Overview

Engaging with fiction films devoted to heroic tales from the decade and a half between 1949 and 1966, this book reconceives state propaganda as aesthetic experiments that not only radically transformed acting, cinematography and screenwriting in socialist China, but also articulated a new socialist film theory and criticism. Rooted in the interwar avant-garde and commercial cinema, Chinese revolutionary cinema, as a state cinema for the newly established People’s Republic, adapted Chinese literature for the screen, incorporated Hollywood narration, appropriated Soviet montage theory and orchestrated a new, glamorous, socialist star culture. In the wake of decolonisation, Chinese film journals were quick to project and disseminate the country’s redefined self-image to Asia, Africa and Latin America as they helped to create an alternative vision of modernity and internationalism. Revealing the historical contingency of the term ‘propaganda’, Chan uncovers the visual, aural, kinaesthetic, sexual and ideological dynamics that gave rise to a new aesthetic of revolutionary heroism in world cinema. Based on extensive archival research, this book’s focus on the distinctive rhetoric of post-war socialist China will be of value to East Asian Cinema scholars, Chinese Studies academics and those interested in the history of twentieth-century socialist culture.

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9781788311908

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Reviews

A long-awaited book that sheds new light on revolutionary Chinese cinema. Eloquently written, it opens our eyes not only to these films' politics, but also to their forms and artistry. -- Victor Fan, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King's College London, UK Chinese Revolutionary Cinema is based on meticulous research and insightful analysis. Avoiding Cold War rhetoric, Chan brilliantly shows how Maoist cinema interacted with Hollywood and Soviet paradigms, as it adapted melodramatic structures, montage theory, and star promotion to the revolutionary cause. -- Yomi Braester, Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor in the Humanities, University of Washington, USA

Overall, Chan's unique history provides something more than an overview of an understudied period; by examining propaganda as a complex mode that necessitated the comingling of writers, artists, performers, bureaucrats and capital ... she is able to contribute to a broader understanding of film production under socialism ... [The book] will be of interest to scholars of East Asian Cinema, Chinese Studies, as well as those with an interest in the history of socialist culture. * Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media * A long-awaited book that sheds new light on revolutionary Chinese cinema. Eloquently written, it opens our eyes not only to these films' politics, but also to their forms and artistry. -- Victor Fan, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, King's College London, UK Chinese Revolutionary Cinema is based on meticulous research and insightful analysis. Avoiding Cold War rhetoric, Chan brilliantly shows how Maoist cinema interacted with Hollywood and Soviet paradigms, as it adapted melodramatic structures, montage theory, and star promotion to the revolutionary cause. -- Yomi Braester, Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor in the Humanities, University of Washington, USA

Author Information

Jessica Ka Yee Chan is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Richmond, USA. She has published in the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, and The Opera Quarterly.

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