The Soft Film Manifesto

Xu Lai, the first Chinese actress to do a bathtub scene (ca. 1932)

Some of you may have wondered what the title of my blog means. It's inspired by a schism in Chinese film criticism that took place in mid-1930s Shanghai. On one side of the ring were the advocates of "soft film", modernist artists and writers who believed in a cinema of attractions ("ice cream for the eyes and a sofa for the soul"). On the other side were the proponents of "hard film", left-wing intellectuals who wanted to use movies as a political tool to educate and mobilize the masses.

In the essay "Hard Film versus Soft Film" (published in the December 1933 issue of Modern Screen), Huang Jiabo bemoaned the fact that Chinese cinema was being "starched" by ideological interests and drained of entertainment. Of course, the backdrop for this debate was the increasing Japanese encroachment on China (as well as the ongoing Western colonial occupation) and the battle between the Nationalist and Communist parties for control of the nation. While the "soft film" advocates may be accused of burying their heads in the sand during a time of crisis, later actions by both the Nationalists and the Communists belie the myth of the moral highground so beloved by political ideologues.

Anyway, as much as I dig the left-wing films of 1930s Shanghai (many of which were nonetheless still quite soft), the arguments of the "soft film" camp really struck a chord with me in regard to my own struggle reconciling my love of film with my decidedly ill-fitting "higher" education in film criticism.

"Soft film" gave me a water pistol to act on my gripes and grudges about academic scholarship and a paradigm to map some of the beliefs and passions that have been guiding me lately:

• "soft" Web publishing vs. "hard" print publishing



• "soft" amateur scholarship vs. "hard" professional scholarship



• "soft" open access vs. "hard" restricted access

Most of all, learning about film should be fun and not like straining to take a crap when you've been constipated for seven days straight (believe me, I've read an unfair share of academic articles and books that successfully approximate that experience).

Anyway, before my collar gets too stiff from all this talk of meaning and mission, let's take a break and enjoy this bathtub scene from the 1968 film No Time for Love featuring sexpot Tina Ti and forget all about the unpleasant anti-colonial, communist riots that happened in Hong Kong that previous year! ;)



For more information about the soft/hard film debate and for a good example of the kind of film writing that I do like (informative and interesting, not obscurantist or politically correct), check out Zhang Zhen's An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896-1937.