Iglesia de Santa María del Castillo de Badajoz

Chu T'ien-wen had been reluctant at first to jo in the film industry, she felt th at an intellectual should not descend into the soiling b u sin ess o f m oney­ making. Another reason was that the films that the industry h ad been producing w ere not artistically innovative or intellectually challenging.5

H ow ever, p ro sp e rity was in creasin g , and th e so c ia l and c u ltu ra l atmosphere was becoming more relaxed, and as part o f the debate on Taiwanese identity which perm eated the political atmosphere, the governm ent becam e active in the film industry.6 In 1979 the Golden Horse Prize for films produced in Taiwan

5. In 1978, for example, about seventy percent of the films shown in Taiwan were of three kinds, firstly, sensational entertainment martial arts films (kung-fu), secondly, melodramas, and thirdly, ideological films featuring anti-Communist, anti-Japanese, or military propaganda stories. Film was treated as either simple entertainment or as propaganda, and was not regarded as an artistic or cultural medium. Although there were some films of artistic value, they were a small minority. See Chung-huct min-kuo tien- yingnien-chien (The Year Record o f ROC's Films) (Taipei: ROC tien-ying fa-chan chi-

chin hui, 1979), p. 7.

6. In the 1980s, Taiwan began a long period of rapid and sustained economic growth that provided the financial base for development. The actual course that the political and social change accompanying the increase in prosperity would take was profoundly influenced by the state of diplomatic relations with the USA. Thus, at a time when Taiwan — government and people — felt increasingly beleaguered in a hostile diplomatic environment, the country (in reality) or Chinese province (formally) had an increasing capacity to undertake export-led expansion. The new rising middle-class capitalists needed to retain the ability to develop overseas outlets for their enterprises, and the workers and farmers wanted to share in the new prosperity, and both groups

was introduced; and a Campus Film Festival was set up to show local films free o f charge to young audiences on campus; the National Film Library was set up in 1983; and film was classified by law as a "cultural enterprise."7 In the hope o f keeping a balance betw een artistic and commercial values, the "C entral C hina Film Company" started to encourage young intellectuals to participate in film making. The company used four young film makers, who collectively produced In Our Time ((Kuang-yin te ku-shih, 1982) which traced four decades o f Taiwan's

post-w ar socio-econom ic change through the stories o f four individuals, thus starting a new path for Taiwanese cinema. These four were, directors Tao Ter- ch'en, Yang Te-ch'ang, K'e Yi-cheng, and script writer W u Nien-chen,

The team work o f In Our Time set the pattern for the developm ent o f the N ew Cinem a: the new directors and w riters w orked co llectiv ely ; the basic concept was to reflect in their films their own experiences o f living in Taiwan, so as to reveal the truth, as they saw it, underlying the events o f the past thirty years; and to counterbalance the low quality comm ercial and propaganda films being produced by the existing industry.8 In this way, they attem pted to realise a

exerted pressure for the political change that economic prosperity brings. The new regime with the installation of Chiang Ching-kuo as President in succession to his father, found a new flexibility to enable it to make a positive response to the requirement for a less authoritarian style of government, and more openness on social and cultural matters. For a detailed discussion on the period of Chiang Ching-kuo, see Tai Kuo-hui, Taiwan tsung- t'i hsiang (Taiwan Face On) (Taipei: Yuan-liu, 1989).

7. Sha Jung-feng, Pin-fen tien-yingssu-shih ch'un (The Forty Glorious Years of Films) (Taipei: Kuo-chia tien-ying tu-shu-kuan, 1994), p. 137.

8. Wu Cheng-huan, "Taiwan T'ien-ying wen-hua ho liang-chung tien-ying kuan"(Taiwan Film Culture and Two Concepts), in Tang-tai hua-yu tien-ying lun-shu (The Discourse of the Contemporary Chinese Film) ed. Li T'ien-to (Taipei: Shih-pao ch'u-pan-she, 1996), p. 23.

vision which would reflect the social and geographic character o f Taiwan itself, and improve the aesthetic quality o f films made in Taiwan,

For the previous forty years, foreign films, m ostly A m erican and British had dom inated the industry, and had becom e the target for production values and professionalism to w hich the local industry w ould aspire. It w as, thus, through the birth o f the "Taiwanese New Cinema" that Taiw an was enabled to find its own voice in the period following the N ativist literary m ovem ent o f the 1970s.9 The N ativist literary works o f W ang Chen-ho and H uang Ch'un-ming were adapted into films by the new directors and reached a w ider audience.

Moreover, m ost o f the New Cinema young script writers and directors had been bom in Taiwan after 1949, had not experienced the turbulent tim es o f the W ar o f Resistance and civil war, and had grown up in a period o f rapid social and econom ic improvement. These new directors/script w riters created neo-nativist stories about both the countryside and the city, derived from th eir personal ex p erien ces. These w orks w ere g enerally w elcom ed by the critic s both artistically, and for their more socially realistic themes.

Before The Story o f Hsiao-Pi, both Hou and Ch'en K un-hou had already had experience o f working in the film industry, their cooperation h ad already produced seven successful films about country life in Taiw an. In critic Chan H ung-chih's opinion, H ou and Ch'en had a vision o f a specifically Taiw anese culture, and had achieved high artistic standards even b efo re th ey becam e know n for their work in New C inem a.10 Initially w orking w ith H ou and Ch'en,

9 While some o f the major Nativist writers, such as Wang T'o were in prison because of a political incident in 1978 (Formosa Incident, Mei-li-tao shih-chien) the New Cinema young writers and directors continued the promotion of Nativism.

10. Ch'en had been the cameraman for senior director Li Hsing's important works Home Town People (Yuan-hsiang jen) Story o f Small City (Hsiao-ch'eng ku-shih) and A

Single Boat in the Stormy Sea (Wang-yang chung te yi-t'iao ch'uan), whereas Hou Hsiao-

Chu found that the film business was not necessarily solely concerned with m oney making, and that it could also be creatively inspiring. Chu was deeply moved by Hou and Ch'en's films such as Cute as the F lying B utterfly (Ch'iao ju ts'ai-tie fei fei fei) and The Green, Green Grass (Ts'ai na h o -p 'an ch'ing-ts'ao ch'ing), for their affectionate depiction o f simple human relationships.

H ou and C h'en's approach to the T aiw anese co u n try sid e show s an innocent rural life, radically different from Chu T'ien-wen's serious depiction o f the pastoral fam ily as the basic social unit o f the state. In an essay, Chu described the revelation o f watching Cute as the F lying B utterfly:

I laughed throughout the film. Especially, when I looked at this film from a screen writer's point of view, I was very surprised that a screen play could be w ritten in such way, I then realised what H siao-hsien m eant when he talked about the pace and (dynamic tension of) breath o f a screen play.11

Chu T'ien-wen's early interest in the Chinese lyrical tradition found a new field as she delighted in "bright," "healthy," and "real" film s about the co u n try sid e.12 She herself later wrote film scripts laying heavy stress on childhood m em ories o f her grandparents' rural village.

hsien was a screen writer for Lai Ch'en-ying's Autumn Lotus (Ch'iu-lien) and Li Hsing's Good Morning, Taipei (Tsao-an, Taipei). See Chan Hung-chih, "Taiwan hsin-tien-ying te lai-lu yti ch'ti-lu" (The Origin and Future of Taiwanese New Cinema) in Taiwan hsin-tien- ying (Taiwanese New Cinema), ed. Chiao Hsiung-p'ing (Taipei: Shih-pao wen-hua, 1990),

pp. 37-38.

11. See Chu T'ien-wen's essay "Wo-men te An-an", TYHSC, p. 30. 12. Ibid., p. 31.

Yet, in Chu’s own mind, she had not abandoned her T hree-T hree ideas, considering that a good film, like good prose could surpass sim ple enjoym ent and generate in the audience a lasting positive feeling towards life:

This world is im perfect and sick, but why doesn't the w riter act like a Goddess who spreads flowers, and take the responsibility o f m aking this large sick room into a temple o f creation. . . . 13

Chu T'ien-wen believed that, in her work with the director Hou, she was fulfilling h er m ission to create serious writing, and that her co n trib u tio n continued the propagation o f her ideal o f the shih, ju st as she had when the T hree-Three group was active. She hoped that the team would "work for the future o f Chinese film."14

By 1983, Chu T'ien-wen's ambition was still to educate the nation's young elite, which because o f the campus romance appeal o f her stories, had been more o f a slogan than an achievable target. But, with her move into the film industry she focused on a more practical aim. To work successfully in film , she would have to w ork as p art o f a team o f people from different social backgrounds. Furtherm ore, since films are usually m ade for the general public, h er w riting w ould have to be designed to appeal to a general audience, and n o t for the education o f an intellectual elite. Her success in h elp in g to p ro d u ce "good" film s, w hich could be com m ercially viable, is evidenced by the enthusiastic reception the films received. During 1982-1989, Hou's team produced eight films, alm ost every one winning national or international prizes.

13. Ibid., p. 31. 14. Ibid., p. 33.

How ever, from 1984, Taiw an’s film s had been in com petition against m ainland Chinese film s at various film festivals. In 1986, at an international festival held in N ew York, the Taiwan fam ily drama, S u m m er at G randpa's suffered by com parison with the politically oriented m ainland C hinese film Yellow E arth, causing Chu to react strongly:

Because we grew up in Taiwan, we immediately felt strongly that Taiwan could not afford to lose the artistic battle with m ainland China. Such feelings may not be felt by people from the m ainland, H ong K ong or by overseas Chinese. . . but to us, it was very personal.15

This is the first sign o f Chu identifying herself with Taiw an rather than the m otherland. It adds a reassuring personal touch to our p ictu re o f a refined, intellectual aspirant sh ih that the challenge to her intellectual and professional competence led to such a rapid re-adjustment o f her loyalties.

T h e e x te n t o f C hu T 'ie n -w e n ’s in v o lv e m en t w ith th e n a tiv istic interpretation o f Taiw anese society and culture can be seen th ro u g h the film stories she wrote. Chu T'ien-wen's Film Stories (Chu T 'ien-w en tien-ying hsiao- shuo chi, 1990) consists o f six stories horn the period 1982-1987. The first four stories were original prose, later converted into film scripts; the last tw o stories w ere originally w ritten in script form and converted by h er into prose for this volume. Obviously, the film versions o f all six represent the final result o f a team effort, especially that o f the director. However, since she rev ised those stories for publication, the prose versions o f all six can equally be credited solely to Chu, and discussed as representing her views. A lthough C hu's o th er film scripts

(chii-pen) published after this collection are better known internationally;16 since they were not published as her own works, it is hard to claim them solely for her, although her contribution would have been considerable. Chu w ould have more control o f her film stories when published as her own written work. The last film story in this collection "Daughter o f the N ile" (N i-luo ho n u -erh) was also published in Chu's next collection o f short stories Splendour o f the E n d o f the C entury, 1990.

T he film stories are discussed below in ch ro n o lo g ical order. It is notew orthy that, with the exception o f an "Independent W om an," the plots and characterisations I shall discuss show a steady progression from the traditional m ainland m orality o f "The Story o f Hsiao-Pi," through the Taiw anese influence o f "Summer at Grandpa's," the problems o f teenagers coming to adulthood in an expanding city in "Boys from Fengkuei," the dysfunctional city fam ily o f "A Time to Live and A Time to Die," and finally, the alienated young w om an o f "Daughter o f the Nile." The striking progression o f increasing som bem ess in the stories, is probably due to her increasing concern at the effects o f m odernisation and Nativism combined on Taiwan society. "The M ost M em orable Season" was w ritten to a comm ercial brief, and, probably for that reason does not fit this pattern o f development.

16. For instance, Pei-ch'ing ch'eng-shih (City o f Sadness 1989) won The Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival (1989), becoming the first Chinese film to capture this

prestigious award.