Download or read book Shanghai Express written by Zhang Henshui and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-05-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this suspenseful tale of seduction and deception, a wealthy banker is smitten by an alluring young woman while traveling aboard the express train from Beijing to Shanghai. A consummate storyteller and one of the most popular novelists of his day, Zhang Henshui sweeps us on board with them and takes us through train stations and back and forth between first, second, and third class cars, evoking the smells of this microcosm of the urban world. We see what various travelers wear; we hear their conversations; we feel the chill or the warmth of each car; we detect a trace of perfume in one, pickled vegetables and greasy meats in another. Here is popular Chinese fiction at its best. Shanghai Express was considered "entertainment" fiction and was enormously popular in the 1930s. William Lyell’s sparkling translation at last allows an English-reading audience to share in the fun.
Download or read book Last Boat Out of Shanghai written by Helen Zia and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution--a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao's proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have opened the story to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves the story of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Young Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father's dark wartime legacy, must choose between escaping Hong Kong or navigating the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome young exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation in order to continue his studies in the U.S. while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America"--
Download or read book Perpetually Cool written by Anthony B. Chan and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2007-02-08 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna May Wong was an extraordinary Asian American woman who became the country's most famous film actress of Chinese descent. From small parts in silent films to starring roles in Hollywood and across the Atlantic, Wong made an impression on audiences of all persuasions. In Perpetually Cool, Anthony Chan takes the reader on a compelling journey through Wong's early years in Los Angeles and her first Hollywood pictures. Chan also examines the scope and nature of race, gender, and power and their impact on Wong's personal growth as a Chinese American. Perpetually Cool is not only the captivating story of a cinematic career, but also of roots and identity, as it recounts Wong's desire to connect with her heritage in the United States and in China. Chan provides extensive textual analyses of Wong's signature films, especially The Toll of the Sea (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) with Douglas Fairbanks, and her most famous role as Hui Fei in Shanghai Express (1932), opposite Marlene Dietrich. Perpetually Cool is a fitting tribute to the influence of this Chinese American icon.
Download or read book Dressing the Part written by Sybil DelGaudio and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work examines the way in which the unique partnership of director (Sternberg), star (Marlene Dietrich), studio (Paramount), and designer (Travis Banton) created a series of films in which costume functions as a sign to structure each film's narrative and thematic design. Illustrated.
Download or read book World Cinema and the Visual Arts written by David Gallagher and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘World Cinema and the Visual Arts’ combines new analyses of two subjects of ongoing research in the field of humanities: cinema and the visual arts. Originally presented at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2010 in New Orleans, the papers of this volume have been expanded and extended from their original points of enquiry, and analyse films from the diverse cultural traditions of China, Germany, the United Kingdom, America, Northern Ireland and India.
Download or read book Dietrich Icon written by Gerd Gemünden and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-12 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few movie stars have meant as many things to as many different audiences as the iconic Marlene Dietrich. The actress-chanteuse had a career of some seventy years: one that included not only classical Hollywood cinema and the concert hall but also silent film in Weimar Germany, theater, musical comedy, vaudeville, army camp shows, radio, recordings, television, and even the circus. Having renounced and left Nazi Germany, assumed American citizenship, and entertained American troops, Dietrich has long been a flashpoint in Germany’s struggles over its cultural heritage. She has also figured prominently in European and American film scholarship, in studies ranging from analyses of the directors with whom she worked to theories about the ideological and psychic functions of film. Dietrich Icon, which includes essays by established and emerging film scholars, is a unique examination of the many meanings of Dietrich. Some of the essays in this collection revisit such familiar topics as Germany’s complex relationship with Dietrich, her ambiguous sexuality, her place in the lesbian archive, her star status, and her legendary legs, but with fresh critical perspective and an emphasis on historical background. Other essays establish new avenues for understanding Dietrich’s persona. Among these are a reading of Marlene Dietrich’s ABC—an eclectic autobiographical compendium containing Dietrich’s thoughts on such diverse subjects as “steak,” “Sternberg (Joseph von),” “Stravinsky,” and “stupidity”—and an argument that Dietrich manipulated her voice—through her accent, sexual innuendo, and singing—as much as her visual image in order to convey a cosmopolitan world-weariness. Still other essays consider the specter of aging that loomed over Dietrich’s career, as well as the many imitations of the Dietrich persona that have emerged since the star’s death in 1992. Contributors. Nora M. Alter, Steven Bach, Elisabeth Bronfen, Erica Carter, Mary R. Desjardins, Joseph Garncarz, Gerd Gemünden, Mary Beth Haralovich, Amelie Hastie, Lutz Koepnick, Alice A. Kuzniar, Amy Lawrence, Judith Mayne, Patrice Petro, Eric Rentschler, Gaylyn Studlar, Werner Sudendorf, Mark Williams
Download or read book Regarding Frank Capra written by Eric Loren Smoodin and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From feature films to television production.
Download or read book Black and White Cinema written by Wheeler Winston Dixon and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the glossy monochrome of the classic Hollywood romance, to the gritty greyscale of the gangster picture, to film noir’s moody interplay of light and shadow, black-and-white cinematography has been used to create a remarkably wide array of tones. Yet today, with black-and-white film stock nearly impossible to find, these cinematographic techniques are virtually extinct, and filmgoers’ appreciation of them is similarly waning. Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s. Acclaimed film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon introduces us to the masters of this art, discussing the signature styles and technical innovations of award-winning cinematographers like James Wong Howe, Gregg Toland, Freddie Francis, and Sven Nykvist. Giving us a unique glimpse behind the scenes, Dixon also reveals the creative teams—from lighting technicians to matte painters—whose work profoundly shaped the look of black-and-white cinema. More than just a study of film history, this book is a rallying cry, meant to inspire a love for the artistry of black-and-white film, so that we might work to preserve this important part of our cinematic heritage. Lavishly illustrated with more than forty on-the-set stills, Black and White Cinema provides a vivid and illuminating look at a creatively vital era.
Download or read book Hollywood Diplomacy written by Hye Seung Chung and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood Diplomacy contends that, rather than simply reflect the West’s cultural fantasies of an imagined “Orient,” images of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ethnicities have long been contested sites where the commercial interests of Hollywood studios and the political mandates of U.S. foreign policy collide, compete against one another, and often become compromised in the process. While tracing both Hollywood’s internal foreign relations protocols—from the “Open Door” policy of the silent era to the “National Feelings” provision of the Production Code—and external regulatory interventions by the Chinese government, the U.S. State Department, the Office of War Information, and the Department of Defense, Hye Seung Chung reevaluates such American classics as Shanghai Express and The Great Dictator and applies historical insights to the controversies surrounding contemporary productions including Die Another Day and The Interview. This richly detailed book redefines the concept of “creative freedom” in the context of commerce: shifting focus away from the artistic entitlement to offend foreign audiences toward the opportunity to build new, better relationships with partners around the world through diplomatic representations of race, ethnicity, and nationality.
Download or read book Missionaries in the Golden Age of Hollywood written by Douglas Carl Abrams and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines major British and American missionary films during the Golden Age of Hollywood to explore the significance of race, gender, and spirituality in relation to the lives of the missionaries portrayed in film during the middle third of the twentieth century. Film both influences and reflects culture, and racial, gender, and religious identities are some of the most debated issues globally today. In the movies explored in this book, missionary interactions with various people groups reflect the historical changes which took place during this time.
Download or read book From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda written by Naomi Greene and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the twentieth century, American filmmakers have embraced cinematic representations of China. Beginning with D.W. Griffith’s silent classic Broken Blossoms (1919) and ending with the computer-animated Kung Fu Panda (2008), this book explores China’s changing role in the American imagination. Taking viewers into zones that frequently resist logical expression or more orthodox historical investigation, the films suggest the welter of intense and conflicting impulses that have surrounded China. They make clear that China has often served as the very embodiment of “otherness”—a kind of yardstick or cloudy mirror of America itself. It is a mirror that reflects not only how Americans see the racial “other” but also a larger landscape of racial, sexual, and political perceptions that touch on the ways in which the nation envisions itself and its role in the world. In the United States, the exceptional emotional charge that imbues images of China has tended to swing violently from positive to negative and back again: China has been loved and—as is generally the case today—feared. Using film to trace these dramatic fluctuations, author Naomi Greene relates them to the larger arc of historical and political change. Suggesting that filmic images both reflect and fuel broader social and cultural impulses, she argues that they reveal a constant tension or dialectic between the “self” and the “other.” Significantly, with the important exception of films made by Chinese or Chinese American directors, the Chinese other is almost invariably portrayed in terms of the American self. Placed in a broader context, this ethnocentrism is related both to an ever-present sense of American exceptionalism and to a Manichean world view that perceives other countries as friends or enemies. Greene analyzes a series of influential films, including classics like Shanghai Express (1932), The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), The Good Earth (1936), and Shanghai Gesture (1941); important cold war films such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The Sand Pebbles (1966); and a range of contemporary films, including Chan is Missing (1982), The Wedding Banquet (1993), Kundun (1997), Mulan (1998), and Shanghai Noon (2000). Her consideration makes clear that while many stereotypes and racist images of the past have been largely banished from the screen, the political, cultural, and social impulses they embodied are still alive and well.
Download or read book Romance and the Yellow Peril written by Gina Marchetti and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1994-02-15 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood films about Asians and interracial sexuality are the focus of Gina Marchetti's provocative new work. While miscegenation might seem an unlikely theme for Hollywood, Marchetti shows how fantasy-dramas of interracial rape, lynching, tragic love, and model marriage are powerfully evident in American cinema. The author begins with a discussion of D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms, then considers later films such as Shanghai Express, Madame Butterfly, and the recurring geisha movies. She also includes some fascinating "forgotten" films that have been overlooked by critics until now. Marchetti brings the theoretical perspective of recent writing on race, ethnicity, and gender to her analyses of film and television and argues persuasively that these media help to perpetuate social and racial inequality in America. Noting how social norms and taboos have been simultaneously set and broken by Hollywood filmmakers, she discusses the "orientalist" tensions underlying the construction of American cultural identity. Her book will be certain to interest readers in film, Asian, women's, and cultural studies.
Download or read book Past Imperfect written by Mark C. Carnes and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996-11-15 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays that consider how classic movies have reflected history include the writings of such noted historians as Paul Fussell, Antonia Fraser, and Gore Vidal.
Download or read book Transpacific Attachments written by Lily Wong and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the Chinese sex worker—who provokes both disdain and desire—has become a trope for both Asian American sexuality and Asian modernity. Lingering in the cultural imagination, sex workers link sexual and cultural marginality, and their tales clarify the boundaries of citizenship, nationalism, and internationalism. In Transpacific Attachments, Lily Wong studies the mobility and mobilization of the sex worker figure through transpacific media networks, illuminating the intersectional politics of racial, sexual, and class structures. Transpacific Attachments examines shifting depictions of Chinese sex workers in popular media—from literature to film to new media—that have circulated within the United States, China, and Sinophone communities from the early twentieth century to the present. Wong explores Asian American writers’ articulation of transnational belonging; early Hollywood’s depiction of Chinese women as parasitic prostitutes and Chinese cinema’s reframing the figure as a call for reform; Cold War–era use of prostitute and courtesan metaphors to question nationalist narratives and heteronormativity; and images of immigrant brides against the backdrop of neoliberalism and the flows of transnational capital. She focuses on the transpacific networks that reconfigure Chineseness, complicating a diasporic framework of cultural authenticity. While imaginations of a global community have long been mobilized through romantic, erotic, and gendered representations, Wong stresses the significant role sex work plays in the constant restructuring of social relations. “Chineseness,” the figure of the sex worker shows, is an affective product as much as an ethnic or cultural signifier.
Download or read book Empire written by Donald L. Barlett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1979 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Movie Guide written by James Monaco and published by Perigee Trade. This book was released on 1992 with total page 1200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Big Sleep to Babette's Feast, from Lawrence of Arabia to Drugstore Cowboy, The Movie Guide offers the inside word on 3,500 of the best motion pictures ever made. James Monaco is the president and founder of BASELINE, the world's leading supplier of information to the film and television industries. Among his previous books are The Encyclopedia of Film, American Film Now, and How to Read a Film.
Download or read book Construction and Urban Planning written by Yong Huang and published by Trans Tech Publications Ltd. This book was released on 2013-03-11 with total page 3307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2013 International Conference on Structures and Building Materials (ICSBM 2013), 9-10 March 2013, Guizhou, China
