Abstract
This chapter discusses the nature of the social reality transcribed, projected, and articulated in China’s “New Wave Cinema.” This cinema here is compared to Italian Neorealism and French New Wave. Why are there so many similarities and what is the difference? What conditions led to its tenacious rise in the post-1989 period, and its reluctant disintegration and dispersal in the new millennium? This chapter maps out the context of globalization and China’s integration with global capitalism, then goes on to discuss China’s Sixth Generation directors and their visions in this neoliberal age. Since their cultural-political vision regarding the unprecedented change taking place is also subject to the impingement of the historical sea-change—in particular, the onslaught of Western knowledge and ideology in this peculiar historical period—it falls upon us to explore the historicity of the cinematic form and content.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Chen, Mo, and Zhiwei Xiao. “Chinese Underground Films: Critical Views from China.” In Paul Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang (eds.), From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, pp. 143–160. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Ferguson, Niall. “The Trillion Dollar Question: China or America?” The Daily Telegraph, June 1, 2009.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Jameson, Fredric. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text 1 (Winter) (1979): 130–148.
Jameson, Fredric. “Notes on Globalization as a Philosophical Issue.” In Fredric Jameson and Masao Miyoshi (eds.), The Cultures of Globalization, pp. 54–80. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
Jameson, Fredric. “Globalization and Political Strategy.” New Left Review 4 (2000): 49–68.
Jameson, Fredric. A Singular Modernity. London: Verso, 2013.
Kellner, Douglas. “New Taiwan Cinema in the 80s.” Jump Cut 42 (1998): 101–115.
Kuoshu, Harry H. “Overview: The Filmmaking Generations.” In Harry H. Kuoshu (ed.), Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society, pp. 1–20. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
Letteri, Richard. “History, Silence and Homelessness in Contemporary Chinese Cinema: Wang Xiaoshuai’s Shanghai Dreams.” Asian Studies Review 34 (March 2010): 3–18.
Lu, Tonglin. “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism.” In Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang (eds.), From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, pp. 123–141. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Marcus, Millicent. Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
McGrath, Jason. Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008.
Pickowicz, Paul. “Huang Jianxin and the Notion of Postsocialism.” In Nick Browne, Paul Pickowicz, Vivian Sobchack, and Esther Yau (eds.), New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, pp. 57–87. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Qin, Lesley Yiping, and Jia Zhangke. “Look Back in Anger—Interview with Jia Zhangke and Zhaotao on A Touch of Sin.” http://www.asiancinevision.org/look-back-in-anger-interview-with-jia-zhangke-and-zhao-tao-on-a-touch-of-sin/. Accessed January 6, 2016.
Veg, Sebastian. “Introduction: Opening Public Spaces.” China Perspectives 81 (2010): 4–10.
Wan, Jiahuan (万佳欢). “Jia Zhangke he Xiaosan de ‘Diliudai’” 贾樟柯和消散的“第六代” [Jia Zhangke and the Disappearing Sixth-Generation]. Zhongguo Xinwen zhoukan 中国新闻周刊 [China Newsweek], 16 (39) (2015, October 26).
Wang, Ban. “In Search of Real Images in China: Realism in the Age of Spectacle.” Journal of Contemporary China 17 (56) (2008): 497–512.
Wang, Ban. “Studies of Modern Chinese Literature.” In Haihui Zhang, Zhaohui Xue, Shuyong Jiang and Gary Lance Lugar (eds.), A Scholarly Review of Chinese Studies in North America, pp. 377–389. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2013.
Wang, Hui. “Two Kinds of New Poor and Their Future.” In Saul Thomas (ed.), China’s Twentieth Century: Revolution, Retreat, and the Road to Equality. London and New York: Verso, 2016.
Xavier, Ismail. “Historical Allegory.” In Toby Miller and Robert Stam (eds.), A Companion to Film Theory, pp. 333–362. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
Zhang, Yingjin. “My Camera Doesn’t Lie? Truth, Subjectivity, and Audience in Chinese Independent Film and Video.” In Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang (eds.), From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, pp. 23–46. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Zhang, Yingjin. “Rebel Without a Cause? China’s New Urban Generation and Postsocialist Filmmaking.” In Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizaing China, pp. 49–80. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010a.
Zhang, Yingjin. Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010b.
Zhao, Yuezhi. “The Challenge of China: Contribution to a Transcultural Political Economy of Communication for the Twenty-First Century.” In Janet Wasko, Graham Murdock and Helena Sousa (eds.), The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications, pp. 562–563. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Zhou, Xuelin. Young Rebels in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, X. (2018). Introduction: China’s “New Wave Cinema” in the Era of Globalization. In: Ideology and Utopia in China's New Wave Cinema. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91140-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91140-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91139-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91140-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)