Cinema, Identity and Resistance in Taiwan: Hou HsiaoHsiens A City of Sadness

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Cinema, Identity and Resistance in Taiwan Hou
Hsiao-Hsiens A City of Sadness
Centre for World Cinemas

• Dr Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley
• Institute of Communications Studies
• University of Leeds
• 6 February 2008

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Centre for World Cinemas

• The questions of both film as language and
  language(s) in film must be reviewed more
  carefully.
• Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh,
• Chinese-Language Film (University of Hawaii
  Press, 2005), p.2.

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Tsai Ming-liang
• Filmmaker in Taiwan received 35 film awards 13
  nominations
• Selected films
• I Dont Want to Sleep Alone (hei yanquan, 2006)
• The Wayward Cloud (tianbian yiduo yun, 2005)
• Good Bye, Dragon Inn (bu san, 2003)
• What Time Is It Over There? (ni nabian jidian?
  2001)
• The Hole (dong, 1998)
• The River (heliu, 1997)

• Photograph by Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, November 2007

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Nationalist party Kuomintang KMT (guomindang)
• Healthy Realism (jiankang xieshi)
• Regional languages in Taiwan Taiwanese, Hakka,
  aboriginal languages
• The Sandwich Man (erzi de da wanou, 1983)
• The Government Information Office (GIO)
• The Boys of Fenggui (fenggui laide ren,
  1983/1984)

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Centre for World Cinemas

• A City of Sadness (beiqing chengshi, 1989)
• How A City of Sadness represented history?
• How are languages used in the film?
• Taiwan New Cinema
• Post-Taiwan New Cinema

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Brief History of Taiwan
• Immigrants from Mainland China in the 17th
  Century
• A Japanese colony, 18951945
• Returned to the Republic of China in 1945
• 228 Incident of 1947, martial law was proclaimed
• KMT moved to Taiwan in 1949
• White Terror, 1950s
• Rapid economic development in the 1960s and the
  1970s
• Democratization in the 1980s
• Martial law was lifted in 1987
• First direct presidential election in 1996

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Centre for World Cinemas

• I have lived in Taiwan for over forty years
  but it was only when I made A City of Sadness
  that I began to learn about Taiwans history. In
  preparation for the film, I read a lot of books
  on Taiwans history. It was only then that I
  consciously wanted to delve further into this
  area. Making a movie is a process of learning
  about history, people and life itself.
• Hou Hsiao-Hsien
• (Mark Harrison, Cinema and National Memory, CSD
  Bulletin, winter 20045, p.13)

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Major characters of the film
• Eldest son Lin Wen-heung
• Second son Lin Wen-sun
• Third son Lin Wen-leung
• Fourth son Lin Wen-ching
• Narrator Hinomi (Kuang-mi)
• Hinomis brother Hinoe (Kuang-yeng)

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Rather than simply looking away, the film
  evokes a sense of place, and it is this sense
  which functions as a witness to violence and
  suffering. In a sense of place is the remembrance
  of history, and with it the capacity to judge and
  forgive In this way, the film invokes place as a
  witness to history, and this gives the film a
  moral strength.
• Mark Harrison, Cinema and National Memory
• CSD Bulletin, winter 20045, p.14

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Taiwan New Cinema
• In Our Time (guangyin de gushi, 1982, Edward
  Yang, Tao De-chen, Ke Yi-zheng, Zhang Yi)
• Representative Directors
• Hou Hsiao-Hsien Boys of Fenggui (fenggui laide
  ren, 1983/1984), A Time to Live, A Time to Die
  (tongnian wangshi, 1985), Dust in the Wind
  (lianlian fengchen, 1986)
• Edward Yang (Yang De-chang) That Day on the
  Beach (haitan de yitian, 1983), The Terrorizers
  (kongbu fenzi, 1986)
• Yu Kan-ping Take a Wrong Car (da cuo che, 1983),
  Taipei Mythology (taipei shenhua, 1985), The
  Outsiders (niezi, 1986)
• Wang Tong A Flower in the Raining Night (kanhai
  de rizi, 1983), The Strawman (daocao ren, 1987)

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Centre for World Cinemas

• The Taiwan New Cinema filmmakers believed in
  an actively engaged audience rather than a
  passive one. They abandoned the simplistic
  black-and-white storytelling methods of the past
  in favor of a more subtle and complex mode that
  was closer to real life experience As the
  dramatic plots faded away in the Taiwan New
  Cinema, so did the audience, and with them the
  producers and investors, pushing the film
  movement to the edge of financial non-viability.
• Chris Berry and Feii Lu (eds), Island on the
  Edge
• (Hong Kong HK University Press, 2005), p.6

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Centre for World Cinemas

• Post-Taiwan New Cinema (selected directors)
• Tsai Ming-liang Rebels of the Neon God
  (qingshaonian nazha, 1992), Vive lAmour (aiqing
  wansui, 1994), etc.
• Wu Nian-zhen A Borrowed Life (duo san, 1994),
  Buddha Blessed America (taiping tianguo, 1996)
• Ang Lee Pushing Hand (tui shou, 1991), Wedding
  Banquet (xiyan, 1993), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
  (yinshi nannü, 1994)
• Lin Zheng-sheng A Drifting Life (chunhua menglu,
  1996), Murmur of Youth (meili zai changge, 1997),
  Sweet Degeneration (fanglang, 1998), March of
  Happiness (tianma chafang, 1999)
• Chen Yu-xun Tropical Fish (redai yu, 1995), Love
  Go Go (aiqing laile, 1997)