{"product_id":"the-cinema-of-jia-zhangke-9781350293427","title":"The Cinema of Jia Zhangke","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eShorlisted for the BAFTSS 2020 Award for Best Monograph\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarting out as an independent filmmaker, and despite his films being subjected to censorship in his native China, Jia Zhangke has become the country's leading film director internationally. Seen as one of world cinema's foremost auteurs, he has played a crucial role in documenting and reflecting upon China's era of intense transformations since the 1990s..\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCecília Mello provides in-depth analysis of Jia's unique body of work, from his early films \u003ci\u003eXiao Wu\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePlatform\u003c\/i\u003e, to experimental quasi-documentary \u003ci\u003e24 City\u003c\/i\u003e and the audacious \u003ci\u003eMountains May Depart\u003c\/i\u003e. Mello suggests that Jia's particular expression of the realist mode is shaped by the aesthetics of other Chinese artistic traditions, allowing Jia to unearth memories both personal and collective, still lingering within the ever-changing landscapes of contemporary China. Mello's groundbreaking study opens a door into Chinese cinema an\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tone is serious and scholarly, and the author approaches her subject as if nothing could be as important in a world in which the liberal arts have been almost abandoned … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *\u003cbr\u003eCecilia Mello's study of Jia Zhangke, China's leading independent director, brilliantly counterbalances the impulses towards realism and intermediality she finds in Zhangke's work. Its foreword by Walter Salles backs up Salles's and Mello's claim that Zhangke is the most important world film director of the twenty-first century so far, and Mello's thorough knowledge and understanding of Chinese cultures of this period underpins the book's location of memory between the realist impulse and the impure multilayeredness of Zhangke's films. -- BAFTSS Awards judges\u003cbr\u003eOver the course of the past 25 years, there has been no better cinematic chronicle of China’s dramatic transformation than the films of Jia Zhangke... Cecília Mello digs deep into Jia’s body of work, unveiling a rich tapestry of intermingling songs, landscapes, textures, and intertexts. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding how Jia Zhangke’s films work. -- Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies, UCLA, USA\u003cbr\u003eCecília Mello’s refined analysis not only unravels Jia Zhangke’s poetics of cinema as a complex aesthetic of in- betweenness contemplating a world in inevitable transience and change, but also proposes an amazingly nuanced intermedial approach that illuminates from different vantage points the deep imbrication of art and life, memory and palpable reality. -- Ágnes Petho, Professor of Film Studies, Sapientia University, Romania\u003cbr\u003eCecília Mello’s book is a breakthrough. It clears the mists around Jia Zhangke’s famously “impure” realism, showing how it is shot through with Chinese aesthetics drawn from wuxia martial arts, Chinese opera performance, gardening, painting, and more. -- Chris Berry, Professor of Film Studies, King’s College London, UK\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. 'Introduction: Jia Zhangke, Realism, Memory and Impurity' 2. 'The Walls of China: Between Ephemerality and Permanence' 3. 'Ping Yao’s City Walls: On-Location Filming and the Weight of History' 4. 'Pop Music’s Sonic Memories' 5. 'Landscape Painting, Chinese Philosophy and the Aesthetic Innovation of \u003ci\u003eStill Life'\u003c\/i\u003e 6. 'Opera, Wuxia and China’s Imagined Civilization' 7. 'Painterly Still Lives and Photographic Poses: Stillness and the Moving Image' 8. 'Garden Heterotopias and the Memory of Space' 9. '\u003ci\u003eI Wish I Knew\u003c\/i\u003e’s Cinephilic Journeys (an afterword on intertextuality)' 10. Bibliography\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48738616279383,"sku":"9781350293427","price":24.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781350293427.jpg?v=1720049665","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-cinema-of-jia-zhangke-9781350293427","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}