China on Screen: Cinema and Nation

by Christopher Berry , Ph.D., Mary Ann Farquhar , Ph.D.

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231137065
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2006
Series:	Film and Culture Series
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	0.88(w) x 9.00(h) x 6.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Chris Berry is professor of film and television studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author or editor of several books, including Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution. Mary Farquhar is professor of Asian studies at Griffith University and is the author of numerous articles and the prize-winning book, Children's Literature in China: From Lu Xun to Mao Zedong.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
A Note on Translation and Romanization
1. Introduction: Cinema and the National
2. Time and the National: History, Historiology, Haunting
3. Operatic Modes: Opera Film, Martial Arts, and Cultural Nationalism
4. Realist Modes: Melodrama, modernity, and Home
5. How Should A Chinese Woman Look? Woman and Nation
6. How Should Chinese Men Act? Ordering the Nation
7. Where Do You Draw the Line? Ethnicity in Chinese Cinemas
8. The National in the Transnational
Chronolgy
Notes
European Language Bibliography
Chinese Language Bibliography
Film List
Index

What People are Saying About This

Rey Chow

Thoroughly engaged with the existing scholarship in their field and unfailingly thoughtful in their responses and questions, Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar offer a wide-ranging account of the mutating links among nation, transnationalism, and Chinese cinematic culture. An eminently readable book, written in the most generous of critical spirit.

— Rey Chow, Brown University

Editorial Reviews

[China on Screen] will no doubt remain a standard reference for students of cinema studies and is eminently adoptable for the classroom.

Nations & Nationalism - Haiyan Lee

Recommended.

Choice

An important and exceedingly satisfying read.

The China Journal - Carolyn M. Bloomer

Clear and entertaining... This book is as suitable for people just entering the field as for specialized scholars.

China Perspectives

It is well worth the read for those interested in learning more about this understudied area of film.

Film & History - Antoinette Winstead

A quite thought-provoking and extensively researched academic study.

Wisconsin Bookwatch

It is well worth the read for those interested in learning more about this understudied area of film.

— Antoinette Winstead

Film & History

An important and exceedingly satisfying read.

— Carolyn M. Bloomer

The China Journal

[ 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