Introduction

The poetics of Chinese cinema

Gary Bettinson

pp. 1-14

in: Gary Bettinson, James Udden (eds), The poetics of Chinese cinema, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

What is the value and significance of the poetics approach to contemporary film theory in general, and to the study of Chinese cinema in particular? This chapter surveys the recent emergence within Film Studies of poetics-centered approaches to international cinema; it traces this emergent trend to pertinent traditions, such as Russian Formalism; and it argues that a poetics of Chinese cinema provides an essential contrast to the Cultural Studies paradigm that has governed the field for over twenty years. The poetics approach, it is argued, lays bare transcultural affinities among films from the "three Chinas' (PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), while illuminating industry-specific production contexts and practices; it examines the aesthetic qualities of the work as being irreducibly mediated by industrial, economic, cultural, and historical factors; and it explores the activity of the spectator as a historical, meaning-making agent. Contra its detractors, the poetics tradition is hardly insensitive to questions of history, culture, and reception. Indeed, a poetics of Chinese cinema can illuminate both the formal distinctiveness of Chinese films and the culturally specific circumstances that engender that distinctiveness.