Editing Cultural Revolution (section)

==== Film ====
The ''Four Hundred Films to be Criticized'' booklet was distributed, and film directors and actors/actresses were criticized with some tortured and imprisoned.<ref name="Jiaqi" />{{rp|401–02}} These included many of Jiang Qing's rivals and former friends. Those who died in the period included [[Cai Chusheng]], [[Zheng Junli]], [[Shangguan Yunzhu]], [[Wang Ying (actress)|Wang Ying]], and [[Xu Lai (actress)|Xu Lai]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Paul G. Pickowicz <!-- |pages=371–72 --> |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=3XNyF4a7xHsC |page=128}} |title=China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2013 |isbn=978-1442211797 |pages=128–29}}</ref> No feature films were produced in mainland China for seven years apart from a few approved "Model dramas" and highly ideological films.<ref>{{cite book |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=V0R-3zFSJbkC |page=207}} |title=Handbook of Chinese Popular Culture |publisher=Greenwood |year=1994 |isbn=978-0313278082 |editor=Dingbo Wu |page=207 |access-date=June 27, 2015 |editor2=Patrick D. Murphy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160429072451/https://books.google.com/books?id=V0R-3zFSJbkC&pg=PA207 |archive-date=April 29, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> A notable example is ''[[Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (film)|Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author=Yingjin Zhang |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=6WzJq0hForAC |page=219}} |title=Chinese National Cinema |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=978-0415172905 |pages=219–20}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Tan Ye |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=Wh0QMOLRCeIC |page=41}} |title=Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema |author2=Yun Zhu |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0810867796 |page=41}}</ref> China rejected Hollywood films and most foreign films.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|213}} [[Cinema of Albania|Albanian films]] and [[Cinema of North Korea|North Korean films]] developed mass audiences in China.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|213}} In 1972, Chinese officials invited [[Michelangelo Antonioni]] to China to film the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. Antonioni made the documentary ''[[Chung Kuo, Cina]]''.  When it was released in 1974, CCP leadership in China interpreted the film as [[reactionary]] and anti-Chinese. Viewing art through the principles of the [[Yan'an Forum|Yan'an Talks]], particularly the concept that there is no such thing as art-for-art's-sake, party leadership construed Antonioni's aesthetic choices as politically motivated and banned the film.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sorace |first=Christian |title=Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi |year=2019 |publisher=[[Australian National University Press]] |isbn=9781760462499 |location=Acton |chapter=Aesthetics}}</ref>{{rp|13–14}}

Mobile film units brought [[Cinema of China|Chinese cinema]] to the countryside and were crucial to the standardization and popularization of culture during this period, particularly including revolutionary model operas.<ref name="Coderre2021" />{{rp|30}} During the Cultural Revolution's early years, mobile film teams traveled to rural areas with news reels of Mao meeting with Red Guards and Tiananmen Square parades, which became known as "red treasure films".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Material Contradictions in Mao's China |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-295-75085-9 |editor-last=Altehenger |editor-first=Jennifer |location=Seattle |chapter=Mobile Projectionists and the Things They Carried |editor-last2=Ho |editor-first2=Denise Y.}}</ref>{{rp|110}} The release of the filmed versions of the revolutionary model operas resulted in a re-organization and expansion of China's film exhibition network.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|73}} From 1965 to 1976, the number of film projection units in China quadrupled, total film audiences nearly tripled, and the national film attendance rate doubled.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|133}} The Cultural Revolution Group drastically reduced ticket prices which, in its view, would allow film to better serve the needs of workers and of socialism.<ref name="Li2023" />{{rp|133}}