Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

In this interdisciplinary course, students will investigate a topic relating to the histories, societies, cultures, knowledges, geographies, and/or ecologies of China, Chinese-speaking people, and/or people of Chinese descent in Asia and beyond. May be repeated for credit only when a different topic is taught.

COURSE DETAILS:

Chinese Language Cinema: Classics

This course introduces cinema classics from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the turn of the Century when dramatic political, economic and social changes have taken place and Chinese language cinema started to reach international audience. How do Chinese films represent and make sense of these changes? How do film artists re-tell national histories and construct local identities in a time of transition? and what are the representative cinematic works that won international acclaims? Through watching and discussing these films, we will examine the thematic concerns, the narrative forms and the cinematic languages of contemporary Chinese cinema; we will also discuss the social and cultural context of these films to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between cinema and society. 

Besides a variety of cinematic works ranging from domestic blockbusters to internationally acclaimed arts films, students will also be exposed to scholarly works to learn different approaches in writing about films. 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

The goals of the course are: 

1) to discover contemporary Chinese language cinema and gain a deeper understanding of fictional representation of history and reality in Chinese cinema; 2) to develop generic skills in film analysis as well as writing about film. Students will learn to engage in critical reading of cinematic texts through weekly discussion, presentation, and various kinds of writing exercises.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: