Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films: Attachment in the Age of Global Visibility

283 Pages·2007·1.291 MB·English

by  Rey Chow

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SENTIMENTAL FABULATIONS ,
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE FILMS
film and culture series
john belton, general editor

S E N T I M E N TA L FA B U L AT I O N S ,
C O N T E M P O R A R Y C H I N E S E F I L M S
ATTACHMENT IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL VISIBILITY
R E Y C H O W
columbia university press
new york
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chow, Rey
Sentimental fabulations, contemporary Chinese films : attachment in the age of global
visibility / Rey Chow
p. cm. — (Film and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-10: 0-231-13332-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn-10: 0-231-13333-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-231-13332-6 (cloth) — isbn-13: 978-0-231-13333-3 (paper)
1. Motion pictures—China. 2. Motion pictures—Social aspects—China. I. Title. II. Series.
pn1993.5.c4c467 2007
791.430951—dc22
2006039237
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A portion of the materials in the introduction has been adapted, with modifications, from the
essay “A Phantom Discipline” PMLA 116.5 (2001): 1386–95.
An early and shorter version of chapter 1 was published under the title “The Seductions of
Homecoming: Place, Authenticity, and Chen Kaige’s Temptress Moon,” Narrative 6.1 (January
1998): 3–17.
An early and shorter version of chapter 2 was published under the title “Nostalgia of the New
Wave: Structure in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together,” Camera Obscura, no. 42 (1999): 31–48.
An early and shorter version of chapter 3 was published under the title “Sentimental Returns:
On the Uses of the Everyday in the Recent Films of Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar-wai,” New Literary
History 33.4 (Autumn 2002): 639–54.
Early versions of some sections of chapter 7 were published under the titles “Toward an Ethics
of Postvisuality: Some Thoughts on the Recent Work of Zhang Yimou,” Poetics Today 25.4 (Winter
2004): 673–88; and “Not One Less: The Fable of a Migration,” in Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes,
ed. Chris Berry (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 144–51.
A considerably shorter version of chapter 8 is forthcoming in Traces in 2007.
An early and shorter version of chapter 9 was published under the title “A Pain in the Neck, a
Scene of ‘Incest,’ and Other Enigmas of an Allegorical Cinema: Tsai Ming-liang’s The River,” New
Centennial Review 4.1 (Spring 2004): 123–42.
All previously published materials have been substantially rewritten and reorganized for the purposes of
this book.
for michael silverman

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Note on Transcription xiii
Introduction 1
part i: remembrance of things past
1 The Seductions of Homecoming: Temptress Moon and
the Question of Origins 29
2 Nostalgia of the New Wave: Romance, Domesticity, and
the Longing for Oneness in Happy Together 47
3 The Everyday in The Road Home and In the Mood for Love:
From the Legacy of Socialism to the Potency of Yuan 65
part ii: migrants’ lore, women’s options
4 Autumn Hearts: Filming Feminine “Psychic Interiority” in
Song of the Exile 85
5 By Way of Mass Commodities: Love in Comrades,
Almost a Love Story 105
6 All Chinese Families Are Alike: Biopolitics in Eat a Bowl of
Tea and The Wedding Banquet 123
part iii: picturing the life to come . . .
7 The Political Economy of Vision in Happy Times and
Not One Less; or, A Different Type of Migration 147
8 “Human” in the Age of Disposable People: The Ambiguous
Import of Kinship and Education in Blind Shaft 167
9 The Enigma of Incest and the Staging of Kinship Family
Remains in The River 181
Postscript (Inspired by Brokeback Mountain): “The Juice”; or,
“The Great Chinese Theme” 197
Notes 201
Index 251
Preface and Acknowledgments
A couple of decades ago, the field of English-language Chinese
film studies as we know it today had not yet come into being. Other than a
handful of dedicated scholars who had been quietly doing their historical
research for years, the field was wide open—and unformed. In the short
period since, as though by the “fast forward” command on some remote
control, settlers of different stripes, all with publications under their belts,
have taken up abode in what has by now become a busy and populous ter-
rain, home to a steady stream of migrants from Chinese, English, and Asian
American literary studies, non-Chinese-speaking/reading film enthusiasts,
cultural studies critics, and global media experts, as well as to academically
trained researchers and experienced teachers of Chinese film.
This collectively opportunistic movement into a newly fashionable aca-
demic enclave is, of course, a sign of our times, marked as it is by a declin-
ing patience for older, time-consuming forms of humanistic learning such
as language and literature (especially in Asian areas) and a fascination with
the glamour and speedy recognition associated with the visual media (es-
pecially contemporary Asian cinemas). While opportunism is often a pro-
fessional necessity—one that can come with its own positively innovative
momentum, especially when the “raw materials” or primary texts that can
be accessed seem in such abundant and convenient supply—what is more
disturbing is how smoothly the new field of Chinese film studies seems to