Showing posts with label Wong Kar-wai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wong Kar-wai. Show all posts

Monday, 2 May 2011

Liquid Atmospherics: On the cinema of Wong Kar-wai


ENVOI (2011) from Elaine Castillo on Vimeo. The above video is a ficto-biographical essay-film taking two looped scenes from two Wong Kar-wai films (HAPPY TOGETHER and DAYS OF BEING WILD) as its point of departure, arrival (also: non-departure, non-arrival). On grief, migration, the romantic, hyper-specificity, sentimental time, queer space, Asian celebrity gossip, fantasies involving Maggie Cheung, covers and translations, the writing body, the filmmaking body, readability, speakability.
Almost devoid of irony, Wong’s films, like classic rock and roll, take seriously all the crushes, the posturing, and the stubborn capriciousness of young angst. They rejoice in manic expenditures of energy. They celebrate the momentary heartbreak of glimpsing a stranger who might be interesting to love. The best comparison is surely not with Godard, whose romantic streak has a bitter edge. In Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong may have its Truffaut, the director who in Tirez sur le pianiste and Jules et Jim concentrated on not-quite-grown- up characters brooding on eternally missed chances. In any case, Wong stands out from his peers by abandoning the kinetics of comedies and action movies in favor of more liquid atmospherics. He dissolves crisp emotions into vaporous moods. For all his sophistication, his unembarrassed effort to capture powerful, pleasantly adolescent feelings confirms his commitment to the Hong Kong popular tradition.
David Bordwell, 'Avant-Pop Cinema Romance on Your Menu: Chungking Express' in Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Second edition: e-book; Wisconsin: Irvington Way Institute Press Madison, 2011), pp. 178-179

Today, Film Studies For Free massively updates its existing entry on the cinema of Wong Kar-wai. 

There are two compelling reasons for this: the first is there are lots more scholarly resources available, or discoverable, now on this filmmaker's work that are worth listing, including some great items on video. 

The second is that this is the first of two posts in celebration of the online publication, as a PDF, of a full colour, second edition of the peerless David Bordwell's book Planet Hong Kong, an opus well worth its $15 pricetag, in FSFF's humble and, usually, frugal opinion.
 
FSFF doesn't normally celebrate, or promote, pay-to-own resources. But, apart from the fact that this is a highly interesting development in online Film Studies publishing in its own right, no one has given so generously online, either of his already published work or of his ongoing scholarly work, as David Bordwell. 

What is more, Bordwell's PHK chapter entitled 'Avant-Pop Cinema', with its lyrical and beautifully illustrated section on Wong's work: 'Romance on Your Menu: Chungking Express', is worth the download price alone. If you need to save up to purchase Planet Hong Kong first, you can enjoy, in the meantime, several excellent posts at Observations on Film Art on Wong's work, including 'Ashes to Ashes (Redux)' and 'Years of being obscure'.

Video material:
Written material:
Posted by purnawan at 09:18 0 comments
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Sunday, 17 April 2011

Great new Essays on Film and Video from Mediascape

The above video is a very short, but effective, introduction to issues affecting small nations as they produce cinema, using the example of the Nordic countries, by film scholar Mette Hjort. It is also a fascinating digital promotional tool for a University of Washington Press book series co-edited by her. See Hjort's excellent essay on 'small nation cinema studies' in the new issue of Mediascape. And also see Tom Zaniello's excellent article there on emerging, new-media forms of documentary including the digital advert.

Film Studies For Free was really delighted to see that there's a new issue out of online journal Mediascape. The Winter 2011 issue explores
the complex notions of the local and global as they intersect with media: industries and studies; cultures of production, distribution, exhibition and reception; as well as the text itself. Some of the questions this issue engages with include: In what ways does the global marketplace facilitate local products and productions? How do actors negotiate the politics of globalization in how they represent themselves in either the digitally enhanced or real worlds? How can digital media balance both the autonomy of local communities and the ongoing impact of corporate globalization? What role do academic scholars and students play in the globalization of media studies? [read more of this introduction here].
As with earlier issues of this high quality and strikingly original journal, there are a good number of items in audiovisual formats (including video essays, video exemplars, etc). Alongside Mette Hjort's and Tom Zaniello's articles, FSFF particularly appreciated Brian Hu's excellent video essay on the use of popular music in Wong Kar-wai’s films: truly wonderful, analytical viewing and listening! But there are many others pieces of great interest and these are all directly linked to below.

Thanks for a really great issue, Mediascape.

Features: 
Reviews:
Meta:
Columns:
Columns Video:
Posted by purnawan at 03:10 0 comments
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Wednesday, 24 December 2008

Wong Kar-wai Links: To Faye Wong (and David Bordwell), Thanks For Everything

Faye Wong sings her fabulous Cantonese cover of 'Dreams' by the Cranberries in Wong Kar-wai's Chung Hing sam lam/Chungking Express

Film Studies For Free was so inspired by David Bordwell's great recent post (Ashes to Ashes (Redux)) on Kar Wai Wong/Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time Redux (2008) (also see Bordwell's Years of being obscure), and so (eternally) grateful to Faye Wong for lending her iconic classiness to FSFF's upper regions, that its festive gift to its readers this year is some extensive, scholarly, Wong Kar-wai linkage - see below. Oh and, as a little extra stocking-filler, do please check out the wonderful new issue of World Picture Journal on 'the obvious':

Derek Attridge and Henry Staten, Reading for the Obvious: A Conversation; Scott Durham, "The Center of the World Everywhere": Bamako and the Scene of the Political'; Rosalind Galt, The Obviousness of Cinema; Sandra Gibson + Luis Recoder Cinema/Film; Christian Keathley, Otto Preminger and the Surface of Cinema' David Farrell Krell, The School for Stupefaction; Scott Krzych, Kino Ex Nihilo; Ernesto Laclau in conversation with Brian Price and Meghan Sutherland, Not a Ground but a Horizon; Sam Lipsyte, A Pimple on the Ass of Drew Barrymore Speaks; Karen Pinkus, Nothing from Nothing: Alchemy and the Economic Crisis; Angelo Restivo, The Obvious: Three Reminiscences; Stephen G. Rhodes, Interregnum Reanimated: The Living Cemetery; Jeffrey Sconce, Circuit City Unplugged.

Warm seasons greetings to every one of FSFF's readers, many thanks for a fun first six months of blogging-life, and see you all again after a short break!

  • Acquarello on Wong Kar-wai at Strictly Film School
  • Matt Bautch, 'The Cultural Aesthetic of Wong Kar-wai', Latent Image 2003
  • Felicia Chan, 'In Search of a Comparative Poetics: Cultural Translatability in Transnational Chinese Cinemas', PhD E-thesis, Nottingham University 2007, (chapter 3 - p. 147-201 - treats Wong Kar-wai)
  • Ethel Chong, 'In the Mood for Love: Urban Alienation in Wong Kar Wai’s Films', Kinema Spring 2003
  • Jeremy Cohen, 'Lonely Hearts: Wong Kar-Wai's Obscure Objects of Desire', Eye Candy Winter 2006
  • Christopher Doyle & Wong Kar-wai interview for Interview Magazine on Ashes Redux
  • Wendy Gan, "0.01cm: Affectivity and Urban Space in Chungking Express." Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies, November 2003
  • John Christopher Hamm, 'Review of Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time by Wimal Dissanayake', MCLC Resource Publication, October 2005
  • Ian Johnston, 'Unhappy Together: Wong Kar-Wai's 2046', Bright Lights Film Journal, vol. 47, February 2005
  • Kent Jones, "Of love and the city." Film Comment, Jan/Feb 2001. Vol. 37, Issue 1; p. 22
  • Daniel Kälberer, 'Reference Literature on Wong Kar-wai', Film Bibliography 2006
  • Anthony Leong, 'Meditations on Loss: A Framework for the Films of Wong Kar Wai', Asian Cult Cinema 1999
  • Toh Hai Leong, 'Wong Kar-wai: Time, Memory, Identity', Kinema Spring 1995
  • Trish Maunder, 'Interview with Tony Leung', Senses of Cinema 2001
  • Andrew O’Hehir, 'Wong Kar-wai's blueberry-pie America', Salon.com 2008
  • Robert M Payne, 'Ways of seeing wild: the cinema of Wong Kar-Wai', Jump Cut 44, 2001, text version HERE
  • Effie Rassos, 'Everyday Narratives: Reconsidering Filmic Temporality and Spectatorial Affect Through the Quotidian,' PhD E-thesis, University of New South Wales, 2005
  • Tony Rayns, 'The Innovators 1990-2000: Charisma Express', Sight and Sound January 2000
  • Quentin Tarantino on Chungking Express on YouTube
  • Stephen Teo, 'Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time', Senses of Cinema 2001
  • Stephen Teo, '2046: A Matter of Time, a Labour of Love', Senses of Cinema 2005
  • Stephen Teo, 'Local and Global identity: Whither Hong Kong Cinema?' Senses of Cinema 2007
  • Fiona A. Villella (symposium ed.), 'The Cinema of Wong Kar-wai - A 'Writing Game', Senses of Cinema 2001 (entries on Backside; Blue; Creation; Dali-esque Time' Desire; Emotion; Look; Love; Possibility; Repetition; Space; Third-World; Time; Wrongheaded)
  • Elizabeth Wright, 'Profile of director Wong Kar-wai', Senses of Cinema 2002

Miscellaneous:

Posted by purnawan at 02:40 0 comments
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