Cinematically Rendering Confucius: Chinese Film Philosophy and the Efficacious Screen-Play

Abstract

Cinematically Rendering Confucius marks the first book-length enquiry into China’s first two big screen treatments of arguably the best-known and most influential thinker in world history: Confucius. By interweaving methods drawn from Film Studies, Comparative Philosophy, and Media Archaeology in response to broader calls to deepen and thicken the scope and purview of film philosophical enquiry, this trailblazing book grounds Fei Mu’s 1940 patriotic art film Kǒng Fūzǐ and Hu Mei's 2010 “Huallywood” blockbuster Kǒngzǐ as pre- and postsocialist examples of Chinese politico-philosophical filmmaking that straddle the PRC’s revolutionary Marxist socio-political experiment. After exploring the geopolitics surrounding why Confucius has been historically included and excluded from the European classification of “philosopher” and addressing the difficulties that entering into “Chinese Thought” presents to non-natives, the book’s first half undertakes a deep dive into the history of (re)mediating the Confucian image-imagination. Arguing that Confucius might be a form of film philosopher avant la lettre, we thereafter explore repetitions and differences surrounding the ever-changing treatment and representation of Confucius on-screen—concluding with a look at the latest AI-infused theory-film When Marx Met Confucius (2023).