Did Madame Mao dream in Technicolor? Rethinking Cold War colour cinema through Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: In 1990 Dr Richard Goldberg was invited to give evidence in a legal case brought against Technicolor by former workers, who claimed they had been exposed to hazardous materials in the laboratory in the 1950s.1 Goldberg had worked as an engineer at Technicolor at that time, improving the company’s dye-transfer printing process, and his intimate knowledge of how Technicolor dyed their films was crucial to the investigation. The plaintiff’s lawyer quizzed him on dye formulae, chemical components and colourant suppliers, in order to discern if Technicolor’s workers had been placed at risk. After interrogating Goldberg exhaustively on every aspect of Technicolor’s process, the lawyer finally asked the engineer if he knew what had happened to the firm’s dye-transfer system. Goldberg compliantly explained: ‘it’s in use in China […] It’s a Chinese copy’. Despite the accusatory atmosphere of the interview thus far, Goldberg’s answer apparently lightened the mood, causing the stern veneer of the plaintiff’s lawyer to crack into laughter. Goldberg continued to assert the veracity of his statement, despite the lawyer’s amusement and disbelief, repeating: ‘It is. I got you to laugh there. It is.’2 As the lawyer’s laughter suggests, the notion of Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’ implies something comical. Trading upon the perception that Chinese industry manufactures cheap imitations of authentic American goods, Goldberg implies that Technicolor has suffered the same fate as many other American products, whether pirated videos or counterfeit designer goods. Although Technicolor was once a technology associated with the height of Hollywood’s global power, Goldberg suggests it has been relegated to the status of a Chinese knock-off. Yet this implies a feat of illicit imitation, a wilful act of technological plagiarism, which as Goldberg explains, was not the case. Seeking a way to mass produce colour prints of propaganda films during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the Chinese government purchased expertise and equipment from Technicolor in the early 1970s to establish the firm’s dye-transfer process at the Beijing Film Laboratory. Technicolor representatives subsequently trained Beijing staff and installed machinery manufactured by Technicolor engineers in the UK. The process in Beijing was therefore technologically identical to the other Technicolor laboratories in Hollywood, London and Rome, yet it never operated under the brand name Technicolor, nor did films printed there carry the famous slogan ‘Color by Technicolor’. In some regards then, Goldberg’s description of the Beijing plant as a ‘Chinese copy’ is accurate. It was a Chinese replica of Technicolor’s system operating outside the corporate constraints of Technicolor’s official trademark. The films printed at the Beijing laboratory were therefore unencumbered by the connotations of the US brand, which would have proved problematic during the fraught political climate of China’s Cultural Revolution, a period notorious for its extreme condemnation of all foreign influence, especially from the capitalist West. Yet the humour implicit in Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’ does not stem only from its association with piracy. Understandably the lawyer found it bizarre that China, when seeking a technology for printing Maoist propaganda films to denounce the perils of capitalism, would decide to use a system that was indelibly associated with the gaudiest confections of Classical Hollywood. Technicolor’s palette of brilliantly saturated hues was synonymous with the glossy artificiality, idealized glamour and commercial dazzle that characterized Hollywood cinema – an aesthetic that could not seem further from the demands of a socialist The of Technicolor’s brand and Maoist would have been especially in the as colour were in an the The the colour of and were as of a which Technicolor’s palette with the capitalist of and was the case in Technicolor was to the hues of on the that were by the socialist of the The lawyer’s laughter to this of capitalist to a humour on the of the of and the hues of In China, brilliantly saturated colour was to the aesthetic of socialist propaganda a of and during the Cultural Revolution, colour was a for propaganda films and is Technicolor was to Despite the lawyer’s laughter then, Technicolor’s aesthetic was not at the aesthetic of socialist cinema during the Cultural China’s of Technicolor’s printing system therefore in of the of colour cinema during the and in the of Chinese technology during the Cultural it the of how of colour cinema produce to the of the and and it demands that how Chinese were to at this of Chinese cinema have that to colour cinema in China by seeking Chinese and As what colour […] to what Chinese cinema In this then, what Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’ and the global that characterized colour during the how this technological to China’s to of technology during the Cultural Revolution – a period characterized in Chinese as of how Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’ to that colour in political and – that the of colour could as it – that the political of colour was in and the act of its capitalist and socialist by this technological from to Technicolor to its printing process in the and the Chinese government to In to and technological that China to Technicolor’s that this in Technicolor the of Chinese cinema during the Cultural Revolution, the of the of by Technicolor’s Hollywood to the system from China dye-transfer printing in China’s in Technicolor’s dye-transfer process, it is crucial to how the technology worked and its aesthetic and to a period as Technicolor’s dye-transfer printing was the of the company’s this Technicolor a with a and that into colour with colour on a of were on which was printed to a a printing that in on the of the was with a dye of a The dyed were against a of with to the The and were in by a The of dye from to was what the dye-transfer process its the or the dye its name of or of the machinery and for it could only at a Technicolor were of the that purchased from Technicolor, the of a Technicolor and and the of the – the that films with Technicolor’s by Technicolor its in this way to every aspect of the process and for As and from when Technicolor the dye-transfer process on the company’s laboratory were the of for the of the – colour and – were at the all and operated at a As in a from Technicolor, on the of to for prints as to the early Although the is as the company’s of equipment and the in Technicolor’s of the the was an to the dye-transfer process Although dye-transfer technology was nor by Technicolor – this of printing had been a of colour for – Technicolor the system for printing to an of and was in of an of the only of the system that were the of the the of the and the printing of the and The of the process, the of the chemical or the of dye from to – a process to printing during could and As Technicolor laboratory the process was that the was by laboratory staff to the process was that it to to of the process was colour was printed and could to give of colour could The process was it was to the colour of a to for colour in the upon which it would Technicolor therefore that the process the laboratory workers at the printing The and of with were crucial for Technicolor when the its of in to the by Hollywood’s in the of a colour to could in laboratory trained to colour from the in the the prints could not with Technicolor in of and colour the a to Technicolor’s system the for a Technicolor from Technicolor’s on and the same a of other the from the from the with colour that from Technicolor’s for colour It was to produce dye-transfer prints from by into the laboratory colour to the into its colour from the London plant the the of the as a period for dye-transfer As the of Technicolor, of the was in way by the of the and in with the use of colour by […] from to the global of dye-transfer to the for the The Technicolor and that and an a of and to the of the process in the After the of in the to a laboratory system which to produce in it was the for that printing printing upon an of which that the the the the the US it to prints to cinema and from the of Technicolor to its in Hollywood in the and laboratories continued the process during this when Technicolor was its the laboratory was machinery for to In the in which Technicolor dye-transfer printing in China its The Chinese in Technicolor’s system was a and 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Chinese government to the of American cinema political to a of Hollywood in by Technicolor in of In order for China to Technicolor’s colour it had to the technology and it against the and the of to a upon The of an American aesthetic would films to the a that the use of of Chinese in films The of – as propaganda for China the could The of Technicolor a colour films were China could with of its In this the of the the of colour during the Cultural Revolution, a and aesthetic It that The of would an it was to it the of Technicolor cinema to a the of and capitalism, in the aesthetic of a cinema indelibly associated with political this did not in China to films in the political by the As an and colour is a to and despite the to its to the of the in other for and how of the political of the how the use of colour the of the of on the in of on which the could not a the could colour at the of it was to it at the of and despite to Technicolor’s for socialist could with films in a of they aesthetic or China had purchased Technicolor’s system under which had by the the system was in and yet the technology continued to the demands of the Chinese industry the Cultural The on that characterized the Cultural Revolution in the if the of the industry was some this time, films to by the China Film a of of its or an the as were or were the did not on on the of prints an of from As an system of mass Technicolor’s process was to an of by the early the China a commercial the the process how in the placed a on and an in of and with printing a crucial in a of The Beijing printed films that upon of colour for and the the and of which the of the and and a of a the of the in commercial in the was in the of Chinese with how of the of have the of and and would have been in and a an in foreign and a of as a of his with a It especially that Technicolor’s as a to to mass produce prints of a the of and that the technology would in the of the Chinese industry from a a and American and that and in the the of dye-transfer to the colour of films It is to that a a was printed the dye-transfer as of in the same the is dyed in the Technicolor Although have found evidence to films were printed the Beijing process, it is that American upon the as of Technicolor’s for the of to China’s of Technicolor’s equipment in the that this is not in Hollywood films the of the Yet he the with their on Technicolor as crucial the as a with the cinema of the Cultural Revolution, this in saturated colour suggests a of is and the of Chinese cinema political aesthetic as the of the in Hollywood, and in China did the of the dye-transfer the with and the industry a that would in the when the films they to by the with from and foreign a in at the Beijing Film in the to the dye-transfer system that as a Chinese had in the 1970s as Technicolor its dye-transfer in the an American to the Chinese as Technicolor’s US to its dye-transfer system. were Technicolor’s in the process in the Despite the in from the by the 1970s films and a for of were of the films printed Technicolor’s system in Technicolor its As the of the in the the of printing once It is that against colour in prints in the to the of in the the the of printing for colour that could with Technicolor’s system. former at Technicolor, it was the firm’s who that the Technicolor dye-transfer process could with that the for cinema to as there were other political for the dye-transfer process in the American and who he a to to China […] in order not to an in a to the in the to with a how the colour with printing a for as it could to the of which was by the laboratory to the of Technicolor’s for to China were commercial and and in of the firm’s problematic to yet of the other political in the technology and the this technological have It was not Richard Goldberg his Technicolor’s ‘Chinese copy’ in 1990 that he was by Technicolor to the of the Beijing laboratory to produce prints for the US a Technicolor the Chinese government the that the Beijing plant a laboratory for Technicolor, their technology and the Beijing laboratory as a dye-transfer once a of Technicolor to the Film in which manufactured and for the Beijing to to and to on It was that Technicolor would not the laboratory to with under the Technicolor brand, in the of the and that the US would the ‘Color by the Beijing to mass produce prints its Technicolor this to a It would give the Beijing Film to global and a of in to technological it would Technicolor its on dye-transfer printing it to its of as as its to cheap and in were at the Beijing to the of this with the early Goldberg’s an of in the a its of Chinese workers American a of American technological on Goldberg’s with and materials as as dye in the Beijing laboratory it had printing to the in by the of the Chinese industry The American had to act to decide whether they the Chinese government to the equipment and it to or an in continued for and the Beijing laboratory to a of machinery to Technicolor, the American only purchased machinery – equipment that was into Technicolor’s Hollywood a was under in the early a of Technicolor and the Beijing Film a that could have Beijing a global for printing and Hollywood as Goldberg had found humour in China a ‘Chinese copy’ of Technicolor, did the the in Hollywood’s to this technology from As an in The with a China is all to the a that the has only to China […] Hollywood have to its political and with the early and the of the
Source: Screen
Authors: Kirsty Sinclair Dootson, Zhaoyu Zhu
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3095174637