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1981
Volume 12, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2051-7041
  • E-ISSN: 2051-705X

Abstract

My research engages with the critical and cultural theory of American thinker Fredric Jameson (1934–2024) to explore the cinema of contemporary Chinese director Jia Zhangke (1970–present). In this article, I argue that Jia’s films achieve what Jameson, in his conceptualization of postmodernity and late capitalism, calls cognitive mapping. This concept refers to the complexly mediated relationships between cultural representational forms and social totality. Thinking with Jameson and pushing his theory to a new direction, I contend that Jia’s films illustrate ‘cognitive mapping with Chinese characteristics’. These special features include: first, Jia’s use of (‘county-level city’) perspective; second, his utilization of the (‘block’) structure; third, his interrogation of reality and fiction; and fourth, his use of intertextual and transmedial references. In this article, I focus on Jia’s film, () (2008). I argue that in , Jia adopts the second, third and fourth strategies and seeks to capture the effects of the otherwise unrepresentable totality that is global capitalism in China. When Sigmund Freud analyses his patient’s dreams, he begins with the dream-contents (manifest content). Then he moves through the unconscious desire (form) and arrives at the dream-thoughts (latent content). Similarly, when Jia explores history and memory, he begins with reality. Then he moves through fiction and arrives at the sense of history. What Jia tries to capture is the sense of history, not simply history. Engaging with the moving image and contemporary Chinese art in a creative manner, Jia attempts to bring this sense of history back to our postmodern time in which historicity, according to Jameson, has been lost.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • China–U.S. Scholars Program Fellowship, Institute of International Education, the United States
  • Young Scholars Visiting Scheme, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Asia-Pacific Centre for Chinese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
  • Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Research
  • Office of the Provost, and Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, College of William & Mary, the United States
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2025-07-22
2026-04-13

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/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00114_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): 24 City (2008); cognitive mapping; contemporary Chinese cinema and art; cultural Marxism; film, media and cultural studies; Fredric Jameson; Jia Zhangke

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