Course:ASIA355/2024/The Land and Its Inhabitants: Exploring Nature in Yellow Earth
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The Land and Its Inhabitants: Exploring Nature in Yellow Earth
Based on Chen Kaige's 1984 film Yellow Earth.
Group Members' Contributions
| Categories | Contributors |
|---|---|
| Introduction | ND |
| Stories Behind the Film | ND |
| Histories of Reception | ND |
| Scholarly Article Review | ND; JY provided some articles and ideas |
| Comparative Analysis | ND; JY provided some articles and ideas |
| Alternative Interpretation | ND; JY provided some articles and ideas |
| Conclusion | ND |
Introduction
Yellow Earth is directed by Chen Kaige and is an adaptation of a short story by Ke Lan entitled “Echoes in the Deep Valley.” The film premiered domestically on August 19th, 1984, and internationally at the 1985 Hong Kong International Film Festival. Yellow Earth marks Chen’s directorial debut and features Zhang Yimou, a fellow Fifth Generation director, as the cinematographer. The cast for the main characters comprises Wang Xueqi as Gu Qing, Bai Xue as Cuiqiao, Tua Tan as the father, and Liu Qiuang as Hanhan.
The synopsis: Gu Qing, a communist soldier, travels to a Shaanbei village to collect folk songs, meeting Cuiqiao, Hanhan, and their father. Gu connects with Cuiqiao and Hanhan—specifically, Cuiqiao, who desires to leave with Gu and join the military to escape her arranged marriage; however, Gu cannot grant her request and leaves. To escape her marriage, Cuiqiao tries to cross the Yellow River but disappears. Later, Gu’s figure appears atop a hill in the village, and Hanhan runs to reach it.
The roadmap: the themes that will drive our analysis revolve around nature: the Yellow River, agriculture, land, and the earth. Specifically, our analysis will examine the relationship between nature and the villagers to ask: what role does nature play in constructing a relationship between the land and its inhabitants in Yellow Earth? Our group will weave the theme of nature throughout the stories behind the film, the histories of its receptions, scholarly literature reviews, a comparative analysis with Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, alternative interpretations of existing interpretations in scholarly work, and end with a conclusion stating the importance of the depiction of nature and our group’s personal assessment of Yellow Earth.
Stories Behind the Film
On-Location Filming and Script Revisions
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Yellow Earth was shot on-location in Shaanbei, Shaanxi province, China. The on-location shooting had a significant impact on the film during the production process because it affected the overall narrative and aesthetics of Yellow Earth. Regarding the narrative, Yellow Earth was adapted from Ke Lan’s short story “Echoes in the Deep Valley” [1]. Ke’s story was autobiographical: he sought refuge in a cave home where he met a young girl who wanted Ke to introduce her to the army, but Ke needed to leave and told the girl that he would return; however, when he came back, the girl committed suicide because she was being forced into marriage [1]. When Chen Kaige read the script based on Ke’s story, he had mixed feelings but was captivated by its folk-tale elements [2]. Thus, in an attempt to rewrite the story to Chen’s satisfaction, he and his crew “scouted the Shaanxi Province … for months on foot” [2]. Chen and his crew’s observations of the native inhabitants of Shaanxi and the cultures therein helped Chen make changes to the narrative and shape the aesthetics of the film [2]. Some of the revisions to the script that Chen made were the additions of the “drum-dance, rain praying, Yellow River, and yellow as a dominant colour” [1].
Nature as a Stimulus for Chen Kaige’s Filmmaking
Chen Kaige’s relationship with nature began in his teenage years because he was a sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution—specifically, Chen was sent to the forests and agricultural area of Xishuangbanna in the Yunnan province [3]. In an interview concerning his status as a Fifth Generation director, Chen relays a specific event that occurred during his time as a sent-down youth: while taking a cigarette break from chopping trees, he was "comforted by nature, by the sound of the wind. Nature suddenly became a stimulus. All [he] could see at that time was a huge jungle—the birds, snakes, and wild animals. [He] realized [he] was a part of that” [3]. Moreover, Chen acknowledges that this experience of nature and the jungle sparked his creative stimulus for his first few films as a director [3].
When being asked about why nature and the jungle became a creative stimulus for his first few films, namely Yellow Earth and Life on a String, Chen states that nature played an integral role in his creativity because he became tired and frustrated with all the politics that were taking place in the cities [3]. Chen’s conscious choice to create films that did not take place in cities came from his desire to “express what [he] had seen in the countryside” as a sent-down youth and as a director on-site in Shaanxi [3]. While reflecting on the countryside in his interview, Chen claims that “[China] is an agricultural nation” and that his use of nature is a way to escape politics but also to portray China in its truest state [3].
Relationship between Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou
Besides featuring Chen Kaige, Yellow Earth also features Zhang Yimou as the cinematographer. Chen and Zhang met early in their filmmaking careers because they were classmates at the Beijing Film Academy; subsequently, they both worked at Guangxi Film Studio, the production company that produced Yellow Earth [4].
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In retrospective interviews involving Chen and Zhang, they remark on their collaboration, including the different challenges and thought processes during the production process. In Cinéaste’s interview with Chen, Chen delineates the difficulties that he had working with Zhang, stating that “Zhang Yimou was very strong as a cameraman . . . Sometimes [he] had to really work hard to convince him to [film] a different way” [3]. An interview between the academic scholar Tan Ye and Zhang Yimou validates Chen’s statement on Zhang’s stubbornness, in which Zhang recounts that “when making Yellow Earth as a cameraman, [he] had to help Kaige realize his subject” [5]. These remarks from Chen and Zhang portray their collaboration as creating a production environment of give-and-take, producing a film in which both Chen and Zhang have strong voices in terms of film style. One uniting commonality was that they both did not know much about the outside world, but Chen, specifically, felt a need to talk about history and culture in Yellow Earth [5]. As Zhang claims that Chen is fonder of historical themes in cinema than he is, the depiction of the historical backdrop of the film concerning communism and feudalism is attributed to Chen [5].
Histories of the Film’s Reception
Chinese and International Receptions in the 1980s
Yellow Earth had a conflicting reception upon its release because the film received unfavourable reviews in China but was praised by international audiences. In China, Yellow Earth dissatisfied the national film censors yet was not subject to censorship [2]. Yellow Earth did not receive a ban from censors because it did not include “politically offensive sequences”; however, its content angered censors because it portrayed China as agrarian, poverty-ridden, and backward, depicting peasant life and feudalism at a time when China was modernizing through economic liberalization by opening up to the West [2][6]. Furthermore, the highly stylized construction of the film allowed for ambiguity, creating a “distancing effect in an audience trained on melodrama and classical editing” [2]. This stray from melodrama and classical editing is a very important aspect of its reception in China because Yellow Earth was the first Chinese film since 1949 to use images as opposed to dialogue to tell a story [3]. Thus, Chinese audiences viewed Yellow Earth unfavourably for different reasons: content that portrayed China as connected to the natural environment and not modernized and the use of an unfamiliar film language.
For international receptions of Yellow Earth, the film received acclaim from critics at the 1985 Hong Kong International Film Festival, quickly being cited as “the most significant stylistic breakthrough in new Chinese cinema” [2]. The extremely positive reception of Yellow Earth at the HKIFF prompted attention to be brought to Fifth Generation directors in China [3]. The international praise of Yellow Earth did not cease at the HKIFF because it proceeded to win the Sunderland Trophy at the BFI London Film Festival, the Silver Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival, and the Best Narrative at the Hawaii International Film Festival [7]. The wide acclaim of Yellow Earth at international film festivals derives from the motivation behind these festivals: to be crucial centers for the development of film knowledge and practices and to praise style and content that differs from pre-existing traditions [8]. Therefore, the international lauding for Yellow Earth greatly differs from its unfavourable reception in China because the film is praised instead of criticized for its style and content.
Ongoing Legacy
To celebrate 100 years of Chinese cinema, the Hong Kong Film Awards released a list entitled “The Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures” in 2005, ranking Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth fourth [9]. The top five in the list included films from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, with Yellow Earth being one of two Chinese films from China, falling just behind Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town, which placed first [9]. Regarding contemporary netizen ratings of the film in 2024, Chinese audiences on Douban have rated Yellow Earth 8 out of 10 stars, amassing almost 40,000 reviews [10]. Moreover, for Western audiences, users on Letterboxd have rated Yellow Earth 3.7 out of 5 stars, and the film has been watched by approximately 4000 members on the platform [11]. The difference in these statistics between Douban and Letterboxd evinces important information about the contemporary consumption of Yellow Earth—a film seemingly more popular with and rated higher by Chinese rather than Western audiences. This feat from Douban contrasts starkly with its initial reception in China, demonstrating a positive change in attitude regarding the content and style of the film. Thus, contemporary Chinese audiences are no longer held back by the subdued melodrama and non-classical editing of Yellow Earth, now appreciating and praising Chen's innovative filmmaking.
Scholarly Literature Review
Narrative Strands and the Politics and Culture of 20th-Century China
In Esther C. M. Yau’s article “Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a Non-Western Text,” she uses Western methods of analysis—structuralist, post-structuralist, neo-Marxian, and feminist—to elucidate the narrative of Yellow Earth as consisting of four narrative strands: the peasant’s story, Cuiqiao’s story, Gu Qing’s story, and Hanhan’s story [2].
In the peasant’s story, Yau denotes its ethnographic nature because it stresses the relationship between the Shaanbei peasants and their land, namely through the activities of fetching water and ploughing crops [2]. This story articulates the importance of nature because it visually constructs a narrative: “the land is a place in dire need of reform, and it is also stubbornly resistant,” expressing a delay of modernity in the countryside [2]. In Cuiqiao’s story, Yellow Earth depicts the “feudalist victimization of women'' because Cuiqiao is subject to an arranged marriage [2]. Yau argues that the shot-reverse-shot between feudalism and Cuiqiao in the first marriage procession positions her as a victim of feudal systems, and the similar editing style of Cuiqiao’s marriage reminds the viewer of her victimization [2]. In Gu Qing's story, he connects all narrative strands and sets each strand in motion: Cuiqiao decides not to submit to her father because of Gu, Hanhan leaves the rain-praying ceremony for Gu, and Gu leaves the village in its agrarian, unrevolutionized mode of survival [2]. In Hanhan’s story, he represents a signifier of the “desire for meaning” in a fragmented society [2]. This desire for meaning posits his character as an embodiment of “history and culture with an urge to change'' before that meaning is fixed by political institutions [2]. Yau’s analysis of these distinct yet converging narratives “relate[s] the film’s textual strategies to the specific political and cultural context” of 20th-century China, prompting a deeper understanding of the complexities and nuances of the film in relation to its transformative historical period [2].
New Film Language, Colour, and Nature
In H. C. Li’s article “Colour, Character, and Culture: On Yellow Earth, Black Cannon Incident, and Red Sorghum,” Li focuses heavily on Yellow Earth as a seminal film to explain and depict the emergence of Chinese film as highly stylized on a global platform [1]. Specifically, Li uses the aesthetics of the film: Chen’s unconventional film techniques and the importance of colour to characterize Yellow Earth as a film that changed Chinese cinema [1].
Li argues that Chen uses “alienation effects, ambiguity, understatement and synecdoche” in Yellow Earth, contributing to a breakthrough style distinct from traditional Chinese film aesthetics [1]. To illustrate her argument, Li uses the scene of Cuiqiao departing on her boat and disappearing into the water while her brother, Hanhan, calls her name; immediately, another sequence plays that comprises images of the Yellow River during different times of day and kinds of weather. With this composition, Chen alienates the viewer from an emotional connection to Cuiqiao through the cut to the images of the Yellow River; this use of cutting detaches the audience from Cuiqiao’s character because it prevents the viewer from receiving closure and clarity on her fate [1].
Moreover, Li posits that Chen uses colours, specifically yellow and red, to comment on nature and the nation in Yellow Earth [1]. Li cites the colour yellow as being seen in the yellow-ish earth and the inhabitants’ yellow skin [1]. Thus, the yellow colour is a visual affirmation of the connection between the characters and their land [1]. Furthermore, the colour red embodies more political associations: feudalism through its involvement in the first wedding ceremony and Cuiqiao’s wedding day, but later becomes altered, as Hanhan wears a red doudu among the villagers in the final scene, signifying the red colour as now a symbol of Chinese revolution [1].
Yellow Earth and Envisioning China’s National Character
In W. K. Chen’s “Imagining the People: Yellow Earth and the Enigma of Nationalist Consciousness,” Chen juxtaposes Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth with Chen Kaige’s remembrance of his experiences during the production of the film to posit that Yellow Earth searches for a new meaning in the Chinese national character [12]. Chen claims that Yellow Earth puts the past and future of the Chinese race into historical reflection, reimagining the national identity of China [12].
In his analysis, Chen posits that Yellow Earth and the remembrance of the production process seemingly reveal a degree of incongruity between two forces: folklorist and visionary impulses [12]. First, Chen discusses the contrast between distance and proximity through Gu Qing’s character because he displays a distance to the peasants in the film yet proximity to them in Ke Lan’s original story [12]. Secondly, Chen proceeds to discuss how Chen Kaige’s experience in the Shaanxi province gave him the inspiration for “the linkage between nature and humanity” in the film and an appreciation for peasant artists [12]. However, despite Chen Kaige’s eye-opening experience in Shaanxi, the film depicts an abandonment of the Shaanbei village through Gu Qing, Hanhan, and Cuiqiao’s disappearance [12]. Thus, the abandonment of the Shaanbei village in Yellow Earth contrasts Chen Kaige’s admiration for the village in the production process [12]. This difference conveys that Chen Kaige appreciates the folkloric aspects of the culture—peasant art, livelihoods, and songs—yet disregards the village in the visionary aspect—the abandonment of the village through the disappearance of most of the main characters [12].
Despite these contradictions, Chen states that the folkloric and visionary aspects overlap, coexisting and enabling each other [12]. As the sent-down youth era of the Cultural Revolution provoked Fifth Generation directors to interrogate the national character of China, Chen Kaige’s portrayal of the folk is integral to how he envisions the nation [12]. Thus, the combination of the folkloric and visionary aspects of Yellow Earth tries to accomplish a 1980s envisioning of the Chinese national character supported by the villagers and their culture because they are “inseparable from the vision,” and without them, the “imagination of the national community and shared destiny would remain unfulfilled” [12].
Comparative Analysis
Similar Plot and Themes, Different Techniques
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist (2023) resembles the plot and themes of Yellow Earth in various ways: the ambiguity surrounding a daughter’s death, the subtle displays of evil, and the connection between nature and the villagers. As Hamaguchi and Chen are critically cited as auteurs, there are similarities and differences that arise in the techniques each director uses in their films to portray their subjects: for example, both Hamaguchi and Chen are avid users of the long take, but Hamaguchi tends to use more POV shots whereas Chen tends to use more extreme-long shots. Therefore, this comparative analysis aims to ask: how can films with similar film elements evoke different reactions or inferences from the audience based on the different film techniques used?
Ambiguity of Each Daughter’s Death
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In Yellow Earth and Evil Does Not Exist, one similarity is the assumed deaths of Cuiqiao and Hana: Cuiqiao tries to escape her arranged marriage and falls into the Yellow River, whereas Hana tries to return home from school after her father, Takumi, forgets to pick her up and gets attacked by a deer. Furthermore, each daughter’s death is ambiguous: Cuiqiao falls into the Yellow River, and the film cuts to a quick sequence featuring scenes of the river, while Hana is wounded by a deer attack, and the film cuts to its last two shots—a long take of Takumi carrying Hana into the forest, and a POV shot, from Hana’s perspective, looking at the night sky from Takumi’s arms. Thus, through cuts, Chen and Hamaguchi cloak their narratives in ambiguity because the proceeding shots deny the viewer clarity on Cuiqiao and Hana’s deaths. Moreover, both directors cut to nature but portray it using different techniques. Therefore, how are the similar ambiguous deaths of the daughters conveyed differently through Chen’s quick sequence of the Yellow River and Hamaguchi’s long take of the forest and POV shot of the sky?
The quick cut and successive images of the Yellow River after Cuiqiao’s death alienates the viewer from Cuiqiao [1]. By changing the subject matter of the scene from Cuiqiao to nature to alienate the viewer, Chen severs the emotional connection between the audience and Cuiqiao [1]. Thus, Chen uses the quick change in the subject of his shots as a method to deny the viewer contemplation of Cuiqiao’s fate. However, Hamaguchi’s use of the long take forces the audience to contemplate Hana’s death since the viewer must watch Takumi carry Hana into the forest, inviting speculation on her death and making the shot carry "narrative weight" [13]. Moreover, the final scene is a POV shot from Hana’s perspective, making the viewer wonder that, if they can see from Hana’s eyes, then there is the possibility that she is alive. Thus, Chen’s technique of a quick cut and change of subject matter denies the contemplation of Cuiqiao’s fate, whereas Hamaguchi’s long take and POV shot invite the speculation of Hana’s fate.
Subtle Depictions of Evil
Evil in Yellow Earth and Evil Does Not Exist is subtle—each film lacks a clear antagonist yet has victims. In Yellow Earth, Cuiqiao is a victim of a few systems and entities: the feudalist society, the communist hope from Gu Qing, and the Yellow River. In Evil Does Not Exist, the village, Mizubiki, is a victim of the proposed “glamping” developments that threaten its natural environment, and Hana is a victim of the deer attack. Thus, both films depict evil subtly, hesitating to portray a sole antagonistic force or villain. In Yellow Earth and Evil Does Not Exist, Chen and Hamagutchi use different techniques to portray evil: on-screen versus off-screen action, respectively. Thus, how does the depiction of evil differ when it occurs on-screen versus off-screen?
Chen’s portrayal of evil through on-screen action dramatizes Cuiqiao’s position in her village because she becomes an overt victim of feudalism [2]. In the first marriage procession scene, Chen uses a shot-reverse-shot between feudalism and Cuiqiao, depicting a direct confrontation between both forces, the oppressive (feudalism) and the innocent (Cuiqiao) [2]. Although no violence occurs, this scene evokes Cuiqiao’s realization that she is innocent in a patriarchal and feudal society and will one day be forced into marriage. However, Hamagutchi’s portrayal of evil off-screen through the unseen deer attack on Hana (in which a gunshot had already wounded the deer) forces the viewer to interpret nature as a “great human equalizer” [14]. By withholding a confrontation between humans and nature through off-screen action, Hamagutchi does not depict the deer as violent, prompting the viewer to interpret the attack of the deer as a retaliation for the gunshot wound; this off-screen action characterizes the deer's actions as equalizing, despite its actual actions depicting evil through the harm of a young girl. Therefore, Chen’s on-screen action makes identifying evil overt, whereas Hamagutchi’s off-screen action makes identifying evil covert.
Nature and the Villagers
Yellow Earth and Evil Does Not Exist feature a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature through the interactions between the villagers and their immediate surroundings. In Yellow Earth, Cuiqiao fetches water from the Yellow River, and the family ploughs their crops. In Evil Does Not Exist, Takumi sources water from a river and chops firewood to keep his house warm. Thus, both families benefit from interacting with nature. However, Chen and Hamagutchi portray nature very differently yet achieve the same result: Chen uses extreme-long shots, and Hamagutchi uses static shots, both stressing the villagers’ spatial relationship to nature.
Chen's use of extreme-long shots is most prevalent when the first marriage procession approaches the village. In these shots, Chen’s distance from the human subjects positions them as small entities against a large landscape; moreover, he isolates the humans to the top of the screen using a “high horizon” line [1]. With this composition, Chen allows nature to dominate the frame to denote its power and all-surrounding reality. However, Hamagutchi uses static shots to depict Takumi retrieving water from a river and returning it to his van. These shots show not only that the Mizubiki villagers benefit from the natural environment but also that the environment is all-consuming. As Takumi walks back and forth between the river and his van, a static shot captures Takumi sandwiched between nature on both sides of a trail, indicating the all-surrounding reality of nature (similar to Chen).
Through this comparative analysis, the difference between how Chen and Hamagutchi portray their subjects gives insight into how nature is treated in each film: it can be seen as a director's way of denying or inviting contemplations of death, as subtle forces of evil, and as an all-consuming and all-surrounding entity. This myriad of interpretations posits that the role that nature has in interacting with the subjects of each film is multifaceted, affecting the characters' personal lives and how they navigate through the world physically.
Alternative Interpretation
For the alternative interpretations, our group will focus on scenes that we interpret to have strong connections to the theme of the relationship between the land and its inhabitants. The alternative interpretations produced from these scenes will help narrow the overall understanding of nature and how it is depicted in Yellow Earth.
Scene 1 and Clip 1
Our group wants to provide an alternative interpretation of the scene of Cuiqiao’s supposed death in the Yellow River because we believe that this scene can be interpreted differently than in Li’s article—specifically, it can be read in conjunction with the theme of the inhabitants’ connection to their natural environment. As Li argues that Cuiqiao’s death in the Yellow River produces feelings of detachment and alienation from the audience through Chen's quick cuts, she interprets the scene only through the lens of the relationship between Cuiqiao and the audience [1]. However, our group’s interpretation focuses on Cuiqiao’s connection to the Yellow River, which Chen cuts to after her disappearance, because there is an established connection built throughout the film between Cuiqiao and the Yellow River. Throughout the film, Cuiqiao is depicted as retrieving water from the river and bringing it back home as water for her family to use. Furthermore, the last instance of Cuiqiao's action of retrieving water from the Yellow River is two scenes before she tries to cross the river, making it a fresh memory for the audience. This alternative interpretation becomes an even more interesting area of analysis because scholar W. K. Chen’s article remarks upon Chen’s awareness of the connection between nature and humanity in the production process of the film [12]. Thus, analyzing the scene based on Cuiqiao's connection to the Yellow River is worthy of interpretation.
After Cuiqiao's disappearance, the film cuts to a sequence of shots of the Yellow River, depicting the currents, rapids, and sounds of rushing water throughout different times of the day. This depiction of the Yellow River denotes the elapsing of diegetic time: water moving and sunlight fading away. With this diegetic elapsed time, the scene merges Cuiqiao with the Yellow River, symbolizing a union between Cuiqiao and her natural environment. This union is important because the Yellow River is a life-giving source: it helps to sustain the lives of Cuiqiao’s family and other villagers throughout the film. Since this sustenance portrays the Yellow River as a life-giving source, this scene then establishes the Yellow River as not only life-giving but (presumably) life-taking. Therefore, Cuiqiao’s disappearance can be interpreted as a "return to the source," invoking spiritual conclusions that Cuiqiao has returned to where life begins.
Scene 2 and Clip 2
Our next alternative interpretation provides an alternative to scholar Stephanie Donald’s method of analyzing the topography of Yellow Earth through its landscape [15]. Specifically, in Donald's article "Landscape and Agency: Yellow Earth and the Demon Lover," she interprets the landscape in Yellow Earth as a totality, indicating that she views the mountains, hills, land, and rivers as a unified entity to create a cultural image [15]. However, our group expresses a concern that Donald's understanding of nature in Yellow Earth is oversimplified because we believe that the “landscape” should be deconstructed into separate parts because of the diverse relationships the characters have with different elements of the landscape. We base our rationale on the fact that the peasants have a different relationship with the land than they do with the water, seen most strikingly when Cuiqiao retrieves water from the Yellow River and returns through a path on the mountainside to see Gu Qing and Hanhan with shovels while herding sheep.
In this sequence, the first scene depicts a simple relationship between Cuiqiao and the river: a site of nourishment through her gathering of water. However, when she returns to see Gu Qing and Hanhan equipped with shovels and herding sheep, the peasants' relationship between the land and water evolves for the viewer: the Yellow River becomes a feminized space, whereas the land becomes a masculinized space. Since Cuiqiao is always retrieving water for her family, her character and femininity become associated with the river; in contrast, Gu Qing and Hanhan are seen as staying inland and using their labour to cultivate the land, portraying the land as masculinized. Thus, our group claims that there is an importance in viewing the "landscape" as separate components because it is one way the film depicts gender dynamics, which shows the diversity of relationships that the peasants have with physical nature.
Therefore, through our group's alternative interpretations, we elaborate on how the villagers' relationship with nature and their surroundings is not straightforward but deeply complex: the Yellow River becomes a feminized space, which is life-giving but also life-taking, whereas Gu Qing and Hanhan masculinize the land based on their labours restricting them to it. These interpretations posit that the villagers ascribe meaning to nature throughout the film, whether that meaning regards sustenance or gender, to try to create an efficient village.
Conclusion
Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth occupies a pivotal position in the history of Chinese cinema: it marks a transition from traditional Chinese film aesthetics into a new and evolved Chinese film style. Since Chen created a new Chinese film style with Yellow Earth, the film, initially, became an anomaly to Chinese audiences, who were not accustomed to the complexity of Chen's film language; moreover, the film displeased national film censors due to its content portraying a feudal China amid the modernization process in China. However, international film audiences praised Yellow Earth for its cinematic innovation, and contemporary Chinese and Western audiences laud the film as well for its content and style. Yellow Earth also features nature as a way to construct a relationship between the land and its inhabitants because this wiki article demonstrates that spatial relations, gender dynamics, evil, and sustenance are forged through how the villagers interpret their local land.
Our group recommends Yellow Earth to prospective viewers if they are interested in a film that relies more on images than dialogue, meditations on the history and culture of China, or landmarks in Chinese cinema—any cinephile willing to explore new options would love the film. Based on these interests, our group has come to the consensus that, while Yellow Earth is a canon film for Chinese cinema, there will be certain audiences who will not enjoy the film—especially those who are interested in a strong melodrama with clear depictions of romance or good versus evil. Yellow Earth will also only satisfy the tastes of a filmgoer who is content with ambiguity in the storyline; therefore, Yellow Earth should not be chosen as a film to pass the time because it demands the viewer's active attention to draw narrative conclusions. Thus, we recommend Yellow Earth to active filmgoers—those who are actively engaged in the plot, want to interpret scenes for themselves, and enjoy cinema as a depiction of moving pictures instead of dialogue.
References
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- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Li, H. C. (Spring 1989). "Color, Character, and Culture: On Yellow Earth, Black Canon Incident, and Red Sorghum". Modern Chinese Literature. 5: 91–119 – via JSTOR.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 Yau, Esther C. M. (Winter 1987–88). "Yellow Earth: Western Analysis of a Non-Western Text". Film Quarterly. 41: 22–33 – via UC Press E-Books Collection.CS1 maint: date format (link)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Havis, Richard James (Winter 2003). "Changing the Face of Chinese Cinema: An Interview with Chen Kaige". Cinéaste. 29: 8–11 – via JSTOR.
- ↑ Chen, Ming-May; Haque, Mazharul (2007). Representation of the Cultural Revolution in Chinese Films by the Fifth Generation Filmmakers: Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Lampeter, Wales, United Kingdom: The Edwin Mellen Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780773455115.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Tan, Ye (Winter 1999–2000). "From the Fifth to the Sixth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou". Film Quarterly. 53: 2–13 – via JSTOR.CS1 maint: date format (link)
- ↑ Dittmer, Lowell (Jan. 1981). "China in 1980s: Modernization and Its Discontents". Asian Survey. 21: 31–50 – via JSTOR. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ "Yellow Earth". MUBI. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ Wong, Cindy H. (2011). Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pp. 1–28. ISBN 9780813551210.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Hong Kong Film Awards' List of the Best 100 Chinese Motion Picture". MUBI. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ "Yellow Earth (1984)". Douban. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ "Yellow Earth". Letterboxd. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ 12.00 12.01 12.02 12.03 12.04 12.05 12.06 12.07 12.08 12.09 12.10 12.11 Cheng, W. K. (Fall 2002). "Imagining the People: Yellow Earth and the Enigma of Nationalist Consciousness". China Review. 2: 37–63 – via JSTOR.
- ↑ Dargis, Manohla (May 2, 2024). "Evil Does Not Exist: Nature vs. Nurture". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ Chang, Justin (May 3, 2024). "The Beautifully Unnerving Gaze of Evil Does Not Exist". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 2024. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ↑ 15.0 15.1 Donald, Stephanie (February 1997). "Landscape and Agency: Yellow Earth and the Demon Lover". Theory, Culture & Society. 14: 97–112 – via SAGE Journals.