Eileen Chang's career as a screenplay writer began in Shanghai in 1947. Her screenplay writing falls into two separate phases: the Shanghai period and the Hong Kong period. The origins of Shanghai cinematography affected Chang's entire subsequent writing career, and yet her own best output in this field was confined to the single year of 1947. Why did it come to such a sudden halt? In what ways did her personal life experiences find expression in her screen play writing? What prompted or motivated her to make the move away form novel writing toward screenplay work? And, what were the main contemporary influences on her visuality style as a playwright and her means of artistic expression? This paper will take these questions as its point of departure, with Eileen Chang's screenplays/film/novels as the basic textual material, combination of literary theory and cinematic theory and use techniques, such as film long take method, to bear on a series of cognitive maps for “Imaging Eileen Chang,” and a substantial step forward in our overall understanding of Eileen Chang's literary history and achievements.