Shanghai Imagination In Contemporary Chinese Movies(1990-2013)

Viewed from the perspective of geography of media, "Shanghai Imagination" in contemporary Chinese movies refers to various "imagined geographies" about Shanghai—a city which, with its ambiguous historical identity, indicates the future of China and hovers on the frontiers of globalization. These "imagined geographies", while sharing commonality, have their distinct "maps". Based on the perspective and principal paradigms of geography of media, this thesis examines "Shanghai Imagination" in contemporary Chinese movies from such dimensions as the production of geography, space, time and place, probes its hidden power relations and cultural implications, and reveals the interactions between "Shanghai Imagination", globalization and urban transformation.Set against a background of dramatic changes in movie ecology, bound by the rules of a consumer society, the contemporary Chinese movies are making untiring explorations of the many possibilities of "Shanghai Imagination", while facing multiple dilemmas between "the commercial and the artistic", "the global and the local", "the traditional and the modern", and "the historical and the current", etc. With its defects, this "Shanghai Imagination" is still trying hard to reconstruct the meanings of "Shanghai"- the most distinctive "place" in China, in an ever-changing and complex context. A more open and inclusive, free and uniquely charming "Shanghai" is surfacing from cinematic texts. An Enlightenment-invoked liberty and equality, and such values as equality and democracy in a more universal sense, are breeding and spreading in the visual images, which makes "Shanghai Imagination" in contemporary Chinese movies revolutionary.This dissertation consists of six parts:The Introduction briefly describes the history of Shanghai Imagination in Chinese films and the context of Chinese cinematic presentation of Shanghai through the transitional period. This part also deals with a detailed summary of the research status quo and points out the problems prevailing in the current research such as inadequate attention, a lack of systematic study and narrow localism. In addition, "geography of media" is identified as the research perspective of this dissertation.Chapter One delineates mainly from the perspective of "imaging production", the geographical change of the production environment of "Shanghai Imagination" and its cultural significance. Based on the conversion of a localized imaging production capital to a cross-border one. this chapter analyzes the overall change of "Shanghai Imagination" from "localization" to "borderline fuzziness". It then outlines and interprets several principal ways of "Shanghai Imagination", according to various geographical identities of different groups of production.Chapter Two analyzes the spatial paradigm of "Shanghai Imagination" and its relationship with urban changes. The analysis focuses respectively on "the game between space integrity and hybridity", "spatial mobility" and "Space collage and parody". From the game between space integrity and hybridity, "Shanghai Imagination" sketches out a sharply different experience of urban space and reflects the collision and wrestling between pluralistic ideology and various powers in China through the transitional period. "Mobility" widely exists in the spatial construction of "Shanghai Imagination", which is not only a faithful reflection of Shanghai, a city of congenital hybridity but constantly undergoing dramatic changes, but also an initiative construction of the city by video media in the context of globalization. "Shanghai Imagination" achieves fragmentation, transplantation and reorganization of space through collage, parody and so on. This is an image creation of postmetropolis spatial experience and also a media production of the postmodernist urban space.Chapter Three focuses on a critical interpretation of "Shanghai Imagination" as mass culture in time dimension. With the help of strategies like "spatialization of time", the "moment" carnival in fashion codes, "Shanghai Imagination" fills up gaps of city history and answers inquiries about time and survival from the public. Common experiences of time are reconstituted into a fragmented, patterned and sensory sense of space, and get down to "city identification" which directly points to consumption. However, owing to an absence of cultural texture for inner support and a real experience and memory, this "identification" tends to be unreal and fragile, which creates a difficult time dilemma for Shanghai Imagination as mass culture. At the cost of this, "Shanghai Imagination" participates in the production of "geography of media" in consumer society.Chapter Four aims to emphasize one of the important marks of "Shanghai Imagination" in geographical dimension, polylocality, which is a strategy of interconnecting different places and constructing basic framework of narrative in various ways like migration, transportation, communication, imagination within an image text. Based on a focused analysis, it presents respectively three main construction patterns of polylocality in "Shanghai Imagination", that is, "Shanghai and overseas", "Shanghai and Hongkong and Taiwan", "Shanghai and inland". It moves ahead to analyze the characteristics and laws of each pattern and effective ways in which polylocality puts fresh vitality into "Shanghai" as a concept of "place". Thus a difficult self-positioning of "Shanghai Imagination" in the globalization process and reconstruction of the meaning of "place" are fully revealed.The Conclusion puts "Shanghai Imagination" in contemporary Chinese movies under the umbrella of "globality/locality" category. It summarizes the dynamic strategies "Shanghai Imagination" employs in writing "Shanghai" in the new historical context, respectively from the following three aspects, that is, "the cultural call of local memory", "local identification with global experiences" and "free and open mobile hub". In numerous responses and adaptations "locality" makes to "globality", "Shanghai" is being capitalized and characterized as the "global/local city" and "legendary city". It is in the fissures and gaps between "the global" and "the local" that an Enlightenment-invoked liberty, and such values as equality and democracy in a more universal sense, are breeding and spreading, which makes it revolutionary to capitalize "Shanghai" in the context of globalization.