The Killer response

The Killer (Diexue shuangxiong), dir. John Woo (Wu Yusen, 1989)

Please respond to The Killer after reading "Enough to make a strong men weep" (PDF on Blackboard) and "Six approaches to writing about film" (master copy outside POT1453).

In your response, you must relate your film response to the readings. How did the first reading and its accounts on director John Woo's background and its detailed analysis of The Killer help you understand the film? How did the six approaches to film outlined in the second reading prepare you for your midterm paper UPDATE due October 7th? What approaches do you plan to take for your paper?

Your responses are due on Monday September 30 by 8 pm. Comments to two other responses are due on Monday by 10 pm.

Rouge and The Hong Kong New Waves

Love in a Fallen City, dir. Ann Hui, 1984

The Hong Kong New Waves: Genre, History, Identity

The "Moment" 

Tsui Hark (Xu Ke)

Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain (Xin shushan jiaxia, 1982), video source: Youbue

 

Peking Opera Blues (Daoma dan, 1986), video source: Youtube

Ann Hui (Xu Anhua)

Boat People (Touben nuhai, 1982), video source: Youtube

 

 

The Romance of Book and Sword (Shujian enchou lu, 1987)

How to define the New Wave?

Self and Other

Industry and Genre

Cinema City (Xin yicheng)

Tsui Hark and John Woo (Film Workshop, 1984)

A Better Tomorrow (Yingxiong bense, John Woo, 1986)

The Killer (Diexue shuangxiong, 1989)

Golden Harvest

Project A (A Jihua, dir. Jackie Chan, 1983)

The 1997 Anxiety and the "China Factor"

Love in a Fallen City (Qingcheng zhilian, dir. Ann Hui, 1984)

Shaolin Temple (Shaolin si, dir. Zhang Xinyan, 1982)

The Second Wave

Rouge (Yanzhi kou, dir. Stanley Kwan, 1987)


Love at Last Site

The mobility of woman

The gaze

The mirror

Like a Flower

A Chu and Yuan: the modern reporter couple

Technology and lack

Centrality of performance

Rouge response

Rouge (Yanzhi kou, dir. Stanley Kwan, 1987)
photo source: ent.sina.com.cn

Please post your response to Rouge (Yanzhi kou, dir. Stanley Kwan, 1987, Hong Kong) with reference to the two readings for Tuesday ("Regional Revival in Hong Kong" and "Spectral Nostalgia") by Monday September 23rd at 8 pm. Your comments to two other responses are due by Monday at 10 pm. 

Analyze at least one specific scene from the film in support of your response to the two readings. Cite page numbers from the readings and analyze formal elements (color, lighting, frame, camera work, choreography, music and sound, etc.) of the scenes to support your argument. 

Humanism, the Avant-Garde and Commercialism: Writing about the PRC New Waves

The In-Laws (Xi yingmen, dir. Zhao Huanzhang, Shanghai Film Studio, 1981, video source: Youtube)

 

Reign Behind a Curtain (Chuilian tingzheng, dir. Li Hanxiang, 1983, 

Mainland China and Hong Kong, video source: Youtube)

Tracing humanism

 

Political melodrama and the Xie Jin model

                                    

 

The Legend of Tianyun Mountain (Tianyunshan chuanqi, dir. Xie Jin, 1980, video source: Youtube)

The fourth generation

A Girl from Hunan (Xiangnu xiaoxiao, dir. Xie Fei, 1986, photo source: Asiapacificfilms.com) 

 

Old Well (Laojing, dir. Wu Tianming, 1987, video source: Youtube) 

Women directors

                                                                          

 

Sacrificed Youth (Qingchun ji, dir. Zhang Nuanxin, 1985, video source: Youtube) 

Woman Demon Human (Ren Gui Qing, dir. Huang Shuqin, 1987, video source: Youtube)

The fifth generation

    

Yellow Earth (Huang tudi, dir. Chen Kaige, 1984, video source: Youtube) 

Red Sorghum (Hong gaoliang, dir. Zhang Yimou, 1987, video source: Youtube)

Hey Sister! (Voice of China version)

Composition and the image

Sound

Sample writing

Woman Demon Human response

Read "Cinema and National/Regional Cultures" (Zhang 225-240) and continue reading "Film Terms and Topics for Film Analysis and Writing" (Corrigan 61-86) to help you frame your response to Woman Demon Human. Master copy of the readings for Tuesday 9/17 are available in the box outside my office (POT 1453) in case you need to make copies. Please return them to the box as soon as you are done.

Please post your well-written two-paragraph response to the film with attention to both content and form: cultural, historical, and political background as Zhang outlines in his book, as well as composition and the image, editing, and sound as Corrigan pushes us to carefully examine how a particular scene is composed.

Zhang asks in his history what makes Woman Demon Human a unique 'feminist' film from China and highlights the idea of identity as performance (Zhang, 234-5). What do you think? Do take this into careful consideration in your responses, which will be due on Monday 9/16 by 8 pm. Comments to two other responses due on Monday 9/16 by 10 pm. Feel free to raise your own question and find your unique voice in your response. Carefully edit your writings, always cite sources when you are quoting or paragraphing others to avoid plagiarizing. Cite specific scenes from the film and quotes from readings to support your argument.

Writing about Socialist Films from the Cultural Revolution and Beyond

Xie Jin (photo source: english.cntv.cn)

Review of Word Webs

Xie Jin (1923-2008), Stage Sisters, and the Complex Web of Cultural References and Criticisms

CCTV Documentary: Film director Xie Jin (2008, part three)

CCTV program: Xie Jin Retrospective (2008)

The Cultural Revolution and Beyond


Jiang Qing: Shanghai--Yan'an--Beijing

Lan Ping (Jiang Qing) Photo source: Wikipedia

 

Scenes of City Life (Starring Lan Ping, dir. Yuan Muzhi, 1935), video source: Youtube

Model Play Films and Three Prominences

The Morning Sun (a film and website about the Cultural Revolution)  

 

In the Heat of the Sun (dir. JIANG Wen, 1993), video source: Youtube 

From Class Struggle to Internal Struggle 

The Recovery Years 

Ideology and Subjectivity: Chunhua's questions


Film Terms and Topics for Analysis and Writing: 
Reconsidering Stage Sisters and Anticipating Woman Demon Human

Themes/thematic questions


Film and the Other Arts

Narrative, Characters, Point of View, Comparative Essays

MISE-EN-SCENE and (the illusion of) Realism

The theatrics of space as constructed for the camera

A Scene from Stage Sisters (photo source: asiasociety.org)

A Scene from Ren Gui Qing (Woman Demon Human) (photo source: showchina.org)

Cinema and Nation-State in the PRC

YUAN Muzhi (Photo Source: Wikimedia)

WU Yinxian (Photo Source: www.ionly.com.cn)

Three Phases

Nationalization

p190 Bureaucracy

p192 Thematic

 

The White-Haired Girl (1950) Video Source: Youtube

 p194 Toll on private studios: The Life of Wu Xun

The Shanghai and Yan'an Models

Toward Socialist Realism

p 202 Socialist Realism

The Song of Youth (1959)

p205 Hundred Flowers harvest

New Year's Sacrifice (1957)

p208 Genre Experiments

p212 Socialist Cinema in perspective

p 214-6 Stage Sisters (1964) and complexity 

Cultural Revolution and Beyond

Stage Sisters Response

Please post your response as a comment to this post after watching the film at the screenings. Due Monday by 8 pm. Please also comment on at least two other responses by 10 pm.

Your response should not be unprocessed notes. It can be a combination of a screening report and a critical essay, as suggested by our textbook. You may want to use the first paragraph to report on your viewing experience and focus on any particular scenes, and use the second paragraph to reflect and critique the film in the context of historical and contemporary China and world filmmaking after reading the two pieces required for Tuesday uploaded under Course Content Week 3 on Blackboard.

Bellow are some sample questions for you to choose to focus on in your responses; feel free to follow your own observations and to raise your own questions. 

1. What are the historical periods covered in the film? Why do you think a film made in the mid 1960s would venture back to the 1930s? How does Shaoxing opera function as a metaphor for the lives of the actresses on and off stage?

2. How are gender, class, and the nation integrated in this film highlighting female protagonists?  

3. Can you detect influences from the Hollywood, Soviet, and indigenous Chinese traditions in this film made during the broadly-defined Cultural Revolution period?

Make sure to cite sources when writing. Use exact minute to identify a scene such as (Stage Sisters, 10:05) and page number to cite a quote such as (Zhang, 215) to provide evidence for your argument.

Beginning to Think, Preparing to Watch, and Starting to Write on Chinese Film

Beginning to Think

p19 

Do not try to write about the WHOLE movie

What interests you?

p20 

Film as an art form

Film and technology

Film as industry

Subject matter and meaning

p23

Film as construction

Silent dialogue: talking back to the movies

p25

Prepare what to look for 

Taking notes (first or second viewing)

p27

Abbreviations of film terms

Cinema and the Nation-People, 1930-49

A "Golden Age" Period

p58

Three phases

p62 

State censorship

p63-69

Leftist film

The Goddess

(The Goddess, dir. WU Yonggang, 1934, video source: Youtube)

The making of the national anthem

p71

Hollywood domination

p73 

Transition to sound

Recommended reading:

p101-3

Spring in a Small Town

 

(Spring in a Small Town, dir. FEI Mu, 1948, video source: Youtube)

Conclusion: in the name of the nation-people

p111

A series of radical transformations:

Artistic

Conceptual

Ideological

Political

Consider it historically

Coming attractions:

New Year's Sacrifice (dir. SANG Hu, 1956, on reserve in the Fine Arts Library)

Stage Sisters, dir. XIE Jin, 1964, photo source: Goddess, Two Stage Sisters

Screenings of Stage Sisters:
Thursday September 5th at 5 pm in CB336
Friday September 6th at 1 pm in CB339 

On reserve in the Fine Arts Library after Thursday's screening
First response due Monday September 9th by 8 pm on this blog
Comment to two responses due Monday Sept. 9th by 10 pm here

Introduction to early Chinese cinema and writing about film sample notes

Hu Die (Photo credit: Hong Kong Movie Database)

Cinema and National Traditions, 1896-1929

Introduction: Early cinema

p13-4 
Cinema as attractions 1896-1921
Cinema as narration 1922-1926
Cinema and speculations 1927-29

p15 tracing cinema to shadowplays and national traditions

Cinema as attractions

Early exhibition: teahouse, tent and theater
Early audience: class, gender and motivation 
Early production: Yaxiya, Huanxian and Zhang Shichuan
 
p19 Yaxiya and Zhang Shichuan

Commercial Press: popular education and national culture
 
p20-21 Commercial Press motion picture department

'Modern plays' as genre attempts: the three earliest long features

p22 Yan Ruisheng, Hongfen kulou and Haishi

From top: film still from Yan Ruisheng; poster for Yan Ruisheng; film still from Hongfen kulou, and poster for Haishi

Cinema as narration

Mingxing: between entertainment and education

Feature films: from attractions to narrations

p24-5 Laborer's Love

p25-6 Orphan Rescues Grandfather

Family drama: a 'Chinese' genre

The butterfly connection: conservatism and commercialism

The May Fourth connection: Hong Shen and Hou Yao

p28 Lonely Orchid 

p30 'women's problems'


Important themes in recommended reading:

Cinema and Speculations

p 34-41 Genre considerations: opera films, comedies, martial arts films, and films of immortals and demons

[p37 Shaw Brothers founded Tianyi in Shanghai in 1925

p40 Romance of the West Chamber exported to Europe in 1929]

p44 Dream of the Red Chamber poster

p47 The importance of Southeast Asia (Nanyang)

p51 China Film School and Hu Die
   
Critical Issues

p53 Learning the film basics 

p55 Shadowplay theory

Conclusion: a growing sense of nationalism   

Writing about the movies

Why write about the movies?

p4 "Writing about a film can allow use to enjoy it (and other films) in ways we were incapable before. If watching and understanding is one of the pleasures of the movies, writing and explaining can be another exciting pleasure."

"Although the difference between taking and writing about a subject is a crucial one, writing about a film is, in one sense, simply a more refined and measured kind of communication, this time with a reader. Our comments can be about the performance of an actor, the excitement elicited by specific scenes, or just common question about what happened, why it happened, or why the film made the answers to these questions unclear."

"Writing about film is a careful and more calculated step beyond this first impulse of discuss what we have seen."

p5 "When we understand the same movie very differently, trying to explain that understanding can be charged with all the energy of a good conversation."

"Analyzing our reactions to themes, characters, or images like these can be a way not only of understanding a movie better but also of understanding better how we view the world and the cultures we live in."

Your audience and the aims of film criticism

The screening report

The movie review

The theoretical essay

The critical essay


Opinion and evaluation

p17 "When you write about the movies, personal feelings, expectations, and reactions may be the beginning of an intelligent critique, but they must be balanced with rigorous reflection on where those feelings and expectations come from and how they relate to more objective factors concerning the movie in question."

August 29 further reading: National Cinema and China reading notes

Yellow Earth, dir. CHEN Kaige, 1984 (photo credit: Silent Volume)

Please take notes while reading for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Feel free to share them by Monday and Wednesday night on Google drive in "CHI 321 Group notes" to which you should all have been added. Extra credits for great notes. Some sample notes from readings for 8/29 below, and feel free to comment with your questions and reflections.

"Introduction: National Cinema and China"

p1 "Three Chinas"

p1-3 Problematize "national"

p4-5 Problematize "Chinese"

What does contemporary mean in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan respectively?

p5 "Chinese cinema" can be broader than "Chinese-language cinema" 

p5 National as historically constructed, circulated and contested

p7 Yellow Earth, City of Sadness, and Center Stage (An interview with Stanley Kwan, director of both Rouge and Center Stage, on Center Stage)

Yellow Earth, dir. CHEN Kaige (video credit: Youtube)

p7 Chinese film auteurs: CHEN Kaige, ZHANG Yimou, TIAN Zhuangzhuang, HOU Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Stanley Kwan

p7-9 Approaches to film: text-based, criticism-based,  production-based and consumption-based

p12 Not solely on great film, nor does it privilege the oppositional