Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
1. Approaching Reality: Chinese Ontology and the Potentiality of Time
2. Cinema of Thought: Directed Consciousness in Chinese Marxist Film Theory
3. Soft Film Theory: Lifein All Its Presence and Concreteness
4. Fey Mou: The Presence of an Absence
5. Cinema of Ideation, Cinema of Play: The Early Cantonese Sound Film
Conclusion
Notes
Filmography
Index

About the Author

Victor Fan is lecturer in film studies at King’s College London. He has contributed extensively to academic journals, including Screen, Film History, and Camera Obscura.

Reviews

"An eye-opening exploration of the possibilities of approaching cinema anew, in its photographic materiality, after the digital turn."—Guo-Juin Hong, Duke University

"Erudite, thought-provoking and lucidly composed. Cinema Approaching Reality fills a giant gap in Chinese film studies as the first comprehensive and imaginative study of key theoretical debates on cinema in China and Hong Kong before 1950. More importantly, Victor Fan bridges or reestablishes the historical and philosophical connections between the Chinese discourses and Western film theory within the global context of modernity, capitalism, and imperialism, while offering refreshing insights into the life or temporality of the moving image in the wake of the digital turn."—Zhang Zhen, New York University