Introduction: Eugene Yuejin Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art; Founding Director of Harvard FAS CAMLab, Harvard University.

Programmer: Sam Maclean, Communications Manager, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

“I hope I can find a secure place to settle, giving me enough time to create my art freely. That’s not too much to ask, is it?” — painter Zhang Dali

Often referred to as the first independent Chinese documentary ever made, Bumming in Beijing: The Last of the Dreamers (1990) follows five young, migrant artists—photographer Gao Bo, playwright Mou Sen, writer Zhang Ci, and painters Zhang Dali and Zhang Xiaping—as they navigate the complexities of sociopolitical life in their adopted home of Beijing in the late 1980s. 

The subjects of the film (most of whom are now internationally recognized, exhibited, and award-winning artists in their respective fields) here refer to themselves, alternately, as “vagrants,” “migrants,” and “freelancers.” Some attended university in Beijing in the early 1980s, while others migrated from rural parts of Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Sichuan to look for work. The film’s director, Wu Wenguang, himself migrated to Beijing from Yunnan in 1988, originally to take a position at CCTV. But after the crackdown on the student movement on June 4th, 1989, Wu’s situation began to mirror that of his subjects—a struggling, independent artist searching for free modes of expression.

Bumming in Beijing began its production life in 1988, as an episode of a CCTV documentary series which would eventually be shelved for being too sensitive for its depiction of restless, counterculture youths. In the fall of 1989, Wu discreetly revived the project, independently, relying on the close relationships that he had developed with his subjects to draw out their feelings on a range of hot-button contemporary issues—residence permits, economic inequality, the commodification of art, the position of women in the society, and the temptation to go abroad—and using his remnant CCTV resources to complete an initial, 134-minute version of the film.

Subsequently, a much shorter, 68-minute version of Bumming in Beijing was created for international audiences, screened at various film festivals, and developed a reputation as one of the foundational works of China’s “New Documentary” film movement. 

For this screening, we present the original, extended cut of the film (which was only recently subtitled in English). This version offers a more immersive experience of what it was like occupying spaces on the margins of society at one of the most fraught and volatile moments in recent Chinese history. The filmmaking also strikes a balance between talking head-style documentary and long, dialogue-less passages observing the subjects’ domestic life and artistic practice. It’s a more raw vision—Wu can be heard off-screen instructing his cinematographer how and when to move the camera; you can identify moments, especially in earlier shot scenes, when Wu is still working out how to approach his subjects—but all this strengthens the connective tissue between the mode of the film’s production and the social discourses it’s documenting, resulting in a moving portrait of free and creatively resourceful art in the face of oppression.

Eugene Yuejin Wang is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art at Harvard University, where he holds appointments in History of Art and Architecture, Archeology, Theater, Dance, and Media (TDM), Study of Religion, and Inner Asia and Altaic Studies. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of the award-winning Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China. He is also the art history editor of Encyclopedia of Buddhism. His research ranges from early art and archaeology to modern art, media, and cinema. He is also the founding director of Harvard CAMLab, which explores the nexus of cognition, aesthetics, and multimedia storyliving through expanded cinema and filmic installations.

The Fairbank Center’s film screening series explores the largely unseen early history of independent film in China, beginning in the late 1980s, aiming to unearth films long-suppressed by Chinese authorities to fill out the narrative of modern film history in the PRC.

Bumming in Beijing (Original, Extended Version), directed by Wu Wenguang. China, 1990, documentary, 134 min.