China on Screen : Cinema and Nation (Film and Culture Series)
Editorial Reviews
Review
"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
Book 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.
China on Screen : Cinema and Nation (Film and Culture Series)
China on Screen : Cinema and Nation (Film and Culture Series),Christopher J. Berry,Mary Ann Farquhar,Columbia University Press,0231137079,China,Cinema/Film: Book,Film & Video - General,Film & Video - History & Criticism,History,Motion pictures,Performing Arts,Pop Arts / Pop Culture
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