published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1987. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Louis Forsdale. Dissertation Committee: Maxine Greene. Bibliography: leaves 58-61.

published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-41).

Often regarded as one of the eminent humanist directors working today, Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu has demonstrated consistent authorial intentions and thematic orientations throughout his filmography despite the variety of styles – from social documentary to period comedy – involved. Through in-depth textual analysis of his narrative strategies and exhaustive research on the English-language literature about the director, this study seeks to shed light on the first seven feature films in his career. Commentaries by Kore-eda on his creative impulse and filmmaking method, collected from both diverse sources of media interviews and insightful analyses published in academic journals, are meticulously examined. By taking a formalistic perspective, this thesis sets out to consolidate existing research in the field, while providing a systematic study that builds upon authoritative investigation. The study begins with an analysis of the filmmaking techniques utilised in Maborosi and Distance, both contemplative narratives that seek to capture the fragmented consciousness of the characters in mourning. With its seemingly naturalistic composition, Maborosi nonetheless presents a partially abstract narrative that is directly reflective of the grieving protagonist’s inner state. Distance, on the contrary, offers hints to the possible cause of the family members’ plans to join a religious cult and commit mass suicides – such as the emotional isolation in an urban society – while providing a final plot twist that confirms the slippery quality of any assumption. Both films imply that full comprehension of one’s family members is impossible. In the following chapter, the coherent authorial concerns in Kore-eda’s fourth to sixth feature – Nobody Knows, Hana and Still Walking – are illustrated along with his fascination with the process of forgetting. Kore-eda, who started out as a socio-documentarist, borrowed a real-life tragedy as the framework for Nobody Knows to construct a subversive take on the traditional perception of the Japanese family, extending a decidedly non-judgemental view on the irresponsible parents and celebrating the autonomy of the new generation. The solace of memory is highlighted in the anti-bushido comedy Hana, which is interpreted as Kore-eda’s protest against tradition and, by extension, the older generation. The director’s recurrent themes of broken promises, failed expectations and forgotten family legacies are highlighted with the slice-of-life domestic drama, Still Walking. The thesis then concludes with an analysis of the fantastic representations of the human condition in After Life and Air Doll, Kore-eda’s only two fantasy films to date. His use of quasi-realist documentary style in After Life facilitates a largely non-religious meditation on the importance of human co-dependence and recollection. The film’s metaphysical setting is compared to the absurd existence pondered in Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus”, and its central premise – that the affirmation of one single memory can validate a person’s entire existence – is compared to Friedrich Nietzsche’s thesis of the eternal return. Also adopting the perspective of a non-human protagonist, Air Doll extends Kore-eda’s perception of the depressing prospects of modern life – substantiating the city dwellers’ pervasive sense of emptiness, while constantly looking for the beauty of living. / published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

From a figure of controversy to an illustrious auteur with international renown and widespread critical acclaim, Wong Kar-wai remains unique in the history of Hong Kong cinema. While his films are often box-office failures and criticised for their artistic ostentations at home, Wong enjoys a celebrity status at international film festivals and his films remain a focus in academic studies worldwide. It is this disparity in the reception and value judgment of Wong as a filmmaker that this dissertation is interested in addressing. Thus the central thesis is to explore how critical discourse and institutions confer cultural prestige to his films that positively impact upon their reception and circulation. Existing literature on Wong’s oeuvre focuses eclectically on his artistic merits while side-stepping the material politics behind the reception and circulation of his films, and this dissertation aims to rectify this tendency by foregrounding the site of cultural production where all these cultural debates occur. If aesthetic and critical values are socially constructed, they are also predicated on a complex and changing nexus of multiple social, cultural and institutional factors. Art and their producers do not exist independently of a complex institutional framework which authorises, enables and legitimises them. Thus this dissertation is concerned with exploring how these discursive and institutional frameworks influence what is said and can be said about his films. Chapter 1 looks into how film festival emblematisesa dynamic system where a film accrues values as it circulates among mediators in their struggle for cultural legitimacy, thus exploring issues such as taste-construction and power relations among mediators. Through adopting a Bourdieuian paradigm, this chapter explores the significance of mediators in legitimising cultural values concerning the cinema of Wong Kar-wai in hope of broadening the analysis of festival films into the socio-economic and institutional conditions of their reception and circulation. Chapter 2 explores how the image of the auteur impacts upon the reception and circulation of the cinema of Wong Kar-wai vis-à-vis Corrigan’s idea of the commerce of auteurism which recontextualises auteurism within an industrial and commercial framework and foregrounds the branding of the auteur-star as a commercial strategy. In particular, I examine how the interviews of Wong Kar-wai can be read as a paratextual site where different mediators contribute to the cultural ‘investment’ in the construction of the celebrity sign. Chapter 3 marks a self-reflexive turn into exploring the nature of knowledge production in the formative process of canonisation. Through adopting Greg Urban’s notion of ‘metaculture’, I examine how knowledge production can function as a metacultural sphere that influences the circulation of cultural products such as films. An examination of canon formation not only reveals the values inherent in such assessments, but also foregrounds the cultural and institutional assumptions surrounding cinema’s shifting social and cultural significance. This dissertation therefore aims to broaden the scope of filmic analysis from textual-oriented criticism to exploring the institutional and discursive frameworks that construct cinematic values, also illuminating how these value judgements inform the continuing and evolving canonisation of films. / published_or_final_version / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy