Chung Kuo, Cina

''Chung Kuo, Cina'' (, " Zhongguo, China") is a 1972 Italian television documentary directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni and his crew were invited to China and filmed for five weeks, beginning in Beijing and travelling southwards. The resulting film was denounced as slanderous by the Chinese Communist Party and the Italian Communist Party.

Release

''Chung Kuo'' was scheduled to be shown on at the Museum of Modern Art on December 26, 1972, as part of a series of films made for RAI, but the film was not ready for public showing. The film was aired on Italian television in three weekly parts in from January 24 to February 7, 1973.

Reception

Andrei Tarkovsky considered it a masterpiece and named it one of the 77 essential works of cinema.

''Chung Kuo'' was well received in Italy, provoking discussion on "Antonioni's China" as well as screenings and airings in other countries. The film was also well-received when previewed by Chinese diplomats in Italy.

John J. O'Connor, writing in ''The New York Times'', compared ''Chung Kuo'' (truncated to two hours for American television) favorably to the NBC-produced special ''The Forbidden City'', commenting that the former "reaches a degree of sophistication that would appear to be beyond the capabilities or experience of most American television".

A screening of the film at the 1974 Venice Film Festival was met with angry protests by Italian communists. A police cordon was created to protect the screening venue.

Chinese Communist Party leaders interpreted the film as reactionary and anti-Chinese for showing what they considered to be the embarrassing blemishes of everyday life. In their view, the film failed to show the transformations in China after its revolution. Interpreting the film through the principles of the Yan'an Talks, particularly the idea that there is no such thing as art for art's sake, party leadership construed Antonioni's aesthetic choices as politically-motivated efforts to humiliate China and as an "imperialist way of seeing." Jiang Qing criticized Premier Zhou Enlai's role in Antonioni's invitation to China as not only a failure but also treasonous.A year after the initial broadcast, the ''People's Daily'' published a scathing editorial titled ''A Vicious Motive, Despicable Tricks'' ( zh, 恶毒的用心, 卑劣的手法), denouncing the film and accusing Antonioni of creating "viciously distorted scenes" in order to "slander China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and insult the Chinese people". The editorial was followed by a mass anti-Antonioni campaign, with activities including televised denouncements, written criticisms from around the country, and schoolchildren being taught anti-Antonioni songs. The campaign was later attributed to the Gang of Four. Antonioni was rehabilitated by the ''People's Daily'' in 1979.

''Chung Kuo'' was screened publicly for the first time in China in 2004 at the Beijing Film Academy. The film is generally well-regarded by contemporary Chinese audiences for its depictions of a simpler time.

References

Further reading

* Rey Chow, ''China as documentary: Some basic questions (inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni and Jia Zhangke'', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2014, 17, 16–30, doi:10.1177/1367549413501482
* Xin Liu, ''China’s reception of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Chung Kuo'', Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 2014, 2, 1, 23–40, doi:10.1386/jicms.2.1.23 1
* Umberto Eco, ''De Interpretatione, or the Difficulty of Being Marco Polo'', Film Quarterly, 1973, 30, 4, 8–12 doi:10.2307/1211577

External links

*
''Chung Kuo, Cina'' with English subtitles
at YouTube

{{Michelangelo Antonioni

1972 films
1972 documentary films
1970s Italian films
1970s Italian-language films
1970s Mandarin-language films
Documentary films about China
Films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Italian documentary films