World Film Locations Beijing

In a series of spotlight essays and illustrated scene reviews, a cast of seasoned scholars and fresh new voices explore the vast range of films – encompassing drama, madcap comedy, martial arts escapism and magical realism – that have been set in Beijing. Unveiling a city of hidden courtyards, looming skyscrapers and traditional Hutong neighbourhoods, these contributors depict a distinctive urban culture that reflects the conflict and tumult of a nation in transition. With considerations of everything from the back streets of Beijing Bicycle to the forbidden palace of The Last Emperor to the tourist park of The World, this volume is a definitive cinematic guide to an ever-changing and endlessly fascinating capital city.

Celebrating Shanghai’s rich cinematic history, the films covered here represent a lengthy time period, from the first Golden Age of Chinese Cinema in the 1930s to the city’s status as an international production hub in 2013. Given the enduring status of Shanghai as the 'Paris of the East,' World Film Locations: Shanghai emphasizes the city’s cosmopolitan glamour through locations that are steeped in cinematic exoticism, while also probing the reality behind the image by investigating its backstreets and residential zones. To facilitate this study of Shanghai’s dual identity through reference to film locations, the book includes films from both the commercial and independent sectors, with a balance between images captured by local filmmakers and the visions of Western directors who have also utilized the city for their projects. With numerous essays that reflect Shanghai’s relationship to film and scene reviews of such iconic titles as Street Angel, Temptress Moon, Kung Fu Hustle, and Skyfall, World Film Locations: Shanghai is essential reading for all scholars of China’s urban culture.

A filmic guidebook of the Greek capital, World Film Locations: Athens takes readers to film locations in the central historical district with excursions to the periphery of Athens – popular neighbourhoods, poor suburbs and slums often represented in postwar neorealist films – and then on to garden cities and upper class suburbs, especially those preferred by the auteurs of the 1970s. Of course, no Grecian vacation would be complete without a visit to the sea, and summer resorts, hotels and beaches near Athens are frequent backdrops for international productions. However, more recent economic strife has emptied city neighbourhoods, created urban violence and caused an increase in riots in the Mediterranean city, and representations of this on film are juxtaposed with images of the eternal and idyllic city. Featuring both Greek and foreign productions from various genres and historical periods, World Film Locations: Athens ultimately works to establish connections between the various aesthetics of dominant representations of Athens.

After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982, directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou transformed Chinese cinema with Farewell My Concubine, Yellow Earth, Raise the Red Lantern, and other international successes. Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy tells the riveting story of this class of 1982, China’s famous "Fifth Generation" of filmmakers. It is the first insider’s account of this renowned cohort to appear in English. Covering these directors’ formative experiences during China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution and later at the Beijing Film Academy, Ni Zhen—who was both their screenwriter and teacher—provides unique insights into the origins of the Fifth Generation’s creativity. Drawing on his personal knowledge and interviews conducted especially for this volume, Ni Zhen demonstrates the diversity of the Fifth Generation. He comments on the breadth of styles and themes explored by its members and introduces a range of male and female directors, cinematographers, and production designers famous in China but less well-known internationally. The book contains vivid descriptions of the production processes of two pioneering films—One and Eight and Yellow Earth.

Malta has served as a beautiful backdrop for films for nearly as long as there has been a film industry. This entry in the World Film Locations series traces the history of Malta on screen, from bigbudget blockbusters to modest indie pictures. The locations Malta offers range widely, from grand fortified harbours and stunning cliffs to quaint villages and Baroque palaces. That diversity has enabled the island to double for countless locations, including ancient Troy and Alexandria, as well as Greece, Israel, and other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, while its well-known water tanks have proved to be perfect for shooting ocean scenes. Packed with illustrations, World Film Locations: Malta examines a number of films made in Malta, and will be a must-read for tourists, film buffs and scholars alike.

World Film Locations: Buenos Aires explores this picturesque and passionate city (the second-largest in South America) as a stage for sociopolitical transformations, and a key location in the international imagination as a site of cultural export. The book uncovers the many reasons why Buenos Aires attracts not only tourists but also artists and filmmakers, who explore the city and its iconography as well as its cultural and sociopolitical turbulence. A set of six essays anchors this volume; contributors consider a range of key topics related to the city onscreen, including tango, villas miseria (shantytowns), dictatorship and democracy, and science fiction and the future of the city. The volume is rounded out with in-depth reviews of nearly fifty key films—The Hour of the Furnaces, Nine Queens, and Evita among them—each illustrated by screen shots, current location imagery, and corresponding maps for travelers and movies buffs to use as they navigate this rich cinematic city.

One of the oldest cities in the world, Beijing was an imperial capital for centuries. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing became not only the political center of the new communist country, but also the signifier of socialist ideol-ogy and revolutionary culture. Now, in the 21st century, Beijing embodies global conflicts and global connections. Over the course of the last century, then, Beijing moved from the quintessential “traditional” capital to the symbol of communist urban form and finally to a cosmopolitan metropolis. These three stages in the history of Beijing and its shifting representations are the topic of this study. Like other capitals, Beijing is much more than its physical entity. It also functions as a concept, a representation. As city planners have (and continue to) present Beijing to the world as a model, the fluctuating images of Beijing have become solidified in urban space. Today, the urban form of Beijing juxtaposes diverse spaces that span centuries, embodying the various representations of the city by its planners in different eras. These representations of space also provide possibilities for writers to rethink and rebuild the city in their literary works. Chinese writers and filmmakers often essentialize those urban spaces by making them symbols of different urban cultures, the old houses representing “traditional,” “patriarchal” Chinese culture while soviet-style buildings reflect revolu-tionary culture. Finally, the more recent sprouting of apartments, condos, and townhouses stands for the invasion of western modernity and provides evidence of global capitalism in contemporary China. Inspired by Henri Lefebvre, this study establishes a framework that connects urban spaces (representations of space) to writers and literary productions (representational space). I analyze the three major urban spatial forms of traditional, communist, and glob-alized Beijing and examine what these urban spaces mean to Chinese writers and filmmakers as well as how they use them to configure particular images of Beijing. I argue that these different configurations are actually the projections of those writers and filmmakers’ own cultural imaginations; they provoke a form of emotional catharsis and also produce alternative visions of the cityscape.

Barcelona is one of the world’s most beautiful cities. A permanent showcase of the work of acclaimed architect Antoni Gaudí, it also has a long and rich cinematic legacy. Great directors from all over the world – among them Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar and Michelangelo Antonioni – have set their films there. World Film Locations: Barcelona is the first book of its kind to explore the rich cinematic history of this seductive Catalonian city. The illuminating essays collected here cover essential themes of the city’s cinematic history, including the origins of cinema in Barcelona; the role of Ciutat Vella (old quarter) as a film set; the influential Barcelona School of the 1960s; the film presence of Gaudí and his work; changing attitudes and urban renewal before and after the 1992 Olympics; and the emergence of a new generation of female filmmakers that have made Barcelona the centre of their cinematic explorations. This book will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone enchanted by the beauty of Barcelona, whether in person on the big screen.