IN-VISIBILITY: THE SENTIMENTAL IN CHINESE CINEMA SINCE THE 1990s by Hui Miao A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of American and Canadian Studies School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham November 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Hui Miao In-visibility: The Sentimental in Chinese Cinema since the 1990s November 2010 Abstract The greater visibility of Chinese films brought by the wider global access and circulation has not satisfied the culturally specific understanding of Chinese cinema. The subject/object power relations stemming from the legacy of colonial and postcolonial discourse hinders the arrival of a better-balanced cross-cultural reading. The visibility of cinema provides a visual spectacle, it also challenges the audience with a communication of the epistemic side of visibility which feeds the images meaning and imagination and facilitates a more balanced culturally specific understanding. However, the epistemic side of visibility remains invisible under power-engaged cross-cultural reading. This study suggests that the sentimental provides a possibility for a better-balanced cross-cultural understanding through its provision of empathic connection with the culture, history and the psyche. Home-longing/homecoming is claimed to the basis that the Chinese culture is built upon. Defined as the sentimental, this affective mode has been manifested across Chinese cinema abundantly through visual representation. The various articulations of the sentimental in face of the global and transnational homogeneous force further prove the deep-rootedness of the sentimental. The sentimental fashions as an affective link that establishes an empathic engagement in cross-cultural analysis. Through reading eight Chinese films made since the 1990, this study illustrates the relationship between the visual spectacle and the sentimental in Chinese cinema. Although the eight films are all from mainland Chinese directors, this study is carried out with the awareness of the sharing of Chinese culture within the Chinese language cinema where this study locates. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to give my primary intellectual and personal thanks to my PhD supervisor Michele Aaron. Michele has been a constant and valued source of intellectual guidance and stimulation over the course of this project and through the most difficult personal situations. While I am fully responsible for the contents, she has undoubtedly enhanced my work by tirelessly encouraging me to push boundaries further. For encouragement and support I am grateful to my family and friends who remain anonymous behind my study over the years and always hold faith in me. My thanks are especially given to Mr. Hin Hiong Khoo for financially allowing me to pursue my project; to my loving parents for their unconditional support and love and for providing me with the emotional basis and inspiration for undertaking and completing this research. 爸爸，妈妈， 谢谢你们多年来无条件的支持。爱，让我有勇气走完这段很长的路！ I dedicate this work to my loving husband Steve: for his numerous readings over this work that have challenged me with comments and questions; for his constant faith and love that have sustained me through this testing journey. For Steve- my home in the world, For all the years we have endured with love CONTENTS Note on Translation and Transcription Introduction 1-52 PART 1 1. The Power of Home: Shadow Magic and the Visibility of the Sentimental 53-79 2. Two Cities and the Same Sentimental Affection 80-110 3. The Road Home: Perpetuation of the Sentimental 111-138 PART 2 4. Searching for an Alternative Intimacy in Nostalgia: The Sentimental in In the Heat of the Sun 139-166 5. Intimate Spaces in a Transforming World: The Sentimental Spaces in Still Life and The Orphan of Anyang 167-197 6. A Sentimental Local through the Carnivalisation of Language: The Rhetorical Strategy of The Dream Factory 198-229 7. The Sentimental and Cross-Cultural Analysis 230-282 Bibliography 283-298 NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSCRIPTION This work uses the pinyin system for transcriptions of Chinese-language characters and quotations. Where the names of the characters from Taiwan or Hong Kong are mentioned, their original spelling in Wade-Giles transliterations and Cantonese transliterations are also presented. The Chinese film titles are presented in English translation accompanied by the pinyin transcription. I decided not to include the Chinese characters in this work for names, book/article titles unless it is in places where I think it would make a difference- in such instances Chinese characters are given in various parts of the work. For the scholars’ names that are in Chinese, I have quoted from the original form in the published resource. For example, Yingjin Zhang- if the resource I quoted is from the Chinese then it is presented as Zhang Yingjing; if it is in English then Yingjin Zhang is given as a result of the original quote. INTRODUCTION The power that makes the Chinese cohesive is not a religion or ideology, it is the power of the kinship group. Chinese civilisation is constructed upon the extreme deduction of kinship group experience. The homecoming of Chinese people has become a kind of religious ritual. Home is the holy land in people’s hearts. --- Shang Huipeng, “Collective homecoming and Chinese human relations”1 Trust me, for deep feeling and understanding require total commitment. ---Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other2 The present study invites the reader to explore articulations and adaptations of the sentimental in contemporary Chinese cinema. The greater visibility of Chinese cinema that has been brought by ever-expanding global circulation has not necessarily brought greater cross-cultural understanding. Chinese cinema often remains a target for realising anthropological ambition rather than being understood as an endeavour of conceptual value. The notion of ‘in-visibility’ in the title contains two levels of meanings: “invisibility” and “in visibility.” This dual concept compliments my articulation of the presence of Chinese cinematic images and absence of a greater understanding of these films. Chinese cinema becomes more visible due to the ever-expanding global circulation. However, the epistemic aspect of visibility, which lends meaning to the visible cinematic images, remains invisible. Based on the presumption that visibility itself is problematic, Rey Chow summarises the relation between the visible and the invisible: […] becoming visible is no longer simply a matter of becoming visible in the visual sense (as an image or object) but also a matter of participating in a discursive politics of (re)configuring the relation between center and margins, a politics in which what is visible may be a key but not the exclusive determinant. There is, in other words, a visibility of visibility- a visibility that is the condition of possibility for what becomes visible, that may derive a certain intelligibility from the latter but cannot be simply reduced to it.3 1 That is to say that when applied to the studies of Chinese cinema, the visibility of Chinese cinema includes what one can see visually, but also what one understands cross-culturally. What one understands is the epistemic side of visibility which informs the visual side of visibility and makes the visual images so. Therefore, visibility does not only depend on the visual input. It also depends on cultural politics that may affect the viewing positions/power positions. This therefore makes the approach towards a better-balanced understanding of the epistemic side of visibility problematic. As the title of this thesis suggests, this study explores the absence (invisibility) of a greater understanding of Chinese culture and society. Such an understanding is valuable as it lends meaning to the visual spectacle of Chinese cinema (visibility). This study also examines Chinese cinema as a thought-provoking effort to engage with social and historical issues via visual signification (the epistemic side of visibility) unique to the cinema when the presence of images is provided for global consumption (the visual side of visibility). Also, it looks into the persistence and evolution of the sentimental in Chinese cinema and its key connection to the restoration of what has been missing. The following pages therefore address themselves to several pertinent questions that flow from these issues. What has cinematic visibility told us about visibility itself? What does the sentimental mean exactly in the Chinese cultural context? What is the relationship between the sentimental and visibility in terms of understanding Chinese cinema? This study intends to analyse these questions in detail. In the cross-cultural context, this study argues that the sentimental is a key element in an effective cross-cultural analysis. The films analysed within this study vary in themes, topics 2 and cinematic techniques, but they are bound together by being what is called “the sentimental” based on Rey Chow’s recent study on the same topic.4 In this study, the sentimental, Qinqing zhuyi, is defined as homecoming or home-longing. Qinqing zhuyi literally means kinship sentiments which are closely related to family and home. Confucianism is largely regarded as the foundation of Chinese moral standards and a system of ethics. The core of Confucianism is benevolence (Ren), which connotes ‘the natural emotions that cannot be hidden or denied among kinship relations.’5 In China, it has traditionally been recognised that kinship relations form the centre of all human relations.