New Chinese Documentary Film Movement, The: For the Public Record

List of Illustrations

List of Illustrations Figure 1.1. Zhang Xiaping’s nervous breakdown in Wu Wenguang’s Bumming in Beijing. 5 Figure 2.1. American documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman in China. Squatting in the foreground left is Duan Jinchuan, and right is Wu Wenguang. The author is the woman standing in the middle of the picture. 26 Figure 2.2. Jiang Yue’s The Other Bank. 33 Figure 2.3. Hu Xinyu’s The Man. 35 Figure 2.4. Ou Ning and Cao Fei’s Sanyuanli. 39 Figure 2.5. Huang Weikai’s Floating. 40 Figure 2.6. Duan Jinchuan and Jiang Yue’s The Storm. 47 Figure 3.1. Jiang Hu: Life on the Road. 52 Figure 4.1. West of the Tracks. The factories. 61 Figure 4.2. West of the Tracks. The residential neighborhood. 68 Figure 5.1. Dyke March. Director Shi Tou enacts a “coming out” before the camera, obliterating the boundary between filmmaker and her subjects. 81 viii List of Illustrations Figure 5.2. The Box. A and B enjoy their shared moments painting, playing guitar, and singing. 87 Figure 5.3. Dyke March. The split-screen device, with captions “Our family” and “I love my two moms” in a rainbow pattern, punctuates the very doubleness and equality of the core members of the same-sex families in the dyke march. 91 Figure 6.1. Swing in Beijing. “Then, let me blow myself up completely.” 103 Figure 6.2. Night Scene. “We have nothing.” 108 Figure 6.3. Paper Airplane. “So, do you have a name for your film yet?” 109 Figure 7.1. A post-screening Q & A organized by a film club (November 2003). 121 Figure 7.2. A screening room at a film club (August 2003). 128 Figure 8.1. Out of Phoenix Bridge. Xiazi returns to the village. 139 Figure 8.2. Nostalgia. Shu Haolun videos in his childhood neighborhood. 140 Figure 8.3. Meishi Street.Alocal policeman responds to being videoed by Zhang Jinli. 147 Figure 9.1. Bumming in Beijing. “This isn’t my voice now, it’s God’s voice … Is it a man or a woman?” 166 Figure 9.2. Jiang Hu: Life on the Road. “Fuck, I don’t care if you laugh. I just have one yuan twenty cents in my pocket.” 170 Figure 9.3. Fuck Cinema. “I studied performing arts. I took piano lessons for seven years when I was younger.” 172 Figure 9.4. Fuck Cinema. “The next bit is a bit negative about you.” 174 Figure 10.1. The Square. Close-up of Mao’s portrait. 185 List of Illustrations ix Figure 10.2. The Square. Carpenters working, with Mao’s portrait framed through a wall in the background. 185 Figure 10.3. The Square. Close-up of carpenter’s hands, planing wood. 186 Figure 10.4. The Square. Full shot of carpenters working, with Mao’s portrait in the background. 186 Figure 11.1. The Square. Two camera crews, two approaches to interviewing. 203 Figure 11.2. Home Video. Encroaching on the filmed subject’s space. 209 Figure 11.3. Home Video. Pushing the filmed subject to cooperate. 210 Figure 11.4. Railroad of Hope. Asking the filmed subject a question beyond his ability to answer. 211 Figure 12.1. Shao Yuzhen carries her “prosthetic” DV camera around the village while participating in communal activities, or in this case, provoking villagers’ suspicion and consequently documenting the technological encounter. 225 Figure 12.2. The camera stained with the father’s blood (foreground) coldly keeps on witnessing the domestic violence while the documentary maker, Zhang Hua (at frame left), intervenes and becomes one of the “subjects.” 233 ...