Projecting A Nation: Chinese National Cinema Before 1949This is the first major work on pre-1949 Chinese cinema in English. As such, it represents a major contribution to existing discussions of both Chinese cinema and national cinema, and is an indispensible basic resource for scholars interested in Chinese film history. The book analyses the wide variety of conceptions of "Chinese national cinema" between the early years of the 20th century and 1949, and contrasts these to conceptions of national cinema in Europe and China. After years of exhausting primary historical research, the author has been able to bring to light sources hitherto not widely available. The author argues that questions and debates about the status and meaning of the "national" in "Chinese national cinema" are central to any consideration of cinema during this period, and addresses the issue of Chinese nationalism as part of a complex history of cinema within the early modern Chinese nation. |
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30th Movement advocated anti-Japanese Beijing Bu Wancang Cai Chusheng CCP's Chen Cheng Jihua China Film Press Chinese audiences Chinese cinema Chinese film industry Chinese filmmakers Chinese national cinema Chinese opera Chinese Silent Film Chongqing Chongqing cinema class struggle concept of national domestic film Fei Mu film circles film companies Film History film production Film Studio film world foreign films gongsi Hong Kong Huang Ibid ideology issue Japan Japanese aggression KMT government KMT's Left Wing Film Lianhua Manchurian martial arts films minzu movie theaters Mulan Nationalist Film Movement Orphan Island Qingqing Movie Shadow Play Shadow Play Journal Shanghai cinema Shanghai film industry Shanghai filmmakers Shen Shi Dongshan social spoken drama theme traditional costume films Wang wenhua Western Wing Film Movement Wu Yonggang Xia Yan Xiao Xinhua Yihua Ying yingpian yingxi yundong Zhang Shankun Zhang Shichuan Zheng Junli Zheng Zhengqiu Zhongguo dianying
Popular passages
Page 15 - These alien races do not number altogether more than ten million, so that, for the most part, the Chinese people are of the Han or Chinese race with common blood, common language, common religion, and common customs— a single, pure race. What is the standing of our nation in the world? In comparison with other nations we have the greatest population and the oldest culture, of four thousand years
Page 15 - Considering the law of survival of ancient and modern races, if we want to save China and to preserve the Chinese race, we must certainly promote Nationalism. To make this principle luminous for China's salvation, we must first understand it clearly. The Chinese race totals four hundred million people...
Page 19 - nationalism' is used to refer to political movements seeking or exercising state power and justifying such actions with nationalist arguments.
Page 7 - Lee 1993i, citizens imogine themselves to belong to a national society. The modern nation-state in this view grows less out of natural facts— such as language, blood, soil, and race — and more out of a quintessential cultural product, a product of the collective imagination.
Page 7 - ... whom? Who owns and controls the industrial infrastructures, the production companies, the distributors and the exhibition circuits? Second, there is the possibility of a text-based approach to national cinema. Here the key questions become: what are these films about? Do they share a common style or world view? What sort of projections of the national character do they offer? To what extent are they engaged in 'exploring, questioning and constructing a notion of nationhood in the films themselves...
Page 7 - First, there is the possibility of defining national cinema in economic terms, establishing a conceptual correspondence between the terms 'national cinema' and 'the domestic film industry', and therefore being concerned with such questions as: where are these films made, and by whom? Who owns and controls the industrial infrastructures, the production companies, the distributors and the exhibition circuits? Second, there is the possibility of a text-based approach to national cinema. Here the key...