The Poetics of Chinese Cinema

Abstract

"This book examines the aesthetic qualities of particular Chinese-language films and the rich artistic traditions from which they spring. It brings together leading experts in the field, and encompasses detailed and wide-ranging case studies of films such as Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Spring in a Small Town, 24 City, and The Grandmaster, and filmmakers including Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Chen Kaige, Fei Mu, Zhang Yimou, Johnnie To, and Wong Kar-wai. By illuminating the form and style of Chinese films from across cinema history, The Poetics of Chinese Cinema testifies to the artistic value and uniqueness of Chinese-language filmmaking."--Publisher's description. Introduction: The Poetics of Chinese Cinema -- Poetics and Precedents; Avenues of Investigation -- Five Lessons from Stealth Poetics; Norms and Forms; Rules-No, Guidelines; Long Takes, Long Lenses; Asian, Minimally?; All Together Now -- Red Poetics: The Films of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Revolutionary Model Operas; The "Model Works"; Genealogy of a Hybrid; The Three Prominences; Cinematic Poetics of the Model Works; Conclusion -- Renewal of Song Dynasty Landscape Painting Aesthetics Combined with a Contemplative Modernism in the Early Work of Chen Kaige -- Poetics of Two Springs: Fei Mu versus Tian Zhuangzhuang; Two Springs; Two Traditions; The Traditional Modernist; Staging; Editing; Voiceover; Conclusion: The Lost Opportunity -- Remaking Ozu: Hou Hsiao-hsien's Café Lumière; Café Lumière Prism; Café Lumière segmentation; Yoko's Six Days; Into the Dark: Tokyo Twilight; Reunion with Jiang Wenye: A Glimpse of the Empire's Edge; Into the Light: A Coda -- Hong Kong Puzzle Films: The Persistence of TraditionPuzzles and Practices: Peter Chan and Wu Xia (2011); Screenwriting Practices at Milkyway Image; A Complex Case: Blind Detective (Johnnie To, 2013); Reconsiderations -- Can Poetics Break Bricks?; The Poetics of Spectacle; The Poetics of Slowness; The Politics of Poetics -- Poetics of Parapraxis and Reeducation: The Hong Kong Cantonese Cinema in the 1950s; From the Cantonese Theatre to the Cantonese Style of Narration; The Union Film Enterprise and Its Parapractical Poetics In the Face of Demolition: A Narrative of ReeducationConclusion -- China as Documentary: Some Basic Questions (Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni and Jia Zhangke); A Contested Documentary About China; The Frontal Pose; Photographic or Documentary Realism as Loss or the Place of the Subject; Documentary Realism in the Age of Digital Synchronisation: Preliminary Remarks on Jia Zhangke.