One and Eight marks a radical departure from traditional filmmaking and the beginning of the “Fifth Generation” in the history of Chinese cinema. Adapted from an epic poem by Guo Xiaochuan, it tells the story of eight criminals and a deserting Chinese officer of the Eighth Route Army caught in the midst of the second Sino-Japanese War.
The film’s outstanding cast includes Tao Zeru, Chen Daoming, and Lu Xiaoyan, art direction by He Qun and cinematography by acclaimed Chinese Director, Zhang Yimou.
A public programme of Yang Fudong: Incidental Scripts.
One and Eight marks a radical departure from traditional filmmaking and the beginning of the “Fifth Generation” in the history of Chinese cinema. Adapted from an epic poem by Guo Xiaochuan, it tells the story of eight criminals and a deserting Chinese officer of the Eighth Route Army caught in the midst of the second Sino-Japanese War.
The film’s outstanding cast includes Tao Zeru, Chen Daoming, and Lu Xiaoyan, art direction by He Qun and cinematography by acclaimed Chinese Director, Zhang Yimou.
A public programme of Yang Fudong: Incidental Scripts.
It was with 8 1/2 (1963) that Fellini fully exorcised established cinematic conventions. His self-referential masterpiece, about a film director’s struggle with creative block, switches freely between past and present, reality and dream, creating a delirious, stormy dreamscape. Known for his keen interest in Jungian psychoanalysis, he would journey further into the hallucinatory mind with Juliet of the Spirits (1965), about a woman’s path to self-discovery through dreams and visions. Autobiographical and deeply personal threads run throughout his oeuvre, most obviously in I Vitelloni (1953) and Amarcord (1973), inspired by his upbringing in Rimini, a city on the Adriatic coast. The characters brought to life by Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and City of Women (1980) can all be viewed as manifestations of the director himself.
The consistency Fellini achieved was also a result of his enduring collaborations. The actors Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina come to mind instantly—if Mastroianni acts as Fellini’s alter ego, Masina represents the dreamer in him. Nino Rota’s stirring music carries a life of its own, and forms the backbone of Fellini’s cinema. His key writing partners included Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, who contributed to some of his most celebrated works. And Cinecittà’s Rome soundstages provided Fellini with a home base and a malleable dream machine that allowed him to actualize his imagination with no need for compromise.
8½ is considered to be one of the most influential classic films of world cinema and regarded to be Fellini’s “semi-autobiographical fantasy”. The film depicts Marcello Mastroianni playing the creative struggles of Guido Anselmi, a hugely successful Italian film director embarking on his most ambitious project.
A public programme of Yang Fudong: Incidental Scripts.
11 Jan 2015, Sun 2:00pm
8½ is considered to be one of the most influential classic films of world cinema and regarded to be Fellini’s “semi-autobiographical fantasy”. The film depicts Marcello Mastroianni playing the creative struggles of Guido Anselmi, a hugely successful Italian film director embarking on his most ambitious project.
A public programme of Yang Fudong: Incidental Scripts.
Reflecting on Mao’s famous saying, “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film—whose title refers in part to a Chinese guessing game—is a unique excursion into the maze of allegorical naming and storytelling in China. The film ponders questions of power and change, politics and culture, as refracted by Tiananmen Square events. It offers at the same time an inquiry into the creative process of filmmaking, intricately layering Chinese popular songs and classical music, the sayings of Mao and Confucius, women’s voices and the words of artists, philosophers, and other cultural workers. Video images emulate the gestures of calligraphy and contrast with film footage of rural China and stylised interviews. Like traditional Chinese opera, Trinh’s film unfolds through “bold omissions and minute depictions” to render “the real in the illusory and the illusory in the real.” Exploring color, rhythm and the changing relationship between ear and eye, this meditative documentary realises on screen the shifts of interpretation in contemporary Chinese culture and politics.
This Screening is part of the public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.
Reflecting on Mao’s famous saying, “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film—whose title refers in part to a Chinese guessing game—is a unique excursion into the maze of allegorical naming and storytelling in China. The film ponders questions of power and change, politics and culture, as refracted by Tiananmen Square events. It offers at the same time an inquiry into the creative process of filmmaking, intricately layering Chinese popular songs and classical music, the sayings of Mao and Confucius, women’s voices and the words of artists, philosophers, and other cultural workers. Video images emulate the gestures of calligraphy and contrast with film footage of rural China and stylised interviews. Like traditional Chinese opera, Trinh’s film unfolds through “bold omissions and minute depictions” to render “the real in the illusory and the illusory in the real.” Exploring color, rhythm and the changing relationship between ear and eye, this meditative documentary realises on screen the shifts of interpretation in contemporary Chinese culture and politics.
This Screening is part of the public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China. The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.
This screening is specially arranged to provide the opportunity for the audience to experience the work as a full film instead of the divided version installed in the exhibition space.
This screening is a public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China.The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.This screening is specially arranged to provide the opportunity for the audience to experience the work as a full film instead of the divided version installed in the exhibition space.
This screening is a public programme of Ulrike Ottinger: China.The Arts – The People, Photographs and Films from the 1980s and 1990s.