Comparative Analysis of two Bethune films and their Reflections on the changing Film Propaganda in...

1Comparative Analysis of two Bethune films

Comparative Analysis of film Doctor Bethune and Bethune: The Making of a

Hero

Zhonghe Zhu

Mao’s China was considered by many scholars as a propaganda

state, which, according to Peter Kenez, was “a state-dominated

polity that coordinates the education of cadres, the development of

a political language, the politicization of ever-larger segments of

life, and the substitution of ‘voluntary’ state-controlled

societies for independent organization” (Kenez, 1985). After Mao’s

death, the propaganda system did not completely die out and still

remained important to the Communist Party. However, the methods and


the focus of propaganda vary over time. The same issue or subject

may be interpreted or portrayed in a different way depending on the

different political situation or the audience it oriented. In this

article, I will do a comparative analysis on two films about Dr.

Bethune, a Canadian physician, who came to China to help fight

against the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese war, and finally died

due to an infection in the surgery. The first film was Doctor Bethune,

which was produced in 1964 in China. The second film: Bethune: The

Making of a Hero, was a multinational production, which was produced

by Canada, France, and China in 1990. There are five parts in this

analysis. In the first part I will talk about the film propaganda


theory and a brief history of film propaganda in China. The second

part is an introduction of Dr. Bethune and the two films. In the

third part I will provide some background information, such as the

time and political situation, and explain the nature of the film.

In the fourth part, I will look into the production constraints,

languages, and image of political figures in these two films and

see how different political situation and nature of the film

influenced them. The last part is the conclusion, in which I will

briefly refer to the current film industry in China.

Part I

Film Propaganda in China


Unlike the European polities where public sphere is independent of

the state: Citizens act as a public when they deal with the

guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and

publicize their opinions freely (Habermas, 1989: 231), Mao’s China,

borrowed and refined from the Soviet methods, controlled art,

ethics and ideas ‘for the good of the people’ (Cheek, 1997: 16).

Film was used by Chinese leaders as one of their best instruments

for propaganda.

In Ars Poetica, Horatius (18 BC) has described the function of a

good poem: “by delighting and at the same time admonishing the

reader”. Films in China also have these two functions. An article


in People’s Daily (China’s No.1 newspaper, which is the most

authoritative and influential national newspaper that spreads the

policy and ideas by the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese

government) on Jan.12, 1954 stated that "Our film is a tool to

educate the people in patriotism and socialism; it is also a major

means to lift people's cultural standards."

In 1950s and 1960s, Chinese people did not have many ways of

entertainment. Watching movies was the major one. There were two

types of access to movies for the Chinese people that time: regular

cinema and mobile film projection teams (Liu, 1971: 162). Cinema

was normally used for the urban areas. For the majority of the


Chinese people that lived in rural areas without any cinema, they

got access to movies by the mobile film projection teams that came

regularly to the county.

The team consisted of two or three persons, often young girls

and came regularly to the county. The team not only brought film

access (by a generator, a 16 mm. projector, a gramophone, and slide

making facilities) to the people, but also helped them to

understand the show. As many people in the rural areas were not

well-educated and could not speak Mandarin, the team explained the

content in dialect during the show. Besides that, there were also a


pre-show propaganda, which helps the audience catch the point of

the film and a collection of opinions after show.

During the Great Leap (1958-1960), Mobile projection teams

"jumped from about 600 in 1949 to about 14500 by the end of 1959"

(Loc.cit). Movie audience, estimated at 50 million in 1949 repeatly

rose to 1.39 billion in 1956 (Renmin Ribao, Feb.22, 1957).

After Great Leap, in 1962, peasants attended an average of three

movies a year. According to the report on August 1, 1965 issue of

Renmin Ribao, the rural film audience in 1964 reached two billion and

one single Chinese peasant attended an average of five movies a

year. A report in the same year stated that in the plains, every


three natural villages now had an easily accessible film showing

site; in the mountainous regions, the area that each site covered

was smaller (Renmin Ribao, Jan.12, 1965).

The second function of the movie is information. As Chinese

population was wide spread in the nation, most films that time then

became a propaganda instrument that carried messages from the party

to the public.

Film is especially useful as a propaganda tool in the time of

limited alternatives for entertainment: as Taylor concluded in his

book FILM PROPAGANDA Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, (1) as a cinema

audience sits in the crowd, he or she will be susceptible to the


emotion of the mass audience, and thus easily absorbed to the mass

rally, which makes him or her be “like putty in the propagandist's

hands”; (2) attracting people from all classes and social groupings

to cinema can “bind the nation together” or “strengthen a national

movement”; (3) when the entire population watch the same movie in

the same time, their thoughts or ideas can be easily controlled or

even unified, especially in the case of limited film resource

(Taylor, 1998: 17).

In order to make sure everyone receives the correct information,

state-owned or local government owned film studios monopolize the

film industry in China. (There were no private film production


companies in China before 2000). In the early years, CCP put huge

restrictions on the production of films, and films were very

propaganda-aimed: film industry must “concentrate all its energies

on producing films of significance to all the masses of the people,

dealing with their life, thoughts, and age-long strivings, with the

insight of a developed revolutionary artistic vision” (Yao, 1951:

11). During Great Leap period, writers were allowed only to praise

Communist heroes and condemn villains (Liu, 1971: 161). All the

films that time dealt with one of the following themes: “the

leading role of the Chinese Communist party; the glorious

accomplishments of the guerrillas in wartime and of the People's


Liberation Army; model workers in production; and the struggle

against ‘feudalism’ and ‘reactionary oppression’” (Yu, 1964: 147).

After the Great Leap, there was a general liberation of the

restrictions on feature films. Xia Yan, Vice Minister of Cultural

Affairs and China's leading spokesman on motion pictures, spoke

about the new mission of China's film industry: “to reflect

speedily the new era and new society- especially the new men, new

morality, and new qualities during this period of socialist

revolution and socialist development- and through all this to

propagate the socialist and Communist ideology." (Renmin Ribao, Sep.

15, 1960) Films in China from 1961 to 1963 became more entertaining


and non-proletarian characters appeared, such as teachers,

merchants, or artists (Liu, 1971: 161).

The rather rosy time for Chinese movie did not last long. In

1966 the Cultural Revolution began. During the decade of

revolution, very few new feature films were produced apart from the

8 Model plays (Yangbanxi).

The winter of Chinese film industry last till end of 1976 when

the Cultural Revolution ended. The end of the Revolution and the

decision on the Third Session of the 11th CPC Meeting to shift the

focus of the work from class struggle to developing productive

forces broke the fetters of “Literature and arts should serve


politics.” (Mao, May 1942) The bans to films that were considered

“poisonous grass” during the revolution were lifted; films were

reshown and from 1979 lots of new movies were produced. Chinese

film industry entered a new era. During the 1980s, about 400 films

were produced. In 1984, film industry was finally turned to form of

corporation, which marked the beginning of the commercial films in

China. As films productions and alternatives for entertainment

increases, though the State Administration of Radio Film and

Television (under the leadership of Propaganda Department) still

holds severe censorship over political sensitive contents in films,


films in China gradually lose its strong propaganda function it had

in Mao’s China.

Part II

Bethune movies

During the Sino-Japanese war, over a thousand foreigners have

come to China and assisted Chinese army against Japanese invaders.

Though the majority was military experts or technical personnel

from Soviet Union, there were still over a hundred of them, who

came from other parts of the western world. They helped to report

the war to the world, provide medical cares, technical support or

directly participate in the actual combats. However, rather few of


the Chinese movies have covered the contribution of these foreign

comrades to China. Only a doctor from Canada has made an exception

in this lack of coverage: Dr. Norman Bethune. The story of Dr.

Bethune was shot into two movies and one TV-series in China: Doctor

Bethune (1964), Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1992), and Norman Bethune

(2006). This huge volume of praise of a man is even exceptional

among all the Chinese movies about war heroes. (There are ten films

or TV-series about Leifeng and three about Yang Jingyu, Wang

Xiaoer, and Sister Jiang.)

Dr. Bethune was a Canadian physician who joined Communist Party

of China’s Eighth Route Army in the midst of the Second-Sino-


Japanese War in 1938. Before coming to China, he had been to Spain

and assisted the Spanish civil war. In China, he worked as a

medical at Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region Military District, performing

battlefield surgical operations as well as establishing training

for doctors and nurses. He contracted septicaemia after cutting his

finger during surgery and died on November 12, 1939.

The major reason why Bethune’s story was so popular in China was

because one month after Dr. Bethune’s death in 1939, Mao Zedong

wrote an article in memory of this foreign martyr for China, in

which he regarded Dr. Bethune as a role model with the spirit of

internationalism and communism, from which every Chinese Communist


must learn. The article was first written in 1939 and was later

selected into Selected Works of Mao Zedong, a book which swept every

Chinese family during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and also

the textbook for primary school.

Doctor Bethune (1964) was the first film about Dr. Bethune and

also the first feature film in People’s Republic of China that

presented a foreign protagonist in a sympathetic light. It was also

the most classic film about Dr. Bethune. Bethune: The Making of a Hero

(1990), on the other hand, was a multinational production by

Canada, China, and France, and was also the first co-production the

People’s Republic of China has ever mounted with the West. Bethune:


The Making of a Hero has won the “Special Prize” of the “Outstanding

Film” awarded by the department of radio film and television in

China, and was chosen as the film dedicated to 70 anniversary of

the founding of CCP.

Part III

1964 and 1987

The first Bethune film was produced in 1964. Two years before

the shooting, on the Third Session of the 8th CPC Meeting in

September 1962, Mao proposed that class struggle, struggle between

the bourgeois and proletariat, should be the central task of the

party and the state. This task remained as the focus of work till


the Third Session of the 11th CPC Meeting in 1978. In the process of

class struggle, according to Marxism, the state will become a

dictatorship of the proletariat. The bourgeois western world was

then considered as the ideological enemy by that time. Among them,

partly due to the Korean War in early 1950s, the United States was

perceived by the Chinese as the primary security threat and the

most sinister Western power. Nothing related to the U.S. was

perceived as positive. (Wang, 2005)

By 1987, when the second film was produced, due to the

establishment of China-U.S. diplomatic relations in 1979,

denunciation of the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong on the


Sixth Session of the 11th CPC Meeting in June 1981, the Sino-U.S.

strategic coordination against the Soviet bloc, and the Opening and

Reform policy by Deng Xiaoping, positive images about the U.S.

began to emerge among Chinese population. Though the focus of work

was shifted from class struggle to development of the productive

forces on the Third Session of the 8th CPC Meeting in December 1978,

Bourgeois liberalization was still combatted. The anti-liberalization

movement in late 1986 and 1987 caused the resignation of Hu

Yaobang, General Secretary of the Communist Party that time, and

other liberal reformists, which later influenced the breakout of

Tiananmen Protest in 1989.


Nature of the Film

The Bethune film in 1964 was made only for the domestic

audience. The film was supposed to be shown to all Chinese people

through cinemas and mobile project teams. And there were not many

competitions for the films. Therefore, the biggest or even the only

concern for the film in 1964 was that the message sent by this film

should be clear and correct. For the second film, however, there

were domestic and international audiences. And the film market was

more competitive. Unlike the first film that enjoyed monopoly, this

multinational produced film was a commercial film and supposed to

make money (at least for the Canadian). So the production team also


needed to worry about how to attract the audience. A film with too

many propaganda messages or approaches would not help gather a lot

of western audiences in the cold war period. Moreover, as a

multinational production, different parties need to care about each

other’s interests. Therefore, Chinese side could not manipulate the

film as its propaganda tool as easy as it did to the first film.

Part IV

Production

As Doctor Bethune (1964) was taken more seriously as propaganda

instrument to domestic audience, it also encountered more

constrains in production.


Doctor Bethune. The film presented Dr. Bethune’s experience in

China, starting from his first arrival to Jin-Cha-Ji to his death

in China. All the scenes were shot in China. The film was finished

in 1964, but it was not allowed to show to public till 1977 after

Cultural Revolution.

There are two explanations for this ban. First explanation is

that the production of the film has challenged Chairman Mao.

“Chairman Mao has written an article about Dr. Bethune. What do you

want? The movie should not beyond the evaluation of Bethune by

Chairman Mao.”, commented Jiang Qing, Chief of the film division of

the propaganda department. Gao Zheng, a famous actor and director,


even wrote a Big-Character poster to question the motive of this

film: “Chairman Mao has written In Memory of Bethune. Making this film

is to challenge Chairman Mao.” (dianying chuanqi: baiqiuen daifu zhi

buyuanwanli, 2005)

Second explanation was that the theme and the image were

inappropriate to the strong anti-Imperialism environment that time.

Though the film was produced a decade after the Korean War, anti-

Imperialism, especially the xenophobia against the U.S. was still

used by Chinese leaders to promote domestic mobilization. (Chen,

2001) The “White World” being depicted as China’s antagonist,

portrayal of foreigner with a white person should be very cautious


(Leyda, 1993). Required by the party leader to have someone with a

“progressive mind” to play the role of Bethune (Lü, 2011: 21), the

production team found Gerald Tannebaum, an American, who was also

the executive director of Chinese Welfare Association in China.

Though not a professional actor, Tannebaum well presented a heroic

Bethune on the screen.

Moreover, all the scenes in film Doctor Bethune had to be shot in

China. Though Zhang insisted that the film should contain story of

Bethune before he came to China, “without which” as he said in an

article over a decade later, “the viewers could not know how deep

the hatred Bethune had to Fascism, so they could not understand


certain behaviors he did.”, Zhang was told to cut the part overseas

because “it is hard to shoot the part overseas now”, as told by Xia

Yan, director of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture ((Lü, 2011:

21).

Nonetheless, after so many restrictions on the film, Propaganda

Bureau still did not allow the film to be shown to the public after

its production in 1964: A positive Canadian-American face and

character was bad for the xenophobic Chinese people, even if it was

Bethune, a beloved war hero by Chairman Mao (Leyda, 1993).

Bethune: The Making of a Hero


Xenophobia no longer being emphasized, under the opening and

reform policy, Chinese film studios seeked for an international

cooperation. A film about Bethune with Canadian film company was

one of the best choices that time. Bethune: The Making of a Hero, as a

multinational production, had an international cast from Canada,

France, and China. Dr. Bethune was played by Donald Sutherland, a

well-known Canadian actor, who had played Bethune before in two

smaller television productions in Canada, while all the Chinese

roles in the scene were played by actors or actress from China. The

film contained scenes in Canada (before Bethune came to China) and

China, and the shooting in these two countries were separate. The


production team began its shooting in China in mid-1987 and it took

three years till the film was first shown on the Montreal Film

festival.

Language

Kim Jong Il has said “in order to write comprehensive song

texts… the words of opera songs must be succinct and simple and, at

the same time, meaningful.” (Kim, 1974) For propaganda, the message

and narrative should be clear and simple so that it can easy to

grasp. However, if a film was intended to be regarded as a good

film (in order to attract audience or contest for award), the

technology and narrative should be more advanced. In these two


films, we can see how they used different approaches to reach these

two contrary goals.

Doctor Bethune. As the first movie with foreign actors playing

big roles in the New China, Doctor Bethune was special when dealing

with conversations in foreign languages. Most Chinese movies with

foreign performers later, including the Bethune movie in 1990,

either dubbed the original conversations in into Chinese, or uses

subtitles to explain what the conversation was about. In movie

Doctor Bethune, however, as Dr. Bethune mostly spoke to others in

English during his early day (years) in China, interpreter Tong

(played by Ying Ruocheng, son of Ying Qianli, who was considered as


the best English-speaker in China) interpreted every word Bethune

said in the film, just like in the real life. The viewer listened

to English by Bethune first and then the translation from Tong. By

that time, there was a big population in China who was illiterate

and could not read subtitles. This treatment to the dialogue not

only made everyone feel like in the real world, but also made it

easier for the viewers to understand them.

Bethune: The Making of a Hero. As the 1990 film contained scenes

overseas (impossible to have interpreter aside), all the

conversations in English were dubbed in Chinese cinemas. Moreover,

the director used a more complicated narrative way. The movie had


two story lines in contrast to the former Bethune movie, which only

had one story line, and mingled the two lines together. The scene

may jump suddenly from Bethune’s doctor days in China to his

personal life in Canada two year, which makes the story less

coherent and harder to understand.

The Image of Bethune

In all films about heroes in 1950s and 1960s in China, the hero

was portrayed as a perfect role model for all the people to learn

from and follow. In the hero movies in the western world

(especially Hollywood), however, the heroes are more like Odysseus

and we may also see the imperfect side or the human side of these


heroes: the cocky Tony Stark, the angry Hulk… In the two Bethune

films with scripts written by a Chinese and a Canadian, we may see

the difference in portraying a hero.

Doctor Bethune. The film was based on the novel Doctor Bethune

from Zhou Erfu and adapted by director Zhang Junxiang. The

character Bethune in the film was almost like a saint. He was

selfless- he risked his life to save more soldiers; humanitarian-

he came all the way to China to help the Chinese; clever- he

invented medical equipment with local materials at the battlefield

modest; and modest – he admitted he was a student to the Chinese

people. This image of Bethune, just like all the other hero films


that time, was flawless and was very much in accord with the image

from Mao’s eulogy about him.

Bethune: The Making of a Hero. In this film, Bethune’s image in

China was almost as perfect. However, Ted Allan, the screenwriter,

also revealed Bethune’s miserable personal life in Canada and

depicted Bethune as a complex human with flaws rather than a saint-

like hero in this movie. Allan, as the co-author of Bethune's

biography, The Scalpel, The Sword used to be a friend of Norman Bethune

and has worked with him against fascism in Spanish Civil War. In

his film, Bethune was not only a hero in China, but also a troubled

individual with drinking and womanizing problems. As for the title


“Hero”, just like what Brian D. Johnson commented in Maclean’s

magazine: “He is a hero for what he does rather than what he is”

(Johnson, 1990)

Canada, as the biggest investor of the film, did the final cut

for the film festival and the cinemas in Canada and the U.S., while

Chinese side also reedited the film for its domestic consumption,

snipping depictions of Dr. Bethune’s bourgeois background, his

drunkenness and womanizing (Patterson, 1990).

The Image of Mao

The film Doctor Bethune began with a part of the eulogy written by

Mao: “Comrade Norman Bethune…What kind of spirit is this that makes


a foreigner selflessly adopt the cause of the Chinese people's

liberation as his own? It is the spirit of internationalism, the

spirit of communism, from which every Chinese Communist must

learn.” (Mao, 1939) However, there was no face or voice of Mao

shown in the 1964 film afterwards, while in the multinational film

in 1989 we could see Mao’s face and hear his greeting to Dr.

Bethune:

“You have a long journey.” Mao spoke with a Hunan dialect.

“Your long march is really a long journey, long, difficult and

great.” Bethune replied in English.


The similar greeting in the 1964 film was sent by General Nie

Rongzhen to Dr. Bethune in the form of a note.

Mao’s live image never appeared on the screen before 1978. The

reason for that was the apotheosizaton of Mao. East is Red, one of the

most popular songs in 1960s in China, even compared Mao to the sun:

“East is red; the sun rose, China out of Mao Zedong.” No one dare

to be the second sun. Only after the death of Mao and end of the

Cultural Revolution, did Mao’s image begin to show on stage and

screen (stage, 1976; film, 1978). By the end of the 1980 and

beginning of the 1990, the “de-apotheosization” of Mao spread

widely in China. This was triggered by the release of book Mao


Zedong off the Altar by Li Yinqiao, former commander of Mao’s bodyguard.

In this book, descriptions of Mao’s daily life appeared for the

first time. Since then, Mao’s image appeared more often on the

screen. The power of charisma also shifted more fully to the party.

The Image of the Communist Party

The image of the Communist Party was demonstrated by the Eighth

Route Army, which was one of the two corps that fought in the Sino-

Japanese war (the other one is the New Fourth Army). As both films

carried the mission to sell good image of the Communist Party to

the audience, they shared similarities in trying to convince the

audience that the reason why Bethune was so selflessly devoted to


Chinese people was that he was influenced by other party members

around him. The major role model was Dr. Fong.

Dr. Fong was a medical student of Dr. Bethune. He was

hardworking and eager to learn. One interesting plot in the 1964

film about Dr. Fong’s diligence was that one night Dr. Bethune came

to Dr. Fong’s place, told Fong it was so late that he should rest,

and turned off Fong’s lamp. However, after Dr. Bethune left for

sleep, Fong lit up the lamp again and continued to study. Dr.

Fong’s role was even more important in the 1987 film, in which Fong

was depicted as a moral teacher of Dr. Bethune. Peter Goddard,

critic from the Toronto Star, believed that the relationship


between Dr. Fong, the self-taught Chinese doctor, and Bethune

should be the core of the movie: Bethune discovered his own humility by facing

the very man, Dr. Fong (Goddard, 1990).

Chinese production team emphasized the influence of the

communist party on Dr. Bethune for three reasons. First, it could

increase patriotism of the viewers. At 88 minutes of the first

movie, a Chinese doctor told Bethune and others to leave because

the enemy was approaching. “You guys please leave. I will stay to

finish the operation.” He said. “Why?” Bethune asked. “Because I am

a communist party member.” The Chinese doctor replied. “Me too.”

Bethune said. This firm answer together with Tannebaum’s Canadian-


American face even strengthened the audience’s view: if a foreigner

can love China and support Chinese revolution, I as a Chinese

should be even more patriotic to my own country, more devoted to my

people and more loyal to the party. Second, it glorified Party’s

image. Rather than seeing an ordinary person turning to a hero,

what we see here is how a foreigner gradually became part of the

Chinese people and a member of the Eighth Route Army: from eating

chicken on the first day to eating only potatoes together with

Chinese soldiers every day, from only speaking English to making

some Chinese dialogues, from coming to support the war to finally

admitting that he was a party member. As Bethune finally died


because of infection, what we saw was not only the sacrifice of a

war hero, but also the sacrifice of a glorious party member. Third,

the positive portrayal of CCP showed the superiority of China to

other western countries or the superiority of CCP to other parties,

such as KMT. In the 1960 film, at the farewell ceremony, Bethune

claimed that he was the student of the Eighth Route Army: “From

you, from the soldier of Eighth Route Army, from the people of the

Jin-Cha-Ji, I've learned much more. From you, I've learned how to

be a real revolutionary fighter of the people.” This address by Dr.

Bethune was not covered in the second film, but instead we saw an

image of KMT in it, which was not contained in the first film. At


12 minutes of the film, there is a scene that while Eighth Route

Army was giving out money, Kuomingtang was publicly executing a guy

who was charged of stealing the grain. In reality, as CCP member

explained to Dr. Bethune, the guy had only hid the grain and would

not give to the national army. Moreover, there was also a line in

the second movie, which said that the army of Kuomingtang party was

defeated, only communist army could fight against the Japanese.

The reason for the different coverage of KMT and relationship

between CCP and Bethune is that the audience of the film was

different. Therefore, the framing object and the goal of the film

were different. For the film Doctor Bethune, domestic public was the


sole audience of the film. By the time it was produced, the major

enemy that was conceptualized for domestic mobilization was not

Kuomingtang, but western imperialism. At that time, KMT has already

fled to Taiwan. The military liberation (jiefang) of Taiwan was not

the priority that time, but class struggle. After the anti-Rightist

movement from 1957 to 1959, China’s politic became very left

deviated. This explained why in the 1964 film, Bethune’s joining of

CCP was depicted as a victory of communist Chinese over the

bourgeois Canadian. In comparison to that, by 1987 when the

production of the second film about Bethune started, class struggle

was no longer considered as the central task. Anti-U.S. movement


was no longer used as often as in Mao’s China for domestic

mobilization. Moreover, the 1989 film, as a multinational

production, had a mission to sell a good image of China and CCP to

the world. We then saw more about a tough, united Eighth Route Army

and friendly CCP, which was beloved by the people (by comparing

with KMT).

Conclusion

Doctor Bethune can, in many aspects, represent the film during the

1950s and 1960s. In that time, films in China had an important

function of propaganda to the domestic audience. So did this film

about Bethune, which was produced in 1964. Just like other films


about war hero during that time: Bethune was depicted as saint-like

hero with a tragic end. Seeing only and all the good part of a hero

and feeling sympathetic of him, the audience may then be easily to

be educated to share the same value of the party. Moreover, in

order to enable everyone to understand this film, the film has a

very simple structure, narrative, and language. Besides that, we

can also see a lot of political mass persuasion, such as Mao’s

authority (the tribute of Bethune found its origin in Mao’s eulogy)

and the shining image of CCP. The mission of propaganda set a lot

of boundaries to this film. Even though the production team managed

to finish it under a lot of production constrains, the film was


still banned for the public till the end of the Cultural

Revolution, just because a positive portrayal of a Canadian doctor

contradicted the anti-imperialism and xenophobic movement that

time. Political correctness came first.

Bethune: the Making of a Hero, on the other hand, also had a

propaganda function. Rather than only focusing on the domestic

audience, the second Bethune film, which was produced over three

decades after the first one, carried a new mission of polishing the

image of Chinese Communist Party overseas. However, the change of

political situation in China, the different nature of the film: a

multinational commercial film, different perspectives from foreign


director and screenwriter, and Chinese loss of complete control of

the film due to the limitation of the multinational production made

this film different from the first one in many ways. “Politics

comes first” giving way to money matters, the film was more

complicated in narratives, more advanced in technologies and had a

more humanlike portrayal of the Chinese war hero, which more

catered to the taste of western audience. However, this adjustment,

perturbing the Chinese in some ways, still did not successfully

attract the political sensitive audiences in Canada and the United

States to watch a film about a Canadian communist in China.

Bethune’s admitting he was red in the movie and the song Internationale


at the end did not help at all to attract the western public to

watch a film with Chinese propaganda intention in the late cold war

time and, to make matters worse, less than one year after the

Tiananmen protest.

With the rising production of films and alternatives for

entertainment, films in the 21st century can no longer be as

important as the propaganda instrument in Mao’s China. Propaganda

Department is less powerful in setting the agenda for the public by

showing them what they should see in the film, but it still have

the right to decide what the public should NOT see by the

censorship. Yet, with the development of internet and spread of


piracy DVD, Propaganda Department even has started losing its power

to say no.

Propaganda film cannot forbid a film to be shown overseas.

Recent years there were a lot of films that could not pass the

national censorship contended for or even won the movie award in

some international festivals. Ironically, it seemed that these

“forbidden films”, many of which contained political sensitive

contents, built the image of China overseas.


References

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