Abstract The practice of film history highlights the value and significance of the researcher. A more comprehensive view of the situation of film history raises several issues. General research into the history of film is directly related to the production of film history. The question of how to reinvent general film history research is necessarily connected to ideologies, cultures, systems and concepts, as well as the broad scope and complexity of film history. Writing a general history of Chinese film demands a combination of innovation and continuing tradition, with an emphasis on the construction of a rational and scientific discipline of film history and historical empiricism. The aim should be a more rational history. The paper expresses my own thoughts and efforts with respect to relevant issues and attempts to deepen and open up general research into the history of Chinese film.
{"title":"A Few Issues Surrounding Research into the General History of Chinese Film","authors":"Yaping Ding","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The practice of film history highlights the value and significance of the researcher. A more comprehensive view of the situation of film history raises several issues. General research into the history of film is directly related to the production of film history. The question of how to reinvent general film history research is necessarily connected to ideologies, cultures, systems and concepts, as well as the broad scope and complexity of film history. Writing a general history of Chinese film demands a combination of innovation and continuing tradition, with an emphasis on the construction of a rational and scientific discipline of film history and historical empiricism. The aim should be a more rational history. The paper expresses my own thoughts and efforts with respect to relevant issues and attempts to deepen and open up general research into the history of Chinese film.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117220214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract China’s use of film to project soft power has been unsuccessful. However, the generation of soft power through its film industry is not China’s highest priority. The pursuit of soft power, including through film, is much more directed toward the domestic audience in China, reflecting the greater importance of political and social stability, along with ensuring the patriotism of youth. Moreover, given the origins of the soft power concept and the methodologies used to evaluate countries on a soft power scale, countries that are not liberal democracies will never be able to score high on any soft power ranking. Using empirical data such as box office figures, and Chinese and Western media sources, it will be shown that the lack of success of Chinese films in overseas markets stems in part from structural reasons beyond China’s control, but also in part because of decisions made by Chinese state officials and the filmmakers themselves.
{"title":"Obstacles to Using Chinese Film to Promote China’s Soft Power: Some Evidence from the North American Market","authors":"S. Rosen","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract China’s use of film to project soft power has been unsuccessful. However, the generation of soft power through its film industry is not China’s highest priority. The pursuit of soft power, including through film, is much more directed toward the domestic audience in China, reflecting the greater importance of political and social stability, along with ensuring the patriotism of youth. Moreover, given the origins of the soft power concept and the methodologies used to evaluate countries on a soft power scale, countries that are not liberal democracies will never be able to score high on any soft power ranking. Using empirical data such as box office figures, and Chinese and Western media sources, it will be shown that the lack of success of Chinese films in overseas markets stems in part from structural reasons beyond China’s control, but also in part because of decisions made by Chinese state officials and the filmmakers themselves.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115094182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper discusses the martial arts genre with reference to the films of the Japanese master Kurosawa Akira and the Chinese director Zhang Yimou, discussing how both directors converge in their themes and styles through the concept of “Eastern Orientalism.” Such Orientalism is based on Confucian precepts of zhengming (rectification of names), chaos theory, and the defense of the people undertaken by militaristic but heroic individual protagonists (samurai or xia). In raising the issue of Orientalism, the paper probes into the Western perceptions of the genre and the imperative of directors like Kurosawa and Zhang in pandering to Western tastes. However, these same directors seem equally preoccupied with fostering a sense of self and nationalistic expression in their response to and treatment of Orientalized content. The paper concludes with a discussion on The Great Wall (2016) as a comparative review of the Western and Eastern viewpoints at play in the US-China co-production. Here the analysis revolves around the issue of sameness, dramatized as a main theme in the film.
{"title":"Confucian Orientalism and Western Outlook in Martial Arts Film","authors":"S. Teo","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper discusses the martial arts genre with reference to the films of the Japanese master Kurosawa Akira and the Chinese director Zhang Yimou, discussing how both directors converge in their themes and styles through the concept of “Eastern Orientalism.” Such Orientalism is based on Confucian precepts of zhengming (rectification of names), chaos theory, and the defense of the people undertaken by militaristic but heroic individual protagonists (samurai or xia). In raising the issue of Orientalism, the paper probes into the Western perceptions of the genre and the imperative of directors like Kurosawa and Zhang in pandering to Western tastes. However, these same directors seem equally preoccupied with fostering a sense of self and nationalistic expression in their response to and treatment of Orientalized content. The paper concludes with a discussion on The Great Wall (2016) as a comparative review of the Western and Eastern viewpoints at play in the US-China co-production. Here the analysis revolves around the issue of sameness, dramatized as a main theme in the film.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"268 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123111845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper argues that the idea of a Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers was created almost as much by critics and others outside of China as by China-based writers on film. I will suggest that this cohort of filmmakers, which emerged in the mid-1980s, was more distinctive and shared more in common than generations of filmmakers before or since that decade. But using the Fifth Generation label can sometimes obscure real differences among the artists to whom the term is applied. Moreover, this cohort, within a matter of a few years, lost its relative coherence as its members went their separate ways. The paper will end by suggesting that in some senses the Fifth Generation, usually hailed as a “New Wave” in Chinese filmmaking, marked an end of certain attitudes to film in China rather than a new beginning.
{"title":"Generating History: Rethinking Generations in Chinese Filmmaking","authors":"P. Clark","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper argues that the idea of a Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers was created almost as much by critics and others outside of China as by China-based writers on film. I will suggest that this cohort of filmmakers, which emerged in the mid-1980s, was more distinctive and shared more in common than generations of filmmakers before or since that decade. But using the Fifth Generation label can sometimes obscure real differences among the artists to whom the term is applied. Moreover, this cohort, within a matter of a few years, lost its relative coherence as its members went their separate ways. The paper will end by suggesting that in some senses the Fifth Generation, usually hailed as a “New Wave” in Chinese filmmaking, marked an end of certain attitudes to film in China rather than a new beginning.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"392 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116495405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Japanese interests in Chinese cinema go as far back as to the 1910s, when film magazines reported on the situation of Chinese cinema. Discussions of Chinese cinema began to flourish in the 1920s, when intellectuals wrote travelogue essays on Chinese cinema, particularly on Shanghai cinema. In the mid-1930s, more serious analytical discourses were presented by a number of influential contemporary intellectuals, and that trend continued until the end of WWII. Post-War confusion in Japan, as well as political turmoil in China, dampened academic interests of Japanese scholars on Chinese cinema somewhat, but since the re-discovery of Chinese cinema in the early 1980s with the emergence of the Fifth Generation, academic discussions on Chinese cinema resumed and flourished in the 1980s and the 1990s. In the past decade or so, interesting new trends in studies of Chinese cinema in Japan are emerging that include more transnational and comparative approaches, focusing not only on film text but the context of production, distribution, and exhibition. Moreover, scholars from outside of the disciplines of literature and film studies—such as cultural studies, history, and sociology—have begun to contribute to rigorous discussions of Chinese cinema in Japan.
{"title":"Studies of Chinese Cinema in Japan","authors":"Seio Nakajima","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Japanese interests in Chinese cinema go as far back as to the 1910s, when film magazines reported on the situation of Chinese cinema. Discussions of Chinese cinema began to flourish in the 1920s, when intellectuals wrote travelogue essays on Chinese cinema, particularly on Shanghai cinema. In the mid-1930s, more serious analytical discourses were presented by a number of influential contemporary intellectuals, and that trend continued until the end of WWII. Post-War confusion in Japan, as well as political turmoil in China, dampened academic interests of Japanese scholars on Chinese cinema somewhat, but since the re-discovery of Chinese cinema in the early 1980s with the emergence of the Fifth Generation, academic discussions on Chinese cinema resumed and flourished in the 1980s and the 1990s. In the past decade or so, interesting new trends in studies of Chinese cinema in Japan are emerging that include more transnational and comparative approaches, focusing not only on film text but the context of production, distribution, and exhibition. Moreover, scholars from outside of the disciplines of literature and film studies—such as cultural studies, history, and sociology—have begun to contribute to rigorous discussions of Chinese cinema in Japan.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131402251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to Journal of Chinese Film Studies","authors":"Haizhou Wang, Ha Jin","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114220812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Ever since its advent in the 1990s, the term “Sixth Generation,” as a postulated label, has so far run the course of three consecutive phases: generation, transformation, and dissipation. In the first phase (1990–2003), the Sixth Generation directors based their films on the authenticity of their individual experiences and significantly altered the structure of cinematic power and aesthetic expression in China. The second phase (2003–2008) witnessed the group’s entry into a period characterized by a “generation-less” narrative drawing closer to mainstream cultural capital, market, and filmic techniques. The market overexploited the label of the Sixth Generation, and its independent identity was corrupted. 2009 and 2010 constituted the third phase in which the Sixth Generation sought all the possibilities for market survival by shooting a wide range of films, from mainstream production to commercial films. Since 2011, the label “Sixth Generation” went through a process of self-dissolution. Nevertheless, these directors once again came together on the platform of new media, transforming their energy through microfilm and continuing to exert social influence directly or indirectly.
{"title":"The Generation, Transformation, and Dissipation of the “Sixth Generation” Cinema in China: The Entropy Change of a Concept","authors":"W. Nie","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0033","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ever since its advent in the 1990s, the term “Sixth Generation,” as a postulated label, has so far run the course of three consecutive phases: generation, transformation, and dissipation. In the first phase (1990–2003), the Sixth Generation directors based their films on the authenticity of their individual experiences and significantly altered the structure of cinematic power and aesthetic expression in China. The second phase (2003–2008) witnessed the group’s entry into a period characterized by a “generation-less” narrative drawing closer to mainstream cultural capital, market, and filmic techniques. The market overexploited the label of the Sixth Generation, and its independent identity was corrupted. 2009 and 2010 constituted the third phase in which the Sixth Generation sought all the possibilities for market survival by shooting a wide range of films, from mainstream production to commercial films. Since 2011, the label “Sixth Generation” went through a process of self-dissolution. Nevertheless, these directors once again came together on the platform of new media, transforming their energy through microfilm and continuing to exert social influence directly or indirectly.","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121561151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-06-16DOI: 10.1142/S0219622017020011
Xuelei Huang
This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu. Recommended Citation (2019) "Editor's Introduction," Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 13: Iss. 1: 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.13.1.1684
{"title":"Editor’s Introduction","authors":"Xuelei Huang","doi":"10.1142/S0219622017020011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219622017020011","url":null,"abstract":"This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu. Recommended Citation (2019) \"Editor's Introduction,\" Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 13: Iss. 1: 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.13.1.1684","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134435294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.1515/jcfs-2021-frontmatter1
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2021-frontmatter1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-frontmatter1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":342453,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Film Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124051866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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