The South China New Wave: Cinema as Xinxiang (Affective-Ideational Imagery)

TY - CHAP

T1 - The South China New Wave

T2 - Cinema as Xinxiang (Affective-Ideational Imagery)

AU - Liu, Siqi

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Corey Schultz and Cecília Mello; individual chapters, the contributors.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - This chapter focuses on a new film movement that emerged in China around 2015: the Nanfang Xin Langchao (South China New Wave). This movement depicts social phenomena in the subtropical south of China and expresses their generation’s depression and longing for rebellion. Different from the Sixth Generation, who focused on creating a sense of xianchang (on-location-ness, a sense of “being present on the scene”), the South China New Wave considers the cinema as xinxiang (roughly translated as affective-ideational imagery). These New Wave films present internal imageries of the filmmakers and characters rather than simply documenting wuxiang (images of objects, scenes, or events). The author argues that by creating an image that is indiscernible between imagination and objective reality and initiating a fragmentary-navigational investigation, the South China New Wave cinema as xinxiang enables the filmmakers, characters, and spectators to rewrite their feelings and thoughts in response to their paradoxical sense of interconnection-alienation within the internet era. Hence, the author’s research questions are concerned with how the South China New Wave creates the cinematographic image as xinxiang and how the formational process of this affective-ideational milieu is at once fragmentary and navigational. The author uses Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues (2015) as an example to address these issues.

AB - This chapter focuses on a new film movement that emerged in China around 2015: the Nanfang Xin Langchao (South China New Wave). This movement depicts social phenomena in the subtropical south of China and expresses their generation’s depression and longing for rebellion. Different from the Sixth Generation, who focused on creating a sense of xianchang (on-location-ness, a sense of “being present on the scene”), the South China New Wave considers the cinema as xinxiang (roughly translated as affective-ideational imagery). These New Wave films present internal imageries of the filmmakers and characters rather than simply documenting wuxiang (images of objects, scenes, or events). The author argues that by creating an image that is indiscernible between imagination and objective reality and initiating a fragmentary-navigational investigation, the South China New Wave cinema as xinxiang enables the filmmakers, characters, and spectators to rewrite their feelings and thoughts in response to their paradoxical sense of interconnection-alienation within the internet era. Hence, the author’s research questions are concerned with how the South China New Wave creates the cinematographic image as xinxiang and how the formational process of this affective-ideational milieu is at once fragmentary and navigational. The author uses Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues (2015) as an example to address these issues.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85173893801&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.4324/9781003371694-5

DO - 10.4324/9781003371694-5

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781032443379

SP - 43

EP - 58

BT - Chinese Film in the Twenty-First Century

A2 - Schultz, Corey

A2 - Mello, Cecília

PB - Routledge

CY - London

ER -