现如今全球电影行业蓬勃发展，明星不断涌出，而近一个世纪之前的上海，则见证了中国电影业的崛起——一个培养出大批巨星及其电影佳作的辉煌时期。民国时期（1921年-1949年）成名于上海的传奇女演员胡蝶就是其中一位凭借实力和人气为电影业和社会现代化建立做出巨大贡献的女星。

1920年代，胡蝶的出现成为了电影界在现实层面的一个新的重点——女人有史以来第一次被允许去扮演荧幕中的主要女性角色。1931年，出演中国首部有声电影《歌女红牡丹》，胡蝶成为中国早期横跨默片时代和有声电影时代的女演员。胡蝶一生饰演过姨娘、慈母、教师、娼妓、阔小姐、劳动妇女等不同角色，表演温良灵动，气质华贵优雅，这为胡蝶赢得了绝佳的观众缘——三十年代早期在本土观众中的超高人气使她在1933年被公众评选为“电影皇后”；时至今日，我们也将胡蝶视为20世纪三四十年代中国最优秀的演员之一。

美貌与智慧兼具的“影后”胡蝶不仅只在荧幕上大放光彩，还扮演文化使者的角色作为代表团成员之一，以参加莫斯科国际电影节为契机，被派往前苏联和欧洲进行访问交流。这种文化使者的角色，以及在国内刊登的她旅行过程中各类的讯息和报道，将胡蝶的名声推达新的高度。

1935年11月成婚之后，胡蝶继续拍摄电影直到1960年代。她于1967年与家人定居于加拿大并度过余生。

胡蝶传奇的一生经历了中国电影业里程碑式的十年、社会现代化变革的衰败期，也熬过了最动荡的战争时期。1920年代这十年也同时见证了中国电影的发展和中国现代女性的出现——上海电影和活跃其中的女星，尤其是影后胡蝶，以轻盈柔韧的姿态在这段历史留下了经典的翩翩倩影。

《蝶梦百年——影后胡蝶私人珍藏照片展》从诸多被收藏和保存的影像资料中遴选和呈现了近200张有关这位传奇女星的珍贵照片，涵盖了她数十年演员生涯的美丽瞬间以及她私人生活和旅行中的精彩画面。身为上海老牌电影皇后，胡蝶将被永远铭记。


关于胡蝶

胡蝶，原名胡瑞华（1908-1989），出生于上海，但由于父亲在铁路公司任职，全家随父迁居，胡蝶也自幼成长于中国各地。她于1924年回到上海，被中国首个专业电影教育机构中华电影学校的首届电影学习班录取。胡蝶参演的第一部电影是《战功》，由大中华影片公司于1925年出品。此后胡蝶加盟天一影片公司，仅在1925年至1927年内就参演了近二十部影片。1928年她改投明星影片公司，因其兢兢业业的专业素养享誉业界。


鸣谢

《蝶梦百年——影后胡蝶私人珍藏照片展》中所展出的作品均由潘氏家族提供，由温哥华美术馆亚洲馆兼任总监郑胜天先生遴选，我们在此向郑先生表示特别感谢。张洞天先生同样作出了核心的研究工作。展览画册文字分别由电影史学者、中国电影艺术研究中心电影史学研究室副主任李镇教授以及纽约大学电影学系教授张真女士倾力撰写。感谢胡蝶家人对作品展出的惠允。

SCôP衷心感谢温哥华美术馆的工作团队——联合策展人斐丹娜、陈萍、陈励莹、凯特·亨德森；感谢中国电影资料馆（北京）的支持；感谢泰康空间（北京）的艺术总监唐昕和苏文祥；感谢翁云鹏、郑培光、毛毛、高小龙导演以及上海的琳达·约翰逊为展览所提供的帮助。


The enormous world-wide film industry today pumps out stars at a record rate. Or so it seems. Just under a century ago, Shanghai was poised to witness the emergence of an extraordinary film industry that produced a huge number of famous figures in tandem with its great volume of films. One of these famous figures was the legendary actress Hu Die(Butterfly Wu), who came to fame in Shanghai in the Republican era (1912-1949). Her fame and popularity were such that she is described as one of a handful of actresses who made a major contribution to the film industry; and to the modernizing society that was Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s.

In the 1920s, Hu Die emerged just as a new accent on realism in film saw women permitted to play lead female roles for the first time. Hu Die’s roles included aunt, mother, teacher, prostitute, celebrity, and working woman. She was the star of China’s first talking picture, Songstress Red Peony, 1931, and the first to wow audiences with martial arts skills. Her sophisticated acting skills and fine temperament earned her widespread popularity among local audiences, such that in 1933 Hu Die was publicly anointed “Queen of the Movies”. Today, Hu Die is still credited as one of the best actresses of early cinema in China.

Artfully riding the turning tides of the era, in 1935, Hu Die was invited to play the role of cultural ambassador being chosen to be part of a Chinese delegation to tour the USSR, beginning with the Moscow International Film Festival and on to Europe. The role of cultural ambassador, together with dispatches from her travels published at home in China, propelled Hu Die’s reputation to new heights.


Following her marriage in November 1935, Hu Die continued to make films through the 1960s. She settled in Canada in 1967 where she passed the remainder of her life with her family.

“Butterfly Wu: Queen of the Movies” presents more than 200 photographs selected from hundreds of images that were collected and preserved by the actress and covering several decades of her acting career together with others from her personal life and travels. To film buffs in Shanghai and beyond, Hu Die will always be remembered as the original Shanghai’s Queen of the Movies.


About Hu Die
“Hu Die” is the stage name of Hu Ruihua (1908-1989) who was born in Shanghai, and raised across China as the family travelled with her father, who worked for the railroad company. Returning to Shanghai in 1924, she enrolled in the inaugural class of film studies at Zhonghua Film School, the first educational institution in China dedicated to film. Hu Die’s first movie was Victory, produced by Zhonghua Film Company in 1925. In the coming years, she worked with Tianyi, appearing in almost twenty films between 1925 and 1927. By 1928, when she joined Mingxing Film Company, Hu Die owned a reputation as a hard-working professional.


THANKS
The photographs gathered together in “Butterfly Wu: Queen of the Movies” were selected from the Poon family collection by Zheng Shengtian, Adjunct Director of the Institute of Asian Art at Vancouver Art Gallery, to whom we offer especial thanks. Essential research was also carried out by Zheng Dongtian. For the catalogue, texts were provided by professor Li Zhen, film historian and deputy director of the China Film Archive, Beijing, and professor Zhang Zhen, tenured professor of film studies at the Tisch School of Art, NYU. Especial thanks go too to members of Hu Die’s family in Vancouver for kind permission to show these works.
SCoP would like to thank the team at Vancouver Art Gallery – associate curator Diana Freundl, Chen Ping, and Lynn Chen; China Film Archive, Beijing; Tang Xin and Su Wenxiang at Taikang Space, Beijing; Wen Yupeng, Zheng Peiguang and Qiu Yirong; Linda Johnson, Shanghai; and Gao Xiaolong.