Pursuits of Happiness in Chinese Cinema
MLAP 45950/1
Thu: 6:15PM-09:30 PM
Instructor: Paola Iovene
This course will offer an introduction to Chinese cinemas(mostly from Mainland China, but we will also discuss some films from Taiwan and Hong Kong) from the 1930s to the present. We will explore a variety of films, genres, and modes, with a focus on melodrama, comedy, and opera film. We will situate these works in their historical and social contexts, analyze their forms and techniques, and investigate how they adapt elements from other national cinemas as well as from other media such as theater and painting. The course is premised on the hypothesis that movies entertain, move, and mobilize audiences by presenting explicit or implicit visions of happiness, or how to be happy and lead a meaningful life. Such visions are historically specific, and they may be at work even in bleak films that deny any sense of purpose and do not seem to offer any promise of redemption. Through the lens of cinema, this class will offer an opportunity to learn about the aspirations underlying the social and political upheavals of twentieth- and twenty-first century China.
Assigned Texts:
DVD: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Film Language (45’, available on Amazon.com)
All readings will be posted on Canvas. Please read them carefully before class. Please print them out and bring them to class (no laptops allowed).
Requirements and grading:
Class participation 40 %
Two 5-page essays 60% (prompts will be sent out in week 4 and 9; the first essay is due on 4/23 and the second on 6/4)
Schedule
(Draft,some readings might change)
Week 1, March 29 Introduction: Happiness and Melodrama
Reading: Kristine Harris, “The Goddess: Fallen Women of Shanghai,” 128-136
Sarah Ahmed, “Introduction: Why Happiness, Why Now?” in The Promise of Happiness, 1-20
Recommended: Linda Williams, “Melodrama revised,” 42-88
In-class screening: The Goddess (Shennü, dir. Wu Yonggang, 1934, 85 minutes)
Week 2, April 5Opera Film: Attractions of Heavenly Love
Reading: Wilt L. Idema,The Metamorphosis of TianxianPei, 1-26, 250-263
Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator, and the Avant-garde,” 381-388
Home-viewing of DVD: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Film Language (45 minutes)
Recommended: Paola Iovene, “Chinese Operas on Stage and Screen: A Short Introduction,” 181-199
In-class screening: Married to a Heavenly Immortal (aka Fairy Couple, Tianxianpei, dir. Shi Hui, 1955, 91 minutes)
Week 3, April 12 Socialist Happiness
Reading: Li Zhun, “A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang,” 15-62
Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 112-158
In-class screening: Li Shuangshuang (dir. Ren Lu, 1962, 96 minutes)
Week 4, April 19 Communist Fun
Reading: Jason McGrath, “Cultural Revolution Model Opera Films and the Realist Tradition in Chinese Cinema,” 343-376
In-class screening: The Red Detachment of Women (Hongseniangzijun, dir. Pan Wenzhan and Fu Jie, 1970, 105 min)
Week 5, April 26 Urban Comedy, or, Troubles ofthe Reform Era
Reading: MiJiashan, “Discussing the Troubleshooters,” 8-14
GeremieBarmé, “Wang Shuo and Liumang (Hooligan) Culture,”23-64
In-class screening: The Troubleshooters (aka, The Operators, Wanzhu, dir.MiJiashan, 1989, 110 minutes)
Week 6, May 3 Revisiting Opera Film: A Human-Ghost Affair
Reading: Dai Jinhua, “Woman, Demon, Human: A Woman’s Predicament,” 151-171
Lee Haiyan, “Woman, Demon, Human: The Spectral Journey Home,” 242-249
Recommended: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, 1-34.
In-class screening:Woman, Demon, Human (Renguiqing, dir. Huang Shuqin, 1987, 108 minutes)
Week 7, May 10 Basic Desires
Reading: Selections from Wolfgang Bauer, China and the Search for Happiness
Darius, Wei Ming and Eileen Fung. “Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee,” 187-220.
In-class screening: Eat Drink Man Woman (Yinshinannü, dir. Ang Lee, 1994, 123 minutes)
Week 8, May 17Together Alone
Reading: Chow, Rey. “Nostalgia of the New Wave: Structure in Wong Kar-wai’sHappy Together.”Camera Obscura42 (1999): 30-49.
Berry, Chris. “Happy Alone? Sad Young Men in East Asian Gay Cinema.”Journal of Homosexuality39, 3/4 (June 2000): 187-200.
Additional reading tba
In-class screening:Happy Together (Chunguangzhaxie, dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1997, 96 minutes)
Week 9 May 24Magic in the Everyday
Reading: André Bazin, “An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism,” in What is Cinema, vol II, 16-40
Corey Byrnes, “Specters of Realism and the Painter’s Gaze in JiaZhangke’s Still Life,”52-93
In-class screening: Still Life (Sanxiahaoren, dir.JiaZhangke, 2006, 111 minutes)
Week 10 May 31 Happiness in Ruins
Readings: Wu Hung, A Story of Ruins: Presence and Absence in Chinese Art and Visual Culture, pp. tba
Carolyn FitzGerald, “Spring in a Small Town: Gazing at Ruins,” in Chris Berry, ed. Chinese Films in Focus II, 205-11.
In-class screening: Spring in a Small Town (Xiaochengzhichun, dir. Fei Mu, 1948, 98 minutes)