Download or read book China Into Film written by Jerome Silbergeld and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1984, Chinese cinema has been the most dramatic entry onto the international film scene. China into Film is the first book to look at contemporary Chinese cinema as a visual art and to illustrate the ways in which it has been shaped by centuries of Chinese tradition. Jerome Silbergeld looks at the significance of gender roles, the strategies of film-makers in coping with state censorship, the translation of novels into films, the continuing attachment of film-makers to melodrama, and cinematic critiques of Maoism and post-Maoist culture. Abundantly illustrated with Chinese paintings as well as scenes from such internationally acclaimed films as Yellow Earth, Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine, China into Film reveals a cinematic form at once excitingly new and deeply imbedded in traditional Chinese visual culture.
Download or read book From Underground to Independent written by Paul Pickowicz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking book presents a critical introduction to the cultural and political dimensions of contemporary Chinese cinema. Leading Western and Chinese scholars trace the changing dynamics of Chinese film culture since the early 1990s as it moves away from underground and toward independence in the new century. Yet as the rich case studies illustrate, the sheer variety of alternative film culture itself provides sufficient opportunities for different--at times contradictory--configurations of cinematic products. Drawing on vigorous interdisciplinary scholarship, the book investigates the objects of its study from various methodological perspectives, ranging from historical and literary to sociological and ethnographic. In addition to offering critical readings of specific texts, this book explores alternative film culture through personal interviews, on-site observations, and media interrogations, from traditional print media to the visual media of film, television, and video, including the new digital media of the Internet. The contributors also consider the flourishing independent documentary filmmaking scene, highlighting a crucial part of alternative film that has been previously obscured by an almost exclusive attention on the fifth- and sixth-generation directors of fictional movies. With its fresh and knowledgeable analysis of Chinese underground and independent filmmaking, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in a society caught between socialism and global currents. Contributions by: Chris Berry, Jim Cheng, Valerie Jaffee, Matthew David Johnson, Tonglin Lu, Chen Mo, Seio Nakajima, Paul G. Pickowicz, Zhiwei Xiao, and Yingjin Zhang.
Download or read book Film in Contemporary China written by George S. Semsel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1993-02-28 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1986, Chinese film circles have turned from their study of Chinese film in terms of aesthetics and have begun to explore film in terms of ideological, political and cultural concerns. In particular, this concern has centered on matters of the marketplace, with much debate between film scholars and filmmakers over the qualities of entertainment. Film In Contemporary China draws together the first English translations of recent articles written by the most respected critics, theorists and filmmakers in China who discuss this significant new direction. Parts One and Two discuss the ideological problems now facing Chinese film scholars and filmmakers, focusing on the Fifth Generation filmmakers whose works brought Chinese filmmaking to international prominence. Part Three is a critical study of the relationship of traditional culture to contemporary aesthetics. The fourth part follows the theoretical and critical debate over the entertainment film which forms the basis for the Third Movement of Chinese film during the New Era. The fifth part concerns the ongoing debate over the values of film theory in relationship to filmmaking, and the final section summarizes developments in film scholarship following the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Film In COntemporary China is designed primarily for film scholars, especially those concerned with China, with international film more generally, and with the relationship between film and society.
Download or read book Cinema Space and Polylocality in a Globalizing China written by Yingjin Zhang and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2009-10-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this milestone work, prominent China film scholar Yingjin Zhang proposes "polylocality" as a new conceptual framework for investigating the shifting spaces of contemporary Chinese cinema in the age of globalization. Questioning the national cinema paradigm, Zhang calls for comparative studies of underdeveloped areas beyond the imperative of transnationalism. The book begins by addressing theories and practices related to space, place, and polylocality in contemporary China before focusing on the space of scholarship and urging scholars to move beyond the current paradigm and explore transnational and comparative film studies. This is followed by a chapter that concentrates on the space of production and surveys the changing landscape of postsocialist filmmaking and the transformation of China’s urban generation of directors. Next is an examination of the space of polylocality and the cinematic mappings of Beijing and a persistent "reel" contact with polylocality in hinterland China. In the fifth chapter Zhang explores the space of subjectivity in independent film and video and contextualizes experiments by young directors with various documentary styles. Chapter 6 calls attention to the space of performance and addresses issues of media and mediation by way of two kinds of playing: the first with documentary as troubling information, the second with piracy as creative intervention. The concluding chapter offers an overview of Chinese cinema in the new century and provides production and reception statistics. Combining inspired critical insights, original observations, and new information, Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China is a significant work on current Chinese film and a must-read for film scholars and anyone seriously interested in cinema more generally or contemporary Chinese culture.
Download or read book DV Made China written by Zhen Zhang and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-05-31 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1990s post-Reform China, a growing number of people armed with video cameras poured out upon the Chinese landscape to both observe and contribute to the social changes then underway. Happening upon the crucial platform of an older independent film movement, this digital turn has given us a "DV China" that includes film and media communities across different social strata and disenfranchised groups, including ethnic and religious minorities and LGBTQ communities. DV-Made China takes stock of these phenomena by surveying the social and cultural landscape of grassroots and alternative cinema practices after the digital turn around the beginning of the new century. The volume shows how Chinese independent, amateur, and activist filmmakers energize the tension between old and new media, performance and representation, fiction and non-fiction, art and politics, China and the world. Essays by scholars in cinema and media studies, anthropology, history, Asian and Tibetan studies bring innovative interdisciplinary methodologies to critically expand upon existing scholarship on contemporary Chinese independent documentary. Their inquiries then extend to narrative feature, activist video, animation, and other digital hybrids. At every turn, the book confronts digital ironies: On the one hand, its portability facilitates forms of radically private film production and audience habits of small-screen consumption. Yet it also simultaneously links up makers and consumers, curators and censors allowing for speedier circulation, more discussion, and quicker formations of public political and aesthetic discourses. DV-Made China introduces new frameworks in a Chinese setting that range from aesthetics to ethical activism, from digital shooting and editing techniques to the politics of film circulation in festivals and online. Politics, the authors urge, travels along paths of aesthetic excitement, and aesthetic choices, conversely, always bear ethical consequences. The films, their makers, their audiences and their distributional pathways all harbor implications for social change that are closely intertwined with the fate of media culture in the new century of a world that both contains and is influenced by China.
Download or read book The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement written by Chris Berry and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement is a groundbreaking project unveiling recent documentary film work that has transformed visual culture in China, and brought new immediacy along with a broader base of participation to Chinese media. As a foundational text, this volume provides a much-needed introduction to the topic of Chinese documentary film, the signature mode of contemporary Chinese visual culture. These essays examine how documentary filmmakers have opened up a unique new space of social commentary and critique in an era of rapid social changes amid globalization and marketization. The essays cover topics ranging from cruelty in documentary to the representation of Beijing; gay, lesbian and queer documentary; sound in documentary; the exhibition context in China; authorial intervention and subjectivity; and the distinctive "on the spot" aesthetics of contemporary Chinese documentary. This volume will be critical reading for scholars in disciplines ranging from film and media studies to Chinese studies and Asian studies.
Download or read book Imagined China written by Wang Haizhou and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-05-23 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how Chinese films constructed an image of China in the 1980s through analyzing the characters, composition of space, and conflict patterns of the films. It also examines the relationship between the representations in Chinese cinema and the realities of Chinese society. The study analyzes the imagery, metaphors, and cultural values of Chinese films in the 1980s to discover the common creative focus of Chinese film directors at the time. It also examines the specific creative elements and cultural significance of Chinese cinema in the 1980s. This book is neither a “period history” of Chinese cinema in the 80s, nor a thematic study of the “fifth generation”. Rather, it is an analysis of films as narrative texts that reflected on history. It uses the perspectives revealed by characters, narrative patterns, and conflicts in films of the 1980s to examine how the era was perceived at that time as well as how China’s national future and individuals’ personal futures were being conceptualized. This title will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese Studies, Contemporary China Studies, Film Studies, and those who are interested in Chinese culture and society in general.
Download or read book Zhang Yimou written by Wendy Larson and published by Cambria Sinophone World. This book was released on 2017 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first critical study of films by Zhang Yimou in English, Wendy Larson plumbs the larger field of debate to suggest thought-provoking ways of thinking about the films and their relationship to Chinese culture.
Download or read book Transnational Chinese Cinemas written by Sheldon H. Lu and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-10-01 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zhang Yimou's first film, Red Sorghum, took the Golden Bear Award in 1988 at the Berlin International Film Festival. Since then Chinese films have continued to arrest worldwide attention and capture major film awards, winning an international following that continues to grow. Transnational Chinese Cinemas spans nearly the entire length of twentieth-century Chinese film history. The volume traces the evolution of Chinese national cinema, and demonstrates that gender identity has been central to its formation. Femininity, masculinity and sexuality have been an integral part of the filmic discourses of modernity, nationhood, and history. This volume represents the most comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date study of China's major cinematic traditions. It is an indispensable source book for modern Chinese and Asian history, politics, literature, and culture.
Download or read book Sentimental Fabulations Contemporary Chinese Films written by Rey Chow and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the sentimental and how can we understand it through the cinema of a particular culture in an age of globalisation? Chow explores these questions by examining nine contemporary Chinese directors whose accomplishments have become historic events in world cinema.
Download or read book Visual Culture in Contemporary China written by Xiaobing Tang and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores China's rich visual culture from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the present day.
Download or read book Disability in Contemporary China written by Sarah Dauncey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Dauncey offers the first comprehensive exploration of disability and citizenship in Chinese society and culture from 1949 to the present. Through the analysis of a wide variety of Chinese sources, from film and documentary to literature and life writing, media and state documents, she sheds important new light on the ways in which disability and disabled identities have been represented and negotiated over this time. She exposes the standards against which disabled people have been held as the Chinese state has grappled with expectations of what makes the 'ideal' Chinese citizen. From this, she proposes an exciting new theoretical framework for understanding disabled citizenship in different societies – 'para-citizenship'. A far more dynamic relationship of identity and belonging than previously imagined, her new reading synthesises the often troubling contradictions of citizenship for disabled people – the perils of bodily and mental difference and the potential for personal and group empowerment.
Download or read book Sinascape written by Gary G. Xu and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema is a comprehensive study of Chinese-language films at the turn of the millennium. Emphasizing the transnational nature of contemporary Chinese cinema, it provides close readings of most of the important films of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and explores the interactions and transactions among these films and between Chinese cinema and Hollywood. General readers, film enthusiasts, and critics will all benefit from Gary Xu's discussion of popular films like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Kung Fu Hustle, Devils on the Doorstep, Suzhou River, Beijing Bicycle, Millennium Mambo, Goodbye Dragon Inn, and Hollywood Hong Kong.
Download or read book Animation in China written by Sean Macdonald and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the turn of the 21st century, animation production has grown to thousands of hours a year in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite this, and unlike American blockbuster productions and the diverse genres of Japanese anime, much animation from the PRC remains relatively unknown. This book is an historical and theoretical study of animation in the PRC. Although the Wan Brothers produced the first feature length animated film in 1941, the industry as we know it today truly began in the 1950s at the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS), which remained the sole animation studio until the 1980s. Considering animation in China as a convergence of the institutions of education, fine arts, literature, popular culture, and film, the book takes comparative approaches that link SAFS animation to contemporary cultural production including American and Japanese animation, Pop Art, and mass media theory. Through readings of classic films such as Princess Iron Fan, Uproar in Heaven, Princess Peacock, and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, this study represents a revisionist history of animation in the PRC as a form of "postmodernism with Chinese characteristics." As a theoretical exploration of animation in the People’s Republic of China, this book will appeal greatly to students and scholars of animation, film studies, Chinese studies, cultural studies, political and cultural theory.
Download or read book Handbook of Contemporary China written by William S. Tay and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2012 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A handy reference in one single volume of the key institutions and profound changes over the last three decades that transformed China into a global power.
Download or read book Close ups and Long Shots in Modern Chinese Cinemas written by Hsiu-Chuang Deppman and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-10-31 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the most stylized shots in cinema—the close-up and the long shot—embody distinct attractions. The iconicity of the close-up magnifies the affective power of faces and elevates film to the discourse of art. The depth of the long shot, in contrast, indexes the facts of life and reinforces our faith in reality. Each configures the relation between image and distance that expands the viewer’s power to see, feel, and conceive. To understand why a director prefers one type of shot over the other then is to explore more than aesthetics: It uncovers significant assumptions about film as an art of intervention or organic representation. Close-ups and Long Shots in Modern Chinese Cinemas is the first book to compare these two shots within the cultural, historical, and cinematic traditions that produced them. In particular, the global revival of Confucian studies and the transnational appeal of feminism in the 1980s marked a new turn in the composite cultural education of Chinese directors whose shot selections can be seen as not only stylistic expressions, but ethical choices responding to established norms about self-restraint, ritualism, propriety, and female agency. Each of the films discussed—Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, Jia Zhangke’s I Wish I Knew, and Wei Desheng’s Cape No. 7— represents a watershed in Chinese cinemas that redefines the evolving relations among film, politics, and ethics. Together these works provide a comprehensive picture of how directors contextualize close-ups and long shots in ways that make them interpretable across many films as bellwethers of social change.
Download or read book The Art of Useless written by Calvin Hui and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since embarking on economic reforms in 1978, the People’s Republic of China has also undergone a sweeping cultural reorganization, from proletarian culture under Mao to middle-class consumer culture today. Under these circumstances, how has a Chinese middle class come into being, and how has consumerism become the dominant ideology of an avowedly socialist country? The Art of Useless offers an innovative way to understand China’s unprecedented political-economic, social, and cultural transformations, showing how consumer culture helps anticipate, produce, and shape a new middle-class subjectivity. Examining changing representations of the production and consumption of fashion in documentaries and films, Calvin Hui traces how culture contributes to China’s changing social relations through the cultivation of new identities and sensibilities. He explores the commodity chain of fashion on a transnational scale, from production to consumption to disposal, as well as media portrayals of the intersections of clothing with class, gender, and ethnicity. Hui illuminates key cinematic narratives, such as a factory worker’s desire for a high-quality suit in the 1960s, an intellectual’s longing for fashionable clothes in the 1980s, and a white-collar woman’s craving for brand-name commodities in the 2000s. He considers how documentary films depict the undersides of consumption—exploited laborers who fantasize about the products they manufacture as well as the accumulation of waste and its disposal—revealing how global capitalism renders migrant factory workers, scavengers, and garbage invisible. A highly interdisciplinary work that combines theoretical nuance with masterful close analyses, The Art of Useless is an innovative rethinking of the emergence of China’s middle-class consumer culture.
