China on Screen

Cinema and Nation

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by Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar

Type

Studies

Subject

Countries > China

Keywords

China, ideology

Publishing date

2006

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Collection

Film and Culture

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 336 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-231-13706-0
978-0-231-13706-5

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Book Presentation:
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.

About the authors:
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.

Press Reviews:
A quite thought-provoking and extensively researched academic study. Wisconsin Bookwatch

Recommended. Choice

[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

An important and exceedingly satisfying read. Carolyn M. Bloomer, The China Journal

It is well worth the read for those interested in learning more about this understudied area of film. Antoinette Winstead, Film & History

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

See the publisher website: Columbia University Press