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Moving Figures
Class and Feeling in the Films of Jia Zhangke
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Book Presentation:
Examines how the Chinese ‘Reform Era’ is constructed and felt in the films of Jia Zhangke
• Uses the concept of structures of feelings to evaluate the emotional qualities of Jia Zhangke's films
• Provides an alternative way to examine how films can create meaning through feeling
• Considers how social change and class transition in China have been evoked and represented in Zhangke's films
Since 1979, China has been undergoing a period of immense social and economic change, transitioning from state-run economics to free market capitalism. This book focuses on how the ‘Reform Era’ has been constructed in the work of the director Jia Zhangke, analysing the archetypal class figures of worker, peasant, soldier, intellectual and entrepreneur that are found in his films. Examining how these figures are represented, and how Jia’s cinematography creates those ‘structures of feeling’ that concretise around a particular time and place, the book argues that Jia’s cinema should be understood not just as narratives that represent Chinese social transition, but also as an effort to engage the audience’s emotional responses through representation, symbolism and the affective experience of specific cinematic tropes.
Making an important contribution to scholarship about the Reform Era, and opening up many new areas in the larger fields of Chinese visual culture, cultural studies and the affective qualities of film, this is groundbreaking work about a cinematic culture in a period of profound transformation.
About the Author:
Corey Kai Nelson Schultz is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He received his PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, and his research areas are Chinese visual culture, film phenomenology and aesthetics. He has published in Asian Cinema, Film-Philosophy, Moving Image Review and Art Journal, Screen and Visual Communication.
Press Reviews:
An incisive and soundly researched contribution to the literature on Jia Zhangke. Schultz illuminates the class-based archetypes and affective structures of Jia's Reform-era cinema, offering a fresh way of thinking about one of China's most profoundly enigmatic filmmakers.– Gary Bettinson, Lancaster University
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
See the complete filmography of Jia Zhang-ke on the website: IMDB ...
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