This study explores two stylistic features in the films of contemporary Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar-Wai: colour and sound. In particular, it focuses on how transitions in colour palettes (e.g. from a natural colour spectrum to a monochromatic effect of black-and-white) and specific sound resources (such as silence) function as important semiotic resources in the films, even when they appear to create a disjunctive effect. The study draws on two perspectives on communication to explore film. The first is the metafunctional hypothesis of Systemic-Functional Linguistics, which theorises that the communicative dimensions of texts can be explored from three simultaneous ???macro-functions???: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual metafunction. The second is multimodal communication, which stresses that multiple semiotic resources are used for meaning-making purposes and that meanings created multimodally are multiplicative in essence. From this theoretical basis the study aims to illuminate two inter-related objectives. First, that the meaning potentials of colour transition and sound are construed and enabled by the co-ordinations of meanings across different co-present semiotic resources ??? known as intersemiosis in the study. Second, that the semiotic capacities of the two resources can be usefully explored from a functional perspective. Drawing especially the notions of intersemiosis and resemiotisation the study shows that colour transition and sound are multivalent resources in Wong???s films. In other words, their meaning potentials are metafunctionally complex and are never static. The thesis argues that colour transition and sound should not be seen as having ???a??? meaning, but rather, that it is the semiotic complexities among the co-patterned resources that shape the meaning-making potential of the resources, and in turn, help contribute meaning potentials to the films.

This study explores two stylistic features in the films of contemporary Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar-Wai: colour and sound. In particular, it focuses on how transitions in colour palettes (e.g. from a natural colour spectrum to a monochromatic effect of black-and-white) and specific sound resources (such as silence) function as important semiotic resources in the films, even when they appear to create a disjunctive effect. The study draws on two perspectives on communication to explore film. The first is the metafunctional hypothesis of Systemic-Functional Linguistics, which theorises that the communicative dimensions of texts can be explored from three simultaneous ???macro-functions???: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual metafunction. The second is multimodal communication, which stresses that multiple semiotic resources are used for meaning-making purposes and that meanings created multimodally are multiplicative in essence. From this theoretical basis the study aims to illuminate two inter-related objectives. First, that the meaning potentials of colour transition and sound are construed and enabled by the co-ordinations of meanings across different co-present semiotic resources ??? known as intersemiosis in the study. Second, that the semiotic capacities of the two resources can be usefully explored from a functional perspective. Drawing especially the notions of intersemiosis and resemiotisation the study shows that colour transition and sound are multivalent resources in Wong???s films. In other words, their meaning potentials are metafunctionally complex and are never static. The thesis argues that colour transition and sound should not be seen as having ???a??? meaning, but rather, that it is the semiotic complexities among the co-patterned resources that shape the meaning-making potential of the resources, and in turn, help contribute meaning potentials to the films.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, 2006. / Adviser: Harry Benshoff. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 36).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-71).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 46-48).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 46-48). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-71). Also available in print.

L'enjeu de ce mémoire consiste à tenter de saisir, à travers l'oeuvre cinématographique de Wong Kar-wai, quelques indications sur la nature de notre rapport à la nuit dans le monde contemporain alors que celui-ci semble déterminé à faire disparaître la noirceur. Les activités diurnes de nos sociétés post-industrielles empiètent en effet de plus en plus sur la nuit: les commerces et les services demeurent ouverts de plus en plus tard, voire toute la nuit, les communications, surtout depuis l'arrivée d'Internet, sillonnent le globe 24 heures sur 24, faisant fi des fuseaux horaires. Laissant à d'autres le soin de mesurer les retombées sociologiques de ce phénomène, nous nous sommes proposé d'en questionner les effets sur notre rapport à la nuit tel qu'on peut le percevoir à travers le cinéma. Pour ce faire, l'oeuvre du cinéaste chinois Wong Kar-wai nous est apparu riche de possibilités. Non seulement le nocturne y est-il prépondérant, mais cette filmographie se situe résolument dans la contemporanéité autant par son propos que par son traitement. Nous avons regroupé les problématiques étudiées sous trois grands chapitres: il s'agit du traitement de la nuit comme expression d'une crise sociale, du traitement de l'espace et de ce qu'il révèle des rapports à l'intériorité et à l'intimité et enfin du traitement du temps et de ses implications sur l'approche narrative et en rapport à la modernité. Ces trois points d'accès à l'oeuvre de Wong Kar-wai permettront d'y vérifier la présence d'un être nocturne identifié lors d'un colloque consacré à la nuit au Centre de Cerisy en 2004. On progressera dans l'analyse en nous référant régulièrement à l'expressionnisme allemand et le film noir américain qui représentent deux pôles de référence incontournables pour le traitement de la nuit dans l'histoire du cinéma. Nos références théoriques sont principalement Les structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, de Gilbert Durand et L'origine de l 'oeuvre d'art, de Martin Heidegger. L'analyse nous amènera à constater, chez Wong Kar-wai, un glissement du Régime diurne au Régime nocturne de l'imaginaire et nous permettra de vérifier la pertinence de notre intuition initiale sur le caractère essentiel de la nuit dans notre relation au monde. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Cinéma, Film, Nuit, Nocturne, Wang Kar-wai.