Blue Kite Flashcards
(32 cards)
Intro
Tian Zhuangzhuang’s ‘The Blue Kite’ focuses on the lives of members of the Chen family under Mao’s rule between 1953-68.
It, therefore, shows how China was changing during this period and the direct impacts of this on the ordinary population. We are able to see the effects of the three main campaigns (name campaigns)
Through showing us China through the eyes of the Chen family, we can understand the emotions they felt and the hardships they endured which leads to a realistic portrayal of China during this period.
The start of Mao’s Cult of Personality is also incredibly clear which again adds to the accuracy of the film.
Not only do we see the negative impacts of Mao’s rule through the Chen family, but some of his achievements are also highlighted in minor details such as wedding reforms.
Finally, Tian Zhuangzhuang grew up during this period, making him the same age as Tietou which adds to the realness of the film as he is directing the film from experience.
However, there are also elements that make the film relatively unrealistic such as the lack of severity of the Great Famine and Zhuying being allowed out of prison
Para 1: Topic
100 Flowers Campaign (1956) and Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957)
Para 1 Key Points
7
Excitement about freedom of expression
Mao U-turn and % of Workers
Impacted everyone
Shaolong’s death itself
Suicide
Para 1: excitement about freedom of expression
In 1956 Mao was ready to allow greater freedom of expression to those who wished to constructively comment on the success of China becoming a proletarian state, using the slogan ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend’.
The excitement was shown through Shuyan bragging about how he spoke to his seniors on ways they could improve, which was then celebrated by his older sister and member of the CCP, PRC Aunt.
It is also highlighted when Shaolong’s best friend Li Guodong excitedly tells Shaolong and Liu Yunwei that he spoke to the head of the library where they worked on their behalf.
Para 1: Mao’s U-turn and % of workers
When Mao received all these criticisms, he made a U-turn and started the Ant-Rightist Movement in 1957.
This was also very realistically portrayed during the film particularly when the manager of the library where Shaolong, Yunwei, and Guodong worked said to his employees that he needed to come up with a percentage of people that were Rightists.
At the time, worker organisations that employed intellectuals were expected to purge at least 5% of their workers.
CINEMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES
The U-turn is shown clearly in the shift in posters in the library from them saying “LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND HELP THE PARTY RECTIFY ITSELF” to them saying “RALLY BEHIND THE LEADERSHIP REFUTE THE FALLACIES OF THE RIGHTIST FACTION”
Para 1: impacted everyone
CINEMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES
Cut of the camera from Shuyan’s art school to the library that Shaolong works at to Shusheng’s army base, highlighting that no matter what people’s job or education was, no one was able to escape the effects of the movement.
Para 1: Shaolong’s death itself
Very realistic as 25 million people died in the labour camps.
CINEMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES:
Tian pans the countryside and the forest to link to Shaolong’s death by a tree while also showing an unmarked mass grave. This on top of the solemn music that accompanies the shots gives the viewer a moment to reflect on the horrors of the Anti-Rightist Movement.
Para 1: Suicide
Li Yonggang’s suicide was also representative as it was not uncommon for people to commit suicide in fear of being deemed an Anti-Rightist
Yang Gang, a female journalist for the People’s Daily, committed suicide after criticising a famous feminist writer (Ding Ling), thereby causing her status as a delegate to the National People’s Congress to be taken away.
Para 2: Topic
Great Leap Forward (1958-62) and the Great Famine (around 1959-61)
Para 2: Key Points
Sparrowcide
Mass Effort
Sounds of clinking
Attack on class enemies
Para 2: Sparrowcide
The chapter begins with the community banging pots and pans through the street which was Mao’s idea to prevent the sparrows from feeding on the crop seeds.
However, this resulted in a mass ‘Sparrowcide’ and led to a boom in the number of rodents that they also ate, one of the key factors that caused the Great Famine.
Para 2: Mass Effort
CCP’s idea of mass effort is represented in the film through Shujuan volunteering to work in the countryside as everyone needed to take part because Mao wanted to drastically increase both agricultural and industrial production.
The negative effects of the mass effort were mentioned when Shusheng criticises the government and the crude methods of smelting steel.
Even primary school students were doing it.
Realistic as the steel production was extremely low quality and only produced scrap metal.
PRC Aunt also defends the CCP which adds to the accuracy as the party members refused to admit there was a problem.
Para 2: Sounds of clinking
CINEMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES - SOUND EFFECTS
Throughout the chapter, the clinking of chopsticks against bowls becomes more audible
In one scene Shujuan and PRC Aunt appear to be preparing only Chinese cabbage for a meal which is due to grain output dropping from 200 million tonnes in 1958 to 143.5 million tonnes in 1960.
Para 2: Attack on class enemies
Mrs Lan (the landlady) changes into blue clothes like the rest of the community but the Neighbourhood Committee still goes against her and implies she bought her flour on the black market despite her saying she had saved all her rations.
They then take away her food and say they would let it spoil just to prove a point which again realistically shows how the people valued pride over logic and reason.
Accurate as in 1955 Mao said to the party leaders on Agricultural cooperation, it will “isolate the bourgeoisie”, “facilitate the final elimination of capitalism” and that in this area they are “quite heartless” and will be “cruel and have little mercy.”
Para 3: Topic
Cultural Revolution (1966-76 but shown in the film until 1968)
Para 3: Key points
7
Why Mao started the CR
Struggle sessions
Loss of education
Lack of discipline
Shujuan’s private conversation with mother
Para 3: Why Mao started the CR
After his failed Great Leap Forward, Mao’s position in government had weakened.
During the early 1960s, tensions with the Soviet Union and them moving too far in a revisionist direction convinced Mao that the Russian Revolution had gone astray, which in turn made him fear that China would follow the same path.
Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in order to purge the ‘impure’ elements of Chinese society: the ‘Four olds’ (old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas) and he called for a huge mobilisation of youth, thus resulting in them forming paramilitary groups called the Red Guards who killed around 1.5 million people with many more being tortured and publicly humiliated.
Para 3: Struggle sessions
Tietou and his classmates lead a struggle session with the head teacher which included them cutting her hair, putting her into the aeroplane position, and spitting on her, all very common methods used by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution to embarrass and torture intellectuals.
Para 3: Loss of education
The students rip up books and smash up the school.
The lack of education that the children suffered from (150 million children and young people stopped receiving an education during this period)
Para 3: Lack of discipline
The lack of education is reflected in Tietou’s behavior.
Tietou and his friends use foul language at school and Tietou and Weijun (his closest friend) start smoking at such a young age, therefore showing the youths’ lack of discipline during this era.
Para 3: Shujuan convo with mother
Shujuan has a private conversation with her mother in which she discusses how her sister, PRC Aunt, has been put through eight struggle session and Shujuan says “All the cadres are undergoing investigation”.
This very thing happened to Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi as posters were put up denouncing them for their betrayal of Maoist Thought despite them both supporting Mao throughout the Great Leap Forward and Liu Shaoqi being the third most powerful man in China for 15 years.
500,000 cadres purged during CR
This highlighted how loyalty to the party meant nothing to Mao during the Cultural Revolution because PRC Aunt had been a member of the party ever since Yan’an and as mentioned previously, Mao had no problem purging Deng and Liu despite their extreme loyalty to him and the CCP up until the Cultural Revolution.
Para 4: Topic
Cult of Personality and Mao’s achievements
Para 4: Key points
Posters
Wedding
Costumes
Reforms on education
Para 4: Posters
The continuous use of propaganda posters with famous slogans from real life (‘Let Chairman Mao live ten thousand years’)
Following Shujuan and Shaolong’s wedding we can see a propaganda poster of Stalin and Mao in their bedroom - shows how ingrained the cult of personality is within society
