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Taiwan New Cinema and Beyond: Authorship,Transnationality, Historiography (EAF3506)

Module aims

This module aims to familiarise students with the key works of the Taiwan New Cinema movement and its legacy beyond Taiwan and into the twenty-first century. It will explore not just the work of a wide array of film directors, but also the texts and the condition of their production, distribution, exhibition and consumption within a transnational framework, all of which impinge on the question of “national” film historiography. It will examine, in particular: the socio-political background of the emergence of the Taiwan New Cinema movement, its key directors and their works, the international context of their reception and the transnational nature of their production, and its legacy to date. It will provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the work of selected film authors and an awareness of the cinematic, cultural, and socio-political contexts in which they work, and enable students to analyse the work in relation to questions of transnationality and historiography.

ILO: Module-specific skills

• 1. demonstrate an advanced appreciation of the historical development of the Taiwan New Cinema movement, and its key directors and films;
• 2. demonstrate an informed appreciation of how concepts of film authorship can be related to modes of production, modes of funding, and an international context of cinephilia;
• 3. demonstrate an advanced critical understanding of key debates on the various aspects of transnational cinemas, from production and distribution to the analysis of texts and authors;
• 4. demonstrate an advanced critical capacity to interrogate the notion of national cinemaand the way in which it has been challenged in film historiography;

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

• 5. demonstrate an advanced capacity to analyse films from different periods in the Taiwan New Cinema movement and to relate their concerns and modes of expression to their historical contexts;
• 6. demonstrate advanced analytical skills in the close formal, thematic, generic and authorial analysis of different kinds of films;
• 7. demonstrate advanced intellectual and critical skills in the research and evaluation of relevant material for the study of film and communicate these conclusions effectively and fluently using appropriate critical and technical language;
• 8. demonstrate an advanced capacity to consider the relationship between film and its complex production conditions and to relate film history to a wider context beyond the national;

ILO: Personal and key skills

• 9. undertake independent research on the basis of a taught course;
• 10. adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of a large body of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written, oral or visually sustained argument of some complexity;
• 11. present a cogent and sustained argument orally / in writing, in English, on an aspect of the subject of the student own choosing, and selecting appropriate methods of exposition;
• 12. using bibliographical material provided, select, plan and carry out a programme of study leading to an essay / presentation on a chosen topic, to a specified length and deadline;
• 13. demonstrate ability to combine a variety of IT skills in researching and reporting on a topic.

Syllabus plan

1.    Taiwan Cinema Before “Taiwan New Cinema”

2.    The “Taiwan New Cinema” Movement

3.    Authorship (I): Hou Hsiao-hsien

4.    Authorship (II): Edward Yang

5.    Authorship (III): Ang Lee

6.    Authorship (IV): Tsai Ming-liang

7.    Transnationality (I): France

8.    Transnationality (II): Japan, China and/or the USA

9.    Transnationality (III): Southeast Asia

10.  Historiography (I): Sinophone Cinema and Accented Cinema

11.  Historiography (II): Towards a Minor Cinema and Post-Taiwan New Cinema

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

Anderson, John, Edward Yang (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005)

Berry, Chris, and Lu, Feii (eds.), Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After (Hong Kong:

Hong Kong University Press, 2005)

Berry, Michael, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2005)

Davis, Darrell William, and Chen, Ru-shou Robert (eds.), Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and

State of the Arts (London and New York: Routledge, 2007)

Dilley, Whitney Crothers, The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen (London: Wallflower,

2007)

Rehm, Jean-Pierre, Olivier Joyard, and Danièle Rivière, Tsai Ming-liang (Paris: Dis Voir, 1999)

Udden, James, No Man an Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hisen (Hong Kong: Hong  Kong

University Press, 2009)

Yeh, Yueh-yu Emilie, and Davis, Darrell William, Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island (New

York: Columbia University Press, 2005)

Primary viewing

Three Time (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2005)

Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003)

Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2007)

Visage (Tsai Ming-liang, 2009)

Module has an active ELE page?

Yes

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Reading for Week 1

Berry, Chris, and Feii Lu, “Introduction,” In Berry, Chris and Lu, Feii (eds.) Island on  the Edge:

Taiwan New Cinema and After (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), pp.  1-11

Chen, Kuan-Hsing, “Taiwanese New Cinema,” In Hill, John, and Pamela Church Gibson  (eds.) The

Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 557-61

Yip, June, “Taiwanese New Cinema,” In Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (ed.) The Oxford  History of World

Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 711-13

Available as distance learning?

No

Origin date

01/10/2011

Last revision date

25/02/2012

Key words search

Film, Taiwan, Transnational, Author, Historiography

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