prestige and image, and economic capital.
Indian filmmakers, as "producers of culture and art, and holders of culture, have the right to express their identity." Using film as a tool, they fully express their thinking on society and their responsibility to the country and the nation, and even if they are strongly opposed by the Indian government's cultural control and conservative forces, they still adhere to the subjectivity of cultural creation. Indian realist cinema shows this construction of subjective power from content to form, realizing the establishment of cultural capital that is accumulated on the temporal level, materialized at the spatial level and recognized at the social level. For example, a large number of folk songs, dances and festival ceremonies have become the most recognizable cultural symbols of Indian cinema, making Indian cinema an important part of the world music song and dance genre films that cannot be ignored. From the reality it reflects, social issues including race, law, corruption, education, religion, women's rights, health, family and personal growth are all addressed. Interestingly, these problems are mostly expressed through the conflict and evolution of the basic unit of society, which shelves strong cultural contradictions and social conflicts, which not only directly and profoundly reflects the root of social problems, but also can directly hit people's hearts through delicate emotions, so that the audience can face up to the shortcomings of Indian reality in the efforts of families and individuals, and highlight the motivation and vitality of social change.
For example, the handmade sanitary napkin production machine designed by the protagonist Keshmi for his wife in "Indian Partner" (also known as "Pad Man") won the Best Inventor presidential award of the Fourth National Innovation Congress and the Fourth National Innovative Social Progress Award in India, which is dedicated to promoting social progress. In his speech, the presenter mentioned: "India faces the problem of poverty, and the number of people is the biggest problem, but we should not use the number of people as a base, we should treat India as a country with 1 billion ideas!" Not attracted by the huge profits that patent applications can bring, Keshmi opened patents to the whole society, changing the concept of menstrual hygiene for Indian women while providing a large number of job opportunities for Indian women and improving their economic status. It can be said that the film encourages people to challenge the old ideas in this way, but what the audience feels from the film is the conscious awakening of a nation, rather than a blindly negative and resentful attitude.
Indian filmmakers actually constitute a special "sense of practice" in the process of practice, that is, the filmmakers as a whole show concern for national issues, confidence in the future of the country and grasp of the social function of film. This "sense of practice" is also infused into the film audience through film works: for domestic audiences, it gradually shows a trend of national good and national goodness; for international audiences, it establishes the imagination of India's national stability and social development. Maoyan box office data shows that the cumulative box office of "Indian Partner" is 67.54 million, the cumulative box office of "Little Lolita's Monkey God Uncle" is 286 million, the cumulative box office of "Mysterious Superstar" is 747 million, and the cumulative box office of "Wrestling!" "Daddy" grossed 1.299 billion at the cumulative box office. The box office data directly reflects the recognition and resonance of Chinese audiences with the ethical values reflected in Indian films, and also means that India has gradually shown influence in China through the film market. It can be said that Indian filmmakers have effectively created a "new India" image in China that is integrated with world culture and continues to develop, interpreting the specific model of how films as cultural capital are transformed into economic capital and social capital.
"A movie can change a country"
Global cultures or multiculturalism are, to some extent, a game of power between different cultures. Since the 1990s, the third world countries' vigilance against Hollywood or Western culture, as well as the concepts of cultural imperialism or hegemonism or colonialism, have been political and cultural reflections in response to the strong invasion of cultural power in developing countries by the West. However, with the further integration and development of culture, developing countries that have mastered media technology (including film technology) and artistic ability have gained the opportunity and possibility of "overtaking in curves". Indian scholars, represented by Homi Bhabha and Tejaswini Niranjana, have criticized postcolonialism in the era of globalization, hoping to dissolve the cultural hegemony of Western imperialism through a mixture of tactics and to get rid of the values imposed on the colonized by the colonizers. This "mixed strategy" is manifested in Indian realist films as the abandonment of one's own culture based on cultural self-consciousness and cultural self-confidence, as well as the inclusive absorption of other cultures. "A movie can change a country". In Indian realist films, we do not see complaints about social realities and helplessness about the decline of traditional culture, but put the solution of social problems and the inheritance of traditional culture above each individual, and gradually pry the ice and change society through individual strength.
Since the "Belt and Road" initiative is based on "jointly building the 'Belt and Road' initiative to borrow the historical symbols of the ancient Silk Road and integrate into the connotation of the new era", it is even more necessary to "uphold the Silk Road spirit of 'peaceful cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual learning, mutual benefit and win-win'". Cultural identity is the foundation of the spirit of the Silk Road, and the dissemination of art is an important means of cultural identity. Indian realist cinema happens to achieve emotional resonance and cultural identity at this point through its artistic aesthetic function, allowing the audience to appreciate its national beauty and the truth of reality. This is worth learning from Chinese filmmakers.
(Published in the April 2019 issue of Media Watch, the original text is about 7,000 words, with the title: "The Charm and Power of Art under the Belt and Road Initiative" – Taking the spread of Indian realist films in China as an example.) This is an excerpt, charts and notes, etc. are omitted, please refer to the original article for academic citations. ）
【About the Author】
Liu Quan, Professor, School of Communication, Nanjing University of the Arts, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Geographic Information Resource Development and Utilization, Doctoral Supervisor, Doctor of Film and Television Literature.
Source: Purple Cow News