CHINESE CINEMA

ART 423 SPRING TERM 2016

Class Sessions: Tuesdays 1:30-4:20 Tang Seminar Room / 261 Marquand Library
Film Screenings: Mondays 7:30 pm 106 McCormick Hall
PROFESSOR JEROME SILBERGELD
This is a course on Chinese cinema, studied as an art historical medium and thematically
organized. Weekly sessions cover a sequence of artistic and social issues, themes and ongoing
subthemes, including cinema in relation to Chinese history, cinema in relation to other art forms
in China, colonialism and globalism, Communist politics and censorship, gender and family
values, ethnicity and regionalism, melodrama and documentary modes, art censorship, and so
forth. Chinese film has become a major contributor to international filmmaking only since the
mid-1980s and our attention will be focused on films from the People's Republic of China since
that time, although we will briefly cover a longer period dating back to the late 1930s in a
superficial way. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese filmmakers' work in the West will also be
considered, partly as distinct sub-units within the course.
Film is perhaps the most complex of all visual media, and the study of it is inherently multifaceted and intellectually challenging. Watching movies can be easy; studying cinema is much
harder. It requires intense scrutiny and an understanding of cultural history and some degree of
engagement with theory and the language of theory. The primary focus here will be twofold: film
as cultural expression, and therefore film as embedded in this particular culture; and film as art,
to be watched with a disciplined intensity. In the limited time available to us, we will not deal
with all genres of filmmaking. Entertainment film, including martial arts cinema, will play little
role here although its capacity to reflect meaningfully on Chinese social history and values is not
in dispute. Films that provide a serious, self-aware critique of Chinese history, changing values
in modern China, and China's internal conflicts, and those films that exhibit a serious concern for
aesthetic form and originality of presentation, are susceptible to repeated viewing and multiple
readings and will be our primary subject.
As a 300-level course, this is not strictly speaking a seminar. But our meeting sessions will be a
blend of lecture and seminarial discussion. The success of these sessions will depend in
significant part on the quality of student participation, and student participation depends in good
measure on student preparation.
Throughout most of its history, the medium of cinema has been conceived as a public activity
and audience participation provides a different experience than individual viewing. In the past
decade, individual viewing technologies have increasingly tended to erode this shared experience
of film. This course requires group viewing as well as facilitating individual viewing. Each week,
a primary film will be selected for Monday night group viewing by the class, providing primary
material for our Tuesday afternoon session. These screenings will be held each Monday at 7:30
pm in 106 McCormick Hall. Attendance is required, unless a student is individually excused;

weekly attendance will be taken and repeated absences may be a factor in grading. In addition,
each week before class one other assigned film should be viewed independently or in small
groups, on residence-hall based viewing clusters or in Firestone B-Floor, B-2 & B-3. DVDs or
videotapes of all of these films as well as a variety of others that will be valuable for researching
term papers are available on reserve in Firestone Library.
Along with the florescence of high-quality Chinese filmmaking in the past three decades, a
sizeable body of English-language literature has emerged. Films remain our primary resource
and readings are secondary; we will draw critically upon this literature as appropriate to improve
our viewing and understanding skills, and class discussion depends on a timely reading of these
assignments. Three books can be purchased at the Labyrinths (or perhaps more inexpensively
online):
Jerome Silbergeld, China Into Film (required)
Jerome Silbergeld, Hitchcock with a Chinese Face (optional)
Jerome Silbergeld, Body in Question (optional)
Most of our other readings are available on e-reserves. A few critical items that cannot be put on
e-reserves for copyright reasons are available in published copies or photocopies placed on
reserve at Marquand Library, as are the published volumes from which many of the e-reserves
chapters have been extracted. Reading each week's assigned literature before the class session
begins is essential to assuring meaningful class discussions, but I generally recommend viewing
the assigned films before reading about them so that you can first think for yourself.
Extensive bibliographies can be found in Yingjin Zhang, editor, A Companion to Chinese
Cinema (the best and most up to date); Yingjin Zhang and Zhiwei Xiao, Encyclopedia of Chinese
Film; Yingjin Zhang, Screening China, and in the bibliographic articles listed there by H. C. Li;
in various of the books on reserve; and in an online bibliography at
<tang.princeton.edu/filmbiblio2004.pdf> (now a decade year old and in need of updating).
[A semi-apologetic note: the reason that so much of the required reading is my own writing is not
merely the mark of a shameless ego but more simply that I am the only art historian in the
country who is regularly writing about Chinese cinema and bringing that viewpoint,
methodology, and background to the subject. Most of my publications have been written over the
past decade with this course and students like yourselves in mind. My real area of specialization
is painting of the Song and Yuan periods, 10th-to-14th centuries.]
The material for this course does not lend itself to meaningful testing and students are expected
to develop their own grasp of this factual data through self-disciplined study.
Grades will be based on the following approximate percentages:
20% A short exercise, 500 words maximum length. (Shorter is more challenging, so I
will not read beyond that number). From any film on our first 6 weeks' viewing
list (including the reference films), select and download one film frame that you

think best represents what the whole film is about. and justify this choice.
Due by 5:00 pm on Thursday, March 10 (just before spring break).
50% Term paper, 3000 words maximum length (that's about 12 ms. pages), on any
appropriate topic of your choice.
Due by 5:00 p.m. on Dean's Date, May 10.
For your term paper, all scholarly apparatus footnotes (not endnotes),
bibliography, illustrations with full captions should be utilized and should
follow a standard professional format.
30% Class contribution (quality, more than quantity).
NOTE: Submit papers electronically in .doc or .docx format, not PDF.
Office hours are readily available by appointment, with Thursdays and Fridays preferred, in
McCormick 406. Email: jsil@princeton.edu Office telephone: 258-6249

OUTLINE OF TOPICS AND READINGS

Abbreviations
Film Viewing:
C = Class viewing on Monday evenings, at 7:30 in 106 McCormick Hall (see screening
schedule at end of syllabus)
I = Individual viewing before class meeting of each week, on clusters or in Firestone
Library
Rec = Additional films on reserve and recommended for additional viewing in relation to
the weekly theme
Readings:
All required reading items are available on e-reserves except for selections from China
Into Film and Primitive Passions, for which the books are on reserve in Marquand
Library.
All required readings, and many additional reference selections, are available on shelfreserves in their original, complete publication format, including the three books
named above.

Week 1
February 1, 2

Intense Visuality: Film As Visual Art

C: Suzhou River (Lou Ye, 2000)
Reading
Kawin, Bruce. How Movies Work, 275-285.
Silbergeld, Jerome. "First Lines, Final Scenes in Text, Handscroll, and
Chinese Cinema," in Katherine Tsiang and Martin Powers, editors,
Looking at Asian Art: Perspectives in Memory of Father Harrie
Vanderstappen, 114-133.
Silbergeld, Jerome. "From Mountain Songs to Silvery Moonlight: Some
Notes on Music in Chinese Cinema," in Yingjin Zhang, editor, The
Blackwell Companion to Chinese Cinema, 417-428.
Lou Ye. "All Artists Are Narcissistic," interview by Shao-yi Sun in Haili
Kong and John Lent, 100 Years of Chinese Cinema: A
Generational Dialogue, 237-257.
*Jerome Silbergeld, Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles,
Oedipal Triangles, and China's Moral Voice, 1-9.
Reference
Silbergeld, Jerome. "Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Suzhou River," in
Jerome Silbergeld, Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic

Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and China's Moral Voice, 9-46.

Week 2
February 8, 9

History in Film and The History of Film

C: Street Angel (Yuan Muzhi, 1937)
I: Lust, Caution (NC-17) (Ang Lee, 2007)

editor,

Sinascapes:

Reading
Lee, Leo. "The Tradition of Modern Chinese Cinema: Some
Preliminary Explorations and Hypotheses," in Chris Berry,
Perspectives on Chinese Cinema, 1-20.
Chang, Eileen [Zhang Ailing], Lust, Caution.
Deppman, Hsiu-Chuang, "Seduction of a Film Romance: Eileen Chang
and Ang Lee," in Kam Louie, editor, Eileen Chang: Romancing
Languages, Cultures and Genres, 155-176
Xu, Gary. "The Right to Copy and the Digital Copyright: Hero, House of
Flying Daggers, and China's Cultural Symptoms," in
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, 25-45.
Reference
Zhang, Yingjin. Screening China: Critical Interventions, Cinematic
Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, 15-41.
Clark, Paul. Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics Since 1949, 4-118.
Clark, Paul. "Two Hundred Flowers on China's Screens," in Chris Berry,
editor, Perspectives on Chinese Cinema, 40-61.

Week 3
February 15, 16

The Chinese Family Model

C: Yi Yi (Yang Dechang, 2000)
I: Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984)
Rec: Family (Chen Xihe and Ye Ming, 1956)
Reading
Silbergeld, Jerome. "The Ghosts of Patriarchy Past: Family Dynamics and
Psycho-Politics in Recent Chinese-Language Cinema," in Jerome
Silbergeld and Dora Ching, editors, The Family Model in Chinese
Art and Culture, 373-399.
Silbergeld, Jerome. China Into Film, 7-52.
Reference
Baker, Hugh. Chinese Family and Kinship.

Cinema,

Week 4
February 22, 23

Parish, William and Martin Whyte. Village and Family in Contemporary

China.
Chow, Rey. Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, 79-107.
Yau, Esther C.M. "Yellow Earth: Western Analysis and a Non-Western
Text," in Chris Berry, editor, Perspectives on Chinese
62-79.
McDougall, Bonnie. The Yellow Earth: A Film by Chen Kaige with a
Complete Translation of the Script, 1-68, 151-167.
Forms of Authority: Youth, Education, Ethnicity
C: Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1985)
I: King of the Children (Chen Kaige, 1987)
Rec: Black Cannon Incident (Huang Jianxin, 1985), Sacrificed Youth
(Zhang Nuanxin, 1985)
Reading
Mao Zedong. "Talks at the Yan'an on Literature and Art."
Harrell, Stevan. Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers, 3-36.
Xia Hong, Tian Zhuangzhuang, et al. "The Debate Over Horse Thief," in
George Semsel, Chen Xihe, and Xia Hong, editors, Film in
Contemporary China: Critical Debates, 1979-1989, 39-49.
Silbergeld, Jerome. China Into Film, 260-283.

Linda
China and Japan,
Identities,

Reference
Clark, Paul. Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics Since 1949, 95-101.
Chan, Anita. Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political
Activism in the Red Guard Generation.
Berry, Chris and Mary Ann Farquhar. "Post-Socialist Strategies: An
Analysis of Yellow Earth and Black Cannon Incident," in
Ehrlich and David Desser, editors, Cinematic Landscapes:
Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of
81-116.
Pickowicz, Paul. "Huang Jianxin and the Notion of Postsocialism," in
Nick Browne, editor, New Chinese Cinemas: Forms,
Politics, 57-86.

Week 5
Gender and Sexuality
February 29, March 1
C: Ermo (Zhou Xiaowen, 1994)
I: Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987)
Rec: Judou (Zhang Yimou, 1990), Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005),

Army Nurse (Hu Mei, 1985), Woman From the Lake of Scented
Souls (Xie Fei, 1992), Girl From Hunan (Xie Fei, 1985)
Reading
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, 16.3
(Autumn 1975), 6-18.
Kaplan, E. Ann. "Problematising Cross-cultural Analysis: The Case of
Women in the Recent Chinese Cinema," in Chris Berry, editor,
Perspectives on Chinese Cinema, 141-154.
Chow, Rey. Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, 4-52.
Silbergeld, Jerome. China Into Film, 282-291.

Visual

Week 6
March 7, 8

Reference
Silbergeld, Jerome. China Into Film, 53-95, 132-187.
Berry, Chris. "China's New 'Women's Cinema,'" Camera Obscura,
18 (1989), 8-19.
Lau, Jenny Kwok Wah. "Judou: An Experiment in Color and
Portraiture in Chinese Cinema," in Linda Ehrlich and
David Desser Cinematic Landscapes: Observations on the
Arts and Cinema of China and Japan, 127-145.
Wang, Eugene. "Mixing Memory and Desire," in Chris Berry,
Editor, Perspectives on Chinese Cinema, 80-103.
Berry, Chris. "Interview with Ding Xiaoqi," Modern Chinese Literature,
7.2 (Fall 1993), 108-116.
Ding Xiaoqi. Maidenhome (based on Army Nurse).
Violence and Justice
C: Devils on the Doorstep (Jiang Wen, 2000)
I: The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Yim Ho, 1994)
Rec: Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2000); The Story of Qiuju (Zhang Yimou,
1991)
Reading
Xu, Gary. "Violence, Sixth Generation Filmmaking, and Devils on the
Doorstep," in Sinascapes: Contemporary Chinese Cinema, 47-66.
Silbergeld, Jerome. Hitchcock With a Chinese Face, 47-72.
Reference
Silbergeld, Jerome. "Body and the Beast," in Jerome Silbergeld, Body in
Question: Image and Illusion in Two Chinese Films by Director
Jiang Wen, 69-135.

March 10

SHORT PAPER DUE 5:00

March 14, 15

AUTUMN RECESS: No class

Week 7
March 21, 22

Cinema, Artistic Status, and the Sister Arts: Traditions of Painting

and Literature, Photography, Music, and Theater
C: The Terrorizers (Yang Dechang, 1986)
I: Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
Rec: Third Sister Liu (Su Li, 1961)
Reading
Silbergeld, Jerome. "Cinema and the Visual Arts of China," in Yingjin
Zhang, editor, The Blackwell Companion to Chinese Cinema, 400416.
John Anderson, Edward Yang, 45-53, 95-116.
Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell Davis, Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure
Island, 94-99.
Silbergeld, Jerome. "Photography Goes to the Movies: On the Boundaries
of Cinematography, Photography, and Videography," in Jerome
Silbergeld et al., editors, Bridges to Heaven: Essay on East Asian
Art History in Honor of Wen C. Fong, 875-906.
Silbergeld, Jerome. "From Mountain Songs to Silvery Moonlight: Some
Notes on Music in Chinese Cinema," Brown University lecture,
online availability: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DyYzIbXVwqI
Jameson, Frederic. "Remapping Taipei," in Nick Browne et al., New
Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, 119-150.

Cinema,

Reference
Deppman, Hsiu-Chuang. Adapted for the Screen: The Cultural Politics of
Modern Chinese Fiction and Film, 1-10 ff.
Lee, Lillian. Farewell to My Concubine.
Loh, Wai-fong. "From Romantic Love to Class Struggle: Reflections on
the Film Liu Sanjie," in Bonnie McDougall, editor, Popular
Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People's Republic
of China, 1949-1979, 165-176.
Zhang, Yingjin. "Ideology of the Body in Red Sorghum: National
Allegory, National Roots, and Third World Cinema," in Wimal
Dissanayake, editor, Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian
30-41.
Hao Dazheng. "Chinese Visual Representation: Painting and Cinema," in

Landscapes:
Japan,
Years of
130.
Week 8
March 28, 29

Linda Ehrlich and David Desser, editors, Cinematic Landscapes:

Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and Japan,
45-62.
Ni Zhen. "Classical Chinese Painting and Cinematographic Signification,"
in Linda Ehrlich and David Desser, editors, Cinematic
Observations on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and
63-80.
Kong, Haili. "Symbolism Through Zhang Yimou's Subversive Lens in his
Early Films," in Haili Kong and John Lent, editors, 100
Chinese Cinema: A Generational Dialogue, 115-

The Politics of Narrative Form: Melodrama and Embodiment

Truth, Deception, Censorship
C: In the Heat of the Sun (Jiang Wen, 1994)
I: Hibiscus Town (Xie Jin, 1986)

Guide to
New Era,

Chinese

Week 9
April 4, 5

Reading
Chen Xihe. "Shadowplay: Chinese Film Aesthetics and Their
Philosophical and Cultural Fundamentals," in George Semsel, Hou
Jianping, Li Xiaohong, editors, Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to
the New Era, 192-204.
Zhu Dake. "The Drawback of Xie Jin's Model," in George Semsel, Hou
Jianping, Li Xiaohong, editors, Chinese Film Theory: A
the New Era, 144-6.
Li Jie. "Xie Jin's Era Should End," in George Semsel, Hou Jianping, Li
Xiaohong, editors, Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to the
147-8.
Reference
Silbergeld, Jerome. Body in Question, 15-67, 136-139.
Gu Hua. A Small Town Called Hibiscus.
Browne, Nick. "Society and Objectivity: On the Political Economy of
Chinese Melodrama," in Nick Browne, editor, New
Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, 40-56.
Clark, Paul. Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics Since 1949, 125-153.
Documentary and Independent Film
C: Please Vote for Me (Wei Junchen, 2007)
I: Last Train Home (Fan Lixin, 2009)

Reading
Pickowicz, Paul, "Social and Political Dynamics of Underground
Filmmaking in China," in Paul Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang,
editors, From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film
Culture in Contemporary China, 1,-21.
Zhang Yingjin, "My Camera Doesn't Lie? Truth, Subjectivity, and
Audience in Chinese Independent Film and Video," in Paul
Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, editors, From Underground to
Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, 2345.
Silbergeld, Jerome, "China Seen by the Chinese: Documentary
Photography, 1951-2003," in Jerome Silbergeld, Humanism in
China: A Contemporary Record of Photography, 1-17.
Week 10
April 11, 12

Ecology: Hope and Fear for the Social and Natural Environment
C: The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004)
I: The Other Half (Ying Liang, 2008)
Rec: Kekexili/Mountain Patrol (Lu Chuan, 2004), Still Life (Jia Zhangke,
2006)
Reading
Ah Cheng. "King of the Trees," in Ah Cheng, Three Kings, 97-153.
Silbergeld, Jerome. "Facades: The New Beijing and the Celluloid Ecology
of Jia Zhangke's The World," in Jiayan Mi and Sheldon Lu, editors,
Chinese Ecocinema in the Age of Environmental Challenge 113127, 305-308.
Reference
McGrath, Jason. "The Cinema of Infidelity," in Jason McGrath,
Postsocialist Modernity, 95-128.
Silbergeld, Jerome. China Into Film, 234-254.

Week 11
April 18, 19

Defining "China" in a Global Culture, I:

Taiwan's On-Going Colonial Crisis
Repression, Rebellion, and Escapism in Hong Kong
C: Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1995)
I: Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1987)
Rec: A Chinese Ghost Story (Ching Siu Tung, 1987), Hard Boiled (John
Woo, 1992)

Reading
Chiao Hsiung-Ping. "The Distinct Taiwanese and Hong Kong Cinemas,"
in Chris Berry, editor, Perspectives on Chinese Cinema,
155-165.
Hou Hsiao-hsien and Chu T'ien-Wen. Interview, in Michael Berry,
Speaking in Images, 234-271.
Lee, Leo. "Two Films from Hong Kong: Parody and Allegory," in Nick
Browne, New Chinese Cinemas, 201-215.

Nationalism in

Week 12
April 25, 26

Reference
Silbergeld, Jerome. "The Chinese Heart in Conflict with Itself: Good Men,
Good Women," in Jerome Silbergeld, Hitchcock with a Chinese
Face, 73-116.
Yip, June. "Constructing a Nation: Taiwanese History and the Films of
Hou Hsiao-hsien," in Sheldon Lu, Transnational Chinese
Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender, 139-68.
Berry, Chris. "A Nation T(w/o)o: Chinese Cinema(s) and Nationhood(s),"
in Wimal Dissanayake, editor, Colonialism and
Asian Cinema, 42-64.
Yau, Esther. "Border Crossing: Mainland China's Presence
in Hong Kong Cinema," in Nick Browne, New Chinese Cinemas,
180-201.
Li Cheuk-to. "Return of the Father: Hong Kong New Wave and Its
Chinese Context in the 1980s," in Nick Browne, New Chinese
Cinemas, 160-179.
Defining "China" in a Global Culture, II: Chinese Film Goes West
C: Ride with the Devil (Ang Lee, 1999)
I: Chan is Missing (Wayne Wang, 1982)
Reading
Dilley, Whitney Crothers. The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the
Screen, 115-126.

May 2

Reading period begins

May 10

Dean's Date, Term Papers Due 5:00

ART 350, CHINESE CINEMA

Screening Schedule
Spring Term 2016
All films listed in boldface are shown on Monday evenings at 7:30 in 106 McCormick Hall
[In brackets are the weekly films for students' individual viewing]
All films have English-language subtitles
Week 1, February 1. Intense Visuality: Film as a Fine Art
Suzhou River, director Lou Ye, China 2000
Week 2, February 8. History in Film and the History of Film
Street Angel, director Yuan Muzhi, China 1937
[Lust, Caution (Rated NC-17), director Ang Lee, USA-China-Taiwan 2007]
Week 3, February 15. The Chinese Family Model
Yi Yi, director Edward Yang, Taiwan 2000
[Yellow Earth, director Chen Kaige, China 1984]
Week 4, February 22. Forms of Authority: Youth, Ethnicity, Education
Horse Thief, director Tian Zhuangzhuang, China 1985
[King of the Children, director Chen Kaige, China 1987]
Week 5, February 29. Gender and Sexuality
Ermo, director Zhou Xiaowen, China 1994]
[Red Sorghum, director Zhang Yimou, China 1987]
Week 6, March 7. Violence and Justice
Devils on the Doorstep, director Jiang Wen, China 2000
[The Day the Sun Turned Cold, director Yim Ho, Hong Kong 1994]
Week 7, March 21. Cinema, Artistic Status, and the Sister Arts: Painting and
Literature, Photography, Music and Theater
The Terrorizers, director Yang Dechang 1986
[Farewell My Concubine, director Chen Kaige, China 1993]
Week 8, March 28. The Politics of Narrative Form: Melodrama and Embodiment Truth,
Deception, Censorship
In the Heat of the Sun, director Jiang Wen, China 1994
[Hibiscus Town, director Xie Jin, China 1986]
Week 9, April 4. Documentary and Independent Film
Please Vote for Me, Wei Junchen, China 2007
[Last Train Home, Fan Lixin, China/Canada 2009]

Week 10, April 11. Ecology: Hope and Fear for the Social and Natural Environments
The World, director Jia Zhangke, China 2004
[The Other Half], director Ying Liang, China 2008
Week 11, April 18. Defining "China" in a Global Culture, I: Taiwan and Hong Kong
Good Men, Good Women, director Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan 1995
[Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark, Hong Kong 1987]
Week 12, April 25. Defining "China" in a Global Culture, II: Chinese Film Goes West
Ride with the Devil, director Ang Lee, USA 1999
[Chan is Missing, Wayne Wang, USA 1982]