One Hundred Years of Chinese Cinema
A Generational Dialogue
Edited by Haili Kong and John A. Lent
December 2005 | 298 pages
$24.99 (paperback) | ISBN
978-1-910736-63-0
$44.99 (hardback) | ISBN
978-1-910736-64-7
Arguably the first book to take a generational approach to the Chinese cinema, this book offers a broad picture of the evolution of Chinese cinema in its historical context, as well as thorough and insightful analyses of representative films from different generations.
About the Editors
Haili Kong is Associate Professor of Chinese at Swarthmore College. He was the primary organizer of the Chinese Film Festival and the International Symposium on Chinese Film held at Swarthmore College in 2000.
John Lent edits the journal Asian Cinema and chairs both the Asian Cinema Studies Society and the Asian Popular Culture Group of the Popular Culture Society. He has authored over 60 books and co-organized the International Symposium on Chinese Film held at Swarthmore College in 2000.
Contents
CINEMATIC STYLE AND SPACE IN THE 1930S AND 1940S
- Peter Rist: Visual Style in the Silent Films Made by the Lianhua Film Company [United Photoplay Service] in Shanghai: 1931-35
- Shuang Shen: Representing History and the Nation from Afar: The Case of Qing Gong Mi Shi [A Hidden History of the Qing Court].
HISTORICIZED CINEMATIC TEXTS: THE RECONFIGURED PAST AND PRESENT.
- Xiaobing Tang: Rural Women and Social Change in New China Cinema: From Li Shuanguang to Ermo.
- Rebecca Karl: The Burdens of History: Lin Zexu (1959) and The Opium War (1997).
- Zhiwei Xiao and Hong Yin: The Revisionist History in Recent Chinese Films: A Case Study of My 1919.
ZHANG YIMOU’S CHANGING LENS IN THE 1980s AND THE 1990s.
- Haili Kong: Symbolism through Zhang Yimou’s Subversive Lens in His Early Films.
- Xudong Zhang: Cinema of Postsocialism: Zhang Yimou’s Film Production in the Late 1990s.
THE SIXTH GENERATION FILMMAKERS AND BEYOND
- Weijie Song: Transgression, Submission, and the Fantasy of Youth Subculture: The Nostalgic Symptoms of In the Heat of the Sun.
- Shaoyi Sun: In Search of the Erased Half: Suzhou River, Lunar Eclipse, and the Sixth Generation Filmmakers of China.
- Yingjin Zhang: The Global City of the Transnational Imaginary: Disappearance and Reinscription in Chinese Urban Cinema.
INTERVIEWS
- Teach for a While, Direct for a While: An Interview with China’s Xie Fei, conducted by John A. Lent.
- The Past, the Present, and the Future: An Interview with Wu Ziniu, conducted by Haili Kong
- “All Artists Are Narcissistic”: An Interview with Lou Ye, conducted by Shaoyi Sun.
Praise
“This impressively edited collection of excellent essays on Chinese cinema offers a wide range of research coverage, from the cinematographic style of silent film in the early 1930s to the sixth generation products and the theoretical dilemma in the age of globalization. It represents the cutting edge of research on the fascinating issues of cinematic generational distinctions, global capitalism, cultural politics, and nationhood, and is sure to have a major impact on the study of Chinese cinema.”
—Jianmei Liu, University of Maryland
Related products
The year 1979 marked turning points in both contemporary Chinese history and Sino-American relations. Deng Xiaoping initiated market reforms and an opening to the global economy which would transform China, with Guangzhou (Canton) at the forefront. Washington and Beijing’s mutual diplomatic recognition triggered an across-the-board expansion of relations between the United States and China. When […]
China’s rise to world power status has changed the shape of the world. The U.S.-China bilateral relationship is arguably already the most important one for both countries and it embraces issues of global and regional security, economic prosperity, and the environment, among many others. If Americans tend to ignore history, Chinese do not. The five […]
In the 1920s, three adventurous and determined British women missionaries traveled along the traces of China’s old Silk Road to “gossip the Gospel” in the Muslim regions of northwestern China. But as this ground-breaking biography of Mildred Cable and the sisters Eva and Francesca French illustrates, their mission service was only one aspect of these […]
“I love freedom and I will long for the freedom of the soul and the dignity of being a human being for the rest of my life. I’m not the first nor am I the last to suffer or even to sacrifice a life to that idea. Prior to my imprisonment, I didn’t try to […]
In Lights! Camera! Kaishi! Sun and Li interview twenty-one young Chinese movie-makers on a variety of challenges facing them as cinema gradually emerges from the PRC’s long-standing censorship restrictions. Assembled by theme, the reader experiences a sense of eavesdropping on an open discussion between with these notable film directors. Includes biographical sketches (with color photos) of each […]
The most comprehensive analysis and reference on the enormous water resource crisis confronting the People’s Republic of China. China’s Water Crisis (Zhongguo shui weiji) describes in detail the history of floods, water scarcity, and pollution problems in all seven of China’s major drainage basins and proposes solutions for future sustainable management.