On the Margins of Realism

This book argues that alternative aesthetics to realism have always existed in Chinese cinema throughout its history, from the early silent era to the new century. These alternative aesthetics are closely linked to the indigenous Chinese ontology of cinema, namely shadowplay (yingxi).

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Realism has been endowed with a certain orthodox status as the aesthetic counterpart of China’s modernization, and studies of Chinese film history have largely accepted a master narrative of realism as the guiding aesthetic of mainland Chinese cinema. This book argues, however, that alternative aesthetics to realism have always existed in Chinese cinema throughout its history, from the early silent era to the new century.

These alternative aesthetics are closely linked to the indigenous Chinese ontology of cinema, namely shadowplay (yingxi). The author presents an alternative account through a close examination of four distinct visual, narrative, and stylistic devices or themes that recur in different periods of Chinese film history: dream representation, the doubling of characters, the device of self-reflexivity, and the allegorical construction of space. By considering particular films and scenes as problematic sites where history, politics and aesthetics collide, the book also seeks to elucidate the relationship between cinema and the multifaceted experiences of Chinese modernity with respect to subjectivity, ideology, identity and nationality.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Chinese cinemas, realism and modernism.