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CHINESE AUTEURS1 SPRING 2012 RTF 345 CHINESE AUTEURS-W (Unique Number: 08257) ANS 372 CHINESE AUTEURS-W (Unique Number: 31753)
Professor Lalitha Gopalan E-mail: [email protected]
Office Hours:
Seminar: Tuesday and Thursday: 12:30 2:00, CMA A3.112 Screening: Thursday 5:00 7:30, CMA A3.116
Film theory follows cinephilia. Long canonized by film festivals and cherished by cinephiles, the ‘new cinemas’ from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China continue to revise our taste and assumptions of what is cinema: long takes and slow motions reanimated; relationship between mise‐en‐scene and realism rearticulated; links between film and politics redirected; connection between film style and directors reaffirmed and so on. To explore these various aspects, we will be primarily viewing films by Taiwan based auteurs, Hou Hsiao‐hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming‐liang; references and viewings of films by auteurs from Hong Kong and China will serve to understand the substance of the term 'Chinese Auteurs.'
Required Texts are available for purchase at the University Student Coop:
1. Emilie Yeh and Darrell William Davis, Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 2. Tsaï MingLiang. Ed. Jean‐Pierre Rehm, Olivier Joyard, Danièle Rivière Imprint Paris : Dis voir, [1999] ENGLISH EDITION.
A reading packet is also available for purchase at Jenn’s Copy services
Attendance: You are expected to be on time for class sessions and screenings. If for some unexpected reason you are absent for a class, you are expected to inform me via telephone or email. Please note that two or more absences will result in a lower final grade: B to B‐ and so on.
Class sessions: Please note that this course will be taught as a seminar class and not as a series of lectures. You are expected to bring the relevant texts to class and come fully prepared for class discussions. Please be prepared to respond to my questions on particular aspects of the readings and films in class as well as initiating
1 Lalitha Gopalan is the sole author of this syllabus. 2 your own formulations of the texts. Be warned that you will be marked absent if you fail to bring the relevant texts to class.
Grades
Grades for this class will avail of the plus/minus grading system: A, A, and so on.
Please note that this course has a substantial writing component and hence your final grade will be based on the following written assignments:
1. 50%: Based on 10 page paper to be submitted in two parts, two 5‐7 page papers. You are expected to choose one film not assigned on the syllabus as your primary text for the entire semester. Please consult with me on your choice of films. Your first 2‐page paper submission on this film (not graded) should offer a detailed segmenting of the entire film with a short bibliography.
February 17: 2‐page segmenting and bibliography March 9: First 4‐5‐page paper. May 8: Second 5‐page paper
2. 25%: Class presentation of a theoretical essay. After the first two weeks of class, I expect you to sign up for a class presentation of one of the assigned essays in your syllabus. You will be allotted the entire class session to lead the discussion of an essay with ample help from the class. A draft version of your reading of the essay and film should be posted on Blackboard the next day before midnight and during the following class session we will collectively comment on your draft. A revised version (4‐5 pages) is due the following Friday.
3. 25%: A weekly journal that records your responses to the film screenings and on occasion, to the readings. I expect you to write for 5‐10 minutes after each screening session on Monday. This is a designated quiet time that allows you to both respond and formulate your thoughts on the screening before launching into a more audible discussion of the projected images. Please note that you are encouraged to expand on these initial impressions by incorporating your engagements with the assigned readings. I expect this writing assignment to be about a page or more for each session.
Journals are due on the following dates: February 24, March 30, and May 4
Papers are due in my mailbox by 2pm on the date of submission.
Please be aware that your papers have to abide by the prevailing Honor Code of the university. 3
I strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with facilities available at the Writing Center.
Please be advised that readings and film screenings are subject to revision.
Please note that you are encouraged not to communicate with me via email on matters pertaining to class readings, assignments, and grades. I have designated office hours to discuss precisely such matters.
Week 1
January 17: Introduction
Wong Karwai
January 19 Double Screening:
Screening: Days of being wild (1990) dir. Wong kar‐wai Fallen Angels (1995) dir. Wong Kar‐wai
January 24 Stephen Teo, ‘Introduction.’ READER John Caughie, ‘Auteurism in theory.’ READER
January 26 Stephen Teo, CONTD. READER
Screening: Chungking Express (1994) dir. Wong Kar‐wai
January 31 Ackbar Abbas, ‘Wong Kar‐wai : Hong Kong Filmmaker.’ READER Stephen Teo, READER
February 2 Tsung‐Yi Huang, ‘Chungking Express: Walking with a map of desire in the mirage of the global city.’ READER Tony Rayns,‘Poet of Time.’ (Interview with Wong Kar‐wai). READER
Screening: Happy Together (1997) dir. Wong Kar‐wai Recommended: In the Mood for Love (2000) dir. Wong Kar‐wai
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Cathy Greenhalgh, ‘How Cinematography Creates Meaning in Happy Together.’ READER
February 9 Berry, Chris. "Happy Alone? Sad Young Men in East Asian Gay Cinema." READER Chow, Rey, ‘Nostalgia of the New Wave: Structure in Wong Kar‐wai's Happy Together.’ READER
Edward Yang
Screening: The Terrorizer (1986) dir. Edward Yang
February 14 Emilie Yueh‐yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis, ‘Navigating the House of Yang.’ Taiwan Film Directors.
February 16 Sung‐sheng Yvonne Chang, ‘The Terrorizer and the Great Divide in Contemporary Taiwan’s Cultural Development.’ READER
Screening: Yi Yi (2000) dir. Edward Yang
February 21 Frederic Jameson, ‘Remapping Taipei.’ READER
February 23 Jameson contd.
Hou Hsiaohsien
Screening: Flowers of Shanghai (1998) dir. Hou Hsiao‐hsien Recommended: Three Times (2005) dr. Hou Hsiao‐hsien
February 28 Yeh and Davis, ‘Introduction.’ Yeh and Davis, ‘Trisecting Taiwan Cinema with Hou Hsiao‐hsien.’
March 1 David Bordwell, ‘Hou, or constraints.’ READER
Screening: Good Men, Good Women (1995) dir. Hou 5
March 6 James Udden, ‘’This time he moves!’: the deeper significance of Hou Hsiao‐hsien’s radical break in Good Men, Good Women.’ READER Yeh and Davis, ‘Challenges and Controversies of Taiwan New Cinema.’
March 8 Peggy Chiao, ‘Great changes in a vast ocean: neither tragedy nor joy.’ READER Michael Berry, ‘Words and images.’ READER
Screening: Café Lumiere (2003) dir. Hou Hsiao‐hsien Cinema notre temps: HHH (1997) dir. Olivier Assayas
SPRING BREAK MARCH 13 AND 15
March 20 Chris Fujiwara, ‘First look: Hou Hsiao‐hsien’s Café Lumiere.’ READER Gary Needham, ‘Ozu and the colonial encounter in Hou Hsiao‐hsien.’ READER
March 22 William Tay, ‘The ideology of initiation: The films of Hou Hsiao‐hsien.’ READER Fergus Daly, ‘On four prosaic formulas which might summarize Hou’s poetics.’ READER Chia‐chi Wu, ‘Festivals, criticism and the international reputation of Taiwan New Cinema.’ READER
Tsai Mingliang
Screening: The Hole (1998) dir. Tsai Ming‐liang Vive L’Amour (1995) dir. Tsai
March 27 Chris Berry, ‘Where is Love? Hyperbolic Realism and Indulgene in Vive L’Amour.’ READER
March 29 Jasmine Nadua Trice, Jasmine, ‘Diseased Bodies and Domestic Space: Transmodern Space in Tsai Ming‐Liang's The Hole.’ READER Shelly Kraicer. "Interview with Tsai Ming‐liang." READER
Screening: What time is it over there (2001) dir. Tsai Ming‐liang
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April 2 Jen‐yi Hsu, ‘Re‐Enchanting the Everyday Banal in the Age of Globalization: Alienation, Desire, and Critique of Capitalist Temporality in Tsai Ming‐Liang's The Hole and What Time Is It There?’ READER Fran Martin, ‘The European Undead: Tsai Ming‐liang’s Temporal Dysphoria.’ READER
April 5 Lesley Chow, ‘What Time Now? Catching Up Hours in Tsai Ming‐liang.’ READER
Screening: The River (1997) dir. Tsai Ming‐liang
April 10 Kai‐Man Chang, ‘Drifing Bodies and Flooded Spaces: Visualizing the Invisibility Of Heteronormativity in Tsai Ming‐Liang's The River.’ READER
April 12 Chow, Rey. ‘A Pain in the Neck, a Scene of "Incest," and Other Enigmas of an Allegorical Cinema: Tsai Ming‐liang's The River.’ READER
Screening: Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) dir. Tsai Ming‐liang; Dragon Gate Inn (1967) dir. King Hu
April 17 Yvette Biro, ‘Perhaps the Flood: The Fiery Torrent of Tsai Ming‐Liang’s Films.’ READER Kenneth Chan, ‘Goodbye, Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming‐liang's Political Aesthetics of Nostalgia, Place, and Lingering.’ READER
April 19 Nicholas De Villiers, ‘Leaving the cinema: metacinematic cruising in Tsai Ming‐ liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn.’ READER Chris Wood, ‘Realism, Intertextuality and Humour in Tsai Ming‐liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn.’ READER
Screening: I don’t want to sleep alone (2006) dir. Tsai Ming‐liang
April 24 Andrea Bachner, ‘Cinema as Heterochronos: Temporal Folds in the Work of Tsai Ming‐liang.’ READER
April 26 Danielle Riviere/Tsai Ming‐liang, ‘Scouting.’ READER
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Jia Zhangke
Screening: The Platform (2000) dir. Jia Zhangke The World (2004) dir. Jia Zhangke
May 1 Michael Berry, ‘Prelude.’ READER Michael Berry, ‘Platform.’ READER
May 3 Jia Zhangke: life and times beyond The World.(Interview with Alice Shih) READER Michael Berry, ‘In conversation with Jia Zhangke.’ READER