First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/11/hou-hsiao-hsien-15-contexts-6-foolish-bride-naive-bridegroom-hsin-chi-1967/

We continue our discussion of the films kindly made available in wonderful versions by the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. This time we discuss the second Hsin Chi film on view, FOOLISH BRIDE, NAIVE BRIDEGROOM, a wonderfully inventive screwball comedy displaying a wide array of cinematic devices for humours effect (stop-motion, music, fluid camera), anchoring it in solid structure, set on the cusp of modernity, and humorously putting all the major decisions on the hands of the female protagonists. Great fun.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/09/hou-hsiao-hsien-14-contexts-5-the-bride-who-returned-from-hell-hsin-chi-1965/

We discuss THE BRIDE WHO RETURNED FROM HELL, from a cycle of Hsin Chi films the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute is currently providing free on Youtube and in excellent restorations. We discuss its debt to Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, The Innocents, the Bond films, melodrama and the Gothic. We talk about its formal inventiveness in its use of a rotating camera and split screen. We also explore how its interspersed with musical numbers that often take place amongst a recognisable landscape. It's a Taiwanese film where one can't help but note its transnational dimension. It's a film we both liked and recommend.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/07/hou-hsiao-hsien-13-contexts-4-may-13-day-of-sorrows-lin-tuan-chiu-1965/

We once more thank the Taiwan Film and Audio-Visual Institute for the opportunity to see these marvellous copies of Lin Tuan-Chiu film. In the podcast we discuss the combination of genres in the film -- melodrama, court-room drama, documentary, murder-mystery, musical. We discuss the acting in relation to theatrical revue. We wonder if a scene from Hou's Cute Girl finds its inspiration here....and much more.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/07/hou-hsiao-hsien-12-contexts-3-six-suspects/

We extend our thanks once more to the Taiwan Film & Audio-visual Institute for making these three Lin Tuan-Chiu films available. In this podcast we discuss Six Suspects, a 1965 mystery/noir that was never released. We discuss its peculiar flashback structure, the beauty of the imagery and composition in contrast to the other somewhat clunky aspects of narration, what the film tells us about the culture, its possible relation to Ozu in terms of compositions and to mid 60s Japanese Crime Drama in relation to look and style. A somewhat unsatisfying film that we nonetheless encourage people to see.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/05/hou-hsiao-hsien-11-contexts-b-kind-hu-dragon-inn-1967-a-touch-of-zen-1971/

In this podcast we discuss the recent MUBI showings of Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen, its relationship to the Wuxia genre and its influence on films such Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, 2004, its later influence on more recent Taiwanese cinema, so obvious in Tsai Ming Liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn and Hou's own The Assassin (2015).

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/04/the-husbands-secret-zhang-fu-de-mi-mi-lin-tuan-qiu-taiwan-1960/

A treat. Part of a new series of mid-century Taiwanese films made available in a wonderful restoration through the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. We are discussing the film as a context for, as a way of better understanding the cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. But we can't help but discuss other elements that crop up: the career of Lin Tuan-qiu, the uses of melodrama, the extraordinary cinematography by Chen Cheng-fan and equally amazing lighting by Chen Tian-rong; we discuss how the film is a critique of patriarchy whilst also exploiting the visual aspects of women sinning; the films seems both visually sophisticated but also an example of what many will see as crude stereotypical melodrama, and fascinating for that. It's a plot-laden film, full of twists, and totally engrossing. We discuss the uses of flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks; the narrated elements by a narrator that seems omniscient and can't quite be placed; we critique the choppiness of the editing whilst praising some of the on-location shooting. We see clear roots in theatre and theatrical forms of acting. A weird and fascinating combination of cine-literate sophistication with a kind of crudity of acting and mode which we highly recommend not only to those interested in Taiwanese Cinema but also those interested in melodrama.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/26/hou-hsiao-hsien-9-daughter-of-the-nile-1987/

We discuss Daughter of the Nile as a transitional film for Hou, the relatively few  locations (the house, KFC, the nightclub, the beach etc) in which the film is set, the now typical Hou way of filming from repeating fixed camera positions with little or no movement; the way the protagonist remains relatively unknowable, the fractured family on the edges of criminality across generations, the lack of judgment on that, the continued use of fart jokes, the context in which the film was made (end of Martial law, ongoing relationship with American consumer culture etc). A film José didn't quite like as much as Richard but which nonetheless rewarded a second viewing.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/21/hou-hsiao-hsien-8-dust-in-the-wind-1986/

A beautiful film, a continuation of a cycle of autobiographical films (The Boys From Fengkuei, A Summer at Grandpa's). We continue our discussion of framing, ellipses, cinema, letters, the country and the city, heartbreak and exploitation, and all those other formal and thematic elements that make Hou's cinema so great.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/16/hou-hsiao-hsien-7-a-time-to-live-and-a-time-to-die/

We continue our discussion of the work of Hou Hsiao-hsien, this time with a focus on The Time to Live and The Time to Die, the second in his cycle of autobiographical films after The Boys from Fenkuei. We discuss what is depth in this film and talk about Hou's consideration of 'traces 'in the surfaces of his films, how the depth is often in the surfaces. We note the structuring of this film, a bildungsroman, around a series of deaths. We talk of how often the key narrative points are obscured, and make sense only in the connections the viewers can make; how Hou often films in fixed positions, so we return to the same scene but across time, and we think about how this might affect all those spaces without faces, the anticipatory space, and the remains after characters have left the scene. We also explore the dual perspective in the film, the filmmaker's and the protagonist's, often intersecting, rarely interchangeable. We mention how Hou narrates the beginning of the film and how the drama is filmed in the real places and spaces he grew up in, and the effect of dramatising fictionally, on our speculation of the effects of spaces across time in this narrative....and much more.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/14/hou-hsiao-hsien-6-a-summer-at-grandpas-1983/

We delve further into the cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. We discuss the narrative structure, how various plots unfold and deepen what seems initially a light story where not much seems to happen. We discuss the continuing interest in differences between the country and the city, the use of trains, how the kids develop an understanding of the adult world by what happens on the margins of the story, and how the story itself is told in long takes, in the middle plane of the frame, with elegant compositions that reframe our view through character placement and movement. We discuss the context of production, the connection with Hong Kong, the limitations of government policy, how little film filmmakers were allowed to use, and how this affected the films' aesthetic. We also discuss the improvisational style of acting and the performances Hou manages to extract from the children, who are wonderful. We talk of how he uses corridors and stairs to create depth, how light and oblique angles create the feeling of a child hearing things they might not be understanding. We also discuss Hou's use of empty space (which is what most likely lead to comparisons with Ozu). we end with a discussion of the music, very different this time, and composed by Edward Yang, who also plays the father in the film, appearing briefly at the beginning and the end....….oh and the continuing use of toilet gags!