'My' Self on Camera
First Person Documentary Practice in an Individualising China
Published on 25. August 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-4744-7412-2 (ISBN)
Description
'My' Self on Camera is the first book to explore first person narrative documentary in China's post-Mao era. Since the emergence of the individual as an ever more important social figure in China, this mode of independent filmmaking and cultural practice has become increasingly significant. Combining the approach of cultural ethnography, interviews, and textual analysis of selected films, this study examines the motivations, key aesthetic features and ethical tensions of presenting the self on camera, as well as the socio-political, cultural and technical conditions surrounding its practice. This book problematises how the sense of self and subjectivities are understood in contemporary China, and provides illuminating new insights on the changing notion of the individual through cinema.
Reviews / Votes
Understanding first person filmmaking in China as always already political, this study breaks new ground in considering the particularities of this personal form of filmmaking as it emerges in the late 20th Century China. With in-depth case studies written by a scholar who is also a filmmaker, this study is a welcome reassessment of the predominantly western-oriented scholarship on subjective/autobiographical/first person film. Tianqi Yu's book is a major contribution to the field. -- Alisa Lebow, University of Sussex This exciting book reveals that China's first-person documentary boom takes individualism not as a retreat from but rather as the route to social and political engagement. -- Chris Berry, King's College London With exhilarating brio, My 'Self' on Camera counters Eurocentric first person documentary. It locates Chinese "I" cinemas within the Post Mao period, decollectivization, and marketization. A stirring account of little known films, it insists the Chinese "I" is multiple, conflicted, and relational, traversing between public and private, home and human rights. -- Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ithaca CollegeMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
20 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-7412-2 (9781474474122)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
11/2018
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€22.49
Available for download
E-Book
11/2018
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Dr Kiki Tianqi Yu is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Queen Mary University of London, as well as a writer, filmmaker, and curator. She is the author of 'My' Self on Camera: First Person Documentary Practice in an Individualising China (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), the co-editor of China's iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the 21 Century (Bloomsbury 2014) and a special issue on East Asian women's personal cinema for Studies in Documentary Film (2020 14:1). Kiki's award-winning films include Memory of Home (2009), China's van Goghs (2016) , and The Two Lives of Li Ermao (2019. Her curatorial projects include "Dancing with Water: women's cinema from contemporary China" (Feb-Apr 2024) at various venues in London.
Content
List of Figures List of Main Terms with Chinese Translations List of Names with Chinese Character Translations Acknowledgements
Introduction: Action, Amateurness and the Changing Sense of the Individual Self 1. Female First Person Documentary Practice: Negotiating Gendered Expectations 2. Amateurness and an Inward Gaze at Home 3. Nostalgia toward Laojia: Old Home as an Imagined Past 4. First Person Action Documentary Practice: Longing for a More Politicised Space 5. The Problematic Public Self: Ethics, Camera and Language in Contestable Minjian Public Spaces 6. Camera Activism: Provocative Documentation, First Person Confrontation and Collective Force 7. Whose Self on Camera? Motives, Mistrust, Disputed Authenticities 8. From Fragile First Person Documentary Practice to Popular Online First Person Live Streaming Broadcast - Zhibo: Changing Intentions, Changing Individual Selves
Filmography Bibliography Index
Introduction: Action, Amateurness and the Changing Sense of the Individual Self 1. Female First Person Documentary Practice: Negotiating Gendered Expectations 2. Amateurness and an Inward Gaze at Home 3. Nostalgia toward Laojia: Old Home as an Imagined Past 4. First Person Action Documentary Practice: Longing for a More Politicised Space 5. The Problematic Public Self: Ethics, Camera and Language in Contestable Minjian Public Spaces 6. Camera Activism: Provocative Documentation, First Person Confrontation and Collective Force 7. Whose Self on Camera? Motives, Mistrust, Disputed Authenticities 8. From Fragile First Person Documentary Practice to Popular Online First Person Live Streaming Broadcast - Zhibo: Changing Intentions, Changing Individual Selves
Filmography Bibliography Index