In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas
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In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas Felicia Chan, B.A. Hons., M.A. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2007 ABSTRACT This thesis begins with the question of how a more comprehensive comparative poetics of cinema might be formulated — one that depends not on essentialised notions of culture accentuated by binary divisions but one that would need to take into consideration the multiple agencies and subjectivities that impact the cultural production, and reading, of a film. The formulation of a constructive comparative poetics is necessary when building a case for the film’s cultural translatability, especially in the face of the proliferation of cinema that is being increasingly identified as ‘transnational.’ The case is made by analysing examples of transnational Chinese cinemas as exemplified by the films of three directors, Zhang Yimou, Wong Kar-wai and Ang Lee, between 1991 and 2002. In each of these examples, I explore how the films negotiate the various cultural and national boundaries they invariably cross as they enter into the global circulation of film and media products. Whilst I analyse the films in the contexts of the political and social histories of the various Chinese territories from which they appear to originate, I do not claim that they are merely products of those histories. The films are also products of economic and business networks, individual aesthetic choices on the part of the filmmakers, and a complex matrix of tastes and preferences exercised by their audiences, which may not necessarily be nationally or culturally demarcated. These elements constitute the boundaries of the notion of film cultures, the exploration of which I argue is a more productive approach than the more limited notion of ethnological cultures in the cultural analysis of cinema. i LIST OF PUBLISHED PAPERS Parts of this thesis have been, or are about to be, published in the following incarnations: Chan, Felicia. (2003) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Cultural migrancy and translatability. In Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes (Ed. Berry, Chris), British Film Institute, London, 56–64. ——— (2003) In Search of a Global Cinema: The Case of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Commentary, National University of Singapore Society, Singapore. ——— (2003) Reading ambiguity and ambivalence: The asymmetric structure of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/articles/reading- ambiguity.htm>. ——— (2005) A Primer in Film Cultures and Narratives. Critical, Cultural and Communications Press, Nottingham. ——— (2006) Wuxia cross-dressing and transgender identity: The roles of Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia from Swordsman II to Ashes of Time, EnterText 6.1: Wuxia Fictions: Chinese Martial Arts in Film, Literature and Beyond, 111–33. ——— (forthcoming 2007) Cultural translatability in transnational Chinese cinemas: The Case of Zhang Yimou. In Off-screen Spaces: Regionalism and Globalised Cultures (Eds. McLoone, Martin and Porter, Robert), University of Exeter Press. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of this thesis entailed a transnational migration, from Singapore to Nottingham and later to Coleraine, between the late 1990s and mid 2000s. Much is owed to colleagues, friends and well-wishers, though the persons mentioned here are the principal players to whom my debts, in the form of these acknowledgements, can only be partially repaid. In Nottingham, I owe much to the faith, support and guidance of my supervisor, Dr Macdonald Daly; to Prof Peter Brooker, for his encouragement and advice; to the friends I made, especially Dr Maithrie White, and the indefatigable Ms Stacy Johnson, without whose good humour and companionship the experience would have been far less rewarding. For my formative years at the National University of Singapore, thanks are long overdue to Dr Timothy White, for the introduction to the historical depth and breadth of international cinema and the love of film in general; and Dr Yong Li Lan, whose dedication to scholastic rigour I am still inspired to emulate. Of the several part-time teaching contracts I held in Singapore, one was at the National Institute of Education, where my association with Dr Pat Wong and Dr Matilda Gabrielpillai, amongst others, highlighted for me the importance of an intellectual community, bound, not by subject areas, but by shared values. In Coleraine, I am grateful to Prof Paul Willemen and Dr Valentina Vitali, for their amity and mentorship; as well as to those I have come to know from the Centre for Media Research at the University of Ulster, for their collegiality; and to the members of the local Zen group, for their generous welcome. iii This list of acknowledgements would not be complete without the mention of two old friends, Dr Gwee Li Sui and Ms Tan Soo Yean, without whose intellectual camaraderie over the years this project might never have taken form. Less directly, but no less important, are the friends I made through working with the Singapore International Film Festival and Theatreworks, where my interests in Asian cinema and inter-culturalism were initially cultivated. Through them, I learned that certain freedoms are worth pursuing, in spite of the effort. Finally, to my family — my parents and my brother — who taught me the importance of self-belief, almost entirely by example. iv CONTENTS Abstract i List of publications ii Acknowledgements iii Notes vi Introduction 1 Chapter One: Culture in Film / Film Culture 37 Chapter Two: Zhang Yimou 90 Chapter Three: Wong Kar-wai 147 Chapter Four: Ang Lee 202 Conclusion 248 Bibliography 262 v NOTES For convenience and consistency, where there is an occasional mention of a phrase or word in Chinese, the Mandarin hanyu pinyin spelling will be used. In quoted material, the original spelling used will be retained, whether in the Wade-Giles system or others, with Mandarin pinyin in parentheses for clarification, and consistency, if necessary. vi INTRODUCTION Chinese language cinema has made large strides into mainstream markets since Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth first introduced the Chinese ‘Fifth Generation’ cinema to US and European audiences with its screening at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1985. According to Tam and Dissanayake, ‘many who saw it realized that day that the new Chinese cinema had arrived […] and the film went on to win numerous awards at international festivals’ (1998: 13). Today, in 2007, Chinese language ‘blockbusters’ — such as The Promise (Chen Kaige, 2005) and The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang, 2006) — are no longer relegated to Chinatown theatres, the ‘cult’ section of the local video store, or the arthouse circuit in US and European metropolitan centres. Julian Stringer warns against mistaking ‘distribution histories of world cinema’ for ‘production histories’ (2001: 134), and thus against the ‘nostalgic invocation of those moments when non-Western industries were “discovered” (2001: 134). This thesis seeks not to perpetuate such a perception of film history but to explore the issues for cultural ownership and identity that are raised by the penetration of Chinese cinema/s from the 1990s to the early 2000s into US and European markets, and ultimately circulating back into Asia as exemplars of successful cultural translations. This introductory chapter will take the first step towards that aim by defining the terms in the title of the thesis, In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas, before elaborating on the methodology to be employed in the rest of the thesis as well as its structure. I shall begin by working backwards through the title, engaging first with the notion of ‘transnational cinemas,’ back through ‘cultural translatability,’ before finally addressing the notion of a ‘comparative poetics’ in cinema. 2 Transnational Chinese cinema/s The term ‘transnational Chinese cinemas’ and ‘transnational Film Studies’ was introduced by Sheldon Lu in his anthology of essays, Transnational Chinese Cinemas (1997), which sought to define Chinese ‘national’ cinemas in ‘its properly transnational context’ (1997a: 3). Lu argues that: Transnationalism in the Chinese case can be observed at the following levels: first, the split of China into several geopolitical entities since the nineteenth century — the Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong — and consequently the triangulation of competing national/local ‘Chinese cinemas,’ especially after 1949; second, the globalization of the production, marketing, and consumption of Chinese film in the age of transnational capitalism in the 1990s; third, the representation and questioning of ‘China’ and ‘Chineseness’ in filmic discourse itself, namely. the cross-examination of the national, cultural, political, ethnic, and gender identity of individuals and communities in the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora; and fourth, a reviewing and revisiting of the history of Chinese ‘national cinemas,’ as if to read the ‘prehistory’ of transnational filmic discourse backwards. Such an operation has the aim of uncovering the ‘political unconscious’ of filmic discourse — the transnational roots and condition of cinema, which any project of national cinema is bound to suppress and surmount, for the sake of defending the country against real or perceived dangers of imperialism or in order to uphold national unity by silencing the voices of ethnic and national minorities. (1997a: