Abstract
The documentary-inspired realist style has emerged as the dominant aesthetic mode of Chinese art cinema. Cross-fertilized with the New Documentary movement, the neorealist cinematic style resonated with the zeitgeist of the 1990s. The rise to fame of Jia Zhangke, one of the most accomplished neorealist practitioners, testified to the opening up of the general film field as well as the diversification of the art film practice. Jia’s Xiao Wu (1997) and Platform (2000) illustrate the main qualities of the cinematic neorealism: unpolished raw aesthetics, long-shot and long-take minimalism, formalist screen composition, and de-dramatized narrative. His later works, such as The World (2004), Still Life (2006) and 24 City (2008), also incorporate elements that challenge the boundary between reality and fiction.
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- 1.
See Zhang Nuanxin and Li Tuo, “Tan dianying yuyan de xiandaihua” [On the Modernization of Film Language], Dianying yishu [Film Art], no. 3 (1979): 40–52.
- 2.
Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 132.
- 3.
For more information on the Fourth Generation directors, see Dai Jinhua, Wu zhong feng jing: Zhongguo dianying wenhua 1978–1998 [Landscape in the Mist: Chinese Film Culture 1978–1998] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanche, 1999): 3–21.
- 4.
Zhang Zhen, “Introduction” in The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Zhang Zhen (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 1–45.
- 5.
The term was first used by Yomi Braester in his chapter “Tracing the City’s Scars: Demolition and the Limits of the Documentary Impulse in the New Urban Cinema.” In the article, Braester treats demolition as a filmic trope of this impulse in selected contemporary art and commercial films . He also dates the documentary impulse to the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. See Yomi Braester, “Tracing the City’s Scars: Demolition and the Limits of the Documentary Impulse in the New Urban Cinema,” in The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Zhang Zhen (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 161–80.
- 6.
For the detailed cross-fertilization examples, see Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” in The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, 17–18.
- 7.
Dai Jinhua, Wu zhong feng jing: Zhongguo dianying wenhua 1978–1998 [Landscape in the Mist: Chinese Film Culture 1978–1998], 353.
- 8.
Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhangke, “Xiangxin shenme jiu pai shenme” [Shoot What You Believe], in Jiaxiang 1996–2008 [Jia’s Thoughts 1996–2008] (Beijing: Beijing daxu chubanshe, 2009), 176.
- 9.
Jia Zhangke, “My Favorite Ten Films,” Dianying pingjie [Movie Review] No. 1 (2000): 25.
- 10.
Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity, 131.
- 11.
Ibid., 148.
- 12.
Michael Berry, “Zhang Yuan: Working up a Sweat in a Celluloid Sauna,” in Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (New York: Colombia University Press, 2005), 150.
- 13.
For example, one article from a popular magazine is entitled “From a Migrant Filmmaker to International Auteur.” See Yu Bin, “Cong dianying mingong dao guoji mingdao” [From a Migrant Filmmaker to International Auteur], Shidai qinnian [Youth of the Time], no. 8 (2007): 4–6.
- 14.
Jia Zhangke, “Yige laizi shehui jiceng de minjian daoyan” [A Folk Director from the Bottom of Society], interview by Lin Xudong, in Jiaxiang 1996–2008 [Jia’s Thoughts 1996–2008] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009), 35–70.
- 15.
Jia Zhangke, “Yeyu dianying shidai jijiang zaici daolai” [The Age of Amateur Filmmaking Will Return], in Jiaxiang 1996–2008 [Jia’s Thoughts 1996–2008] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009), 32–35.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Gu Zheng, “Huiwang qingnian shiyan dianying xiaozu” [Looking Back at the Youth Experimental Film Group], Tianya [Frontiers], no. 1 (2000): 127–28.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Jia Zhangke, “Yige laizi shehui jiceng de minjian daoyan” [A Folk Director from the Bottom of Society], 57.
- 23.
Jason McGrath points out in his book that the actual shooting location for Platform was Pingyao, a more picturesque and developed town than Fenyang. See Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity, 138.
- 24.
Gu Zheng, “Huiwang qingnian shiyan dianying xiaozu” [Looking Back at the Youth Experimental Film Group], 127.
- 25.
Jia Zhangke, “Yige laizi shehui jiceng de minjian daoyan” [A Folk Director from the Bottom of Society], 57–58.
- 26.
Gu Zheng, “Huiwang qingnian shiyan dianying xiaozu” [Looking Back at the Youth Experimental Film Group], 127.
- 27.
Jia Zhangke, “Women yao kandao women jiyin li de quexian” [We Need to See the Flaws in Our DNA], in Jiaxiang 1996–2008 [Jia’s Thoughts 1996–2008], 153.
- 28.
The film has three key scenes related to the train. The opening scene shows the singing and dance troupe mimes as a train on stage, which bounds for Chairman Mao’s hometown—Shaoshan. Cui Mingliang protests that he has never seen a real train when he is criticized for his poor imitation of the train whistle afterward on the bus. In the middle section of the film, the mobile performing troupe rushes to see the train for the first time when they travel in the remote area of the province. In the last scene, Yin Lijuan, carrying a baby in arm, attends to the pot boiling with water. While the boiling pot lets out a whistle similar to that of the train, Cui Mingliang is napping on a sofa in the background.
- 29.
The film takes its title from a pop/rock song “Platform” (zhantai) that enjoyed wide popularity in China during the 1980s. The song portrays a lonely young man waiting for the return of his lover on the platform. The chorus of the song sings “My heart is waiting, always waiting.”
- 30.
See, for example, the title of an article in People’s Daily commemorating the 20th anniversary of Reform in 1998. Zhang Jianling, “Huigu 20 nian juda chengjiu, shixian kuashiji hongwei mubiao” [Review Great Achievements of 20 Years, Realize the Lofty Cross-Century Goals], Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], December 15, 1998: 1.
- 31.
Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity, 153.
- 32.
Ibid.
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Yang, L. (2018). The Impulse to Record: The Neorealist Style. In: The Formation of Chinese Art Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97211-4_6
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