After Mao: Cinema and Chinese society - A sociological analysis of the Chinese cinema (1978-92).

This theses, of primarily a sociological nature, aims to examine the emergence of post-Mao Chinese cinema and its embodied political culture, in responding, or adjusting, to the sweeping and sometimes rather turbulent process of the "open door" reform movement. The transformation of Chinese cinema, as a whole, is an area of relatively minor importance, when compared with other major agenda items on the reform programme (i.e., economic growth, financial and fiscal stability, etc.). Nevertheless, the case of Chinese cinema does provide us with a unique setting and perspective so as to reach a better understanding of the interrelationship of economic development, political evolution and the advent of cultural pluralism in post-Mao China. This study aims, in other words, to show how the economic and political changes are themselves manifested in the changing reality of the Chinese screen. Author has argued throughout this theses that the emergence of post-Mao Chinese cinema could be seen as a unique process of rehabilitating the notion of "every day life" and "civil society", both of which were heavily suppressed under Mao. This theses has paid special attention to the changing relations of film-makers audience and political authorities in China. The examination of how film censorship works has revealed the complexity of China's political and economic situation and dilemma. Market forces have helped the film-making to be able to sever its ties with the party without seeming politically offensive or provocative. The legitimate and politically favourable "market forces" have made the Chinese film-making equally legitimate to rehabilitate and revive the notion and fundamental elements of human life that a market economy could not survive without.