China censors give French director ‘carte blanche’

Jean-Jacques Annaud’s adaptation of ‘Wolf Totem’, escapes the country’s iron-fisted media screening.


Reuters February 02, 2015
The 2004 bestselling novel includes critiques of Chinese culture and governance, and favourable allusions to democracy. PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING: The French director of the film Wolf Totem said on Sunday he had complete freedom from Chinese censors in his adaptation of the Chinese novel, which touches on divisive themes, including the degradation of grasslands in the Inner Mongolia region.

In China, all broadcast media and films are pre-screened for approval and anything deemed politically sensitive is banned. After Wolf Totem, written by Lu Jiamin under the pseudonym Jiang Rong, was published, some foreign critics pointed out elements that seemed to have escaped the country’s censors. An environmental cautionary tale that pits a pack of wolves against an influx of settlers to the grasslands during the late 1960’s Cultural Revolution, the 2004 bestselling novel also includes critiques of Chinese culture and governance, and favourable allusions to democracy.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud said that, while he understood he “may have been an exception,” Chinese censors made no modifications to his screenplay. “What I can say is that I had carte blanche at every level until this day. The movie you see is the same movie I cut,” Annaud said in an interview in Beijing, ahead of the film’s release in China later this month.



The book won the first Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. The author, Lu, a retired professor, has since affirmed he had been jailed for his involvement in the 1989 democracy protests around Tiananmen Square. Chinese officials hope to expand the global imprint of the country’s culture and arts, and government pronouncements and state media often discuss plans for “cultural reform” to this end.

“Definitely, in order to achieve soft power, there will be a need to allow artistic freedom,” Annaud said of the development of China’s film industry under state censors, adding that he was “not here to give a lesson to anyone.” Much like the book, Annaud’s approximately $40-million movie, backed by the state-run China Film Group, deals with conservation themes head-on, though it largely avoids the book’s more subtle political issues.

Annaud said that conservation had been one of his “constant preoccupations” as a director. “If we want to save our little planet, we cannot do it without America and without China,” Annaud said. He had crossed the Chinese government with his 1997-film Seven Years in Tibet. That movie depicts a young Dalai Lama, who, China says, is a separatist seeking autonomy for the Himalayan region. Wolf Totem is set to hit theatres at a time when many ethnic Mongolians say their grazing lands have been ruined by mining and decertification, and that the government has tried to resettle them in permanent houses. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3rd, 2015.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.\

COMMENTS (3)

Noman Ansari | 9 years ago | Reply

Guys, seriously? SUM TING WONG? How did this get through?

SGN | 9 years ago | Reply

"Sum Ting Wong....." Was your editor hallucinating when he or she came up with the prefix for this headline? What a racist, bigoted and absolutely unprofessional piece of so-called "journalism". I couldn't believe my eyes reading this on what claims to be a respectable news site.

The original Reuters article http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0L51J820150201?irpc=932 had the headline "French 'Wolf Totem' director says China censors gave him 'carte blanche'" so clearly this childish act was done by your staff.

VIEW MORE COMMENTS
Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ