Oct. 26 Response

Bordwell, “Hou, or Constraints.”

1. What are the basic parallels and contrasts between the City of Sadness scene described on p. 186-187 and the scene described on p. 229?
They both have similar if not the same framing of a group of people gathered around a table, but in the scene on page 229, the camera is closer, more personal, much like the scene. In the scene described on p.186, it is just a casual group of friends discussing, but the other scene is a little more intimate, and the framing follows reflects this.

2. In what ways does Hou take the idea of deliberate constraints even further in his subsequent films, especially Flowers of Shanghai?
In Flowers of Shanghai, Hou starts to restricts not only time, but space as well. Every scene takes place within the same locations inside the brothel, and the viewer must try to put together any plot points that take place outside of these specified locations by looking for clues and dialogue within each scene. Each shot except one is also one take, so Hou must (and does so successfully) pack all the important plot points, character developments and typical reveals/hides within this designated space.

Paul WILLEMEN, “The times of subjectivity and social reproduction”

1. Why does Willemen not love the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien because of their complexity?
He argues that just because a movie is complex in its structure, staging, etc. as Hou's films typically are, this does not mean that they are automatically good. He says that there is no connection between quality and complexity, so Hou's films should not automatically be considered good because of their convoluted nature.

2. Why does Willemen not love the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien because of their “Tawianness”?
He essentially says that to love a film based on where it is filmed because it "informs you of the country and the culture" is silly. He states that if he wanted to learn about Taiwan, Hou's films or any real Taiwanese cinema are no where near the best place to find information on the country.

3. Why does Willemen not love the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien because Hou is a world cinema auteur?
Because if one goes to see his films simply because he is said to be a great cinema auteur, one goes into the film with the assumption that it is great and does not watch the film and decides for themselves what they personally think of it. By being bombarded on his great and masterful work, one is compelled to happily jump on the bandwagon of Hou cinema lovers rather than truly watch and analyze his films and determine if they like it personally regardless of how it is liked universally.

4. Returning to the idea of complexity, what general question does Willemen believe that Hou’s films ask and try to answer?

Hou's films ask the question of how much weight does the occurrences of the past, of historical happenings of Taiwan have on this spatial/temporal/social plane which he is showing us in each of his films?

5. What is Willemen’s critique of critical approaches that emphasize “Chineseness” in Hou’s work?

He compares Hou's work to that of King Hu's, who he says exemplifies typical Chinese aesthetic practices much more than Hou does. He says that King Hu exudes a normative, Chinese aestheticism where Hou uses basic evocations of Chinese pictorialism in order to "allow for the emergence of the energy pressures at work in the depicted scene."

Octubre 19th

1. Avoiding cut and paste, briefly describe in your own words what the February 28 Incident was.
After the new Nationalist government that was established in 1945 in Taiwan reared its ugly head as a corrupt bureaucracy that deprived the Taiwanese of basic human rights, the people started a rebellion in the streets of Taipei and all over Taiwan on February 28, 1947, after a woman was brutally beaten by policeman the day before. The rebellion was eventually quelled, after days of Martial Law being decalred and troops firing upon crowds. Even after the main rebellion ended the army still went around and executed anyone considered capable of revolting against the government. It was revealed forty five years later that between 18,000 and 28,000 native-born Tiawnese were killed in this incident.

2. Again, avoiding cut and paste, briefly explain in your own words the controversy around the treatment of the February 28 Incident in City of Sadness.
I did not see where it talked about that much controversy, just that the book Death of the New Cinema calls the movie out for its ambiguity in representing the February 28th Incident and other aspects of Taiwanese history. They essentially argue that the movie takes a more cosmpolitan standpoint in regards to the incident rather than evoke a political, "get your gun and rebel" vibe within the viewer.


Bordwell, “Hou, or Restraints”

3. Consider the following quote from p. 218: “By denying us a link to the previous scene through either character-based causality (goals, appointments, deadlines) or voice-over explanation, he lets the new locale register initially as a space, not a container or background for well defined narrative action. We simply watch what’s happening (or not happening) within the frame, taking in the vastness of a landscape or the details of an interior without yet knowing how it links to a larger story rhythm. Only at length—sometimes quite late in the scene—when characters broach their projects or the voice-over explains what has occurred since the last scene do we understand what is transpiring here. In the meantime we have been obliged to study the shot itself.” How does this description of Hou’s narration relate to your experience watching A Time to Live and a Time to Die?
In A Time to Live and a Time to Die, this quote pretty much demonstrates exactly what I was thinking throughout the entire movie, how each the shots do not blend together as they would in a typical narrative, they are each an entity of their own. Hou flips typical narrative conventions by giving you the shot first, then the context and by doing such, the viewer is forced to search the scene for visual and audio clues as to what is going on or where this is taking place in relation to previous shots. It is an interesting technique that, much like real life, forces the viewer to try to comprehend the portrayed reality without the help of omnipotent voice-overs or typical chronological continuity.