What is the sentimental? How can we understand it by way of the
visual and narrative modes of signification specific to cinema
"and" through the manners of social interaction and collective
imagining specific to a particular culture in transition? What can
the sentimental tell us about the precarious foundations of human
coexistence in this age of globalization?
Rey Chow explores these questions through nine contemporary
Chinese directors (Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou, Ann Hui,
Peter Chan, Wayne Wang, Ang Lee, Li Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang)
whose accomplishments have become historic events in world cinema.
Approaching their works from multiple perspectives, including the
question of origins, nostalgia, the everyday, feminine "psychic
interiority," commodification, biopolitics, migration, education,
homosexuality, kinship, and incest, and concluding with an account
of the Chinese films' epistemic affinity with the Hollywood
blockbuster "Brokeback Mountain," Chow proposes that the
sentimental is a discursive constellation traversing affect, time,
identity, and social mores, a constellation whose contours tends to
morph under different historical circumstances and in different
genres and media. In contemporary Chinese films, she argues, the
sentimental consistently takes the form not of revolution but of
compromise, not of radical departure but of moderation, endurance,
and accommodation. By naming these films sentimental
"fabulations"& mdash;screen artifacts of cultural becoming with
irreducible aesthetic, conceptual, and speculative logics of their
own& mdash;Chow presents Chinese cinema first and foremost as
an invitation to the pleasures and challenges of
criticalthinking.
General
Imprint: |
Columbia University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Film and Culture Series |
Release date: |
March 2007 |
First published: |
April 2007 |
Authors: |
Rey Chow
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
288 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-231-13333-3 |
Categories: |
Books >
Arts & Architecture >
Performing arts >
Films, cinema >
General
|
LSN: |
0-231-13333-2 |
Barcode: |
9780231133333 |
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