1981: Hollywood Goes to China: First U.S. Film Week in The People's Republic.

AuthorPearson, Margaret C.

The Chinese cultural scene was in turmoil in the 1970s. The infamous Cultural Revolution's "Gang of Four" had been arrested on October 6,1976 and was still in custody awaiting trial at the time the US normalized relations with China on January 1, 1979. During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing, the ring leader of The Gang of Four and Mao's 4th wife, led the effort to transform China's cultural landscape. Dominating the Chinese arts, Jiang had snuffed out most traditional Chinese culture, and instead substituted one - in film, theater, and art - intent on glorifying Mao's revolutionary ideology and the man himself.

For most of the ten years of the Cultural Revolution the Chinese could neither see nor hear anything besides the "The Eight Models" that Jiang had approved. Made into films and radio programs and performed at the opera, accounts say that "The Eight Models" were broadcast night and day on loudspeakers in the streets, in shops and theaters, and on radio. The lyrics were memorized and sung by millions. "The Eight Models" were the only available theatrical entertainment for the 800 million people of China. A joke that made the rounds in China after the Cultural Revolution recalled that "800 million people watched 8 shows." How amazing it must have been for the average Chinese to have the opportunity - beginning with the first U.S. Film Week in May 1981 - to see American films approved for viewing by the Chinese government, and understand that after years of estrangement between the U.S. and China the film world was opening up once again.

The first US-China Cultural Agreement was signed by China's new leader, Deng Xiaoping, on January 31,1979 during a trip to Washington. Then, on an August visit to Beijing by Vice President Mondale, the first Implementing Accord was signed calling for specific expanded cultural relations The Implementing Accord opened the way to a revival of exchanges in the arts. In the film world there developed what was called "movie diplomacy."

Following on the Implementing Agreement the Chinese expressed an interest in an exchange of film weeks. The Chinese, who had a long and distinguished movie making history prior to the Cultural Revolution, worked with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the U.S. International Communications Agency (USICA) - the name then for what is now The United States Information Agency - to choose movies that both sides would find suitable for a Chinese audience.

Even...

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