Chinese Cinema Classics: Screen Idols and Stardom Reexamined

October 5–14, 2018

Critic, collector, and Chinese film expert Paul Fonoroff is our guest for this series of films featuring some of pre-World War II China’s greatest screen stars.

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Crossroads
New Women
The Goddess
The Spring River Flows East
Rouge Tears

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Films
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Past Films

Crossroads
- Sunday, October 14 4:30 PM
Shen Xiling
China, 1937
This inventive Depression-era comedy follows unemployed young graduates trying to succeed—or at least survive—in thirties Shanghai, and marked the emergence of Zhao Dan and Bai Yang as major stars.
Rouge Tears
- Friday, October 12 5 PM
Wu Yonggang
Hong Kong, 1938
Digital Restoration

This 1938 talkie remake of The Goddess offers a chance to see how another leading star, Butterfly Wu (Hue Die), interpreted the role made famous by the late Ruan Lingyu.
The Spring River Flows East
- Thursday, October 11 7 PM
Cai Chusheng, Zheng Junli
China, 1947
Included on the Hong Kong Film Awards list of the greatest Chinese-language films of all time, this decades-spanning epic following a Shanghai’s couple separation during the Sino-Japanese War has been termed China’s Gone with the Wind.

Introduction by Andrew F. Jones
New Women
- Sunday, October 7 4 PM
Cai Chusheng
China, 1935
Digital Restoration

A strong-willed teacher and writer (Ruan Lingyu) is driven to despair by gossip and lecherous men in this intriguing, hard-hitting melodrama given further power by Ruan’s own real-life suicide after filming.

Introduction by Paul Fonoroff. Judith Rosenberg on Piano
The Goddess
- Friday, October 5 7 PM
Wu Yonggang
China, 1934
Digital Restoration

Ruan Lingyu delivers one of her most luminous performances as a mother forced into prostitution in this classic of the Golden Age of Shanghai cinema, a film that could make even jaded denizens of pre-Code Hollywood blush.

Paul Fonoroff and Peter Zhou in Conversation. Judith Rosenberg on Piano

Chinese Cinema Classics: Screen Idols and Stardom Reexamined

October 5–14, 2018

BAMPFA welcomes film expert Paul Fonoroff on the occasion of the launch of his most recent book, Chinese Movie Magazines 1921–1951, published by UC Press and drawn from the wealth of pictorial materials held in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library’s Paul Kendel Fonoroff Collection. A selection of rare magazine covers featured in the book will be on view this fall at BAMPFA, and Fonoroff will join us to share stories about his life as an avid collector and film critic and participate in a conversation with Peter Zhou, director of the East Asian Library and assistant university librarian.

The series features two of the top cover girls of pre–World War II China: the screen icon Ruan Lingyu, whose starring roles in The Goddess and New Women, alongside male lead Zheng Junli, have been heralded by critics internationally; and the beloved Butterfly Wu (Hue Die), who is featured here in Rouge Tears, the 1938 talkie remake of The Goddess. The series also showcases the important historical epic The Spring River Flows East, codirected by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, highly regarded for his work as an actor and director; and Crossroads, a comedy that marked the emergence of Zhao Dan and Bai Yang as major stars.

Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator

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Film series sponsor: Bonhams

Series organized by Senior Film Curator Susan Oxtoby and supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. BAMPFA extends its thanks to Sun Xianghui and Wenny Liu, China Film Archive; James Mockoski, American Zoetrope; Peter Zhou, C. V. Starr East Asian Library; Andrew F. Jones and Weihong Bao, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Elinor Levine and Xiaojie Ma, Center for Chinese Studies; and the College of Letters and Science, UC Berkeley; as well as Dessa Goddard, vice president, Bonhams. The exhibition of magazine covers is organized by Julia M. White, senior curator of Asian art at BAMPFA.

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National Endowment for the Arts