Wang Bing is said to be the most radical of China’s contemporary filmmakers.
The first reason for this is the defiantly slow pace of his films, which can run for three, six, nine or fifteen hours. The second is the image of the Chinese worker that has emerged in his films, a worker forever in transit. In run down or flourishing industrial areas, in big cities and barely urbanised provinces, this worker builds shelters, digs tunnels, takes alternate routes, crosses deserts or moves along marked routes. Wang Bing observes everyone simultaneously and separately. He is silent but patient and perceptive like a dashcam.
Unique as his subject material may be, Wang Bing’s new-era collective portraits, so at odds with China’s economic optimism, in many ways remain within the traditions of international documentary filmmaking and visual anthropology. This lecture will cover both the filmmaker’s individual style and the context that has shaped his method. Wang Bing’s work can be compared to other observational documentaries by filmmakers who explore the complex social bodies of their countries: the institutions, professions, and communities that run through them. There are similarities between his work and that of Frederick Wiseman, the Maysles Brothers’ Salesmen, Raymond Depardon’s Reporters and News Items, Marina Razbezhkina’s students, and other filmmakers concerned with everyday life in contemporary China.