dls%2E2014%2E0168

Deleuze, the (Si)neo-realist Breakand the Emergence of ChineseAny-now(here)-spaces1

David H. Fleming University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Abstract

By creatively expanding Deleuzes concept of the time-image crystal,I productively fold together and engineer an encounter between twocomparable cinematic movements otherwise separated by huge vistasof time and space. Here, I work to plicate the post-war Italianneorealist movement which Deleuze saw inaugurating the moderncinema, with a postsocialist mainland Chinese movement that Iplayfully call (si)neo-realism. The films of both historical momentsformulate comparable break-away cinemas which are often consideredmoral or socially responsible art cinemas best approached throughAndr Bazins ontological film philosophy lens. By using Deleuze,however, I hope to move beyond these realist discussions to explorehow both movements are also fruitfully thought in terms of introducingdistinct yet analogous mental relations into the image during historicaljunctures defined by radically transforming psycho-geographies. LikeDeleuzes discussions of neorealism, (si)neo-realism is considered aloose impulse or mode that collectively bears witness to confusingand bewildering mental experiences from within a turbulent periodof cultural, ideological and historical upheaval: which demands newways of perceiving, thinking and acting. Without wanting to fall intoa problematic auteur paradigm, I necessarily employ the films of WangXiaoshuai as emblematic examples of the wider impulse or trend.Indeed, Wangs films perfectly reify a new ethico-aesthetic form ofChinese cinema marked by a proliferation of new spaces, characters,

Deleuze Studies 8.4 (2014): 509541DOI: 10.3366/dls.2014.0168 Edinburgh University Presswww.euppublishing.com/dls

510 David H. Fleming

experiences and narrative structures. Here, I also strive to do whatDeleuze did not in his writing upon film, and explore the break-ups, breakdowns and breakthroughs in specific relation to a complexcontextual web of political and cinematic ecosystems. Throughout thisprocess I try to put Deleuze to work by using the films and context to re-interrogate and re-evaluate the time-image models as they appear withinand across his Cinema books.

Keywords: Deleuze, Chinese cinema, Andr Bazin, neorealism, time-images

I. Introduction

Since the 1990s, mainland Chinas biggest contender for an alternativeor break-away cinema has been pinned to a loose band of maverickdirectors hailing from what has variously been called the Postsocialist,Post-Wave, Newborn-, Sixth-, Post-Sixth-, or Urban-Generation offilmmakers. This mixed grab bag of directors boasts state-schoolgraduates from the Fifth-, Sixth- and D-Generations respectively,alongside a wider cohort of amateur and non-professionals.2 The filmsare usually assembled on account of a perceived predilection for anunpolished style, raw gritty realism, Art film ethico-aesthetics, or forunflinchingly focusing upon social problems affecting the cultures non-official underbelly. Over the past twenty years the impulse has oftenbeen branded an underground, avant-garde or if one buys into theself-aggrandising myths illegal cinema.3 If we uncritically accept theBanned in Beijing branding many of these films receive, we alsonecessarily confront one of film historys most glaring ironies. Forthese films are deemed inappropriate on account of exposing issuesof class inequality, powerlessness and systemic corruption confrontingindividuals (and groups) under an insidious system of capitalism andforeign influence (globalisation): which is to say, exactly the sort ofstories previously sought by the ruling Party to propagandise andextol the virtues of communism. Beyond this historical repetition (orNietzschean return) in the form of political farce, any opprobriumor unfavourable domestic reception must be linked to the filmmakersadoption of a warts-and-all docu-style that seditiously records Chinasprofoundly uneven and unprecedentedly rapid process of modernisationand globalisation.

The new impulse crystallised in Wang Xiaoshuais The Days (1993)and Zhang Yuans Beijing Bastards (1994), with both being observed

The (Si)neo-realist break and emerging any-now(here)-spaces 511

to blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction in Chinesecinema for the first time. Each embraced a low-budget on the streetvideo style, to relate dispersed and distended narratives that traced theinterweaving lives of disaffected artists and social outsiders. Thereaftera growing wave of stark realist films including Postman (1995), Onthe Beat (1995), Pickpocket (1997), So Close to Paradise (1998), ILove Beijing (2000), Beijing Bicycle (2001), The World (2003), BlindShaft (2003), Drifters (2003) and Lost in Beijing (2007) aesthetically,formally and politically (or in various combinations thereof) followedsuit, by focusing upon disempowered characters confronting new socialproblems and ideological/identity issues.4 By sharing common ethico-aesthetic characteristics, the films can be understood as delimiting theterritories of a loose movement or style which typically focuses upondisempowered or disenfranchised agents, underclass migrants or adult-children struggling to come to terms with Chinas rapidly transformingsocio-political psycho-geography.

The multiplicit movement is often understood as marking a decisivebreak with Chinas established artistic and literary cinematic traditions;especially its national and nation-building models. The decidedly alienpolitics and aesthetic have often forced domestic and foreign criticsto seek international trends or movements for comparison, or to helpdescribe the texture and feel of the new impulse. The renewed drivefor stark social (as opposed to socialist or revolutionary) realism, forinstance, leads many to compare the trend to a post-war Europeanvrit or neorealist style (see inter alia Wright 2001; Zhang Yingjin2006, 2007; Berry 2006, 2007; Johnson 2006; Tonglin Lu 2006;Braester 2007; Reynaud 2007). Such discourses often emerge alongsidea renewed critical encounter with Andr Bazins neorealist exegesisand/or ontological writings. And although these coordinates remainuseful, and undoubtedly enrich any consideration of the Chinese films,I maintain that beyond the obvious drive for higher levels of socialrealism, the films also appear symptomatic of a more fundamentalphilosophical and ideological rupture, which erects thought-provokingparallels with Deleuzes philosophical writing on the neorealist tradition.Taking Deleuzes lead, I argue that the Chinese films can also beunderstood as part of a wider response to comparably disorienting andconfusing experiences emerging in the wake of disjunctive and disruptivehistorical events. Indeed, many critics discuss the Chinese films reflectinga cultural zeitgeist, or marking a significant paradigm shift (Lai2007: 232) in Chinese filmmaking linked to a wider existential crisis(Zhang Yingjin 2007: 49). Such views also invoke Deleuzes writing


upon the Italian post-war cinema, then, and can help account for amotific loosening of action-image drives, the introduction of new mutantcharacters, the breaking down of traditional ways of perceiving andacting, and the introduction of new mental relations into the image.Elsewhere I ultimately maintain that these films set the scene for thefull-blown emergence of a PRC time-image within Lou Yes SuzhouRiver (2000): a film I read as an autodidactic philosophical equivalent toLast Year in Marienbad (1961), and which for Deleuze, following AndrLabarthe, was the apogee and last of the great neo-realist films (seeDeleuze 2005b: 7; Fleming 2014).5

For me, the Chinese impulse autodidactically reifies or transmutateswhat Bazin and Deleuze each saw as the most important featuresand enduring value of the neorealist event. Although some criticshave already employed distinctly Deleuzo-Guattarian labels includingminor (Zhen 2007: 1) or nomadic (Johnson 2006: 49) to describethis alternative film movement, I argue that Deleuzes neorealist time-image models offer the best ethico-aesthetic fit for explaining andunderstanding the wider movement. Conceptually expanding Deleuzestime-image crystalline model allows us to fold together, and engineer anencounter between, two historical movements otherwise separated byhuge vistas of time and space. Here, plicating the post-war neorealistmovement with a postsocialist mainland cinema that I playfully call(si)neo-realism.6 For the sake of space, I predominantly limit analysisto key similarities and commonalities flowing between the movementsat the expense of differences, which are obviously multiple and vary indegrees. In passing we could enumerate the appearance of newer digitalspaces and virtual communication realms opened up and explored in themodern Chinese films (such as the animated SMS spaces in The World,or the computer game realms in Beijing Bicycle), or the unique and keyrole of female directors in the Chinese movement (like Ning Ying orLi Yu, for example), or even some differences that are quasi-similarities,such as both movements employing operatic sounds from their respectivenational traditions to score images of poor marginal characters.

Although I necessarily skirt the work of multiple directors in acompare and contrast fashion, space dictates I limit the focus to thework of Wang Xiaoshuai, who offers himself up as the best fit for thisparticular exercise, not only because his films inaugurated the (si)neo-realist trend, but also because they remain emblematic of the widerimpulse as the new millennium unfolded. What is more, in films suchas The Days, So Close to Paradise, Beijing Bicycle and Drifters, Wangforces viewers to engage with time as a pertinent theme or loaded


and spatialised trope. More pragmatically, Wang also literally servesto bridge the Italian and Chinese traditions in both his capacity asboard member for the BigScreen Italia film festival (a festival exclusivelydedicated to links between Chinese and Italian cinemas) and on accountof directing Beijing Bicycle (Seventeen Year Olds Bicycle in its Chineseformulation), which is an overt homage to, and expansion upon, VittorioDe Sicas 1948 masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves: which Bazin feltformulated the ultimate expression of neorealism (Bazin 1999: 205).

As Beijing Bicycle constitutes Wangs most commercial andinternationally famous film to date, I use it here as a path into his lesserknown or distributed works (and the movement more generally). Beyondbeing an updating and transmutation of an earlier film, Beijing Bicyclecan be understood as an expansion of De Sicas work because it followsthe dispersed and fragmented story of two interconnected characterslinked by one stolen bicycle, as opposed to De Sicas sole focus uponRicci (Lamberto Maggiorani). Beijing Bicycle first follows the story ofthe migrant worker Guei (Cui Lin) who uses the bike as a courier afterhaving moved to Beijing from the countryside. The following sectionintroduces a Beijing schoolboy called Jian (Li Bin) who buys the bike ina narrative ellipsis after it has been stolen from Guei. The film thereaftercuts back and forth between two patchwork assemblages of places,characters, relationships and desires that constitute the characters lives.We follow Gueis hopeless search around Beijing for his missing bike, hissomewhat contrived (unrealistic?) chance re-encounter, and subsequentbattle to get it back from Jian; whom he and the audience assume stoleit. Viewers learn Jian legitimately bought the bike on the black market,though, and we see how the prized libidinal (Lin 2009: 98) commodityhelps him get a girlfriend and acceptance from bicycle-gang peers. Thefilms ethical texture is complicated by learning that Jian bought the bikeillegally because his father failed to deliver on a promise: to gift him oneif he succeeded at school. The boys thereafter attempt a doomed (quasi-socialist) time-share agreement, but problems and violence follow thebike, until the film ends with the brutal destruction of the bicycle andthe savage murder of a gang member.

Wang employs the bike as a loaded and load-bearing prop, then, tohelp expose the changing reality of Beijing (and by extension China)as a material and ideological space and place, and as a tool to openup some of the different concomitant and heterotopic realities facingmigrant and city people within the same mental-material spaces. Beyondits representational value, the bike also serves to affectively bring to thefore newer forms of implanted capitalist desire associated with objects


and commodities under Chinas rapid process of modernisation andglobalisation. Besides plot and dispersed narrative structure, though, wemust also question how it is that this film, or indeed the wider movementto which Wang belongs, reflects Italian neorealism as a historicalmovement and as a philosophical cinema that provokes or stimulatesnew ways of perceiving and thinking. To do this we have to beginplugging Deleuzes film-philosophy into the sino-cinematic mode, albeitrefraining from uncritically forcing Deleuzes (predominantly European)models onto or over an unwitting and uninviting Chinese movement. Instriving to put the Deleuzian theory to work, we must also use the filmsto re-interrogate Deleuzes Cinema project, then, and employ the (si)neo-realist cinema to rethink the factors and conditions Deleuze originallyattributed to the global shift from movement- to time-image categories.

By using this modern Chinese movement to rethink Deleuzes film-philosophy on fresh terrain, this project necessarily follows in thewake of David Martin-Joness pioneering work into world cinemasthat threaten to destabilise Deleuzes Cinema project. Martin-Jonesrepeatedly illuminates how non-European films challenge us to refine,adapt and develop Deleuzes global distinction between movement-and time-image regimes: whilst themselves encouraging a productivedeterritorialisation of his models in relation to a wider cinematic context.Martin-Jones examines how Hong Kong films (a non-mainland Chinesenational cinema) leading up to and overlapping the 1997 handover, forexample, expressively toys with movement- and time-images as part ofa wider response to an intense period of socio-political turbulence. Hehere deepens our understanding of how notions of national identity arehistorically constructed or delimited by film (Martin-Jones 2006). InDeleuze and World Cinemas (2011) he further deterritorialises DeleuzesEurocentric models by exploring yet more moments of global crisisemerging during other historical junctures, all the while stressing that tobetter understand world cinemas, scholars must practise what Deleuzedid not, and re-situate or re-connect discussions with the surroundingrhizomatic web of economic, social, historical, geopolitical and culturalforces affecting the cultures and filmmakers (Martin-Jones 2011: 16).Taking heed, I thus strive to contextualise the emergence of this newbreak by situating it within the historical and cultural (and cinematic)events that help constitute the before and after of the movement-event. Ithereafter work to draw out Deleuze and Bazins different philosophicalapproaches to neorealism, before using Deleuze to explore the aestheticand stylistic features that link together this Chinese impulse with theearlier Italian movement. At this point, then, we must first turn to the


disjunctive or disruptive concept of a historical or cinematic breaktypically used to frame and contextualise both movements, as this inpart factored into what interested both Bazin and Deleuze in neorealismin the first place.

II. On Clean Breaks and Breakdowns

Deleuze argued the most decisive break in cinematic history wasgrounded in the aftermath of World War II, and was related to thebreakdown of older ideological systems and the emergence of newexperiences of space-time fostered by a devastated post-war situationand new atomic age. In cinematic terms, these contributed to a shiftaway from the classical action-image era of storytelling towards anew modulating (art cinema) time-image mode in the (predominantly)European context (Deleuze 2000). This period was concomitant witha return to cinematic or artistic zero by the Italian filmmakers whopolitically sought to escape cinematic artifice and escapism (quamindless entertainment). Much ink has already been spilled over thehistorical conditions and cultural context that Italian neorealism marksa break from. Deleuze, for example, predominantly linked it with abreak from an American or Hollywood tradition, but it is also fruitfulto point out that neorealism also marked a national break from themicro-fascist escapist cinema of Mussolini. It is well known to nearlyall Western film students that since the mid to late 1930s Italian cinemawas tightly imbricated with church and fascist politics under MussolinisMinistry of Popular Culture. And that after nationalising the industry,the Italian Dictator controlled filmmakers by schooling them at thenew Centro Spermentale di Cinematografia: a state-sponsored film-school that encouraged the production of escapist white telephone filmswhich idealised patriarchal power and promoted obedience to stateand family. With the advent of synchronised sound, Mussolini stroveto foster a unified national identity by eliminating regional dialects oraccents from domestic screens, forcing films to address audiences in anofficial standardised Italian for the first time. Until relatively recently,far less was taught about Chinese cinematic history and traditions inthe Western university circuit, and although this is something beingredressed by many institutions today, it is worth while taking time tosketch out what exactly constitutes the before and after of the (si)neo-realist movement.

We can begin with the founding of the Peoples Republic ofChina (PRC) in 1949, when the film industry was first nationalised.


Since then, Chinese filmmakers were retroactively and teleologicallyarranged into a chronological progression of generations, backdated tothe First Generation of silent pioneers. The newly nationalised industrythen began operating under the strict control of the Chinese CommunistPartys (CCP) Ministry of Culture, who no longer viewed film asentertainment, art or business. As the Party began exploring cinemaspolitical potentials, the production of films began to dramaticallyincrease, albeit from pre-production stages through scripting, shooting,post-production and distribution it was now open to the scrutiny anddemands of various censorship bodies (Zhang Yingjin 2004: 191). If filmwas to be an important political tool, it was recognised that it wouldfirst have to start reaching greater numbers of Chinese citizens. Thiswas immediately addressed, and by the end of 1950, 100 million extrapeople were able to watch new nation-building films: courtesy of theCCP training armies of projection teams, opening new exhibition sites,and creating 15,000 mobile projection units designed to take cinemato the remotest regions (see Zhang Yingjin 2004: 1902; Bordwell andThompson 2003: 405).

Zhang Yingjin argues the first waves of national cinema typically tookthe form of war films like The Bridge (1949), designed to rewrite modernhistory as a teleological process (or action-image qua Deleuze) whereinthe CCP steers the people from one victory to the next into a bright andprosperous future (see Zhang Yingjin 2004: 193). This politicisation ofthe cinema coincided with an audio transformation, as the majority ofChinese films began uniformly addressing audiences in the official statelanguage of Mandarin for the first time.7 Qua Benedict Anderson, theuse of a fixed and stable language within a prescribed national bordercan be understood as a strategy to help foster and maintain an imaginedsolidarity and national community. What is more, under CCP rulealmost all previous Chinese films specifically the Second GenerationsGolden era movies were banned. In 1956 the Beijing Film Academy(BFA) was founded, as part of an attempt to restrict the training offilmmakers and limit their work to approved ideology (Nochimson2010: 388).8 Third Generation directors were thereafter schooled toproduce nationalist communist agitprop fashioned after a Soviet modelof socialist realism.

Throughout the Great Leap Forward Bordwell and Thompsontrace how mainland filmmakers faced intermittent periods of tighteningcontrol followed by relative relaxation, until the chaos of the CulturalRevolution (196772) ground the industry to a veritable halt, with onlya few highly regulated films such as The Red Detachment of Women


(1970) and Breaking with Old Ideas (1975) being produced. Around1978 the BFA reopened for business amidst the implementation ofPost-Mao reform programmes. As China began to reshape and adaptto this New-Era, a new wave of Fourth Generation graduates beganproducing a series of scar dramas that obliquely explored the traumaticaftermath of these turbulent times. This New-Era is broadly outlinedin terms of gradual incremental reforms in Chinas agricultural andservice sectors, and as bearing witness to the emergence of an embryonicmass consumer culture within key urban centres.9 By 1986 ongoingsystemic reforms witnessed Chinas film industry come under the controlof a new State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT),which immediately began tightening up control measures. The FifthGenerations rise to prominence during this era thus schizophrenicallycoincided with Chinas ever-tightening domestic control on filmmakingpractice and a period of international opening up heralded as themarch into the world (Zhen 2007: 3).

Facing stricter domestic control, many young directors beganembracing overseas investment to produce personal projects, or utilisingforeign locations for the editing and post-production of festival films thatwould be deemed politically unsanitary. Accordingly many producedfilms that tackled controversial subject matter or employed avant-garde aesthetics. Directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige famouslybegan entering their films into international festivals without submittingthem to SARFT for permission to release. Their politically chargedfilms helped the Fifth Generation gain international prizes and prestige,but domestic bans on films like Chens Farewell my Concubine(1994) and the temporary blacklisting of filmmakers helped tame theFifth Generations subversive side (see Zhu 2003: 143). The governmentalso began closing the bureaucratic loopholes which allowed films toescape the scrutiny of censorship bodies, and in 1996 a law was passedmaking it illegal to produce any film outside the state-owned studiosystem (Berry 2007: 129).

As the Fifth Generation predominantly worked within the state studiosystem, Zhang Zhen and Xiaping Lin argue their subsequent wavesof lavish historical melodramas and cultural allegories (Zhang Zhen2007: 23) became main melody films (Lin 2009: 93), that helped re-establish a predominantly fictional national cinema within China. Formany it was to be the nonstate or so-called Sixth Generation, workingin an independent or underground context, which would finallychallenge Chinas monolithic national cinema models. Filmmakers likeWang and Zhang began making no- or low-budget films (latterly with


foreign or private investment), originally distributing them domesticallythrough nonofficial video, VCD or DVD networks. These began focusingupon a new alienated or marginalised generation and character that wasincreasingly lost or confused within a rapidly and radically transformingcountry.10 On account of this, many like Zhang Zhen claim a new minorcinema11 surfaced, featuring characters which Sheldon Lu in turn arguesbegan displaying a paradigmatic unmooring of identities, that shiftedaway from the nation or village the traditional sources of cinematicidentity (Lu 2007: 138).

This Sixth Generation is often discussed in terms of being the first toopenly receive transnational investment to make low-budget films thatdo not get official domestic releases. These filmmakers are also oftendiscussed in terms of being exposed (in differing degrees) to key foreigndirectors and critics whilst at film school. Bazin often appears as a sourceof inspiration too, being singled out in discussions and interviews as akey influence. Martha P. Nochimson and Matthew David Johnson notethat besides Bazin, the Sixth Generation were also exposed to/influencedby Robert Flaherty and Frederick Wisemans documentaries (seeNochimson 2010: 390; Johnson 2006: 65), whilst Tonglin Lu, TianZhuandzhuang and Zhang Yingjin specifically point to the appearanceof Italian neorealist films in the BFA diet as another major influence(Zhang Yingjin 2006; Jaffee 2006; Tonglin Lu 2006). Accordingly,critics often tease out the new impulses Bazinian aesthetic preferencefor long takes and a hyperrealist aesthetic that helps foreground therawness and emotional charge of social experience (Zhang Zhen 2007:7). Other temper such discussions by claiming they also drew uponthe Chinese legacy of critical realism (Zhang Zhen 2007: 7), however,or the work of the new Chinese documentary filmmakers who rana parallel and at times intersecting path (see Zhang Zhen 2007: 17;Berry 2007).

Zhu argues that because the Sixth Generation had such a diverserange of foreign and domestic influences, they were the first generationof Chinese filmmaker to produce films that were more cinematicthan dramatic (Zhu 2003: 166). But on account of excluding oroverlooking the work of talented Fifth Generation directors like NingYing, who also displays a comparable style, the Sixth Generation labelhas increasingly proved problematic. In the first instance, if this newimpulse truly demonstrates a break with the older national traditions,it is questionable whether or not we should maintain a chronologicalordering that implies the same national teleology or continuity. Manysimply opt to describe the new impulse as part of an amateur movement


(Jaffee 2006: 81; Zhen 2007: 17), or in terms of displaying anti-artor degree zero aesthetics (Johnson 2006: 68) different to the officialfilms. Others stick to the renewed desire for higher degrees of realismas the most defining feature, reflecting upon a preference for a on-the-spot-realism (Berry 2007: 123), negative poetics (Lai 2007: 205),stream of life style (Chaudhuri 2005: 98), or urban realism (Reynaud2007: 265). The realism proved problematic for many Chinese criticsand directors too, though, so some opt to outline the new approach interms of a distinctive attitude that cuts across different genres, stylesand generations (see Braester 2007: 161).12 Lai and Zhu similarly optto describe a style marked out by a pervasive pessimism (Zhu 2003:166) or new urban attitude (Lai 2007: 206). Chris Berry offers anapproach that helps re-establish connections with Deleuze, by arguingthat the new documentary and fiction filmmakers came to operate undera new imperative to get real. Which is to say, at once an aestheticdrive to represent the social in a new (Bazinian) realist way, whilstsimultaneously inferring another shade of meaning invoking the Westernslang phrase to wise up and stop dreaming (Berry 2007: 114). Thislatter meaning again becomes suggestive of a Deleuzian movement ofmind that is introduced into the thinking-image.

Historically, no consideration of this era and its new cinema canbe complete in Western academic discourses at least without alsoaddressing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Dror Kochan pointsout that it is near customary in Western discourses to link the newforms and characters to the aftermath of the brutal repression ofdemocratic protesters. However, he also argues we must counterbalancethis Western political obsession by paying attention to the wider Chinesecontext, and specific changes affecting a wider society as it came toterms with a profound crisis in its traditional value systems and theloss of its cultural heritage (Kochan 2003). Indeed, this Post-New-Erabore witness to an intensification of systemic transformations, which(contingently) heralded in a radical paradigmatic shift in Chinas futuredirection.

The famous Deng Xiaoping slogan To make money is glorious!helps crystallise Chinas wider socio-political systemic reforms, whichinexorably led toward the incursion of global capitalism and theemergence of a ruthlessly advancing market economy (Zhen 2007:25). This marched in lock step with the largest human population shiftthe world has ever witnessed. And it arguably becomes in relation tothese wider shifts, and the confusing experiences of suddenly confrontinga new psycho-geography and overwhelming urban reality that many


of the (si)neo-realist films take as their subject. The title of LinXiaopings book on Chinese Art and Film from this period, Childrenof Marx and Coca-Cola (2009), perfectly draws out the nature ofthe confusing material and ideological in-between space confrontingthis new generation of Chinese character, and hints towards the newdisjunctive form of perception and action they must encounter andlearn to understand. On account of these wider socio-geo-politicaltransformations, many feel the new Chinese cinema is best approachedthrough a critical lens of postsocialism (see for example Pickowicz 2006;McGrath 2007; Nochimson 2010).

Zhang Yingjin argues postsocialism should be understood as aspecifically Chinese equivalent to Jean-Franois Lyotards concept ofpostmodernism, and can be expanded to account for a diverse post-Maoist artistic-cultural landscape that includes a broad range offilmmakers hailing from different generations, aesthetic aspirations,and ideological persuasions [that] struggle to readjust or redefine theirdifferent strategic positions in different social, political, and economicsituations (Zhang Yingjin 2007: 502). Berry argues that postsocialism,like postmodernism, must be understood in terms of the stubbornpersistence of grand myths (or narratives) long after any real faithin them has been lost (Berry 2007: 116). To bring back Deleuzemomentarily, we could begin aligning this with his arguments regardingthe modern cinemas playful awareness of the old clichs.

Before proceeding, we must take pause to highlight one significantindustrial difference emerging between the Chinese and Italian film-histories. For in the Chinese context we cannot ignore the omnipresenceof a parallel national (or nation-building) and commercial cinema thatremains running alongside this alternative trend: as the productionof epic clichs like Founding of the Republic (2009) attest. Againstthese ongoing official (action-image models) histories and archaeologiesof the present, then, the (si)neo-realist films should be understood asrecording and documenting an alternative history of the present ornow. That is, in difference and opposition to the complete demolitionjob that defines the before and after of the Italian neorealist impulse,the (si)neo-realist cinema is best understood in terms of a breakdownor partial architectural collapse, as if the ceiling and walls havecrumbled in while the roof and faade remain standing.13 This imageof collapsing architecture serves to bring us neatly back to Deleuzesreading of the Italian neorealist movement, particularly regarding hisdiscussions of the new mental relations introduced into the image


which emerged amidst the broken architecture and post-war rubble.But before returning to these, we should first examine how Deleuzesfilm-philosophy approaches differ from those offered by Bazin.

III. Neorealism and (Si)neo-realism: Bazin and Ontology

Film critics problematise any fixed definition of neorealism as a cohesivemovement, by highlighting how there are so few pure neorealistfilms (see Wagstaff 1989; Dyer 2006). David Bordwell and KristinThompson further remind us that neorealism had no manifesto: rather,it was only contingently conceptualised as a moralistic movement thatfocused on contemporary issues, and strove for greater levels of socialrealism.14 In a manner reminiscent of the discourses surrounding the(si)neo-realist impulse outlined above, many settled for a definition thatwas more akin to a mode, attitude, or heterogeneous blend of realistand generic elements found within the work of various filmmakershailing from different zones and generations. Richard Dyer thus offersand incorporates Vittorio Spinazzolas illuminating distinction whereinneorealism appears to be an art cinema about the people as opposedto a popular cinema for them (see Wagstaff 1989: 72; Dyer 2006:28). This distinction likewise becomes relevant to our understanding ofthe (si)neo-realist impulse, specifically with regards to how filmmakersbegan coveting domestic bans as a strategy designed to increase politicalcapital and appeal to foreign curators, critics and what Zhang describesas a respectable (foreign art festival) audience (Zhang Yingjin 2006:33), which is to say, the same form of European art cinema crowd thatthe neorealist directors sought half a century before. Thus, domesticbans, samizdat distribution networks and the films clear ethico-aestheticfit within foreign festival circuits illuminate how the Chinese films alsocannot be considered a popular cinema for the people the narratives areabout.15

Arguably Bazins writing upon neorealism still displayed the mostenduring impact and influence within Anglophone Film Studies. ForBazin was most attracted to neorealisms ideologically pure form andcontent, and impressed by how directors like De Sica coupled theircrusade for realism with a moral desire to draw out and expose the secretbeauty of the everyday. Bazin wrote passionately about the qualitativebeauty of the fathers and sons gaits in The Bicycle Thieves, for example,which the andante narrative form allowed to surface and unfold (Bazin1999). Bazin also lauded the movements aesthetic use of long takes and


deep focus, which unlike dialectical montage, played to the strengths offilms indexical photographic ontology, which is to say, cinemas abilityto take a decal imprint from reality without the intervention of manor any ideological false consciousness. As already indicated, the (si)neo-realist directors often surface as autodidacts of the Bazinian-neorealistsimpulses and political drives. Zhang Yingjin notes how Jia Zhangke isoften credited within China for introducing a groundbreaking use ofthe fixed-frame long take that minimizes the directors influence on thecast and environments, and exemplifies the new zero degree style thatmarks the break away from Chinas literary cinematic heritage (ZhangYingjin 2006: 29).

Beyond their embrace of a new technological zero degree, though,Bazin also applauded the Italian directors for employing non-actors andtypes to flesh out their roles as this also called upon the actual character-types to be rather than to act (in a false theatrical manner). Problemswith this notion aside, we can again locate strong ties between theneorealist and (si)neo-realist trends surfacing here via a shared attemptto differentiate the social and moral texture of their films from thesurrounding web of national and commercial products, which typicallyemployed known actors (professionals) and stars (commodities). Wangand Zhang began this trend by casting their friends, who were Beijingartists and singers, as self-proclaimed social outsiders identical orcomparable with themselves within The Days and Beijing Bastards.16

Wang adhered to this realist impulse as the new millennium unfolded,casting first-time actors Cui Lin and Li Bin within his most commercialoverground film, Beijing Bicycle. Interestingly, for this film Wang alsoemployed two professional actresses, Zhou Xun and Gao Yuanyuan, toplay the respective love interests. This mixing of non- and professionalcasting also finds parallels with neorealism, of course, but is here part ofa deliberate strategy worked into the narrative tapestry, with both femalecharacters surfacing as somewhat unobtainable movie star-like figuresfor the male protagonists. Both are clearly signalled as commodities orobjects to-be-looked-at and desired, often appearing framed behindlarge windows or frame-within-a-frame devices that highlight theirquasi-cinematic status (appended to their upper-middle-class lives).17

If the use of non-professional actors and types becomes another overtBazinian trope linking together a whole raft of (si)neo-realist films,though, we must turn to the fictional dimensions of the charactersto see if these too also reflect what Deleuze valued in the neorealistmovement. To do this we must first return to Deleuzes writing uponneorealism.


IV. Neorealism and (Si)neo-realism: From Bazin to Deleuze, orOntology to Noology

Deleuzes engagement with neorealism suffered a satellite delay beforeimpacting Anglophone Film Studies: partially on account of the firstEnglish translations of the Cinema books not appearing until 1986 and1989, and appearing during an era when many had grown weary ofTheory.18 Deleuze was aware of Bazins writing, reflecting upon howfor him, the value of neorealism lay in a consideration of form andcontent: with real life stories being conveyed by what Bazin calledfact-images. Deleuze also describes how for others, neorealism was bestdefined by the unpredictable encounter, or its preference for fragmentarynarrative structures that appeared ephemeral, lacunal and piecemeal.What is more, filmmakers moved away from focusing upon exceptionalindividuals that could marshal narrative resources, and instead beganapproaching the ideals of screenwriters like Cesare Zavattini, whoexpressed a desire to document the slow weary step of the unexceptionalworker returning home . . . in all its raw and aristocratic beauty.19

Deleuze doubted the most radical or valuable feature of the Italianmovement lay in its drive towards ever-higher degrees of social orontological realism though. Instead, he argued the true value lay ina consideration of the new mental relations introduced into the imagein films like Pias (1946), Germany Year Zero (1948) and Umberto D(1952). For Deleuze, these films worked to stimulate different waysof perceiving (in the brain) and provoked viewers to think the new(Deleuze 2005b: 1). Thus, if Bazin was primarily concerned withcinemas ontological ability to reflect an already existing (social) reality,Deleuze demanded cinema do something else, which is, to bring fortha new vision of the world, or use new forms of visionary charactersto renew our belief in the world. The unique value of Deleuzesapproaches, then, lie in the manner in which they allow us to re-evaluate films from an alternative philosophical perspective, and totranscend discourses of socio-political realism and false consciousnessto instead mount a positive creative critique of the present that sets outto immanently think the new. Or again, to understand (si)neo-realistfilms, like neorealist films before them, as being primarily concerned withrestructuring perception and revitalising thought (see for example Kelso2004; kervall 2008).

It becomes useful here to return specifically to Deleuzes writing ontime-image cinema, which he understood as marking a crisis in theclassical action-image, and wherein he identifies images beginning to


surface where time appears loosened from its subjugation to movement,knocked out of joint, or no longer slave to action. Although Deleuzeactually described the time-image being invented by the Japanesedirector Yasujiro Ozu to whom we will return in specific relationto Wangs work below he demonstrates how it did not appear aspart of a wider film tradition until it surfaced in the Italian films. Atthe end of Cinema 1 (2005a) Deleuze accordingly asks why the time-image appeared in Italy first. Qua Martin-Jones, his answer becomesilluminating for its wider application to other world-cinemas, for heargues it ostensibly emerged because of an essential reason, or again,one external to cinema itself and linked to contextual factors; at oncehistorical, technological, social, political, material (and aesthetic). Forone, Deleuze argues that Italy could not claim the same rank or upholdany illusion of being a victor after the war like the French. He alsoobserved how the Italian cinema was very different to that of thedefeated Germany. Deleuze remarks:

In contrast to Germany, on the one hand [the Italian cinema] had at itsdisposal a cinematographic institution which had escaped fascism relativelysuccessfully, on the other hand it could point to a resistance and a popular lifeunderlying oppression, although one without illusion. To grasp these, all thatwas needed was a new type of tale capable of including the elliptical and theunorganized, as if the cinema had to begin again from zero. (Deleuze 2005a:21516; my emphasis)

This stressed point highlights another significant parallel with (si)neo-realist films, which also appear to grasp for and privilege a newnon-official perspective on Chinas changing and transforming reality,without upholding any illusion.20 Wangs characters appear particularlyemblematic of the wider trend in this regard, formulating disempoweredoutsiders, underclass migrant workers, deported illegal refugees, riverworkers and bewildered adult-children. Much like the Italian cohort ofcharacters, these men are often left unable to act or react to a rangeof overwhelming situations surrounding them, and in this sense find yetmore parallels with Deleuzes understanding of the mental disruptionunderpinning the neorealist films.

Deleuze ultimately identified five distinct tropes or characteristicsthat distinguished neorealism as a break-away cinema. As alreadydiscussed, he understood the modern cinema to be partially defined byits (postmodern) awareness of clichs. But neorealism was also discussedin terms of its embrace of dispersive situations; the emergence ofdeliberately weak links; harnessing andante ballade or stroll structures;


and the denunciation of conspiracy (for more on this see Kelso 2004: 4).Deleuze linked all of these to an essential or contextual situationappearing around and within the films. For after the war, Italy, likemost of Europe, found itself materially and ideologically shattered. Asthe majority of early neorealist stories took place within derelict andrubbled cities, Deleuze strongly identified these spaces as key factorslinked to the emergence of the new characteristics, and the newer formsof perception and thought. Indeed, Deleuze thought neorealist films werecollectively marked by an increase in the number of situations charactersno longer knew how to act or react to, in spaces we no longer knewhow to describe (Deleuze 2005b: xi). These were any-space-whatevers(espaces quelconques), deserted but inhabited waste grounds, disusedwarehouses and rubbled lots within cities undergoing ongoing processesof demolition and reconstruction. Between the two Cinema books, thesespaces are described not only as providing the neorealist films with aloaded and load bearing mise-en-scne, but as also serving to nurture anew race of character, a stirring mutant rendered unsure of how to move,act or react to what was around them. As we will see below, similarfactors can also be identified at work within and across the (si)neo-realistspaces.

V. On Breakdowns and Construction Site Futures

The politico-economic shifts undergirding China during the latetwentieth and early twenty-first centuries led to a radical transformationand reorganisation of the nations social structuring and geo-politicaltopology. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the cities and urbancentres, which became marked by huge material and social engineeringprogrammes that bore witness to the ruthless demolition of old buildings(and lifestyles) and the unmitigated construction of a new urban psycho-geography and reality. As the ideological and material breakdown andreconstruction of China occurred concomitantly, Zhang Zhen points tohow the historicity of the new (si)neo-realist impulse must be anchoredto the unprecedented large-scale urbanization and globalization ofChina on the threshold of a new century: or in terms of dealing withurbanisation as a process (Zhang Zhen 2007: 25). The disappearingand transforming city/nation often becomes elevated to a character inits own right, or appears as a form of living landscape across thewhole body of (si)neo-realist films. The non-studio locations and on-the-street shooting (often without permits or official permission) thatdefine much of the trends new political sharpness also often result in


Bazinian comparisons linked to a perceived moral impulse to captureand document a rapidly changing social reality. Nings Beijing trilogymakes for an interesting case in point here, by displaying a truly Bazinianimpulse to realistically mummify Beijings rapidly (and traumatically)transforming time-spaces in a clear neorealist style. Ning, like Wang, isanother Chinese director that has strong personal links with the Italiancinematic traditions (see for example Zhang Zhen 2004).21 In On theBeat, Ning opens with a protracted scene tracking two policemen cyclingpast expansive rubbled lots within their administrative district. They areheard discussing 700 recently demolished houses as they pass expansivedemolition sights/sites, and are heard mourning the replacement of theirhorizontal communities with newly planned vertical ones. As they turninto a narrow hutong they are forced to dismount to allow a steam-roller to move towards its next job. In For Fun she similarly focusesupon traditional spaces ear-marked for demolition or decommission,capturing an opera theatre, and traditional community spaces that,like the old men who populate them, have no clear place in Chinasnew future. Accordingly, Nings films work in a manner that becomesreminiscent of the ghostly and pregnant photographic images of EugneAtget. Accordingly, for Zhang Zhen, these films stubbornly reveal thespots branded with social and historical traces, and document a past onthe cusp of disappearance (Zhang Zhen 2007: 21).

Jias Pickpocket and The World are also emblematic of these spatialtrends, embedding old buildings marked with demolition symbols,rubbled lots and new construction sites as loaded spaces in which to sethis stories. Yomi Braester argues that, because such images appear in somany (si)neo-realist films, and narratives often come to a turning pointwhen characters discover buildings being demolished or literally crossthe wreckage and debris, the movement should largely be understoodin terms of employing demolition as a symbol: at once expressing asudden need to chronicle the citys transformation, and as part of anattempt to stop or slow down the process of forgetting (Braester 2007:1625). Zhang Zhen similarly describes the (si)neo-realists as a newbreed of unofficial documenter or chronicler of the demolition of oldcities, lifestyles, and identities and the construction of new ones (ZhangZhen 2007: 9). It is thus the actual space and time documented by theamateur actors and filmmakers that arguably becomes the main focus ofthe whole movement. For Zhang Zhen, these glimpsed images becomeincorporated into the films as part of a larger strategy to bear witness toa radical rupture and transformation of history taking place before thelens (Zhang Zhen 2007: 18).


Beyond Bazinian readings, the depictions of demolition as a processcontributes to a temporalisation of cinematic space that emergesconcomitantly alongside a materialisation of changing mental relations:thus literally refolding the changing geo-political landscape with that ofthe material urban milieu. For Shohini Chaudhuri, similar features ofthe (si)neo-realist impulse thus begin to reveal a characteristic splitor schizophrenic subjectivity common to the era, which apatheticallyregisters the shocks of endless historic reversals demanded by thearchitects of one new China after another (Chaudhuri 2006: 99).Soviet-style socialism with Chinese characteristics; The Great leapForwards; the Cultural Revolution; Post-Mao reforms; Opening up;the March into the world; the New-Era; the Post-New-Era; DengsCapitalism with Asian values . . . or Communism and Schizophrenia?

Braester points to, but refrains from developing, Deleuzes conceptof the any-space-whatever to help describe these loaded sino-cinematicspaces, which somehow always appear universal and suspended outsideany power structure, yet reterritorialise ideological abstractions(Braester 2010: 25). But beyond this signposting, we must ask; canwe unproblematically link these Chinese space-images to those foundinforming Deleuzes time-image models in Cinema 2? To move beyondhow such filmic-spaces merely (ontologically) bear witness to thedestruction of the old, then, we must also engage with how theyintroduce or provoke a thinking of the new. To understand this, we mustnow consider the concomitant rebuilding or reconstruction linked to thecomplexities of Chinas modernisation process. For it is with regards tothis that the (si)neo-realist films introduce new perceptual and mentalrelations into the image to help confront the emergence of unfamiliarplaces and spaces symptomatic of globalisation.

Taking this into account, we must concede that the Chinese any-spaces-whatever also display a unique pole altogether absent from theearlier Italian films and Deleuzian discussions thereof. To address this,I propose to imbricate Marc Augs (1995) concept of the supermodernnon-place, which is often discussed in terms of homogenous highways,airport buildings, international hotels and shopping malls that signalthe spread of globalisation everywhere.22 For it is these that begin toemerge out of the rubble of the old. We will momentarily return inmore detail to these forms of place in specific relation to Wangs BeijingBicycle, but in order to conceptually differentiate these forms of spacefrom the Deleuzian neorealist models, I propose to introduce anothernew term any-now(here)-spaces which helps synthesise certain uniquedimensions peculiar to the (si)neo-realist films.


VI. Fragmenting Forms, Any-now(here)-spaces and(Si)neo-realist Seers

At the turn of the new millennium, Sheldon Lu highlighted how theaddition of new streets and neighbourhoods had become a regularphenomenon in China. In 2001 alone, the year Beijing Bicycle wasreleased, there were over 300 new place names added to the Beijing map(Lu 2007: 139). This phenomenon is clearly reflected in Wangs film,which contains a proliferation of images which document the destructionof the old alongside the appearance of newer any-now(here)-spacesemblematic of the new global Empire (qua Hardt and Negri 2000). Thetransforming material space first surfaces as a pertinent theme in an earlysequence that introduces a band of provincial migrant workers recentlyemployed as Beijing couriers. The migrants are ordered by their boss toexamine a huge map of Beijing that fills the entire wall of the depot, ashe instructs them to learn every street name by heart, and memoriseall the different intersections and winding hutongs. The impossibilityof their task initially provides the film with a light-hearted comedicmoment, as the migrants eagerly scan the minute detail of the expansivecartographic wall with their eyes and fingertips. Throughout the filmthe idea of memorising Beijing is shown to be a doubly impossible task,however, in that even if they could memorise the extensive map, thematerial city beyond is always undergoing an intensive process of changeand transformation. This is most overtly highlighted by the differentspaces the film opts to set its loosely interconnected scenes: scraps ofwasteland, building sites, skyscrapers in the process of construction,modern any-now(here)-spaces, or in older labyrinthine alleys alreadyear-marked with demolition symbols.

Significantly, narrative form begins to reflect mise-en-scne in thesespaces, which is to say, in the broken rubble lots or construction spaces,both action and the action-image form appear to break down and re-compose. As if reflecting upon this at a performative level of action,Wang frames a series of shots of the bicycle gangs executing tricks withinde/reterritorialising urban spaces (demolition/building sites). Here, themanner in which the bikes and riders move is stylistically defamiliarised,as instead of riding backwards and forwards in flowing movements, theriders bounce, jump and hop in a series of disconnected motions andstaccato arabesque poses. In this manner, the de/reterritorialisation ofspace is directly matched by a de/reterritorialisation of regular movementand action, which plays out upon a variety of different levels includingthat of the large form action-image. Linked to similar phenomena,


Deleuze saw neorealisms deterritorialisation of movement-image driveslead to the introduction of purely optical and sound situations, andconsequently, a focus upon a series of fragmentary or chopped-upencounters that helped destroy the dominant narrative structures ofHollywood, Soviet and Italian cinemas.

Lai explicitly picks up on comparable aspects as a defining featureof the (si)neo-realist stories, observing how their negative poeticsemerged alongside a new self-conscious choice of doubt and hesitancythat defined their modes of narrative progression (Lai 2007: 227).Zhu draws explicit parallels between neorealism and the Chinesenarratives by highlighting how both typically came to feature goal-bereft protagonists embedded within loosely connected episodic stories(Zhu 2003: 166). Chaudhuri too sees the protagonists being definedby an overwhelming sense of directionlessness, which she explicitlylinks to characters and forms (Chaudhuri 2005: 99). Berry adoptsan explicitly Deleuzian language to describe the emergence of newfictional and documentary sequences that also began breaking awayfrom dominant movement-image regimes, and increasingly embedded adistended temporal logic (Berry 2007: 124). It is also worth stressinghere that the encounters with these spaces often leave the characterscoated in the dust and dirt which sticks to their clothes, gets up theirnoses or into their eyes. The experiences thus often emerge as embodiedand sensual ones too, which further tie into the depowering of theprotagonists ability to physically marshal the body through an action-image narrative time-space. Zhang Zhen invokes these features of thenew impulse by linking the transforming context directly to the modesnew ethico-aesthetics. Here, the new cinema not only remains anchoredto the social here and now (qua Bazin), but also creates an alternativecinematic space that is haptic rather than optic, sensuous and openrather than abstract and closed in a manner suggestive of Deleuzestime-image models (Zhang Zhen 2007: 21).

This haptic quality of the Deleuzian any-space-whatever is literallytied to a complex temporal dimension of the (si)neo-realist city, then,as China increasingly appears disconnected and removed from its ownhistory, politics and society, which increasingly appear in a process oferasure: for [t]oday is centre stage; there is no yesterday (Pickowicz2006: 1617). For Brnice Reynaud this leads to the emergence of adistinctly temporal setting and surface that appears caught somewherebetween the past and the future (Reynaud 2007: 266), echoing in turnLins view of protagonists trapped in an intense present (Lin 2009:93). More recently Philippa Lovatt has explored how the use of sounds


in Jia Zhangkes urban films invokes multiple, divergent temporalities,linked to a disjunctive postsocialist feeling by using Derridean theoriesand coordinates, amongst others, to help describe and account forthese confusing cinematic experiences (Lovatt 2012). Beyond Deleuzeand Derrida, though, many critics introduce comparable temporaldimensions of the film movement via a wider set of philosophicalcoordinates. For example, Braester (2010), Reynaud (2007) and ShuqinCui (2007) apply Ackbar Abbass concept of dj disparu or culture ofdisappearance to better delimit and describe these complex images ofmaterial and mental transformation. For them, the depictions of spacefoster a form of reverse hallucination, which again finds significantoverlaps with Deleuzes visionary neorealist models (Kelso 2004). Butto better get at these issues, we must turn to the narrative forms thatprompt a thinking otherwise of the new, and the visionary charactersthat must first become prey to the overwhelming present and confusingany-now(here)-spaces within it.

Indeed, the narrative encounters taking place across these liminalcinematic spaces offer up a litany of purely optical situations that againhelp draw out a Deleuzian link between the two historical movements.In both trends the in-between spaces often prevent characters frommoving and acting in traditional action-image oriented manners. Forsuch reasons, the narrative forms, character types and spaces allcontribute to a deviation from existing mainstream standards, withpart of the breakdown formulating a reaction against the demandfor psychologically motivated characters [. . . ] whose presence has anoverarching influence over the state of events (Lai 2007: 227). Wangsfilms again make for an interesting case in point as they overwhelminglytend to focus upon bewildered characters moving within and throughany-(now)here-spaces, in films that can collectively be understood interms of unleashing what Martin-Jones calls hybrid-images: expressivelyde- and reterritorialising the movement- and time-image categories in anaesthetic attempt to reflect content and develop underlying themes linkedto reinvigorating perception and thinking differently.

Beijing Bicycle toys with a motific de- and reterritorialisation ofmovement- and time-image categories, with cracks appearing in theaction-image that are not prised fully apart. Part of this is reflected byusing two dispersed and fragmented straight movement-image storiesthat draw together and apart in a manner that formally reflects thesubterranean faults breaking apart and reconstructing the movementand the embedded material and ideological spaces. In an asymmetricalepisodic section of the narrative following each of the boys stealing orrepossessing the bike from the other, it is possible to locate an interesting


Bazinian neorealist-esque shot that appears to playfully zigzag from amovement- to time-image pole and back (or from one action-imageto another via a formal gap or fissure) in a manner conducive withDeleuzian models. The long take begins in the disorienting hutonglabyrinth, with a mounted still camera framing a deep-focus shot of Jianbeginning to stash his bike behind a series of objects and dust coverswithin a cluttered nook. During the protracted long shot a female extraenters the background, and begins hanging washed clothes upon a linestrung across the alley. After Jian is satisfied his bike is well hidden heexits towards the shots foreground. The camera thereafter lingers onthe unfolding scene, and by refusing to cut, invites viewers to observethe woman and her washing. By degrees she completes her task andevacuates the shot, which continues, reflecting an Ozu-esque signature:the still life of a washing line. In this homage to the inventor of the time-image we can locate a clichd deterritorialisation of the action-imageform, with the shot beginning to nod towards, or suggest, an underlyingtime-image mode. However, after a protracted focus upon the evacuatedscene of washing, another action-image reterritorialises as Guei pokeshis head around the corner into the depths of frame. The unexpectedaction suggests he was hiding in the background all along, within thefolds of the image, and his unexpected movement reactivates anotheraction-image drive and sequence within the larger narrative framework.

In Wangs Drifters the action-image is deterritorialised further,aesthetically reflecting this films intensified temporal themes and motifs.Wang strings together a series of long takes, focusing on Little Brother(Duan Long) just waiting around in moments in-between action, oftendoing very little or nothing. A relentless focus upon moments of stillness,inaction or waiting around highlights a literal destabilisation of narrativeaction, formally reflecting Little Brothers own disjunctive experience ofbeing a migrant who has escaped China to the US twice, only to bedeported back on both occasions. He surfaces as an inactive seer caughtbetween two disconnected space-times, and by properly belonging toneither, becomes dislocated within a state of inaction and disjointedtime. This is arguably Wangs most overtly (si)neo-realist film, with theconcept of drifting between China and the US, a communist past and anunknown future (Chinas joining the WTO being a prominent subtextreferenced via the television throughout) becoming expressively reflectedand made manifest in the films episodic ballade forms and refusals tocut.23 For when the sensory-motor linkage has decomposed to such astate, Deleuze argues that a visionary mode takes over, and time itselfsurfaces as a theme.


Neorealist filmmakers such as De Sica and Luchino Visconti wereobserved by Deleuze to focus upon a new breed of mutant, who movedthrough cities in the course of demolition or reconstruction (Deleuze2005b: xi). These were the Italian band of seer and wanderer whono longer knew how to act: He shifts, runs and becomes animatedin vain, the situation he is in outstrips his motor capacities on allsides, and makes him see and hear what is no longer subject to therules of a response or an action (Deleuze 2005b: 3). As discussed,the materially broken and ruined Chinese streets perfectly reflect andmirror the breaking apart of older ways of thinking, including thoselinked to the traditional sources of identity (clichs), but we find atoying with another clich upon the level of form that unfolds differentlyin the new psycho-geography. For the lost migrant seer is not exactlynew to Chinese cinema, and can be understood as part of a complexdialogue with the official overground cinema. Indeed, a focus upondisabused country peasants has always been a prominent feature ofChinese national cinema, even if there appears to be a significantdifference in the casting and characterisation in the newer trend quaBazin. Zhang Zhen touches upon this transformation by highlightinghow the earlier national films typically focused on the mythic, larger-than-life icons of the repressed peasant, whereas the new trend tends tofocus upon a motley crew of plebeian but nonetheless troubled peopleon the margins of the age of transformation who no longer qualify assuitable icons for a national cinema (Zhang Zhen 2007: 36). Insteadthey formulate a band of aimless bohemians, petty thieves, KTV barhostesses, prostitutes, and postmen to neighbourhood police officers,taxi drivers, alcoholics, homosexuals, the disabled, migrant workers,and others (3). Or as Pickowicz acerbically renders the same change:in the old Chinese cinema identity was unproblematic because everyonewas a patriot, a revolutionary, or one of Maos little red soldiers; in thenew cinema, however, everything has broken down and fragmented intospecialised individualised identities:

Im homeless. Im a prostitute. Im a club singer. Im a homosexual. Imconfused. Im a drug addict. Im a lesbian. Im a migrant. Im really confused.Im a bohemian. Im a con artist. I have AIDS. Im a criminal. Im crazy. Imconfused beyond imagination. (Pickowicz 2006: 15)

We can concede, then, that if it remains the same sort of characterthat becomes the migrant worker in this alternative (si)neo-realistimpulse, the filmmakers are aware of the old clichs, and appear tohave transplanted them into a hellish new any-now(here)-space that


render them confused by demanding new forms of action or reactionthat they no longer understand. Linda Chiu-Han Lai accordinglyidentifies the new characters as non-action takers, very different from theprevious breed of national cinema hero. They formulate aimless beings,condemned to wander around, withdrawn from conscious engagementwith any productive, meaningful activities in the normative sense(Lai 2007: 215). Surprisingly, Cui sees the new characters constitutefreewheeling urban dwellers that the filmmakers harness as a form ofwandering flneur to help dissect the new situation (Cui 2007: 243).But one instinctively feels this position is too difficult to defend inrelation to the entire movement, and that Cui unconsciously conflatesthe characters with the critics or art cinema audiences that (re)viewthem. Lai counters such positions best by pointing to how the charactersare far from rational, self-driven or purposeful flneurs. Instead they dovery little, aimlessly wander around, digress into unplanned encounters,or let whatever comes by take them on the spot (Lai 2007: 215). Asthese characters display too little certainty about their place, or investso little effort into sorting out the mysteries that trouble them, Laiinstead appends a more passive and pessimistic modality outlined asderive: linked to a decentred aimless drifting (20520).24

Whatever the case, Deleuzes model of the mutant seer and wandererappears productive for understanding the emergence of these charactertypes, and for understanding their visionary encounters with paralysingsituations that leave them unsure of how to act or react.25 Such featuresarguably become most pronounced in the (si)neo-realist scenes thatchart the migrant-mutants confused passage into, or blockage from,supermodern any-now(here)-spaces. Several scenes throughout BeijingBicycle, for example, depict the nave migrant Gueis encounteringunfamiliar spaces associated with Chinas embrace of globalisation andmodernisation. In one Guei delivers documents to a plush (non-place)international hotel. We first find him having an overwhelming encounterwith a glass and brass revolving door that literally leaves him paralysed;unsure of how to react, to or navigate through, the strange rotatingmachine. When he braves the mechanism he is unceremoniously spatinto the foyer, where he is again left transfixed by the glittering mirroredceiling and shiny marble reception. He is left further confused by thefact that the hotel staff are not expecting him, nor do they know whohis parcel is for. In another scene he is mistakenly guided into the hotelsmassage parlour with a package, where it is believed someone bearingthe recipients name is. En route he is mistakenly identified as a customer,by other (presumably) migrant staff, stripped naked, forced to shower,


and led into the massage area wearing a hotel robe. By degrees he issent to a man in the process of getting a rub from a blind masseuse.Guei hesitantly approaches, again not knowing how to act or respondto the bewildering optical and sound situation unfolding around him.The blind masseuses are also of the same social status as Guei, but asliteral non-seers they appear as decisive actors who contrast his hesitantand timid movements. Finally realising the man on the table is not therecipient, Guei is led back to the foyer to be castigated by the real clientfor being late. The receptionist also informs him he must pay for theshower and massage. Unable to pay, he bolts, only to be accosted bysecurity and reported to his boss.

Observing similar themes of confusing everydayness littering other(si)neo-realist narratives, Zhang Zhen introduces Harry Harootuniansnotions of a fragmented and ceaseless new associated withglobalisation, which can also be neatly synthesised with our (si)neo-realist concept of the any-now(here)-space, and help understand a wholehost of comparable seer scenes that expose the mutant migrants beingleft unsure of how to react to an new alienating and unfamiliar nowor ever-changing present (Zhang Zhen 2007: 2). In this sense theproliferation of new supermodern and globalised any-now(here)-spacesoutstrip the migrant characters on each side, at the same time as theysignal a new form of socio-political reality that needs to be re-perceivedand conceptualised. In this sense we begin to find the emergence ofa proto-crystal image within the Chinese cinema, which also becomesliterally reflected within the new any-now(here)-spaces and mise-en-scne. For everywhere reflections and doublings begin to appear andproliferate within and across these films. But these are typically bent,twisted, skewed or distended within strange glass any-now(here)-spacearchitecture, and warped by neon lamps and refracting electric lightsemblematic of a parallel and distant new reality.

Notes1. An abridged version this paper was delivered at the 2012 International Deleuze

Conference at Henan University in Kaifeng, PRC and appears as part of thecollected conference papers (see Fleming 2013).

2. Since the early 1990s a variety of new terms have been tried or applied to thisnew impulse beyond Sixth-, Post-Sixth- or Newborn-Generation labels. Amongstothers, Chinese and foreign critics have discussed the films in terms of belongingto a Post-wave (Zhu 2003: 143), Postsocialist (McGrath 2007; Zhang Zhen2007), or post-sixth-generation (Pickowicz 2006) of filmmakers. Many settlefor the more popular and inclusive label of Urban Generation or UrbanCinema, as a kind of catch-all for many of the aesthetic and stylistic features (seeZhang Zhen 2007; Berry 2007; Braester 2012). As part of an attempt to expand


the category even further, though, and move beyond previous discussions byusing Deleuze, I opt to drop the urban realism label too and create a newconcept of (si)neo-realism. In the first place, this allows me to account for andinclude films like Wangs Drifters, which is clearly also part of the same impulseand style but does not focus upon specifically urban characters or issues and toallow for a wider range of directors and influences not typically considered partof the Urban movement.

3. Amongst others, Paul Pickowicz, Ying Zhu, Jason McGrath and ShohiniChaudhuri describe a complex and ever-changing relationship between Chinesecensorship bodies and the so-called illegal filmmakers. Pickowicz outlines thisin terms of a complicated and dangerous dance which Western critics typicallymisunderstand. He offers a velvet prison model comparable to that encounteredby Czechoslovakian New Wave filmmakers in the late 1960s. Although manyof the films are often considered illegal or banned by foreign and domesticaudiences, in matter of fact, neither the films nor the filmmakers are actuallyconsidered real political dissidents as such (see Chaudhuri 2005: pp. 989;Pickowicz 2006; McGrath 2007). Rather, films that are not directly critical ofthe ruling Party are tolerated as an acceptable or allowable form of political orartistic venting. What is more, both authorities and filmmakers are aware thatin a global context of international film festivals, being perceived as an illegalChinese filmmaker, or having your film banned in Beijing can be seen as abenefit, or tantamount to a good marketing: After all, a government ban wouldguarantee international attention (Zhu 2003: 166) or else offer the filmmakerthe required pedigree to get attention abroad (Pickowicz 2006: 12). On accountof this, Yomi Braester and Zhu argue that in a global context these filmmakersincreasingly became self-packaged dissidents who came to exploit or exercisea marketing strategy of wilful self-marginalisation to promote their productsglobally (Zhu 2003: 166; Braester 2012: 357).

4. For an exhaustive list of films we can rhizomatically link to this movement seeCheng 2006: 20944.

5. David H. Fleming, Deleuze and the (si)neorealist break?, Paper delivered atDeleuze, Guattari and China, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, 23 May2012; Fleming 2014.

6. I have coined my own neologistic term here as part of a wider strategy to at onceforge nomenclatural links to the Italian neorealist movement whilst at the sametime tying the concept to a specifically sino-cinematic break or context. Besidesemploying this to erect links with a familiar historical movement and ethico-aesthetics, I also hope to introduce a new dimension of sin related to illicitimages of sex, drugs and deviant behaviour that was typically lacking from boththe earlier Italian movement and previous waves of national Chinese cinema.This of course also relates to filmmakers trying to covet official opprobriumand entice international curators and audiences.

7. There remained certain exceptions which prove the rule, with some musicalopera films from regional studios producing films in different traditionaldialects or provincial languages (for more on this see Zhu 2003: 168; ZhangZhen 2007: 20). It should also be noted that more genres appeared in Chinesecinema under CCP rule than ever before, and after the Cultural Revolutionfilms about the Chinese ethnic minorities became popular. For a more detailedaccount of the complex history of Socialist cinema in China see Zhang Yingjin2004, 2012; Clark 2012.

8. Zhang Yingjin notes that before the BFA there was a Beijing Film Schoolwhich had been operating since 1951. Of interest to this paper, education-related projects saw the introduction of Italian neorealist films as early as


1954. Other foreign cinemas continued to filter in as part of specialised filmweeks and arguably influence these Chinese student-directors. In 1956 Japanese,French, Soviet and Yugoslavian films were shown, and thereafter Indian andMexican films were known to be screened as part of film and culture exchanges(see Zhang Yingjin 2004: 201). Michelangelo Antonioni was also invited intoChina during the Cultural Revolution to make an epic documentary andcontrolled Chinese self-portrait (see King 2010) Chung Kuo, Cina (1972).Although several scathing public reviews appeared bemoaning the traitorousand slanderous nature of the film, many Chinese filmmakers or viewers got tosee parts of the finished product (see for example Yang 1974).

9. Yomi Braester notes that this era already began to bear witness to a rangeof urban films (not yet an Urban Cinema) set in Guangzhou where Dengseconomic reforms were targeted. He pinpoints how narratives such as ZhangLiangs Yamaha Fish Stall (1984), Juvenile Delinquents (1985), Zhang ZemingsSunshine and Rain (1987) and Sun Zhous With Sugar (1987) focus upon theways in which the youth began coming to grips with a budding consumeristsociety, running unattached and often alienated lives, exploring sexual freedomand dabbling in avant-garde art. These parables for modern existence (Braester2012: 3478) can also be considered reflecting and anticipating the unfoldingcultural event that results in the (si)neo-realist break. David Bordwell andKristin Thompson note how Zhang Yuans earlier film Mama (1990) alsoformulates part of a studio-sanctioned stylistic precursor to the later illegalor underground movement (Bordwell and Thompson 2003: 651).

10. For more on the specificities and complexities of the transnational and domesticfunding or financing of these films see Pickowicz 2006 and Zhang Yingjin 2007.

11. The term minor cinema is here simultaneously understood in terms of being acoming of age youth cinema and a minoritarian cinema in relation to but alsoin dialogue with the officially sanctioned mainstream cinema (see Zhang Zhen2007: 2).

12. Satisfactorily labelling the new impulse proves complicated. Chinese filmmakersand scholars often displayed a desire to drop the use of terms like realism,due in part to the concepts long association with state-sponsored socialist- andrevolutionary-realism (see Zhang Yingjin 2006). Foreign critics tend to favourlabels like nonstate or underground, as these help advertise the perceivedsubversive political dimension of the films. Both sides often use the labelindependent (or duli), but Pickowicz is drawn to correct this misnomer andrecalibrate the term to read in dependence: to better announce the strongreliance upon transnational funding bodies and foreign political capital thatallows the films to be made and screened (Pickowicz 2006: vii). I again use thisas part of the desire to create a new concept.

13. It may also be helpful to consider another form of distinction wherein we canoutline the Italian neorealist movement in terms of breaking clean from the pastwhile the Chinese filmmakers are merely considered commenting or quoting thisearlier movement in a postmodern or postsocialist gesture that signals a differentform of postsocialist break (albeit whilst still remaining within the conventionsof world art cinema). I would like to thank the articles reviewer for highlightingthis interesting dimension.

14. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson highlight how discourses of realismwere initially appended on account of the stylistic contrast with previouswaves of Italian and Hollywood cinema (see Bordwell and Thompson 2003:360).

15. We are still forced to wonder to what extent the newly emerging ethico-aestheticsand drive towards greater degrees of ontological realism relate to the Chinesefilmmakers anticipating what would appeal to foreign art cinema audiences.


Many (cynically) argue that on account of a cultural deterritorialisation andcapitalistic reterritorialisation, the films began to display a certain degree offormulisation, conventionalisation and quotidianisation (see for example ZhangZhen 2007: 16; Kraicer 2009; Zhang Yingjin 2012: 66).

16. Demonstrating that these are not isolated cases, we can also find Ning Ying usingactual Beijing policemen, migrants and taxi drivers to perform as fictionalisedversions of themselves throughout her Beijing Trilogy, and Jia employing non-professional actors to appear in his low-budget underground film Pickpocketand his higher-budget state-sponsored The World.

17. Judging females by their appearance is a complex and textured factorexpressively toyed with throughout the film. Guei and his uncle voyeuristicallyleer/peer at what they think is a rich female housewife living in a posh apartmentbehind the hutongs. They watch undetected through a peephole, enjoying herpose in expensive gowns before a mirror whilst speculating as to why the richnever appear happy. This woman finally turns out to be a maid, however, yetanother migrant worker like them, albeit one who takes an opportunity to dressup in her employers clothes and make-up when she is not home.

18. David Bordwell and Noel Carrolls Post-Theory (1996) debates proclaimed thedeath of grand narratives such as Psychoanalysis or Linguistics as suitable toolsfor approaching or reading film. D. N. Rodowicks An Elegy for Theory (2007),however, can be employed to bookend this period, marking a renaissance of film-philosophy that was in part linked to the Anglophone translations of DeleuzesCinema 1 (1986) and Cinema 2 (1989).

19. From Ancora di Verga e del cinema Italiana (published in the November1941 edition of Cinema), Mario Alicata and Giuseppe De Santis reflect theviews of the famous neorealist screenwriter Cesare Zavattini by arguing thatthe neorealist movement desired to take their cameras into the Italian streets,ports and factories and became convinced that one day we will make our mostbeautiful film following the slow, tired step of the worker returning to his home,narrating the essential poetry of a new and pure life that contains within itself thesecret of its aristocratic beauty (republished in translation by Ennio Di Nolfo2002: 85).

20. Of course this can also be related to the Chinese context and the very real fearof imprisonment facing artists being directly critical of the Party or suggestingalternatives to the current hegemony and status quo.

21. Ning gives Wang a run for his money as a Chinese director with strong ties toItalian cinematic traditions. She encountered classic neorealist films alongsideBazins writing whilst at the BFA, for example, and studied at the CentroSperimentale di Cinematografia in Italy where she likewise acted as BernardoBertoluccis assistant director (see Zhang Zhen 2004).

22. Ronald Bogue 2003, amongst others, mistakenly suggested Marc Augs notionof the non-space inspired Deleuzes original any-space-whatever. William Brownresolved this misunderstanding by demonstrating that Deleuze was reallyinfluenced by his own student Pascal Auger.

23. Besides these features, Wangs films can also be understood as reflecting thebreaking down of the traditional modes of thinking and acting via the use ofaudio and sound situations. Like neorealism before them, many of these filmsbegan to appear audibly and ontologically distinct from the studio films byemploying naturalistic on-location noises and sounds. As part of the break withthese state traditions, and forging yet more links with neorealism, the (si)neo-realist filmmakers began employing actors, dialects and accents that soundeddistinctly different. We could link these drives back to a Deleuzo-Guattarianminor cinema model, of course, by claiming this new audio impulse in partmade the dominant cinematic language stutter, stumble and break down into


a series of non-official dialects, accents and slangs. This wider trope is alsoevidenced in the opening of Beijing Bicycle, where a group of non-actor migrantsare interviewed in a montage of dislocated close-ups. The obvious accents andregional inflections often lead to confusion, or create comical misunderstandingsbetween the migrants and their off-screen interlocutor speaking in Mandarin.

24. Pickowicz goes some way towards indicating how this trope can be traced tosome of the restraints placed upon the filmmakers themselves; or at least theirunwillingness to risk jail for directly criticising the state via characters, dialogueor plot. This can in part account for why it rarely occurs to these characters toconnect their problems to trends unfolding in the larger society, and explainswhy they remain utterly uniformed and have few or no political or social ideas(Pickowicz 2006: 15).

25. Admittedly, we could also understand this transformation in terms of Deleuzesmodern political cinema again, wherein the people are understood to bemissing. The use of migrant characters (often with a political non-status)reflects the absent people of the modern political cinema. Like the powerlesscart driver of Ousmane Sembnes Borom Sarret (1969), for example, thedisempowered characters are often discovered lurking in the margins, wanderingaimlessly amongst and between highly divided and codified milieus, reacting andadapting to chance encounters or opportunities, and struggling against new andbewildering power structures.

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