Film is an art form; it is also a medium reflecting our culture and social impulse. The world of film and the one in which we live often serve as two realities on two sides of a mirror, reflecting, implying, signifying, and corresponding with one another. In this course we look closely at several Taiwanese films over the past two decades, and through them we intend to understand what prominent phenomena and changes have been taking place in Taiwan’s social culture. Some of the films speak to the current socio-political conditions on this island; some reflect an emerging cultural trend; some indicate social problems; yet some propose alternative approaches to history. In any case, those films present themselves as various attempts to make conversations with the world that we call Taiwan and live in.

It is in this thread of thought that we learn to establish a connection between Taiwanese films and Taiwanese social trends/events through this course, so that film is more than entertainment or art, and social culture involves more than “reality”. This course is expected to help us understand and reflect on Taiwanese social culture by not just watching but also “reading” Taiwanese films.

Please find in the syllabus.

Hong, Guo-Juin. Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan: 2011. Liu, Catherine. “Taiwan’s Cold War Geopolitics in Edward Yang’s The Terrorizers.” Surveillance in Asian Cinema. Routledge, 2017. 113-127. Udden, James. “This Time He Moves! The Deeper Significance of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Radical Break in Good Men, Good Women.” Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity, and the State of the Arts. Darrell William Davis and Ru-shou Chen, eds. Routledge, 2007. 183-202. ---“Hou and the Taiwanese New Cinema.” No Man and Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. Hong Kong University Press, 2009. 49-86. Yip, June. Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary. Duke University Press, 2011.

林松輝 (2014) Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness. University of Hawaii Press.