Jason McGrath's long-awaited second book, Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age, is an ambitious work of film criticism whose object is the ebb and flow of cinematic approaches to the real over the course of Chinese film history. Although the book is overwhelmingly concerned with the analysis of film texts, albeit with extensive historical and cultural grounding, McGrath is careful not to reduce the various kinds of realism he identifies to a set of given aesthetic conventions. Indeed, in framing realism writ large as “a credo of inscribing the real” (p. 3), McGrath, following Roman Jakobson, structures the particularities of that credo as a dynamic historical dialectic between new and clichéd forms, aesthetic innovation and convention. In other words, that which is understood to best filmically inscribe the real at any given moment is subject to change over time and cultural circumstance – thus, it is implied, the sweeping longue durée of the overarching study.

The monograph is structured chronologically in a manner emphasizing this change; however, the analysis presented therein turns on the formulation of McGrath's typology of cinematic realisms. It comprises six basic categories: ontological, perceptual, fictional, social, prescriptive and apophatic. In keeping with the notion of historical dynamism, each category is defined by its underlying approach/claim to inscribing the real cinematically, rather than a set of particular representational conventions. Crucially, as a result, they are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the categories and their priorities often overlap. As this typology is one of the book's most significant contributions, a brief word on each category is warranted.

Ontological realism turns on “the notion that the technology of photography provides a uniquely intimate and direct connection to material reality” (p. 9) Elements relying on the purported indexicality of the photographic image vis-à-vis that which it represents fall under this category. Perceptual realism, by contrast, emphasizes “the capacity of the moving image, whether photographic or otherwise (animation, CGI), to engage our perceptual apparatus and seize our attention, presenting itself to our senses as ‘real’ whether or not it is seen as representing something else that is ontologically real” (p. 10) Fictional realism refers to “the tendency of narrative film to encourage diegetic immersion, in which a fictional world (diegesis) is taken as provisionally ‘real’ […] whether or not the story's world actually resembles our own” (p. 12). Social realism, on the other hand, hinges on the pursuit of verisimilitude between a film's diegesis and the social and cultural world in which it exists, although that verisimilitude may or may not be deployed in the service of critique. Taking the implicit power of representation a step further, prescriptive realism refers to “the idea that a film might seek to represent, not just reality as it now appears, but a truer reality that lies beneath the surface or is yet to be fully realized” (p. 18). Finally, apophatic realism is “a mode of representation that seeks to acknowledge its own fundamental limitations, to build into its system an opening toward something beyond what representation can express” (pp. 20–21) That is, it gestures toward the unrepresentable and unrepresentability.

Chinese Film's seven chapters deploy McGrath's typology of realisms in the consideration of key moments/texts in the history of Chinese cinema. Chapter one examines the pursuit of realism-qua-modernity in silent cinema, especially in the works of the renowned actress Ruan Lingyu, as manifested both in the problem of how to act for the camera and the contemporary elevation of scientistic discourse. Chapter two explores the realism advanced by Shanghai left-wing cinema of the 1930s. McGrath argues that these films not only engaged with but also critiqued contemporary Hollywood conventions, thereby advancing a unique take on the problem of realism all their own. Chapter three examines the articulation of realism and historical event in three generically diverse war films: A Spring River Flows East, Spring in a Small Town and Crows and Sparrows. Chapters four and five investigate the problem of realism in the context of revolution, first in the complex temporality of the cinema of the 17 years after 1949 and then in the extreme formalism of the films of the model theatre. Chapter six considers realism as devised in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, focusing on the use of the long take, in particular. Finally, chapter seven explores realism in the context of new digital technologies, requiring a thorough reexamination of cinematic indexicality.

Chinese Film is ambitious both in its historical scope and intellectual claims. (One sometimes wonders, in fact, what isn't encompassed by McGrath's expansive typology of realisms.) Well written and researched, the book is sure to reach a broad audience in film studies. Indeed, it seems clear that McGrath's primary intended reader is not necessarily familiar with recent Chinese history or its study but is very much at home in discussions of Hollywood and Western film theory. The author's chosen film texts are notably canonical but brilliantly analysed. Readers in Chinese studies may be disappointed by McGrath's adherence to the well-worn path. It will be up to others to explore how McGrath's analytical tools might be used to reconceive the Chinese cinematic canon itself.