![]() As one of the most authoritative and emblematic filmmakers in the history of Chinese cinema, Xia Yan (born Shen Naixi, 1900-1995) pioneered the realistic tradition of filmmaking, especially through his vast number of film adaptations based on May Fourth literary classics and many essays dedicated to issues revolving around adaptation. The notion of fidelity was first valued by the Chinese Communist cultural leaders and then further sustained with their orthodox adaptations. Fidelity, conventionally considered “an evaluation of the aesthetic worth of an adaptation based on its adherence to the source” (Johnson, 89), was in no exception infiltrated with propagandistic messages and meant adherence not to a source but to the rigid political ideology. In an authoritarian state like the People’s Republic of China (1949- ), artistic works and even the principles of creation were inextricably linked to the dominant discourse, especially during the highly political Seventeen Years (1949-66) and the chaotic Cultural Revolution period (1966-76). ![]() They widely subscribed to the principle of fidelity when it came to adapting literary classics, thus casting perpetual influence on future adaptation endeavors and the formation of adaptation theory in the Chinese context. ![]() Lu Xun’s observations, especially his self-evident endorsement of the superiority of literature over film, foreshadow the dominant mentality of early Chinese film critics and filmmakers. 2 To Chinese scholars and artists, written text was traditionally deemed paramount, which therefore substantially shaped their understanding of adaptations from literature to other art forms. After watching this film, Lu Xun wrote to a Japanese friend that “I was shocked to see it was so different from the original novel in the future, I shall not expect to watch more adaptations” (376). 1 For instance, the United Artists production The Call of the Wild (1935) was an adaptation based on Jack London’s novel of the same name. Adaptations based on world literary classics formed a relatively large proportion of the many films Lu Xun had watched and commented on. Lu Xun (1881-1936), the founding father of modern Chinese literature, was a dedicated filmgoer and openly talked about films on multiple occasions. Much debate can remain as to what a given medium best lends itself to.Īrt dialogue in the post-modern period has tended to steer away from medium specificity as a particularly relevant principle.× Current About Archive Submit Editorial Board Salisbury University Rethinking Fidelity, Adaptation, and Propaganda: Garden of Repose on Screen Li Yi Medium specificity suggests that a work of art can be said to be successful if it fulfills the promise contained in the medium used to bring the artwork into existence. For example, in painting, literal flatness and abstraction are emphasised rather than illusionism and figuration.Īs early as 1766 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his essay " Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry" argues that "painting and poetry should be like two just and friendly neighbors, neither of whom indeed is allowed to take unseemly liberties in the heart of the other's domain". of the limitations of the medium of the specific art" (" Towards a Newer Laocoon"). According to Clement Greenberg, who popularized the term in the 1960s, medium specificity holds that "purity in art consists in the acceptance. ![]() It is most closely associated with modernism, but it predates it. Medium specificity is a consideration in aesthetics and art criticism.
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