Talking heads in Chinese independent cinema: discourses and speaking rights

Abstract

ABSTRACT The talking head has been widely used within Chinese independent cinema. On the one hand, the practice is criticized by Chinese independent filmmakers for serving the propagandist ends of Chinese state television; on the other, it is also introduced by Chinese independent cinema to attest to the social sufferings experienced by marginal people. In this paper, the theory of intertextuality is adopted to analyse the use of talking heads within both Chinese Sixth Generation cinema and independent Chinese documentary, while exploring the collective documentary impulse of Chinese independent filmmaking. I shall develop the following two arguments: (1) the ideology of talking heads is shaped by the “linguistic context” of film production. They can serve official and grassroots discourses placed within an authoritative and a private cinematic context, respectively. (2) Both Chinese independent documentary and feature-length films adopt talking heads to deliver marginal voices, which advance the speaking rights of both Chinese independent filmmaking and voiceless social groups.