Group 6 Blog 4
Group 6 | Blog Post #4 | 18 Apr 2022
Writer: Ellie Grintsaig
Editors: Michael, Sam, Gefei
Group 6 Blog 4
For our group’s fourth blog post, we conducted a deep dive into many of the campus libraries’ resources. Unfortunately, there isn’t much information that links both the SFSFF with the Chinese films that were screened there. The library allows loaned access to the film Around China with a Movie Camera, but our options were otherwise pretty limited. There were numerous articles reviewing said films, those mentioned in our previous blog posts (The Goddess by Wu Yonggang and Little Toys by Sun Ye), but we couldn’t find any news coverage relating the films to their unique screenings at the Castro theater. Mainly, these sources were instead describing the synopses of the films and/or their screenings in other cities. Lastly, considering the changing management of the Castro theater, we were not able to access any physical archives of the festival. However, within this post, I will outline how our team shifted to focus on the uniqueness of the Castro theater, as well as the reviews of films that were available.
First, we found a brief review of Around China with a Movie Camera by Pamela Hutchinson in the monthly British film magazine “Sight and Sound.” This was in the October 2016 issue, around six months after its official release and its screening at the SFSFF in 2015. Although Hutchinson doesn’t reflect on the film’s specific screening at SFSFF, we still drew upon her endorsing review to help establish the positive reaction to the film’s screening worldwide, as she remarks on its “picturesque scenery” and its “beautiful” scoring. While these films were not featured at SFSFF first, they surely made history. Matt Severson in his article “Behind the Great Wall,” explains that the 13th Pordenone Silent Film Festival (in 1994) featured “the largest retrospective of [advertisements for] Sino-silents…ever assembled for a Western audience.” These advertisements were otherwise suppressed by the Chinese Government. According to Tony Rayns in the “Sight and Sound” article of July 2001, Shanghai had mainly featured silent films throughout the ’20s that were “dump[ed]” by Hollywood imports after they were done being screened in America. So, the featuring of advertisements for Sino-silents in more Western countries was a feat to be recognized. These films were screened at the SFSFF around two decades later and can surely still be seen as helping to “op[en] the vault to these historic treasures” and “provi[de] windows to a China seemingly eclipsed by memories of the Cultural Revolution” as argued by Severson.
In researching more about the Castro theater and touching on its unique location for the screening of Asian films, we found an article by David Mermelstein in the Wallstreet Journal. In 2015, Mermelstein writes “No U.S. city more avidly welcomes society's outliers than this one,” which made/makes it the perfect location to feature the voices—even silent voices—of those who were otherwise disregarded.
Although we’ve been able to find several primary sources including the films themselves, and film reviews, we are going to continue looking for movie fliers/newspaper clippings, and anything else that is potentially available. We are currently scheduling another visit to the library sometime this coming week to try and research even further/finalize our research.
Works Cited
Hutchinson, Pamela. "AROUND CHINA WITH A MOVIE CAMERA." Sight and Sound, vol.
26, no. 10, 10, 2016, pp. 97. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/magazines/around-china-with-movie-camera/docview/1841019119/se-2?accountid=14496.
Mermelstein, David. "At this Film Festival, Silents Are Golden; The San Francisco Silent Film
Festival links the past to the present." Wall Street Journal (Online), Jun 03, 2015. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/at-this-film-festival-silents-are-golden-san/docview/1685430185/se-2?accountid=14496.
Rayns, Tony. “Labyrinth of Chances.” Sight & Sound, vol. 11, no. 5, July 2001, pp. 30–33. Doe
Library, Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1993 .S54.
Severson, Matt. “Silent Behind the Great Wall.” Film Comment, vol. 32, no. 3, 1996, pp. 47–48, Doe Library, Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1993 .F386.
From Cosette: I enjoyed reading about these great Chinese silent films! Why do you think that the first instance of a Chinese silent film being shown at this festival was in 2004? Was there a particular cultural or demographic reason to not have Chinese cinema shown until then? Did something happen in 2004 like a boom in interest from Chinese patrons, or a new program director, or so on? It would be interesting to see if beyond Chinese cinema, how many instances of non-western cinema occurred in the festival as a whole. Was it an aversion for foreign media generally? Did they target films just made in SF? Or was there a problem of access to these films before 2004? It's curious because it could be for a number of reasons with each having a different driving issue.
ReplyDeleteThe Castro Theatre seems very unique and I thought that it was that the group shifted to focusing on the uniqueness of the Castro. Why do you think The Castro solely focused on showing silent films? and how does this demonstrate the type of community that is surrounding the theatre ? why do you believe the Chinese government suppressed these ads about these films? It's interesting that silent films are the sole focus of the theatre.
ReplyDeleteHi, I like the unique focus of your research project. Great job on detailing the process of not being able to find some sources because that is also an important part of conducting academic research. I think the outline of your processes of pivoting topics is very interesting to read. I believe for future posts or the research report, you could talk more about the historical importance of Castro theater to assist your point why it is a great place to screen Asian films. Even though it seems hard to find a lot of sources describing the screening there, it is still helpful to explain what it might have meant for the Asian American populations to have their films screened in such a popular theater. I am looking forward to learning more about your project.
ReplyDeleteThis is promising work on library work. At this point, it is more important to get quality resources on a broader field (e.g. theaters in California, film festivals in San Francisco, Chinese and East asian films imported into the US for screenings) rather than to find specific sources. Then, you can at least summarize some of what's already been done and what is left to research (your questions!). I recommend scheduling an appointment with Gisele Tanasse (who visited our class) to find some good secondary sources in print from our library, and to also discuss with Jianye He from East Asian Library about some information on those Chinese films you found earlier that were played at the Castro. To make an appointment with Gisele, you can schedule here under "Media and Making" https://berkeley.libcal.com/appointments
ReplyDelete