Includes a DVD with scenes from Suzhou River, The Day the Sun Turned
Cold, and Good Men, Good Women
As China and the West grow closer together year by year, Chinese cinema
becomes increasingly Westernized and Western interest in Chinese cinema
continues to grow. Hitchcock with a Chinese Face examines three recent
award-winning films--one from Shanghai, one from Hong Kong, one from
Taipei--concerned with the issues of developing globalization and the
defense of local identity and culture. Superficially different, these
films surprise Western audiences with their sophisticated cinematic
skills and the depth of their engagement with Dostoevsky and Freud,
Faulkner and Hitchcock. They employ double-characters, multiple
identities, and radically nonlinear narrative structures and pay homage
to film noir, individualizing psychodynamics never before seen in
Chinese cinema and increasing tension between traditional Chinese and
modern Western moral values.
Jerome Silbergeld examines Suzhou River (People's Republic of China,
2000), The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Hong Kong, 1994), and Good Men, Good
Women (Taiwan, 1995) in greater depth than seen in any previous study of
Chinese cinema. An art historian, he explores the visuality of these
films in unusual detail, taking account of the film makers' reliance on
the metaphoric image in skirting Chinese film censorship. Surprising
connections are drawn as Silbergeld's arguments unfold, and his ideas
spiral outward in cyclical patterns that are themselves almost cinematic
in scope. Witty and insightful, Silbergeld's text relates seemingly
disparate elements of three films to create a new perspective on the
latest and finest Chinese-language films, on the complexities of life in
China's rapidly modernizing culture, and on the universal themes of
politics and betrayal, honor and pity.
The book is illustrated entirely with actual frames from films, rather
than with the publicity stills used in most publications about Chinese
cinema. A DVD accompanies this volume, containing key scenes from each
film and a full-color version of each illustration in the book.
