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- Volume 2, Issue 2, 2004
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2004
Volume 2, Issue 2, 2004
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New cinemas from Asia
More LessIt can be argued that the most exciting contemporary cinemas in the last decade or so have emerged from Asia. The combined forces of the three new waves in the Chinese world – mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong – since the early 1980s have produced established masters like Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Ang Lee, Tsai Ming-liang, Stanley Kwan and Wong Kar-wai, as well as the new visions of Jiang Wen, Jia Zhangke, Liu Bingjian, Chang Cho-chi, Lin Cheng-sheng, Yee Chih-yen, and Fruit Chan. Iranian cinema, led by Abbas Kiarostami and the Makhmalbaf family, revives humanism and realism with its deceptively simple aesthetics. More recently, the booming industries of South Korea and Thailand, alongside always-thriving Bollywood, fascinate with their idiosyncratic variations on generic forms.
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Kiarostami debunked!
More LessKiarostami continues to be an enigma for most cinephiles partly due to his own conscious attempts at concealment and prevarication. The article attempts to clarify his political, ideological and philosophical positions and contextualize his output within the dynamics of Iranian capitalism. Beginning with an investigation of his film techniques (including his use of framing, sound, image and music) I will discuss his attitude toward nationalism, psychology and religion. I end by suggesting reasons for his popularity outside Iran.
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Desiring resistance in the age of globalization
More LessThe aim of this article is to explore the theoretical implications of the popularity of the South Korean film Shiri (1999) and that of the academic bestseller, Empire (2000) in thinking through the concept of ‘resistance’. Though different in their respective media and discursive fields, both texts display a symptomatic denouncement and recuperation of the humanist discourse of ‘resistance’ in the age of globalization and metanarrative criticism. What is at stake, it is argued, is the collective, political fantasy of becoming what Michael Warner calls ‘the mass subject’. The operation these two texts perform is to give the consuming mass subjects the thrill of imminent revolution, accompanied by the spectacular destruction of the social order, all the while maintaining the basic tenet of humanist belief: the solidarity with fellow ‘human’ beings.
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Filming the anti-Japanese war: the devils and buffoons of Jiang Wen’s Guizi Laile
By Julian WardThis article outlines the chequered history of Jiang Wen’s Guizi laile/Devils on the Doorstep (2000), including discussion of his adaptation of You Fengwei’s story ‘Shengcun’ (‘Getting By’), and the adverse reaction in China following the film’s winning of the Cannes Grand Jury Prize in 2000. The article argues that Jiang, far from intending to portray the Chinese people as foolish collaborators, as charged by the Chinese Film Bureau, instead made a film that set out to show the absurdity and arbitrary cruelty of war. Discussion on films made in China about the anti-Japanese war in the 1980s, as well as Yangguang canlan de rizi/In the Heat of the Sun (1994), Jiang’s only other film as director, reveals how Jiang sought to move away from the simplistic conventions of Socialist Realist film-making, adopting a more challenging approach to a subject that remains all too sensitive in China.
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Styles, subjects, and special points of view: a study of contemporary Chinese independent documentary
More LessThis study explores the origins, styles, problems, solutions, and possible future directions in Chinese independent documentary from a comparative perspective. I argue that Chinese independent (or underground) film-making actually started with independent documentary in the late 1980s and that the Chinese preference for the cinéma-vérité and interview styles represents an attempt to resist the propagandist, voice-of-God approach in the official news and documentary programming. However, self-erasure and misconceived objectivity typical of the earlier works engendered problems in documentary film-making, and a subsequent selfrepositioning in the late 1990s has reclaimed the subjective voice and readjusted the artist’s attitude toward their subjects. The call for returning to the personal is further exemplified in the current euphoria for DV works, and the idea of amateur film-making once again highlights the connection between independent documentary and its special points of view on ordinary people’s lives in a changing society.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 20 (2022)
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Volume 19 (2021)
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Volume 18 (2020)
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Volume 17 (2020)
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Volume 16 (2018)
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Volume 15 (2017)
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Volume 14 (2016)
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Volume 13 (2015)
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Volume 12 (2014)
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Volume 11 (2013)
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Volume 10 (2012)
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Volume 9 (2011 - 2012)
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Volume 8 (2010 - 2011)
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Volume 7 (2009)
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Volume 6 (2008 - 2009)
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Volume 5 (2007)
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Volume 4 (2006 - 2007)
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Volume 3 (2005)
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Volume 2 (2004)
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Volume 1 (2002 - 2003)