Transcendence and Spirituality in Chinese Cinema

A Theological Exploration

Kris H.K Chong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000095920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Literatur & Kunst im Christentum

This book provides a framework by which a global audience might think theologically about contemporary films produced in mainland China by Chinese directors. Up to this point the academic discipline of Christian theology and film has focussed predominantly on Western cinema, and as a result, has missed out the potential insights offered by Chinese spirituality on film.

Mainland Chinese films, produced within the nation's social structure, offer an excellent lingua franca of China. Illuminating the spiritual imagination of Chinese filmmakers and their yearning for transcendence, the book uses Richard A. Blake's concept of afterimage to analyse the potential theological implications of their films. It then brings Jürgen Moltmann's "immanent-transcendence" and Robert K. Johnston's "God's wider Presence" into conversation with Confucianist and Daoist ideas of there being, spirituality-speaking, "More in Life than Meets the Eye" than simply material existence. This all combines to move beyond film and allow for a Western audience to gain a new perspective on Chinese culture and traditions. One that uses familiar Western terms, while avoiding the imposition of a Western mindset.

This is a new perspective on cinema, religion and Chinese culture that will be of keen interest to scholars of Religion and Film, Religious Studies, Theology, Sociology of Religion and Chinese Studies.

1 More in Life than Meets the Eye

Afterimage in Chinese films

Introduction

Film, as visual representation of life and culture, is one of the most common mediums through which religious themes emerge. In this book, I investigate films produced by mainland Chinese directors. Chinese films perform similar societal functions, especially religious ones, as their Western counterparts. Yet, up to this point, the academic subfields of Christian theology and film, religion and film, and faith and film have focused predominantly on Western films. Why is there such a paucity of scholarship on the theological significance of mainland Chinese films?

Not too long ago, Mitchell and Plate (2007: 71) raised the issue of why Chinese cinema remains unexplored, despite the steady movement of the discipline of theology and film away from a Euro-American-centrism in the last decade, and suggested that this is likely due to the absence of religious themes in Chinese movies. However, I argue that till now, most of the contemporary¹ scholarship on the intersection of theology and film has focused on films in the English language (i.e., films from a Western perspective), because an analysis of Chinese films invariably requires (1) deeper appreciation and understanding of its culture and society; (2) facility with the Chinese language; and (3) access to Chinese-language primary sources. As this chapter shows, the Western disjuncture between secular and spiritual realms does not apply in the Chinese context, since Chinese spiritual life is thoroughly integrated into all aspects of its culture. Religious themes in Chinese films are not absent, but unexplored.

Before discussing the films in Chapters 3 and 4, and before delving into the notion of religious afterimage in Chinese filmmakers in the later section of this chapter, it will be helpful to first discuss specific aspects of Chinese traditions and rituals that help us understand Chinese spirituality within its socio-historical context. With that understanding, we will then be able to speak of spirituality in Chinese films without imposing a Western mindset that prevents us from finding and understanding footprints of the Chinese notion of transcendence in films.

It must be noted that my purpose is not to attempt to do original research on Chinese religious traditions. Rather, I draw on established scholars’ works to formulate my own argument.

Overview of Chinese religious sensibilities

There are two basic approaches to Chinese religious life. There are scholars who opine that the religious life of the Chinese is an important socio-cultural aspect of China, crucial to an understanding of the country.²

Others, however, hold on to a long-held misconception that China is devoid of worship practices, or as the common Western terminology goes, China is “without religions” (Voltaire 1962: 170, qtd in Lu 2013: 3). Whether it is “religion” or “religions,” we can argue that China is “without religion”—in the Western sense. As Vincent Goossaert explained, “religion” is a twentieth-century term that has a Western or modern European pejorative connotation of post-Reformation elements. In addition, it is important to note that to the Chinese, any term that embraces Protestant components, including categories of institutionalised faith and scriptural traditions, is considered “superstitious” or mi xin 迷信, in contrast to Confucianism³ and other popular religions such as ancestral worship, exorcism, polytheism, divination, ritual healing, and so on that are embedded in Chinese social and political structures (Goossaert and Palmer 2011: 50–2).⁴

Along similar lines, C.K. Yang added that, despite claims of Confucius being a “rational and agnostic” teacher, supernatural elements dominated Confucius’s teachings, based on his frequent references to Tian 天 (Heaven), and tian-ming 天命 (the will of Heaven), especially in regard to ceremonial rites. This is not surprising, since Confucius lived during a time when ideas of supernatural powers and the superhuman loomed large in people’s consciousness.⁵ In this sense, to the extent that “religion” means humankind’s relationship to the superhuman and supernatural, Ru jiao 儒教 (Confucian teachings), qualifies as a “religion,” even though its primary focus is on worldly matters and our involvement in them. (I discuss the use of terminologies in the following section.) As Wilfred Cantwell Smith astutely commented:

Communist scholars, e.g., from China, may write in a non-religious fashion, but not as non-engagés [sic]. Since I am of those that hold Confucians to be, in fact, as such, religious men, non-Communist Chinese writers would seldom prove exceptions to the general principle. This to me, is tantamount to accepting Confucianism as a religion.

(Smith 1959: 44, ff29)

Groundbreaking ethnographic research enlightens us regarding how these “religions” and beliefs⁶ rapidly gained new followers in a climate of religious freedom as a result of governmental policy changes, social transitions, and successful strategies of religious groups. I will argue that these “religions” and beliefs are but the outward extension of Chinese socio-cultural roots over the centuries. Simply put, the Chinese people have always been engaging in a complex worship tradition. China has been a “religious state” from its inception. Thus, Chinese religious studies and Daoist history scholar John Lagerwey could categorically state, “China is a religious state and Chinese society is a religious society” (Lagerwey 2010: 1), while Laurence G. Thompson simply described China as having a “worldview that finds expression in religion” (1996: xxiv). Therefore, significant modern religious/spiritual change in the Chinese people must be studied within the framework of a period in which profound Western influence had yet to stamp its mark.

Since contemporary Chinese psyche is still largely shaped by Chinese tradition,⁷ we need to turn to these traditions, where we can find the significance of the lives of pre-modern and modern Chinese today. Emphasising the importance of these Chinese religious traditions is Randall L. Nadeau (2014), who viewed them to be present in “virtually every dimension of cultural life: politics, economics, medicine, ethics and law, marriage and family, human rights, media and communications, science and technology” (3). We must note that the role of these religious traditions in shaping institutions may not appear to be obvious today, but the roots remain deeply embedded in cultural practices.⁸ In this sense, Chinese culture is religious in its all-encompassing sense. For this reason, Benjamin Schwartz considers Chinese religions to be a faith that “assumes a common world of human experience,” since “the history of the past inevitably continues to be the history of the present” (Schwartz 1985: 1). What I venture to investigate in this chapter is not the possibility of a meaningful comparison between the old and new. Instead, I suggest that beyond the “contemporaneity” of Chinese traditions and classics, such as the Book of History 書經 and the Book of Odes/Poetry 詩經, new meanings are often refractions of pre-existing cultural orientations. It is not surprising, then, that the questions raised and issues tackled during the axial age,⁹ such as morality, fate, and human nature, and so on, often reappear in Chinese cinema as perennial ultimate concerns.

Two purposes

The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, I show the importance of the concept of “More in Life than Meets the Eye”¹⁰ by investigating how the Chinese search for Transcendence/the Divine through four main practices: (1) the worship of Tian; (2) the worship of family ancestors; (3) the worship of shen 神 (spirits, deities, gods); and (4) the practice of rituals.¹¹ These beliefs and practices not only illustrate how the Chinese worship but also show the depth and dimensions through which the Chinese find expressions for their spiritual longing. In other words, they demonstrate how human beings engage “More in Life than Meets the Eye” (or the “More”)—and how they seek, through this participation, to connect to the More through which power, peace, harmony, hope, reverence, awe, and so on become real in human experiences.

Second, I investigate the ways in which pre-modern Chinese worship are reflected in contemporary Chinese culture. To what extent are the reflective and transcendental features of past worship easily identifiable in the narratives of contemporary Chinese films? In Chapters 3 and 4, I show the uniqueness of Transcendence (Tian) within the Chinese worldview, the human person, and the universe. In establishing this constructive thesis that Chinese filmmakers bring their indelible spiritual legacy—in the form of afterimages—to the screen, I start by first locating pre-modern Chinese spiritual discernment, which helps us to understand the manner in which Chinese filmmakers (1980s to present) interpret and engage their contemporary everyday world through their films.¹²

Transcendence/the Divine in pre-modern Chinese traditions

The premise here is that the Chinese have always believed and engaged in worship practices in pursuit of that which is “More in Life than Meets the Eye,” discernible, in particular, in the concepts of Tian (Heaven) and shen (spirits, deities, gods). Furthermore, these practices have not been static, but have continually evolved into newer, diverse forms that undergird present-day worship expressions. The concepts of Tian and shen are greatly intertwined with local Chinese customs and traditions found in ancestral worship, the discourse of nature and man in Dao,¹³ and the ideology of the yin 陰 and yang 陽 cosmic forces. In arguing and tracing the faith of the Chinese through their confessions and rituals, it is evident that the Chinese have always been shaped by the cooperative exercises of rituals or li 禮, from which diverse forms of worship in Chinese culture draw their references.

Covering all of Chinese cultural history and philology through examining the evidence found in The Book of History and The Book ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1 More in Life than Meets the Eye: afterimage in Chinese films
• 2 Ultimate concern: Tillich and Chinese films
• 3 Afterimage: the Fifth Generation filmmakers
• 4 Reframing afterimage: the Sixth Generation filmmakers
• 5 Toward a wider presence in Chinese films
• Index