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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This edited collection brings together essays that share in a critical attention to visual culture as a means of representing, contributing to and/or intervening with discursive struggles and territorial conflicts currently taking place at and across the outward-facing and internal borders of the People’s Republic of China. Elucidated by the essays collected here for the first time is a constellation of what might be described as visual culture wars comprising resistances on numerous fronts not only to the growing power and expansiveness of the Chinese state but also the residues of a once pervasively suppressive Western colonialism/imperialism. The present volume addresses visual culture related to struggles and conflicts at the borders of Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Taiwan as well within the PRC with regard the so-called “Great Firewall of China” and differences in discursive outlook between China and the West on the significances of art, technology, gender and sexuality. In doing so, it provides a vital index of twenty-first century China’s diversely conflicted status as a contemporary nation-state and arguably nascent empire.

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.

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.

Explores China's rich visual culture from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the present day.