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ENG 335 Postwar Global Film
Class Notes -- 2008.05.29
Class Discussion: "In the Mood for Love" (2000)
Directed by: Wong Kar-Wai
Genre: Hong Kong Melodrama
The whole film is about events that take place elsewhere: The main protagonists are a man and a woman, next door neighbours, whose spouses are having an affair with each other. The whole film surrounds these two characters, and how they react to the affair. The spouses themselves are never seen onscreen.
Melodramas are often about couples, either successful couples or failed couples. Often they are about "forbidden" love between two mismatched characters.
A striking difference between this film and a standard Hollywood is that the relationships are ambiguous, from beginning to end. In a way, the melodrama is actually taking place off screen, and the main characters (who are fairly peripheral) are reacting to the events offscreen. They both find out that they are being cheated on, and are concerned with social gossip, and violated norms. They turn to each other for support -- nonsexual -- but have to hide their relationship because of "appearances."
Often Hollywood creates a myth of an "eternal couple" that get together at the end of a film, after overcoming many obstacles and prejudices. In contrast, here Wong Kar-Wai shows a tragic couple, where the ending was unresolved. There is no happy Hollywood ending.
The class consensus was that the ending wasn't so great, not because of the non-Hollywood ending, but because of the strange break in the narrative flow of the film, jumping ahead in time, and inexplicably, jumping to Cambodia.
The ending newsreel footage at the end, of De Gaulle visiting Cambodia, was intended by the director to "wake the audience up" from the trance of the previous 90 minutes.
The film itself is a period piece, focusing on the early-mid 1960s in Hong Kong. A little over a decade before, many Shanghai nationalist Chinese fled to British-controlled Hong Kong during the communist revolution. This led to a cultural blending of Shanghai and Cantonese cultures in Hong Kong, which forms the central cultural milieu of the film.
One way this cultural blending is shown is through the use of characters in cheongsam dresses. The dresses were fashionable in Shanghai before the revolution, but afterwards, were only worn in Hong Kong.
The film has a striking amount of non-Chinese music. Most notably, Nat King Cole's Spanish recording of "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" ("Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps") is used extensively, to indicate the ambiguity of the characters' relationships.
The use of western music also helps to identify the transnational themes of the film. The director is taking a particular historical place and time, 1960s Hong Kong, and redefining it through the modern lens of transnationalism. It is interesting to note that all of the characters, though Chinese, are transnational in nature: They come from Shanghai, live in Hong Kong, work in Japan, Singapore, and Cambodia, and even move to the Philippines and the U.S. over the course of the film.
============================================================
PRESENTATION
ANG LEE: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
- Ang Lee was born in Taiwan in 1954, to a family that had migrated from the mainland after the revolution.
- His father emphasized an education in Chinese classics as Lee was growing up.
- After failing the university entrance exam twice, he entered a 3-year arts college.
- In 1979, he came to the U.S. to study.
- Received a B.A. in theatre in 1979.
- Went to film grad school at NYU, was classmate of Spike Lee.
- Earned awards early on for shorts.
- Unemployed, he spent 6 years as a househusband, supported by his scientist wife. This was a cultural embarrassment.
-- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
- A surprise success worldwide, and became the highest grossing foreign film in U.S. History.
- Of the traditional Wuxia (martial arts heroes) genre, which dates back millennia.
- Based on the 4th novel of the "Crane-Iron" pentology.
- Features fantastical, gravity-defying "wire-fu."
- Themes of interaction between modernity and tradition.
-- Lee likes to concentrate on repression of his characters, which shows in sme of his later films.
- "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)
-- Critically acclaimed and condemned as controversial, homosexual themes
-- Quoted as saying, "What do I know about gay ranch hands in Wyoming?"
- "Lust, Cautiion" (2007)
-- Critical acclaim, also condemnation for sexual themes
-- Released with a NC-17 rating, which many theatres won't carry, it wasn't widely seen.
Class Notes -- 2008.05.29
Class Discussion: "In the Mood for Love" (2000)
Directed by: Wong Kar-Wai
Genre: Hong Kong Melodrama
The whole film is about events that take place elsewhere: The main protagonists are a man and a woman, next door neighbours, whose spouses are having an affair with each other. The whole film surrounds these two characters, and how they react to the affair. The spouses themselves are never seen onscreen.
Melodramas are often about couples, either successful couples or failed couples. Often they are about "forbidden" love between two mismatched characters.
A striking difference between this film and a standard Hollywood is that the relationships are ambiguous, from beginning to end. In a way, the melodrama is actually taking place off screen, and the main characters (who are fairly peripheral) are reacting to the events offscreen. They both find out that they are being cheated on, and are concerned with social gossip, and violated norms. They turn to each other for support -- nonsexual -- but have to hide their relationship because of "appearances."
Often Hollywood creates a myth of an "eternal couple" that get together at the end of a film, after overcoming many obstacles and prejudices. In contrast, here Wong Kar-Wai shows a tragic couple, where the ending was unresolved. There is no happy Hollywood ending.
The class consensus was that the ending wasn't so great, not because of the non-Hollywood ending, but because of the strange break in the narrative flow of the film, jumping ahead in time, and inexplicably, jumping to Cambodia.
The ending newsreel footage at the end, of De Gaulle visiting Cambodia, was intended by the director to "wake the audience up" from the trance of the previous 90 minutes.
The film itself is a period piece, focusing on the early-mid 1960s in Hong Kong. A little over a decade before, many Shanghai nationalist Chinese fled to British-controlled Hong Kong during the communist revolution. This led to a cultural blending of Shanghai and Cantonese cultures in Hong Kong, which forms the central cultural milieu of the film.
One way this cultural blending is shown is through the use of characters in cheongsam dresses. The dresses were fashionable in Shanghai before the revolution, but afterwards, were only worn in Hong Kong.
The film has a striking amount of non-Chinese music. Most notably, Nat King Cole's Spanish recording of "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" ("Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps") is used extensively, to indicate the ambiguity of the characters' relationships.
The use of western music also helps to identify the transnational themes of the film. The director is taking a particular historical place and time, 1960s Hong Kong, and redefining it through the modern lens of transnationalism. It is interesting to note that all of the characters, though Chinese, are transnational in nature: They come from Shanghai, live in Hong Kong, work in Japan, Singapore, and Cambodia, and even move to the Philippines and the U.S. over the course of the film.
============================================================
PRESENTATION
ANG LEE: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
- Ang Lee was born in Taiwan in 1954, to a family that had migrated from the mainland after the revolution.
- His father emphasized an education in Chinese classics as Lee was growing up.
- After failing the university entrance exam twice, he entered a 3-year arts college.
- In 1979, he came to the U.S. to study.
- Received a B.A. in theatre in 1979.
- Went to film grad school at NYU, was classmate of Spike Lee.
- Earned awards early on for shorts.
- Unemployed, he spent 6 years as a househusband, supported by his scientist wife. This was a cultural embarrassment.
-- "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
- A surprise success worldwide, and became the highest grossing foreign film in U.S. History.
- Of the traditional Wuxia (martial arts heroes) genre, which dates back millennia.
- Based on the 4th novel of the "Crane-Iron" pentology.
- Features fantastical, gravity-defying "wire-fu."
- Themes of interaction between modernity and tradition.
-- Lee likes to concentrate on repression of his characters, which shows in sme of his later films.
- "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)
-- Critically acclaimed and condemned as controversial, homosexual themes
-- Quoted as saying, "What do I know about gay ranch hands in Wyoming?"
- "Lust, Cautiion" (2007)
-- Critical acclaim, also condemnation for sexual themes
-- Released with a NC-17 rating, which many theatres won't carry, it wasn't widely seen.
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