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Cinema, Identity and Resistance in Taiwan: Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness

Dr Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley

Institute of Communications Studies

University of Leeds

6 February 2008

‘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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Tsai Ming-liang

Filmmaker in Taiwan; received 35 film awards & 13 nominations

Selected films:

• I Don’t 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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• 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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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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Brief History of Taiwan

• Immigrants from Mainland China in the 17th Century

• A Japanese colony, 1895–1945

• Returned to the Republic of China in 1945

• 2–28 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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‘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 Taiwan’s history. In preparation for the film, I read a lot of books on Taiwan’s 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 2004–5, p.13)

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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)

• Hinomi’s brother: Hinoe (Kuang-yeng)

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‘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 2004–5, p.14

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Taiwan New Cinema:

• In Our Time (guangyin de gushi, 1982, Edward Yang, Tao De-chen, Ke Yi-zheng, Zhang Yi)

• Representative Directors:

o 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)

o Edward Yang (Yang De-chang): That Day on the Beach (haitan de yitian, 1983), The Terrorizers (kongbu fenzi, 1986)

o Yu Kan-ping: Take a Wrong Car (da cuo che, 1983), Taipei Mythology (taipei shenhua, 1985), The Outsiders (niezi, 1986)

o Wang Tong: A Flower in the Raining Night (kanhai de rizi, 1983), The Strawman (daocao ren, 1987)

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‘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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Post-Taiwan New Cinema (selected directors):

• Tsai Ming-liang: Rebels of the Neon God (qingshaonian nazha, 1992), Vive l’Amour (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)