Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves
Drawing on what used to be the erstwhile internationalist cultural space of Communist Eurasia, the author reads socialist-era and postsocialist films made in Romania and China as promoting a common aesthetics predicated on the miserabilism of Third Cinema. The book argues that, despite indictments that socialist cultures were saturated with the oppressing ideology of socialist realism in the 1950s and various forms of indoctrination thereafter, in practice, film directors had the leverage to tackle social issues even in those works that are deemed today “propagandist.”

Refusing to endorse contemporary theories that seek to align the Romanian and the Chinese New Waves solely to Western cinematic practices, the author argues that China’s fifth and sixth generation films as well as New Romanian Cinema are hugely indebted to socialist-era themes, as well as to the dogmatism of socialist realism. Identifying continuity rather than rupture between the socialist past and the capitalist present, the author seeks to redress an imbalance that contemporary scholars of Romanian and Chinese cinemas oftentimes ignore.

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Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves
Drawing on what used to be the erstwhile internationalist cultural space of Communist Eurasia, the author reads socialist-era and postsocialist films made in Romania and China as promoting a common aesthetics predicated on the miserabilism of Third Cinema. The book argues that, despite indictments that socialist cultures were saturated with the oppressing ideology of socialist realism in the 1950s and various forms of indoctrination thereafter, in practice, film directors had the leverage to tackle social issues even in those works that are deemed today “propagandist.”

Refusing to endorse contemporary theories that seek to align the Romanian and the Chinese New Waves solely to Western cinematic practices, the author argues that China’s fifth and sixth generation films as well as New Romanian Cinema are hugely indebted to socialist-era themes, as well as to the dogmatism of socialist realism. Identifying continuity rather than rupture between the socialist past and the capitalist present, the author seeks to redress an imbalance that contemporary scholars of Romanian and Chinese cinemas oftentimes ignore.

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Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves

Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves

by Lucian ?ion
Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves

Romanian and Chinese Cinemas: Socialist Affect and Cultural Politics from Maoism to the New Waves

by Lucian ?ion

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Overview

Drawing on what used to be the erstwhile internationalist cultural space of Communist Eurasia, the author reads socialist-era and postsocialist films made in Romania and China as promoting a common aesthetics predicated on the miserabilism of Third Cinema. The book argues that, despite indictments that socialist cultures were saturated with the oppressing ideology of socialist realism in the 1950s and various forms of indoctrination thereafter, in practice, film directors had the leverage to tackle social issues even in those works that are deemed today “propagandist.”

Refusing to endorse contemporary theories that seek to align the Romanian and the Chinese New Waves solely to Western cinematic practices, the author argues that China’s fifth and sixth generation films as well as New Romanian Cinema are hugely indebted to socialist-era themes, as well as to the dogmatism of socialist realism. Identifying continuity rather than rupture between the socialist past and the capitalist present, the author seeks to redress an imbalance that contemporary scholars of Romanian and Chinese cinemas oftentimes ignore.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399512787
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 04/30/2025
Pages: 244
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Lucian Țion is a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His research includes Eastern European and Chinese cinemas, as well as postsocialist cultural studies. He has published in the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Comparative Literature Studies, Cineaste, and Senses of Cinema, among many others. He contributed to the edited volumes Cold War II: Hollywood’s Renewed Obsession with Russia (2020), as well as Third Cinema, World Cinema and Marxism (2020).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I

1. Film and Socialist Affect

2. The Story of Romanian and Chinese Socialist Cinemas

3. Performativity

4. The 1970s and the 1980s

Part II

5. The 1990s and Postsocialism

6. The Romanian New Wave and China’s Sixth Generation

7. Postsocialism and Occidentalism

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