The Neo-noir Crazy Stone Phenomenon

Abstract

Abstract: The Crazy Stone phenomenon in China is often described as the black carnival of both the movie goers and the concerned scholars. The filmic and discursive enthusiasm for Crazy Stone has drawn much attention to the carnival theory by M. Bakhtin and the postmodern theoretical attention to mass culture. Surveying the cultural implications of craziness and how Crazy Stone connects with both the global as well as domestic film cultures, the author of this article observes the absence of such concepts as film noir and neo noir in this round of discussion and argues that Crazy Stone discourse and many of the Crazy Stone initiated films constitute an episode of global neo noir. Aided by black humor, neo noir better connects with many concepts frequently surfaced in the Crazy Stone discourse, such as mass culture, carnival as a communal patterning of visual imagination, mediascape for cultural communication through films, a cross-cultural usage of dog images, as well as cynicism.

Key words: Crazy Stone, Bakhtin, carnival, black humor, neo noir

Harry H. Kuoshu. The Neo-noir Crazy Stone Phenomenon[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2017, 37(2): 102-117.

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(1)Xinzhao Cultural Transmission Center(星兆文化传播中心),the producer of Crazy Necklace,issued a 16-page PowerPoint document to explain the market potential of the film(accessed Sept.11,2015 at(http://wenku.baidu.com/view/142a05360b4c2e3f57276333.html)).It claims that Crazy Stone has helped increase the box office income of Chinese films-2009 witnessed a 40 percent rise of income compared with 2008.It assures the investors that the increase would continue in 2010 and thus guarantee their investment.It claims that they can maintain"the myth of craziness"without the presence of Ning Hao,and they invite investors"to have a journey along with craziness."
(2)The translation is mine.The original in《论语·子路》reads,“不得中行而与之,必也狂狷乎。狂者进取,狷者有所不为。”
(3)The translation is mine.The original in Zhuangzi's chapter of"Mountain Woods"reads,“南越有邑焉,名为建德之国。其民愚而朴,少私而寡欲;知作而不知藏,与而不求其报;不知义之所适,不知礼之所将。猖狂妄行,乃蹈乎大方。其生可乐,其死可葬。”
(4)Qian Zhongshu comments on craziness in saying,"Craziness is a channel for change,the wisdom of which is expressed in Tai Gong's Yin Fu:'Supreme wisdom appears crazy[…]'"See Qian,Zhongshu.Lunxue Wenxuan(Selected works of Qian Zhongshu's scholarly essays),vol.3,p.200.
(5)See Yangcheng wanbao,Xinwen Zhoukan(Guangzhou Evening Gazette)issue 314,2003.Quoted in He Lei,p.148.
(6)See my discussion of the film Pirated Copy in Metro Movies:Cinematic Urbanism in Post-Mao China(Southern Illinois University Press,2011),pp.139-42.
(7)Jia's pastiche of Pulp Fiction has been widely discussed by reviewers.In A Touch of Sin,an embittered miner,Da Hai,hides in the mine owner's Maserati,where the owner discovers him and tries to buy him off.The next image is Da Hai's blood-spattered face in the back seat—as in the famous scene in Pulp Fiction.
(8)The article was published in 2004.It discusses Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in relation to postmodernism,and it refers to Guy Ritchie as"the British Tarantino."See Wang Ying,2004.
(9)The data of a Chinese web dictionary shows that in most cases these two Chinese phrases,with no distinction,are just directly translated as"cynicism"or to be"cynical."
(10)See Foucault(2012)for the authors and tides of these books.At the time when Foucault delivered his lecture,he had not read the fourth book,which,in English translation,is Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason(London:Verso,1988).This fourth book is Slavoj Zizek's reference in developing his theory on cynicism in totalitarian ideology.
(11)The bargain that Deng Xiaoping offered at the start of his reform and which the state learned to appreciate in the 1990s,as Perry Link describes,was"Shut up and I'll let you get rich."See Perry Link,"The Old Man's New China,"New York Review of Books,vol.9.June 1994.pp.31-36.

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