Media in China, China in the Media: Processes, Strategies, Images and Identities. Edited byADINA ZEMANEK.Krakow:Jagiellonian University Press,2014. 211 pp. £29.00; $42.00. ISBN978-83-233-3621-1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement
Visual Anthropology, 2012
This book is a welcome introduction to the recent and fast-developing world of independent documentary filmmaking in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The book's authors discuss a wide range of films made in the 1990s and 2000s, looking at subject matter, mode of production, relationship to major trends in documentary practice (most notably socialist realism, American direct cinema and French cine´ma ve´rite´), ethics, and viewing publics. They trace the development of Chinese independent documentary, highlighting the role played by historical events such as June 4th, 1989, and Deng Xiaoping's trip to the south in 1992, and the spread of digital video technology into China. A key concern debated throughout the book is the similarities and differences between independent documentaries of the 1990s and of the 2000s. At the start of the volume and Part One, Berry and Rofel introduce readers to the ''new documentary movement,'' sketch its historical context and characteristics, and overview the book's contents. They argue that contemporary Chinese filmmaking and television have been very influenced by the new Chinese documentary filmmakers, even though most Chinese couldn't tell you who they are. The new documentaries are characterized by ''on the spot realism'' (jishi), immediacy and spontaneity, as well as a focus on social inequality and people who are being left behind by China's market reforms. In Chap. 2, Lu Xinyu gives a history of the new documentary movement, a term that she coined to describe independent documentary in the PRC. While in some respects this movement emerged in opposition to socialist realism and state-sponsored documentaries (or ''special topics programs''), Lu points out that many of the first generation of documentary filmmakers worked in and were influenced by state media. Lu sees the main distinction of the new documentarians as being their practice of developing films from existing realities. As she puts it, ''Chinese new documentaries are responding to a reality they depict in contradistinction to dominant ideological versions of reality, which means that they are required to clarify their own ideology. This is the meaning as well as the power of the movement'' [25]. Lu sees an emphasis on observing reality in the first group
Studies in Documentary Film, 2017
This introduction to the special issue, ‘Engagement, Witnessing and Activism: Independent Chinese Documentary Filmmakers’ Different Positions, Approaches and Aesthetics,’ argues that how the political is registered and expressed in Chinese activist documentaries cannot simply be read through Western ideas, concepts and aesthetics. Rather, Chinese work has been shaped partly in relation to state-sanctioned public discourse, and partly through the localising of international influences according to Chinese socio-political conditions. Contemporary Chinese activist documentary makers have chosen as their primary modus operandi an open, exploratory engagement with the ‘grassroots’ (jiceng). The core commitment in this approach is to the truth of the on-screen subject’s experience as they themselves see it. Modes of engagement with the grassroots include: making visible people and identities that state-sanctioned representations hide or gloss over; bearing witness to events and situations that are similarly hidden, or presented in a very particular manner, in state sanctioned representations; and exploring memories and historical experiences which are otherwise unacknowledged or presented within narrow interpretive parameters in state-sanctioned media. This introduction details how the articles in this special issue analyse and discuss Chinese activist works that utilise one or more of these modes.
“Filming Space/Mapping Reality in Chinese Independent Documentary Films”
China Perspectives, 2010
S ince the beginning of the 1990s, independent documentary filmmakers have explored the Chinese territory and made visible people and places rarely seen or even taken into consideration by traditional media. This movement has grown in a specific space often described as an intermediate realm between the public and the private sphere, and has dedicated itself to the recording of China's margins, both geographical and social. As an attempt to reflect on society, documentary cinema deals with people and their living conditions. But the choice of a topic or of a main "character" is often related to another underlying but nonetheless very significant choice: the filmed space. The famous documentarist Frederick Wiseman has built all his filmography around this very concept: each of his films is the description of institutional spaces (jail, hospital, museum, etc.) and the way people interact in them. (2) In this type of film, and also in Chinese independent documentaries, places and topics are intimately related. While space plays a strong role in defining the scope of the film's subjects, its mode of representation also conveys the filmmaker's opinion about the event as well as his aesthetic preferences. (3) In the case of Chinese independent documentaries, not only have the filmmakers shed light on certain places, populations, and contemporary issues, they have also reconfigured the aesthetics and the practice of documentary film by questioning the medium and setting a number of new rules. Among those are the rejection of television norms for documentary films and the adoption of a style close to direct cin-ema, which includes a new approach of both subject matter and filmed counterparts. By focusing on ordinary people and giving them a space for speech, by developing their topics in full-length movies, and by rejecting any kind of didactic purpose (such as no explanation through voiceover) they aim at the standards of auteur cinema, and at a certain degree of "truth," as well. The emergence of this movement outside the realm of the film industry and television questions the status of documen-
Watching Documentary: Critical Public Discourses and Contemporary Urban Chinese Film Clubs (2010)
The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement, 2010
The past several years have seen a surge of interest in Chinese documentary films. A quick search on the internet returns numerous results on Chinese documentary film screenings both in China and abroad. With this rising interest, important academic research has begun to appear on the topic.r However, most, if not all, of the existing studies focus on documentary film as "text," and detailed analyses of the social context of production, distribution, and exhibition remain sparse. Highly informative works on how documentary films are produced, utilizing interviews with film directors, have appeared, and these studies provide important insights into the social context of the production of Chinese documentary.2 Nevertheless, research that deals with the issue of how Chinese documentary films are actually circulated, exhibited, watched, and discussed by Chinese audiences is virtually non-existent. In this chapter, I attempt to flli this gap by presenting an empirical study of documentary film consumption and audiences in contemporary urban China.3 an ethnographic study of "film clubs" in Beijing, where a group of audiences watch independent films including Chinese documentary works.a I participated in and observed a variety of activities organized by film clubs, as well as interviewed the organizers and the members/participants, which included a fair number of documentary filmmakers. With this empirical data in hand, I ask two key research questions.