The Authorship of Place: A Cultural Geography of the New Chinese Cinemas

225 Pages·2021·14.055 MB·English

by  Dennis Lo

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THE AUTHORSHIP of PLACE
A CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY of the NEW CHINESE CINEMAS T
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“This extraordinary book discusses the uses of location shooting in films by contemporary Taiwanese

and Mainland Chinese directors ranging from Li Xing to Jia Zhangke. It highlights the ways in which A
place, memory, and identity stances respond to social changes and geopolitical disparities. In a U
world full of uncertainty, the argument about the imaginary homeland as an experienced cinematic
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reality only renders it more urgent and universally relatable.”
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—Ping-hui Liao, University of California, San Diego
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“The Authorship of Place is certainly a welcome intervention into the study of Chinese cinemas and R
their auteurs that further contributes to the wider study of location shooting as well as cultural S
geographies and place-based imaginaries of fi lm. It is rare to find a book dealing with space/place in H
and around cinema that is this inventive and nuanced in its methodologies.”
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—Stephanie DeBoer, Indiana University P

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The Authorship of Place is the first monograph dedicated to the study of the politics, history,
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aesthetics, and practices of location shooting for Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, and coproduced
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art cinemas shot in rural communities since the late 1970s. Dennis Lo argues that rural location
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shooting, beyond serving aesthetic and technical needs, constitutes practices of cultural survival
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in a region beset with disruptive and disorienting social changes, including rapid urbanization,
geopolitical shifts, and ecological crises. In response to these social changes, auteurs like Hou E 2
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Xiaoxian, Jia Zhangke, Chen Kaige, and Li Xing engaged in location shooting to transform sites of m
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fi lm production into symbolically meaningful places of collective memories and aspirations. These
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production practices ultimately enabled auteurs to experiment with imagining Taiwanese, Mainland f
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Chinese, and cross-strait communities in novel and contentious ways. thU
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Deftly guiding readers on a cross-strait tour of prominent shooting locations for the New Chinese NU
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Cinemas, this book shows how auteurs sought out their disappearing cultural heritage by R
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reenacting lived experiences of nation building, homecoming, and cultural salvage while shooting
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on-location. This was an especially daunting task when auteurs encountered the shooting locations H G
as spaces of unresolved historical, social, and geopolitical contestations, tensions which were only IE
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intensifi ed by the impact of fi lmmaking on rural communities. This book demonstrates how these E
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complex circumstances surrounding location shooting were pivotal in shaping both representations S
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of the rural on-screen, as well as the production communities, institutions, and industries off - A
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screen. Informed by cutting-edge perspectives in cultural geography and media anthropology, I
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The Authorship of Place both revises Chinese-language fi lm history and theorizes groundbreaking EY
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approaches for investigating the cultural politics of fi lm authorship and production.
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Dennis Lo is an assistant professor of global cinemas in the
English Department at James Madison University.
Film Studies / China / Taiwan
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Printed and bound in Hong Kong, China
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The Authorship of Place

The Authorship of Place
A Cultural Geography of the New Chinese Cinemas
Dennis Lo
Hong Kong University Press
The University of Hong Kong
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
https://hkupress.hku.hk
© 2020 Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 978-988-8528-51-6 (Hardback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover images:
(Left) A view from Jiufen, Taipei. Photo by Keith Chong on Unsplash.
(Right) Taipei City, Taiwan. Photo by Tommy on Unsplash.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound by Paramount Printing Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong, China
For Jaden and Fang

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Film Authorship as Place Making 1
Part 1: Nation Building
1. Appreciate from Afar: Longing for Home in Li Xing’s and Wang Tong’s Xiangtu
Film Adaptations 33
2. Myth Making in Place: Cultivating the Wilderness with Li Xing and Wu Tianming 53
Part 2: Homecoming
3. Reel Pilgrims: Experiencing Life with Chen Kaige 77
4. A Home in Becoming: Forging Taiwan’s Imagined Community in Jiufen 98
Part 3: Salvage
5. Hou Xiaoxian as Ambassador: Performing Cross-Strait Histories in the
“Taiwan Trilogy” 121
6. Translocalities of Sadness: Touring Inauthentic Geographies with Hou Xiaoxian
and Jia Zhangke 145
Conclusion: Place and the Politics of Nation Branding 165
References 187
Index 201
Illustrations
Figures
Figure 0.1: Film shoot in Jiufen, Taipei County 1
Figure 1.1: Director Wang Tong’s sketch of Yilan shooting locations for Flower in the
Rainy Night 46
Figure 1.2: Aerial view of Guishan Island in a Yilan café 48
Figure 2.1: Northernmost community in Yilan county 54
Figure 2.2: View of the Shanxi countryside from a train 55
Figure 2.3: Senator Qiu Chuanghuan presiding at the opening ceremony for The Heroic
Pioneers 57
Figure 2.4: “Film Exteriors’ Cost Not Low, Shoufeng Township Administration Unable
to ‘Nurture’” 61
Figure 4.1: Highway to Jiufen 99
Figure 4.2: Jiufen “Old Street,” with “City of Sadness” and “Little Shanghai” signs 100
Figure 4.3: Distant view of Jiufen from a nearby hilltop 102
Figure 5.1: Li Tianlu in Fujian during The Puppetmaster shoot 129
Figure 5.2: Li Pingbin, Li Tianlu, and Hou Xiaoxian on set for The Puppetmaster in
Fujian 130
Figure 5.3: Li Tianlu greeting local villagers in Fujian during The Puppetmaster shoot 135
Figure 5.4. Li Tianlu and Hou Xiaoxian meet with Quanzhou-based puppeteer Huang
Yique and Quanzhou Cultural Ministry deputy director 135
Figure 6.1: Examples of visual violence in Jiufen 151
Figure 6.2: Section of the Great Wall in Gansu Province recently renovated for tourists 152
Figure 7.1: “One film, fired up everyone’s passion for this island” 176
Figure 7.2: “Ma Rides 637 km on an Iron Horse” 176
Figure 7.3: Film directors serving as tour guides pointing out features in the Yilan
landscape during a tour of shooting locations for Flower in the Rainy Night 181
Map
Map 3.1: Major stops along Chen Kaige’s location scouting journey for Yellow Earth
through northern Shaanxi 83
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to the vibrant intellectual community at James Madison University,
without whose support this work could simply not have been completed. As is commonly
the case for projects over ten years in the making, it can be all too tempting for the author
to settle into viewing their project through a fixed—and perhaps overly comfortable—set of
lenses. I have my colleagues in the English Department and the College of Arts and Letters
to thank not only for their inspiration but also for aid in infusing my work with invigorating,
challenging, and boundary-crossing perspectives. For tirelessly offering their time and effort
to perusing key portions of my manuscript, providing thoughtful feedback, as well as guid-
ance on the book publishing process, my heartfelt thanks goes out to Brooks Hefner and Mark
Parker. The book’s overarching framing has also benefited profoundly from generous readings
by members of my writing group: Sofia Samatar, Mollie Godfrey, Allison Fagan, David Babcock,
and Mary Thompson. For their confidence in my project and the invaluable assistance they
provided in securing sources of funding to bring the project to fruition, I am most grateful
to Dabney Bankert, Robert Aguirre, and David Jeffrey. The final form of this project was no
less informed by the lively and stimulating discussions I have had with Besi Muhonja, Mark
Rankin, Matthew Rebhorn, Sharon Cote, Laurie Kutchins, Debali Mookerjea-Leonard, Sian
White, Richard Gaughran, Kevin Reynolds, and Hu Yongguang. Brian Flota at JMU Libraries
played an essential role in securing resources to aid my project, which enabled me to examine
key texts conveniently, including films I once needed to travel transcontinentally to access. I
would be remiss if I did not underscore how this project is also indebted to Rose Gray, whose
patience and thoroughness in assembling documents related to both this specific project and
my broader research agenda were vital to the success of this project. I am extremely grateful
to my students at James Madison University for giving me ample opportunities to refine the
tone and narrative arc of my work, making it that much more accessible to an audience beyond
specialists in the field.
This project began when I was still a graduate student in cinema studies at UCLA’s School of
Theater, Film, and Television. I am eternally grateful to my dissertation chair, Nicholas Browne,
and dissertation committee members, John Caldwell, Chon Noriega, C. Cindy Fan, and Robert
Chi, for their encouragement, inspiration, and patient guidance. Nicholas Browne offered the
type of perspective and sagacity only a pathfinder in the field of Chinese-language film studies
could have. My theoretical framework is most indebted to John Caldwell, whose work on
industrial theorizing and ethnographies of media industries has provided endless inspiration
for my own research. Chon Noriega’s expertise in film and media historiography helped train
my ability to examine film aesthetics from a truly diachronic perspective grounded in careful