Director Guang Chunlan in Conversation

This interview features Guang Chuanlan, a Sibe director who has been active since 1976. Guang is known for establishing Chinese Muslim cinema made in the Xinjiang autonomous region in socialist China. Many of her films are released and awarded in Arabic countries and in India. Her enduring career exemplifies the key role women filmmakers have played in building Chinese cinema under state-driven film policies. While it is commonly believed that the Fifth Generation (represented by male directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang) put post–Cultural Revolution Chinese cinema on the international map, Guang's career (along with those of other women directors) compels us to reexamine Chinese film historiography and excavate a more complex constellation, especially with regard to women's authorship in intersection with race/ethnicity and the state, and inter-Asian film interactions based on a shared religion—a dimension oftentimes obscured by the dominant paradigm of East-West internationality.

Memory, Subjectivity and Independent Chinese Cinema

This book provides a historically informed examination of independent moving image works made between 1990 and 2010 in China. Showcasing an evolving personal mode of narrating memory, documenting reality, and inscribing subjectivity in over sixteen selected works that range from narrative film and documentary to experimental video and digital media (including a multimedia avant-garde play), this book presents a provocative portrait of the independent filmmakers as a peculiarly pained yet active group of historical subjects of the transitional, postsocialist era. Through a connected investigation of cultural and cinematic concepts including historical consciousness, personal memory, narrative, performance, subjectivity, spatiality, and the body, Wang weaves a critical narrative of the formation of a unique postsocialist cultural consciousness that enables independent cinema and media to become a highly significant and effective conduit for historical thinking in contemporary China. Covering filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Jia Zhangke, Jiang Wen, Lou Ye, Meng Jinghui, Wang Bing, Wang Guangli, Duan Jinchuan, Cui Zi'en, Shi Tou, and Tang Danhong, this book is essential reading for all students and scholars in Chinese film and culture.

Marques d’un cinéma moderne : Le Roi des enfants

Au sortir du règne maoïste, le mouvement du nouveau cinéma chinois cherche à trouver son indépendance : indépendance de l’art et de l’artiste, indépendance du contenu et de la forme. Les marques repérées dans le film Le Roi des enfants (1986) de Chen Kaige démontrent l’actualisation de cette démarche réflexive à travers un langage propre au cinéma moderne. Se juxtapose alors une double lecture du film. Le niveau cinématographique et le niveau narratif proposent un même cheminement par leur distanciation et leur questionnement face à la tradition.

Deux pôles yang du nouveau cinéma chinois : Chen Kaige et Zhang Yimou

Seul deux cinéastes chinois sont connus aussi bien en Chine qu’à l’étranger. Il s’agit de Chen Kaige et de Zhang Yimou. L’article tente de démontrer la polarisation de leur cinéma respectif à partir de leurs positions qui sont diamétralement opposées. Celle de Chen est dite hanxu, allusive qui incite à l’auto-réflexion alors que celle de Zhang est du ressort yanggang, soit en faveur de l’émotion vive et directe. L’article rend compte de ces deux pôles dans leurs différences, mais aussi dans ce qui les unit, leur « impensé » qui touche à la différence sexuelle et à l’écriture chinoise.