An introductory conversation with a new person I just met usually goes like this: So, where is your accent from ? Are you American? Well, yes, .....but no. Not really. I do have American citizenship and I lived in the US for fifteen years but I grew up in France. Ok, so you’re French? Well, yes, but .....not totally. My mother is French but my father is Tunisian. Ok, so you’re Tunisian? Well, yes, but... not wholly. I don’t speak Arabic, so I don’t totally feel Tunisian. So what are you? American? French? Tunisian? With my work, I ask the same questions. What is this? What does it do? How do I, the maker, relate to it? How does the viewer, the other side of the conversation, relate to it and understand it? Can we understand each other if we do not speak the same language? Who am I and who are you anyway?

本論文旨在以「作者論」來觀察導演蔡明亮作品，進而發現其電影中所隱含的「現代性」。在進入導演所經營的電影場域之前，先行從文獻中了解現代性起源與特質，由於現代性經驗範圍十分廣泛，為免後續分析過於零散，在此將現代性經驗侷限於現代化後對於「環境」、「時空」、「人際關係」、「家庭倫理」、「個人情欲」等影響。 緊接著現代性經驗與特質之後，再從現代主義等文藝活動，說明「現代性」與現代主義電影關係，並思考蔡明亮作品在台灣現代主義所處版圖位置。從現代性起源，現代主義、一直到現代主義電影，論文主體建構在社會學基礎上，並旁及當代現代性文藝創作。 理論基礎確立後，旋進入以「作者論」為主的論述。在蔡明亮成長過程中，馬來西亞故鄉生長經驗與台北異鄉漂泊經驗均對其作品產生某種程度影響，而他大學時期的劇場演出更預示日後創作；了解導演個人的生平事略後，再回歸電影文本，從「環境」、「時空」、「人際關係」、「家庭倫理」、「個人情欲」等之前探討的現代性議題著手，從中探討蔡明亮電影中隱含的現代性議題。 在「環境」、「時空」兩節中發現，在蔡明亮影片中不時出現劇中人以「漫遊」穿梭過城市，而這□的城市也如同黑色電影般呈現出陰鬱不明。兩者互相搭配下，漫遊者在漫遊間讓己身與城市脫軌，在「不存在」中進而感受到城市的存在，而這樣的存在又建立在蔡明亮以燈光、聲音、影像所建立的陰鬱城市。 「人際關係」、「家庭倫理」、「個人情欲」等後續分析，觀察到其作品中三者關係密切，個人情欲的壓抑與人際疏離有關，而這一切卻又和家庭變革不可分離，交互影響下進而呈現出現代人面臨無助與寂寞。 研究結果發現，自《青少年哪吒》（Rebels of the Neon God）以來，蔡明亮的作品，外在時空總是支離破碎；而在內在的情感表達上，家庭內部則是充滿紛爭、人與人之間無法真正溝通，而藉著多元的情欲表達，更呈現出個人存在的荒謬。 而在電影語言上則可歸納敘事薄弱（poor narrate）、不重視電影配樂及強調長鏡頭跟拍（long shot）等特點，綜合以上種種特質。他電影呈現類似安東尼奧尼（Michelangelo Antonioni）等現代主義電影風格，更表現出急速現代化下，人與人之間無助的疏離感。 / The present paper aims to survey the films directed by Ming-Liang Tsai from the perspective of auteur theory, and to explore the modernity concealed in the films. The research will introduce the auteur theory first in the first chapter. Before entering the discussion on Tsai’s films, the second chapter will examine the origin and specialties of the modernity from the literatures. To avoid the following discussions being too fragmentary, the experiences of the modernity in this paper are emphasized on the analyses of “the environment”, “time and space”, “interpersonal relation”, “the family ethics”, and “the private sex”. Next, the paper explains the relationship between modernity and modernism film with modernism and other art activities, and tries to locate Ming-Liang Tsai’s films on the domain of modernism. The explanation is based on the sociology theory, modernity literature and art activities, stretching from the origin of the modernity, the modernism, to the modernism films. The third chapter will focus on Tsai’s growing-up in Malaysia and most of the adulthood in Taipei. The special experience has exerted some degree of influences on his films. Tsai’s participation in theater performance in college also helps his later creative works. With these understandings of the director, this paper traces back to the context of Tsai’s films and attempts to explore the modernity in his films from the points of “the environment “, “time and space”, “interpersonal relation”, “the family ethics”, and “the private sex” respectively. In analyses of “the environment” and “time and space” in Tsai’s films, the characters are found to wander all the time through the city as gloomy as in film noir. Such a wandering makes these characters deviate from the city and further aware of the city – a typical Tsai’s city that is designated to be so dim and depressing by stage light, sound and images. The following chapter will analyze “interpersonal relation”, “the family ethics”, and “the private sex” in Tsai’s films – It starts with the relevance of the alienation from the society and the depression of the private sex. Such relevance can in turn be attributed to the reform of modern household. – With these interactive elements, Ming-Ling Tsai expresses the helpless and loneliness of modern people. In the final chapter, the research has a summary about Tsai’s works. Most of his films can be characterized by an external appearance of incoherent time lines and environmental settings and an internal expression of struggles inside the family as well as failures of the connection to other people since the movie “Rebels of the Neon God”. Moreover, the complicated sensual encounters running through the movies demonstrate the absurdity of individual existence. In addition, poor narrations, an ignorance of incidental music and an emphasis of long shots can be seen as a common language employed in his movies. The integration of these elements in his movies manifests a modernist style like those films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and further displays the desperate alienation between people in the speeding modernization.

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Aiming to make an intervention in both emerging Slow Cinema and classical Trauma Cinema scholarship, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which the post-trauma cinema of Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz merges aesthetics of cinematic slowness with narratives of post-trauma in his films Melancholia (2008), Death in the Land of Encantos (2007) and Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012). Diaz has been repeatedly considered as representative of what Jonathan Romney termed in 2004 “Slow Cinema”. The director uses cinematic slowness for an alternative approach to an on-screen representation of post-trauma. Contrary to popular trauma cinema, Diaz’s portrait of individual and collective trauma focuses not on the instantenaeity but on the duration of trauma. In considering trauma as a condition and not as an event, Diaz challenges the standard aesthetical techniques used in contemporary Trauma Cinema, as highlighted by Janet Walker (2001, 2005), Susannah Radstone (2001), Roger Luckhurst (2008) and others. Diaz’s films focus instead on trauma’s latency period, the depletion of a survivor’s resources, and a character’s slow psychological breakdown. Slow Cinema scholarship has so far focused largely on the films’ aesthetics and their alleged opposition to mainstream cinema. Little work has been done in connecting the films’ form to their content. Furthermore, Trauma Cinema scholarship, as trauma films themselves, has been based on the immediate and most radical signs of post-trauma, which are characterised by instantaneity; flashbacks, sudden fears of death and sensorial overstimulation. Following Lutz Koepnick’s argument that slowness offers “intriguing perspectives” (Koepnick, 2014: 191) on how trauma can be represented in art, this thesis seeks to consider the equally important aspects of trauma duration, trauma’s latency period and the slow development of characteristic symptoms. With the present work, I expand on current notions of Trauma Cinema, which places emphasis on speed and the unpredictability of intrusive memories. Furthermore, I aim to broaden the area of Slow Cinema studies, which has so far been largely focused on the films’ respective aesthetics, by bridging form and content of the films under investigation. Rather than seeing Diaz’s slow films in isolation as a phenomenon of Slow Cinema, I seek to connect them to the existing scholarship of Trauma Cinema studies, thereby opening up a reading of his films.