Building U.S. - China Bridges

China Center

Chinese Film History: Realism and Convention

When film arrived in China in the early twentieth century, it was seen as embodying the imported aesthetic of realism, which was associated with modern, progressive ideas of science and objectivity. Throughout subsequent Chinese film history, various claims to realism were made by filmmakers, critics, and policymakers, from the critical realism of the 1930s leftwing film movement, to the revolutionary realism of the Mao era, to the documentary-style neorealism of contemporary independent cinema. In every case, however, realism only took on meaning by reference to conventions of various sorts, whether those of traditional Chinese drama, Soviet socialist cinema, Hollywood-style entertainment, or global art cinema. Through this dialectic of realism and convention, we can trace a history of Chinese film from the silent era to the digital age.

About the Speaker

Jason McGrath

Jason McGrath is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where he teaches modern Chinese literature and cinema and media studies. His first book, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age, was published by Stanford University Press, and his new book, on which this talk is based, is Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age, forthcoming this fall from the University of Minnesota Press.