Cinema Taiwan Politics, Popularity and State of the Arts

Despite the high profile of contemporary masters such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-liang, there has been little published work devoted to Taiwan cinema. Cinema Taiwan is a vigorous response to this gap, offering an exciting and ambitious foray into the cultural politics of contemporary Taiwan film that moves beyond nation-state arguments, the auteurist mode, and vestiges of the New Cinema. Rather it seeks to promote an understanding of place, history and media representations as interdependent frames.With contributions from leading scholars from six countries, Cinema Taiwan provides extensive discussion of developments in storytelling, styles and socio-political transformation to represent a new maturing of film theory, history and analysis in Taiwan scholarship. The book examines complex problems of popularity, conflicts between transnational capital and local practice, non-fiction and independent filmmaking as emerging modes of address, as well as new opportunities to forge vibrant film cultures embedded in Taiwanese (identity) politics, gender/sexuality and community activism. The volume includes a comprehensive filmography, bibliography of essential sources, and a Chinese-language glossary.Insightful and challenging, the essays in this collection focus attention on a globally significant field of cultural production, appealing to readers in the areas of film studies, cultural studies and Chinese culture and society.Davis, Darrell William is the author of 'Cinema Taiwan Politics, Popularity and State of the Arts', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415412582 and ISBN 0415412587.