FieryCinema

This book explores the dynamic entity that was cinema in modern China. It was not limited to a single media technology, mode of operation, or aesthetic code. Instead, it was an affective medium, a concept introduced by Weihong Bao that describes media as a mediating environment with the power of stirring passions, framing perceptions, and molding experiences.

Fiery Cinema traces the evolution of this affective medium from the early to mid-twentieth century, examining its role in aesthetics, politics, and social institutions. Bao maps the changing identity of cinema in China, taking into account its relationship with Republican-era print media, theatrical performance, radio broadcasting, television, and architecture. She also delves into Chinese media culture and explores its relationship with mechanized warfare, colonial modernity, and the reshaping of the public into consumers, national citizens, and a revolutionary collective subject.

Using transnational media theory and history, Bao highlights the tension and affinity between the vernacular, political modernist, and propagandistic articulations of mass culture in China’s participation in modernity. This study offers a radical rethinking of affect and medium as a key insight into cinema’s relationship with the public sphere and the making of the masses. By focusing on media politics and the forgotten future of cinema, Fiery Cinema contributes to the theory and history of media in a significant way.

作者简介

WeihongBaoisassistantprofessoroffilmandmediaandChinesestudiesattheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley.