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The Critical Review of Contemporary Chinese Cinema
Name： / QIAN KunNationality： / China
Academic Title： / Associate professor
Home University（From）： / University of Pittsburgh
本科生
Freshman,Sophomore,Junior,Senior,Postgraduate
English
none
Lecturing in class
Lectures and discussions
(1)Attendance and participation 20%
(2)Online discussion 20%
(3) assignment and mini-papers 60%
2credits
Kun Qian is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Film in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States. She has a BA degree from Peking University in Economics, an MS in Economics, an MA in Asian Studies and a Ph.D degree in East Asian Literature from Cornell University. Her book: Imperial-Time-Order: Literature, Intellectual History, and China’s Road to Empire examines Chinese historical representations (including historical novels, stage plays, TV series, and films) in the modern period (1900-2005). Focusing on a deeply-ingrained historical way of thinking revolved around the perception of time, what Qian called the “Imperial-Time-Order,” she attempts to reassess the continuity and discontinuity of modern Chinese history. She has also published many articles in academic journals and edited volumes in both English and Chinese languages. CHR(10)
This course introduces some canonical Chinese language films since the 1980s in the greater China area (mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). On top of covering basic genres and techniques of film analysis, we will primarily focus on how film lends itself to capturing visually distinct features of cultural ethos, social customs and personal psychology. The aim of this course is to introduce different ways of reading Chinese cinema in relation to issues of modernity, nationalism, gender, cultural identities and beyond. Well-known Chinese directors such as Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, Edward Yang, and Wong Kar-wai will be studied through the 1980s and 1990s "New Wave Cinemas." We will also study the distinct techniques and styles of the rising "Sixth Generation" directors (such as Jiang Wen and Jia Zhangke) to see how they represent key values of traditional Chinese culture and society that have been contested and reinvented under the global conditions.
1.Yellow Earth (Dir. Chen Kaige, 1984)
• Introduce syllabus
• Basic techniques of film analysis (1)—elements of film
• Introduce Chen Kaige and “the Fifth Generation”
• Representation of alternative history
Discussion topics:
(1) How to understand “alternative history”?
(2) What are the symbolic meanings of the Yellow River and yellow earth?
(3) The character of Cuiqiao
(4) The function of the colors “red” and “yellow”
(5) The aesthetics of the cinematography
Supplementary film: Big Parade (Chen Kage, 1986)
2. Red Sorghum (Dir. Zhang Yimou, 1987)
• Basic techniques of film analysis (2)—film genres
• Introduce Zhang Yimou
• Introduce postcolonical theory
• Different viewing positions of the domestic and international audience
Discussion topics:
(1) How to understand the relationships among characters in the film?
(2) Zhang Yimou’s cinematic style
(3) The function and significance of color “red” in the film
(4) The function of music
(5) Do you think this is an ethnographic film?
Supplementary film: Raised the Red Lantern (Dir. Zhang Yimou, 1992)
3.A Better Tomorrow (Dir. John Woo, Hong Kong, 1986)
• Basic techniques of film analysis (3)—auteur cinema
• The social conditions of Hong Kong in the 1980s
• Introduce John Woo
• The relationship between “auteur film” and “genre film”
Discussion topics:
(1) The Chinese title of the film is “The Essence of a Hero.” Who is/are the hero(es)?
(2) Is this a conventional gangster film? Does it subvert your understanding of the genre?
(3) What traditional cultural values can be discerned in this film?
(4) The image of Hong Kong society revealed in the film?
(5) John Woo’s “aesthetics of violence.”
Supplementary film: Election (Johnnie To, 2005)
4. Woman, Demon, Human (Dir. Huang Shuqin, 1988)
• Basic techniques of film analysis (4)—psychoanalytic theories
• Introduce theories of feminism and gender politics
• Introduce Huang Shuqin and the background of the film
Discussion topics:
(1) Why is this film regarded a “feminist film”?
(2) What narrative techniques did the director employ to develop the main characters?
(3) How to understand the gender relations in the film?
(4) Is gender naturally born or socially constructed?
(5) The function of the opera in the film.
Supplementary film: Farewell My Concubine (Dir. Chen Kaige, 1993)
5. Centre Stage (Dir. Stanley Kwan, 1992, Hong Kong)
• Introduce Hong Kong and the “New Wave”
• Discussion on Feminism and Postmodernism
• Introduce Stanley Kwan and his background
Discussion topics:
(1) What’s the difference between this film and other “bio-pics”?
(2) What representational strategies did the director employ to realize these differences?
(3) How to perceive the use of color and black-and-white in different sections of the film?
(4) Is it possible to find subjectivity of Hong Kong in this film?
Supplementary film: In the Mood for Love (Dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
6. In the Heat of the Sun (Dir. Jiang Wen, 1994)
• Revolutionary history and individual memory
• Introduce Jiang Wen and his background
Discussion topics:
(1) What’s the difference between this film and other films that portray the Cultural Revolution?
(2) Why does the narrator stress the unreliability of his memory?
(3) How did the director represent the relationship between group and individual, reality and fantasy, memory and history?
(4) Discuss the function of military uniform, revolutionary music, and other revolutionary films in the film.
(5) The past, the main part of the film, is portrayed in color, yet the present, the 1990s, is portrayed in black and white. How to understand this transition of color?
7. City of Sadness (Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 1989)
• Introduce the history of Taiwan
• Taiwan New Wave and Hou Hsiao-hsien
• The style of Hou Hsiao-hsien
Discussion topics:
(1) Some critics believe this film creates an origin of Taiwan. How to understand this?
(2) There is a tension between the violent historical incident and the long shots, long take, and empty shots that Hou Hsiao-hsien frequently used in the film. How to read this tension?
(3) How to understand the design of a female narrator and a mute protagonist in representing this historical event?
(4) How to understand the function of family life—family meals, love affair, wedding, and funeral, in presenting history?
Supplementary film: Dust in the Wind (Dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1986)
8. Chungking Express (Dir. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 1994)
• Introduce the history of Hong Kong
• Wang Kar-wai and Hong Kong Identity
Discussion topics:
(1) What is special about this film’s narrative structure?
(2) How to understand the use of multiple languages in the film?
(3) How is Hong Kong portrayed in the film?
(4) Where does the comical effect come from?
(5) Some critics think that Wong Kar-wai’s films only have style, no substance. What do you think?
Supplementary film: Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
9. The Terrorizer (Dir. Edward Yang, Taiwan, 1986)
• Taiwan and Postmodernism
• Introduce Edward Yang and his films
Discussion topics:
(1) What’s special about the narrative structure of this film?
(2) Why did Fredric Jameson call this film a postmodern film? How to define postmodernism?
(3) How does this film create different spaces?
(4) How does the film reflect on the relationship between different representational mediums, including novel, photography, TV, and film?
Supplementary film: Yi Yi, (Edward Yang, 2000)
10. A Chinese Odyssey II (Jeffrey Lau, Hong Kong, 1995)
• Comedies and “wu li tou” in Hong Kong cinema
• Introduce Stephen Chow
• Classical Chinese novel A Journey to the West and its multiple adaptations
• A combination of adaptation and time travel
• Gilles Deleuze’s theory on time
Discussion topics:
(1) Why is this film regarded a classic of comedy?
(2) The relationship between time and coming-of-age? What structures of feeling can be discerned from this film?
(3) The aesthetic mechanism of “wu li tou.”
(4) The trans-regional reception of “wu li tou” and its post-modern characteristics
Supplementary film: A Chinese Odyssey I (Jeffery Lau, 1995)
11. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Dir. Ang Lee, 2000)
• Transnational Martial Arts cinema
• Introduce Ang Lee and his films
Discussion topics:
(1) What image of China can be discerned from this film?
(2) How does the film portray such concepts as “wu” and “xia”?
(3) How are female characters and gender relations portrayed in the film?
(4) How to understand the ending of the film? Why does Li Mubai have to die?
Supplementary film: Hero (Dir. Zhang Yimou, 2002)
12. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 2003)
• Tsai Ming-liang and “The Second New Wave” of Taiwan cinema
• The cinematic style of Tsai Ming-liang
• The social transition of Taiwan society
Discussion topics:
(1) What is this film about?
(2) Would it be a better film if it is reduced to 30 minutes?
(3) How to understand the title “Lingering”?
(4) The intertextual relationship between this film and Dragon Inn?
(5) Do you see the pornographic qualities of this film? How did the director make an art film with pornographic characteristics?
Supplementary film: What Time Is It There？(Tsai Ming-liang, 2001)
13. A Touch of Sin (Dir. Jia Zhangke, 2014)
• Introduce social criticism theory
• Introduce Jia Zhangke and the “Sixth Generation.”
Discussion topics:
(1) How to understand the title of the film?
(2) Do you see similar narrative structure of this film as that of other films we have watched so far?
(3) Please analyze the imagery of animals and their significance.
(4) How are violence and death represented in the film?
Supplementary film: The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
The PDF files of required readings will be made available online, either through courseweb or email.
Chris Berry and Mary Ann Farquhar, “An Analysis of Yellow Earth and The Black Cannon Incident.”
Yingjin Zhang, “Seductions of the Body: Fashioning Ethnographic Cinema in Contemporary China” in Screening China (2002).
Kristin Thompson, “The Concept of Cinematic Excess,” in Film Theory and Criticism, eds., Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, New York ＆ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Stephen Teo, “The New Wave’s Action Auteurs: John Woo,” in Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions.
Anne T. Ciecko, “Transnational Action: John Woo, Hong Kong, Hollywood” in Sheldon Lu, Transnational Chinese Cinemas.
Shuqin Cui, “Transgender Masquerading in Huang Shuqin’s Woman, Demon, Human” in Women through the Lens.
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”
Julian Stringer, “Centre Stage: Reconstructing the Bio-Pic,” in CineACTION. No. 42 (1997) 28-39.
Jacques Lacan, “The Split between the Eye and the Gaze,” in On the Gaze as Objet Petit a.
Yomi Braester, “Memory at a Standstill: From Maohistory to Hooligan History,” in Witness against History (2003).
June Yip, “Constructing a Nation: Taiwanese History and the Films of Hou Hsiao Hsien,” in Sheldon Lu, ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas.
Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh, “Poetics and Politics of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Films” in Sheldon Lu and Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh, eds., Chinese Language Film.
Curtis K. Tsui, “Subjective Culture and History: The Ethnographic Cinema of Wang Kar-wai,” Asian Cinema (Winter 1995).
Fredric Jameson, “Remapping Taipei” in The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System.
Gilles Deleuze: Preface to the English edition of Cinema 1 and Cinema 2
Kun Qian, “Pandora’s Box: The Double Structure in Deleuze’s Philosophy and the Power of Falsity in Identity Formation,” Asian Cinema, Spring 2011.
Sheldon Lu, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Bouncing Angels” in Sheldon Lu and Emilie Yueh-Yu Yeh, eds., Chinese Language Film.
Fran Martin, “Introduction: Tsai Ming-liang's intimate public worlds,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, v. 1 no. 2 (2007), p. 83-8
Kenneth Chan, “Goodbye, Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming-liang's political aesthetics of nostalgia, place, and lingering,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, V. 1 No. 2 (2007): p. 89-103.
Yanjie Wang, “Violence, wuxia, migrants: Jia Zhangke’s cinematic discontent in
A Touch of Sin,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2015, Vol. 9, No. 2, 159_172.
Louis D. Giannetti, Understanding Movies, Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2004
Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, New York ＆ London: Routledge, 2004.
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