Power and Trauma in Chinese Film: Experiences of Zhang Yuan and the Sixth Generation

Abstract

Discusses the films of Zhang Yuan, a filmmaker who was branded a disseminator of "spiritual pollution" by the Chinese government and banned from feature production in 1994. The focus is on his first post-1994 project, in which Zhang flouts the ban against his work and the taboo against homosexuality as well. The film, East Palace West Palace, addresses the symbolic realm of the film as the discourse between the center and the margin, the official and the banned. Zhang was banned again from China in 1997, and his passport confiscated. This second official banishment could not silence him. Zhang's continued seduction and torment of the Chinese State culminated in his operation with the State-owned Xian Film Studio to release his first domestically distributed film in a decade. From the marginalized periphery, Zhang returns and awaits the policeman. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)