View enlarged image

Description

In China on Screen, Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar, leaders in the field of Chinese film studies, explore more than one hundred years of Chinese cinema and nation. Providing new perspectives on key movements, themes, and filmmakers, Berry and Farquhar analyze the films of a variety of directors and actors, including Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li, Wong Kar-wai, and Ang Lee. They argue for the abandonment of "national cinema" as an analytic tool and propose "cinema and the national" as a more productive framework. With this approach, they show how movies from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora construct and contest different ideas of Chinese nation -- as empire, republic, or ethnicity, and complicated by gender, class, style, transnationalism, and more. Among the issues and themes covered are the tension between operatic and realist modes, male and female star images, transnational production and circulation of Chinese films, the image of the good foreigner -- all related to different ways of imagining nation. Comprehensive and provocative, China on Screen is a crucial work of film analysis.

Reviews

A quite thought-provoking and extensively researched academic study. Wisconsin Bookwatch July 2006 Recommended. Choice 11/1/2006 [ China on Screen] will no doubt remain a standard reference for students of cinema studies and is eminently adoptable for the classroom. -- Haiyan Lee Nations & Nationalism 13,2 : 2007 An important and exceedingly satisfying read. -- Carolyn M. Bloomer The China Journal No. 58 It is well worth the read for those interested in learning more about this understudied area of film. -- Antoinette Winstead Film & History Fall 2007 Clear and entertaining... This book is as suitable for people just entering the field as for specialized scholars. China Perspectives 2007/4

Contents

List of Illustrations viiAcknowledgements ixA note on Translation and Romanization xiii1 Introduction: Cinema and the National 12 Time and the National: History, Historiology, Haunting 173 Operatic Modes: Opera Film, Martial Arts, and Cultural Nationalism 474 Realist Modes: Melodrama, modernity, and Home 755 HOw Should A Chinese Woman Look? Woman and Nation 1086 How Should Chinese Men Act? Ordering the Nation 1357 Where Do You Draw the Line? Ethnicity in Chinese Cinemas 1698 The National in the Transnational 195Chronolgy 223Notes 233European Language Bibliography 265Chinese Language Bibliography 287Film List 293Index 301

Additional Information

• Illustrations: 31 illustrations