DAWN: EARLY CHINESE CINEMA 1998 Guggenheim museum PRESSKIT

Original 1998 Guggenheim museum Presskit of 7 10 inch x 8 inch Stills and 6 supplements for DAWN: EARLY CHINESE CINEMA, a festival of Chinese cinema before 1949.

In 1998 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented "Dawn: Early Chinese Cinema," a three-week festival of rarely seen masterworks of Chinese cinema before 1949. Presented in collaboration with The China Film Archives, "Dawn: Early Chinese Cinema" accompanies the Guggenheim's landmark exhibition China: 5,000 Years. The sixteen motion pictures in the series offer insight into early modern life in China, in particular Shanghai, and demonstrate how early Chinese filmmakers experimented with a new medium to tell their own stories.
Several of the films in the series dramatize the effects of urbanization on people's lives: the hardships facing displaced rural people looking for work; the alienating aspects of big city life; the new possibilities for women joining the work force; the increasing significance of money in shaping human relationships; the new luxuries, opportunities, and perils associated with indigenous capitalism and international finance.

The stills are of:

• THE PEACH GIRL (TAOHUA QI XUEJI) (1931), a Chinese-style melodrama considered one of early Chinese cinema's great classics. The life of a peach tree is used as a metaphor for the heroine's development in this love story featuring actress Ruan Lingyu, who at 21 was one of the country's bona fide movie stars. A tragic figure in real life, Ruan committed suicide at the age of 25 after making 29 films in nine years.
• LOVING BLOOD OF THE VOLCANO (HUO SHAN QING XUE) (1932), directed by Sun Yu and starring Li Lili, Zheng Junli, Tan Ying, Tang Tianxiu, Liu Jiqun and Yuan Congmei. A story of peasant suffering at the hands of a despotic landlord.
• WILD ROSE (YE MEI GUI) (1932), directed by Sun Yu and starring Wang Renmei, Jin Yan, Ye Juanjuan, Zheng Junli, Han Langen, Zhang Zhizhi. Director Sun Yu's first film celebrates the love between a wealthy painter and a young woman from the countryside.
• STREET ANGEL (MALU TIANSHI) (1937) makes references to American films of the 1920s, including Frank Borzage's Street Angel (1928). Director-screenwriter Yuan Muzhi employs sharply delineated characters, sparse dialogue, and sophisticated camera work to tell the story of lower-class Shanghai citizens living under Japanese occupation. The film opens with a montage sequence reminiscent of German and Soviet experimental work of the 1920s, including a sweeping shot that pans from the highest roofs of Shanghai to the cluttered surface of the canal. High-contrast lighting in the style of German Expressionist cinema creates an oppressive mood which is offset by comical performances by the actors.
• SONG AT MIDNIGHT (YE BAN GE SHENG) (1937), directed by Maxu Weibang and starring Jin Shan, Hu Ping, Shi Chao, Xu Manli, Zhou Wenzhu, Wang Weiyi, Gu Menghe. A Chinese interpretation of Phantom of the Opera.
• SPRING IN THE SMALL TOWN (XIAO CHENG ZHI CHUN) (1949), directed by Fei Mu and starring Wei Wei, Shi YŸ, Li Wei, Zhang Hongmei, Cui Chaoming. Considered one of the finest films of the period. An affectionate story of the return of the heroine's lover after the Japanese war.

The presskit is in fine condition.