洋玩意、新时尚与现代生活:理解早期上海电影现代性的合法维度

Foreign Goods,New Fashion and Modern Life:Justifiable Dimension of Understanding the Modernity of Early Shanghai Films

1918—1930年是中国电影的初创期,以革命性为评价标准的《中国电影发展史》对初创期电影的总体评价极低,然而,如果以现代性的确立为标准,考察中国电影是否体现了某种现代性,是否推动了中国社会的现代性,以上海为主体的早期中国电影就会呈现出不可忽视的价值。它们给中国人带来了直观的声光电现代体验,是白话现代主义文化启蒙的主战场,塑造了国人新的生活方式,也建构了国人的民族认同。

Early Chinese films were produced during the years of 1918-1930.The book A History of the Development of Chinese Films,which evaluates films in the perspective of revolution,thinks poorly of early Chinese films on the whole.However,taking the criterion of modernity or examining a film by judging whether it expresses certain modernity or pushes forward the modernity of Chinese society,we will find that early Chinese films dominated by Shanghai films have a great value that cannot be ignored.The early films brought Chinese people a brand-new visual and sound experience powered by electricity at that time.In addition,they constituted as the major battlefields supporting vernacular modernism,shaped a new lifestyle for Chinese people and formed national identification.