Jiwei Xiao
Jiwei Xiao is Professor of Cinema Studies in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University. Prior to September 2023, she was a faculty member of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at FU. She is the author of Telling Details: Chinese Fiction, World Literature (Routledge, 2022). Her articles appeared in New Left Review, Film Quarterly, Senses of Cinema, MCLC, and various other journals. She has also contributed to various magazines including Cineaste, New York Review of Books, and The Atlantic.
less
InterestsView All (20)
Uploads
Papers by Jiwei Xiao
“Belated Reunion: Late Style and Eileen Chang’s Little Reunions,” New Left Review Issue 111 (May-June), 2018: 89-110.
Objeto de una feroz controversia cuando se proyectó por primera vez, el documental de Antonioni Chung Kuo –filmado en la República Popular China durante la Revolución Cultural– ha sido desde entonces omitido de su obra. El director de L’avventura fracasó en su papel de Marco Polo, cuya mirada paciente y humanizadora nos legó una crónica del pasado de China recientemente redescubierta.
Film Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Summer 2015): pp. 24-35
Abstract: Composed of four stories adapted from real-life incidents of violence spanning the first decade of China’s 21st century, Jia Zhangke’s 2013 film A Touch of Sin presents violence not as isolated incidents of individual crimes but as something fated to happen as a result of profound changes brought about by contemporary Chinese modernization and urbanization. In the film, Jia puts the whole society on trial by using theatrical artifice and by weaving seemingly unrelated characters into a larger tapestry of social ills and moral “sins.” Formally, A Touch of Sin opens a new chapter in Jia’s filmmaking career. The film is self-reflexive, anthologizing, and formally eclectic, marked by profuse self-references as well as an attempt at aesthetic hybridization. While demonstrating a style that is unmistakably his own, Jia experiments with techniques he felicitously adapts from literature, theatre, painting, and other art forms, both Chinese and Western.
中文摘要（改译）：
"拆解"中国：《天注定》里的暴力、罪恶与艺术 *
贾樟柯2013年的作品《天注定》里四个主要故事分别取材于发生在中国二十一世纪头十（几）年的真实暴力事件，可是电影所呈现的暴力不再是单独的偶发事件，而是当代中国现代化和城市化所导致的社会巨变下的“命中注定”。贾樟柯在电影中用戏剧手段，亦显亦隐地将看似不相干的人物故事编结成表现罪与恶的宽幅织锦，也以此将整个社会送上审判席。形式上来说，《天注定》是贾樟柯电影导演生涯的又一篇章：影片充满大量自我参照的内容、驳杂的指涉、以及混合的美学元素。如此，虽然《天注定》确凿无疑仍标示贾氏风格，但其恣意也贴切的对其他艺术形式的“改编与再创”则彰显导演在形式技巧上所做的新的实验性努力。事实上，我们可以说，《天注定》既是一部中国社会批判书 (a work of social protest)，也是当代“世界电影”(world cinema)颇具代表性的前沿作品。
* 关于“拆解”： 用“拆解”翻译“unravel"不知是否完全妥当。 “Unravel”既可以当非及物动词，有 自我“拆散”、“松垮” 、“分解”之义；也可以当及物动词，作“揭秘”、“诠释”、和 “暴露”讲。一方面，贾樟柯强调暴力的社会根源以及社会摧毁性，影片突出边缘阶层的遭遇和视角，其实矛头指向整个社会都正在经受的原有家庭社会关系和经济生活方式的分崩离析以及精神上的流离失所；而另一方面，电影本身即为贾樟柯对当代中国社会暴力乱象的“拆解”--批判性的诠释和 揭示。而“拆解”不同于“拆散”或“拆减”。也就是说，"China Unraveled"和 "China Unraveling"是两件事。用"China Unraveled"作题目，因为说的是电影；如果用“China Unraveling”代替，则有大话发布社会预言之嫌疑，只有头脑简单的人和某些机会主义评论家会这样讲话。从不认为电影和社会现象是对等关系，中间只 隔着透明。但是不可否认，对熟知社会新闻事件的观众来说，跟现实看起来如此接近的电影，其表现形式很容易被忽略，所以要细看。贾樟柯对暴力的戏剧／戏曲化处理和大量自我引用以及风格化演义，是对他之前平淡自然的作品的一种反动，也反映他对当代“世界电影”形式有意无意的应和；这也许正是因为故事和现实距离太近的缘故，他试图利用戏剧张力将二者拉开，实现艺术对现实的“拆解”。