Changing Times: Living Through History in Chen Kaiges Farewell, my Concubine

---- Make a historical analysis of the film Farewell my Concubine (1992)

Chen Kaiges Farewell, My Concubine renders the complex, tumultuous historical events
of twentieth century China on an epic, yet intimate and personal scale. Chen foregrounds his
cast, centered on the love triangle among two Peking Opera performers and a prostitute, against a
backdrop of dramatic and changing historical circumstances in China. The events depicted
include the end of the Warlord period, the Sino-Japanese War and the period of Japanese
Occupation of China, the post-war reconsolidation of the Nationalist Government, the
Communist takeover, Cultural Revolution and the later post-Mao period. In this regard, Chens
film should be seen as both representative and influential within modern (Fifth and Sixth
Generation) Chinese cinema, in which the narrative strategy of contrasting the small- and largescale, with the former emphasized, has become quite common. 1 In addition to this innovative
narrative framework, Chen also showcases a number of formal techniques, such as reliance upon
medium shots and relatively few edits. More importantly, the film uses this approach as a means
of commenting upon the currents of change in twentieth-century China. The formal elements of
Chens aesthetic are seamlessly married to masterful storytelling, as Farewell makes the
political, personal in terms that are intensely tragic yet relatable on a normal human scale.
The case of the two main male characters demonstrates how one could be uninvolved with the
political events of his day, resistant or sometimes willfully oblivious to those developments. And
yet, at the same time, they are nevertheless affected by those changes on an intimate level, for
1 See, for example, Jia Zhang-kes Platform (2002), which picks up nearly where Farewell leaves off,
details the rapidly changing conditions affecting a dance troupe in the 1980s as China embarked on Deng
Xiaopings market reforms and embraced aspects of capitalism.
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better or for worse. As film theorist Ben Xu has argued with regard to Farewell, official history
in China inevitably neglects the manner in which the ordinary field of experience is
interconnected and interdependent on the broader strokes of historical change. 2 This
understanding of history, as an objective and transparent given is boldly countered by the
inextricability of the everyday and the larger socio-political forces in Chens narrative. 3 Xu aptly
observes that before the emergence of the Fifth Generation films, almost all Chinese films, as
government-sponsored projects of mass-education and propaganda, were enlisted to function as
footnotes to official historiography about Chinas ascent to socialism and party power 4 It is
worth noting that, in stark contrast to the state-sponsored films referred to by Xu, Farewell was
banned twice in Mainland China upon its release in 1993. One of the most significant reasons for
this banning of the film was the films depiction of the Cultural Revolution; only four years
removed from the Tiananmen Square incident.5
It is in the year 1977, immediately following the Cultural Revolution that Chens film
opens. The opera performers, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi),
are reunited on-stage after seemingly, a long period of separation. With the scene set in the postMao era, a voice assures the performers that everything is all right now. As we shall soon see,
these characters had a complicated personal/professional relationship spanning 52 years and
2 Ben Xu, Farewell my concubine and its Nativist critics Quarterly Review of Film and Video 16.2
(1997), p. 158.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Hal Hinson, Farewell My Concubine, Washington Post, 27 October 1993,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/movies/videos/farewellmyconcubinerhinson_a0a889.htm (accessed 8 February 2013)
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numerous profound changes in China. Beginning with their fateful meeting as children during
the waning period of the Post-Qing Warlord Era, Dieyi and Xiaolou develop a bond that will
be tested and deepened in the decades that would follow. Duan Xiaolou may be seen to represent
the common man in China; he seeks to avoid challenging the status-quo, and when necessary, he
will take pragmatic action as a means to protect himself. This is shown by his actions at the
struggle session during the Cultural Revolution where he denounced Dieyi as a traitor who
performed for the Japanese during the War and his wife, Juxian as a prostitute. The fact that
Xiaolou betrays the two people closest to him speaks less to his being a treacherous individual,
and more to his relative helplessness to the unfolding political circumstances and his will to
survive these violent winds of change. On the other hand, Cheng Dieyi, the more sensitive and
mercurial of the pair, was profoundly incompatible with the rapidly changing cultural and
political climate of early twentieth century China. In the unfortunate manner that Dieyis life
played out, he was very much a relic of an earlier age. He is the Concubine to whom Xiaolous
King Xiang Yu of Chu, as well as modern China itself, is bidding a dismissive, if untidy,
farewell, as Dieyi struggles to adapt and cope with the changes taking shape around him.
The viewer is able to sympathize with both men, while also feeling the weight of those
changes to Chinese society. This is due in large part to the eloquence of Chengs cinematic style.
Rather than frequent Hollywood-style editing, Chen relies more on camera movement in order to
minimize cuts within sequences of the film, thus lending Farewell and its representation of
history a sense of fluidity and space for audience involvement that a choppier, more vigorously
edited work would lack.6 Also, Chens clear preference for medium-distance shots, as opposed to
6 For example, a randomly selected two-minute sequence from Farewell my Concubine contained only
six cuts. By contrast, a representative Hollywood film (in this case, Inception) contained twenty two
within the same time span.
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an abundance of close-ups, allows the viewer to situate the main characters within the broader
context of Chinese society, rather than isolating them as purely exceptional individuals. When
Chen does use a close-up composition, as in the final scene where Dieyi commits suicide, it is all
the more impactful due to his formal restraint in using such shots. The reaction shot of Xiaolou is
a long-held close-up that enables the viewer to empathetically consider the ambivalent stream of
his emotions and the ambiguous implications of this closing scene for Chens historical allegory.
Although other filmmakers, like Chens contemporary Hou Hsiao-hsien and Sixth-Generation
film-maker Jia Zhangke have taken these formal techniques to greater extremes 7, Chens use of
such strategies in his Palm dOr-winning work was a key marker of the style that would define
Chinese cinema from the 1990s on.8 Specifically, Farewell demonstrated the ideal applicability
of this style of filmmaking to this sort of reconsideration of Chinas social and political history.
The Cultural Revolution, viewed through the lens of its aftermath, was a period of
profound trauma, irrevocably severing many of the links between Chinas past and its
contemporary period. Scholar Helen Leung, in her monograph on Farewell, identifies as the
Cultural Revolutions central impulse, the notion that old things are to be destroyed, anything
associated with Old China, from physical objects to ideas to people.9 The Peking Opera and its
performer characters in the film embody precisely the kind of pre-Communist culture that the

7 Tony Rayns, Currency | I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke. China), Cinema Scope, http://cinemascope.com/currency/currency-i-wish-i-knew-jia-zhangke-china/ (accessed 8 February 2013)
8 On the formal style that would define millennial Chinese cinema, see: Jason McGrath, The New
Formalism: Mainland Chinese Cinema at the Turn of the Century, in Chinas Literary and Cultural
Scenes at the Turn of the 21st century, edited by Jie Lu (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 207-221.
9 Helen Leung, Farewell My Concubine A Queer Film Classic (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010),
p. 34.
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extremes of Maoism sought to eradicate. This is vividly illustrated by a scene where alleged
counter-revolutionaries affiliated with the opera, such as Master Yuan Shiqing, were purged by
the party officials. However, as Chen shows, the past in China can never be fully or cleanly
destroyed, despite the efforts of some; instead, the film shows how the effects of historical
change linger on like ghosts haunting the present moment. The scars worn by people like
Xiaolou and Dieyi may heal but do not vanish over time. These characters did not live the grand
narrative of modern Chinese historythey were not revolutionary or political figures in-step
with the elements of change but they lived through it. Chen masterfully demonstrates how this
kind of intimate experience of historical change is deeply felt by all involved.

Bibliography
Hinson, Hal. Farewell My Concubine. Washington Post, 27 October, 1993. Accessed 8
February 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/movies/videos/farewellmyconcubinerhinson_a0a889.htm
Leung, Helen Hok-Sze. Farewell My Concubine A Queer Film Classic Vancouver: Arsenal
Pulp Press (2010) Print.
McGrath, Jason. The New Formalism: Mainland Chinese Cinema at the Turn of the Century.
in Chinas Literary and Cultural Scenes at the Turn of the 21st Century, edited by Jie Lu
(London, Routledge, 2008). Available online at:
http://www.academia.edu/601814/The_New_Formalism_Mainland_Chinese_Cinema_at_
the_Turn_of_the_Century
Rayns, Tom. Currency | I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke. China). Cinema Scope. Accessed
8February 2013.
http://cinema-scope.com/currency/currency-i-wish-i-knew-jia-zhangke- china/
Xu, Ben. Farewell my concubine and its Nativist critics. Quarterly Review of Film and Video
16.2 (1997): 155-170, doi: 10.1080/10509209709361459.
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