This volume aims both to establish cinema as a vital force in Shanghai culture and to direct attention to early Chinese cinema, a crucial chapter in Chinese cultural history long neglected by Western scholars.
The editor's introduction surveys the history and historiography of Chinese cinema through the 1940's and identifies subjects and sources that await further research. In Part I, "Screening Romance," Zhen Zhang discusses how the influence of teahouse culture gradually yielded to cinematic and narrative concerns in the early 1920's. Kristine Harris's analysis of a costume drama reveals the director's cultural heritage and a rich psychological subtext created by new film techniques. Leo Ou-fan Lee examines the ways various urban institutions were utilized to promote a certain type of film culture in Shanghai.
In Part II, "Imaging Sexuality," Andrew Field traces the public perception of cabaret girls in Shanghai, and Michael Chang studies the discursive processes by which three generations of early movie stars were elevated to stardom. Yingjin Zhang contends that prostitution was a focal point in the urban imagination and that its public presentation furnished Chinese filmmakers with a highly contested space for projecting different ideologies.
In Part III, "Constructing Identity," Zhiwei Xiao examines the role Nationalist film censorship played in promoting a new national culture, and Sue Tuohy locates in film music a wide range of conflicting ideals and models. Shelley Stephenson brings us to Japanese-occupied Shanghai, where a Manchurian-born, Chinese-educated Japanese film star masked her true identity.
Representing the disciplines of film, literature, and ethnomusicology, the contributors seek to redefine concepts of cinema and urban culture in Chinese historiography. The volume will appeal to scholars whose interests lie, not just in film studies and Chinese history, but in the fields of modernity, urban studies, and popular culture.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; Note on romanization; List of contributors; 1. Introduction: cinema and urban culture in republican Shanghai Yingjin Zhang; Part I. Screening Romance: Teahouse, Cinema, Spectator: 2. Teahouse, shadowplay, bricolage: laborer's love and the question of early Chinese cinema Zhen Zhang; 3. The Romance of the Western Chamber and the classical subject film in 1920s Shanghai Kristine Harris; 4. The urban Milieu of Shanghai cinema, 1930-40: some explorations of film audience, film culture, and narrative conventions Leo Ou-fan Lee; Part II. Imaging Sexuality: Cabaret Girl, Movie Star, Prostitute: 5. Selling souls in sin city: Shanghai singing and dancing hostesses in print, film, and politics, 1920-49 Andrew D. Field; 6. The good, the bad and the beautiful: movie actress and public discourse in Shanghai, 1920s-1930s Michael G. Chang; 7. Prostitution and urban imagination: negotiating the public and the private in Chinese films of the 1930s Yingjin Zhang; Part III. Constructing identity: Nationalism, Metropolitanism: 8. Constructing a new national culture: film censorship and the issues of Cantonese dialect, superstition, and sex in the Nanjing decade Zhiwei Xiao; 9. Metropolitan sounds: music in Chinese films of the 1930s Sue Tuohy; 10. 'Her traces are found everywhere': Shanghai, Li Xianglan, and the 'Greater East Asia film sphere' Shelley Stephenson; Filmography; Notes; Selected bibliography; Character list; Index.
