The long take and the time image in recent ‘Chinese’ cinemas: Realism reconsidered

<jats:p>This article addresses criticism about the ostensibly mannerist and inauthentic adoption of a long-take, long-shot style by directors within recent ‘Chinese’ cinema, particularly Jia Zhangke, and defends the legitimacy of the dialectical employment of stylistic techniques in the service of film realism – not, however, a simplistic re-presentationally conceived realism, but realism as a particular aesthetic production. In doing so it defends the dual notions of film as art, and of film art as committed to social truth.</jats:p>