x-posted from Chinese Cinema Digest

The Museum of Modern Art in NY will present a special show in December
celebrating the centenary of Chinese cinema. With a focus on Chinese
cinema’s first golden era and its stars, the show "Bright Stars, Big
City: Chinese Cinema's First Golden Era, 1922-1937" will screen a number
of rare, surviving prints from the silent period. Many of them are also
making their debut in the US. The show will run December 2-22.

The first Chinese film was made in 1905. In celebration of the centenary
of a great film tradition, this exhibition presents a number of silent
and early sound classics from China's first golden era, many of them for
the first time in the United States. Shanghai in the early decades of
the twentieth century was a metropolis alive with art and culture--the
Hollywood of the East, no less. Beyond showcasing the urban landscape
that supplied the cinema with its backdrop as well as its energy, this
exhibition's special focus is on the constellation of movie stars that
commanded the screens, featuring, for instance, Ruan Lingyu, the most
luminous and tragic silent star of the golden era, and Li Lili, a
popular athletic beauty with a winsome sexuality. Both were often paired
with Jin Yan and Gao Zhanfei, the two Chinese "Valentinos." These and
other stars lit up the screen with their charismatic allure and
memorable performances, in films directed with inventive originality by
directors like Cai Chusheng, Shi Dongshan, and Sun Yu, providing early
Chinese cinema tremendous popularity at home. The exhibition also
presents several important early sound experiments, culminating in
Street Angel, a classic film renowned for Zhou Xuan’s songs and for its
stylistic tribute to the "shadowplay" aesthetic of the earliest Chinese
cinema. All films except Street Angel are silent, with piano
accompaniment by Donald Sosin.

Schedule as follows:
http://moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2005/Chinese_cinema.html

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street.
New York
Tel: 212.708.9400
http://www.moma.org

 

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is
available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm