1,720,962 research outputs found
Ruin in the films of Jia Zhangke
No full textThis article explores the reflection, representation and psychogeographic affect of the ruins in the films by the Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (b. 1970). During the Maoist period, ruins were signs of developmental progression; as Mao Zedong proclaimed, ‘there is no construction without destruction ... Put destruction first, and in the process you have construction.’ The author argues that the ruins are not just the effects of China’s fast-paced modernization, but are also symbols of the destruction of Maoist society. Furthermore, by recording the state and act of destruction, these films enhance the phenomenological and affective aspects of the ruin. Finally, when construction is realized in the films (the construction from destruction), it is either threatening or ‘futuristic’; thus, both the ruin and construction estrange the previous residents from their environment by rejecting them from the places that they once lived and chronologically estrange them from the projected utopian future
The Simian gaze: examining the human and non-human gazes in visitors
No full textGodfrey Reggio’s film Visitors (2013) is composed primarily of gazes. It begins with a gorilla’s direct gaze as it emerges from darkness, and this initial gaze is quickly followed by a series of human gazes. The gorilla’s gaze haunts the film, however, as it reappears in the middle of the film and also concludes it. These gazes are affective; the viewer spends almost the entire duration of the film being stared at, and thus quickly becomes sensitized to these gazes and their idiosyncrasies, as well as their effects. This paper examines these gazes and how they are experienced in the film. Focusing primarily on the gorilla’s gazes, I review theories surrounding the human gaze in regards to affect and power, and compare these theories to how the animal gaze has been examined, including concepts such as gaze sensitivity and its socioecological context and the effects of mirror neurons, arguing that this simian gaze acts as a bridge that combines, yet challenges, both. I ask: how does the gorilla’s gazes problematize how the human gaze has been theorized and its effects? How can theories of the animal gaze be incorporated in existing anthropocentric theories on the gaze
Memories in performance: commemoration and the commemorative experience in Jia Zhangke’s 24 City
No full textIn this article, I examine how the film commemorates the factory and its workers through combining memory, the act of remembering, and its recitation, thus creating “memories in performance” that construct an emotional history of this group. I use a Chinese word for commemoration, jinian, to structure this paper into the three components of memory, the act of remembering, and mindful thought and recitation, all of which combine to commemorate the factory and the sacrifice of the worker class. I examine how both the real and fictional interviews in the film create the same emotional meaning through producing emotions that are “real” regardless whether their source is real or fake, thus emphasizing that memory is not only about history and “fact,” but also, more importantly, about the emotion it conveys. I consider how the memories are affective in that they present a past that is being remembered, performed and retold in the present, thus enabling both the real and fictional memories to become “real” in their narration. I analyze how the lived and fictive memories and their remembrance produces a filmic space to commemorate the factory and the workers’ sacrifices, and argue that this produces an intimacy with the viewer, in that it presents the workers’ history as personal stories being remembered, recalled, and felt again, not sterile facts being repeated. I conclude by considering how this film is indicative of a larger commemorative turn, and how it offers not only a “sight” of commemoration (as an example of Chinese visual culture), but also a site of commemoration – a commemorative object as well as a commemorative experienc
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