Movie Years

Author: Zhang Jiangyi, Wu Mukun, Editors
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: The charm of words lies in freezing time, while the charm of film lies in releasing time one frame at a time, transforming it into beautiful red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple. A century of history, starting from Ding Jun Mountain, nearly thirty thousand short and long films have formed the first century of the Great Wall of Chinese cinema. Film was originally a highly fashionable art form, but a review of the published histories of Chinese cinema over the years mostly simplifies the listing of facts, which can be quite dull. In fact, the nearly century-long history of Chinese cinema is full of drama and storytelling, and has never lacked classics. What this book aims to do is to restore the rich original texture of the history of Chinese cinema, bringing to life the long-forgotten stories. For this reason, the book abandons the traditional narrative style of film history, moving away from the simple compilation of classic film analyses and historical facts. Instead, it respects history while striving to uncover the vivid details of film history, weaving together the major historical threads while narrating real stories in a straightforward manner. At the same time, the book is ingeniously conceived. It vertically cuts into time, selecting 15 key years from the 100 years of Chinese cinema, recognized by film industry researchers, as 15 points, connecting them to form a curve of Chinese cinema over a century. For each point (year) on the curve, it horizontally expands in space, selecting 2-4 relevant film stories from that year for detailed narration, forming smaller points within the larger points. Thus, it creates a "small point (story) — point (year) — line (100 years)" curve map. The book is richly illustrated and highly readable, making it an excellent supplementary reading for film studies students, as well as a great choice for general readers interested in the history of Chinese cinema.