Western China on Screen : : An Urban Exploration / / Hongyan Zou.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE Arts 2021
• VerfasserIn: Zou, Hongyan,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.) :; 40 B/W illustrations

Explores the relationship between cinema and the cities of Western ChinaBridges the gap where the cinematic landscape in China has long been dominated by developed metropolisesBreaks the cinematic stereotypes of the region characterised by rural and ethnographic images in films such as Yellow Earth (dir. Chen Kaige, 1984) and Old Well (dir. Wu Tianming, 1987) by adding the urban facets of western ChinaExplores four Han-dominated urban centres of western China (Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi’an and Lanzhou) represented in films investigating material spacesDiscusses class, gender, post-colonialism and the history of post-socialismExploring the stories, memories and experiences attached to places, Western China on Screen is the first monograph to explore the affinity between the cinema and cities of western China through a spatial perspective. Investigating how cinematic cities in western China appear as both spaces of national power and enclosed spaces of traditional cultural values, the book diversifies the glamourised image of the post-socialist, technocratic metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai, breaking the long-existing rural and ethnographical images of western China established by Chinese Fifth Generation directors. Through case studies of films such as Rainclouds Over Wushan (1996), Buddha Mountain (2010) and Weaving Girl (2010), the book establishes a new way of looking at western urban China on screen: from a space of production to a space of increasing consumption.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- PART I INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER 1 Cinematic Western China: The Under-represented Cinematic Cities -- PART II CINEMATIC CHONGQING -- CHAPTER 2 History, Cityscape and Spatial Stratification -- CHAPTER 3 National Project and Disappearing Space -- PART III CINEMATIC CHENGDU -- CHAPTER 4 Spaces of Consumption Replace Spaces of Production -- CHAPTER 5 Natural Disaster and Trauma -- PART IV CINEMATIC XI’AN -- CHAPTER 6 From an Enclosed Traditional Space to a Sprawling Urban Space -- CHAPTER 7 Female Space and Bodies -- PART V CINEMATIC LANZHOU -- CHAPTER 8 Contrast between the Urban and the Rural Regarding Mental and Social Space -- PART VI CONCLUSION -- CHAPTER 9 Cinematic Western China: An Open Space for Spatial Imagination -- Filmography -- Bibliography -- Index