TENTATIVE

SYLLABUS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Aesthetics and Interpretive Understanding 63

East Asian Cinema

Fall Term 2017: Wed 1-3pm (CGIS-S010) with film screenings Mon 6-8pm (Boylston
Hall 110) and an 80-minute weekly discussion section to be arranged (TBD)

Instructor: Professor Jie Li, 2 Divinity Ave. 231; email: jieli@fas.harvard.edu

Head TF: Kyle Shernuk, 9 Kirkland Pl., 304; email: kshernuk@fas.harvard.edu

Course Description:

This course introduces major works, genres, and waves of East Asian cinema from the
silent era to the present, including films from Mainland China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
and Hong Kong. We will discuss issues ranging from formal aesthetics to historical
representation, from local film industries to transnational audience reception.

This course does not assume prior knowledge of East Asian culture or of film studies,
but rather seeks to provide students with a basic understanding of modern East Asian
cultural history through cinema, and with an essential toolkit for analyzing film and
media, including narrative, cinematography, editing and sound.

In addition to critical approaches, students are strongly encouraged to creatively

respond to course materials by collaborating on their own short films, beginning with
the illustration of film terms in the first two weeks and culminating in the Golden
Monkey Awardsa class screening of final projects with Oscar-like awards in various
categories.

As a General Education course in the AI category, East Asian Cinema will help students
develop aesthetic responsiveness and interpretive ability to moving images in an
increasingly media-saturated world. While becoming acquainted with some analytical
vocabulary and critical approaches to cinema, students will also gain insights into East
Asian cultures and histories, aesthetic traditions and ethical values, as well as the
politics and economics that went into the films production and reception. Above all,
the course will encourage students to be creative and enterprising with the digital
media technologies at our disposal, to engage in collaborative teamwork and
experiment with unorthodox ways of looking at the world through amateur filmmaking

Films and Readings:

All films are subtitled in English. There is usually one, and occasionally two, required
film per week. Please be sure to attend the Monday evening screenings. In case you
miss a screening or would like to re-view the film for an assignment, all films will be on
reserve at Lamont Library. Required readings will be available through the course
website.

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Requirements/Grading:

1) Class Participation and Attendance (15%)

2) Weekly Postings Creative and Analytical (20%). Eight weekly postings of

your choice (20%). Every week, you have the options of either (1) writing a 350-
500 word critical response or clip analysis in response to a prompt or (2)
producing a creative response relevant to some major formal component of the
film screened that week. Over the course of the semester, at least 3 out of 8
weekly postings should be analytical.

3) Midterm Paper (20%) a 5-6 page short paper

4) In-Class Quizzes (15%) 3 short quizzes through the semester on material

covered (in weeks 6, 10, and 13)

5) Creative Project or Final Paper (30%) - either a 12-page final paper with a
research component or creative project, such as writing a screenplay or making a
short film in a group of up to four students. Your creative project will be
evaluated by the following criteria:

o Idea and Narrative Is it original, unconventional, and sophisticated?

Does it feature lucid and compelling storytelling?
o Relevance How does it relate to what we covered in the course?
o Formal Qualities Mise-en-scene (setting, costumes, acting),
cinematography, editing, and sound.
o Collaboration How well are the talents and efforts of the team
members integrated into the final product?

You may work in a group, or individually, but each student must write an
artists statement (approximately 1000 words). You are encouraged to begin
thinking about your final project as early as possible, and more detailed
guidelines will be provided as the semester progresses.

Part I. East Asian Aesthetic Traditions

Week 1 (Sep 6) Overview of the Course

Week 2 (Sept 11-13) Introduction to Film Analysis

Film Screening (Sept 11): Zhang Yimou, To Live, 1994

Readings:
* Learn the vocabulary of film analysis (handout)
* Rey Chow, We Endure, Therefore We Are, in Ethics after Idealism, pp. 113-132

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Weekly Posting Assignment (due the following Monday at noon):

Illustrate 3-5 film terms from 3 categories (mise-en-scene, cinematography,
editing, sound). You may take frames from To Live, or draw, or use your own
camera to make shots. Besides the class handout, feel free to consult
http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/ and
http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms.html

Week 3 (Sep 18-20): East Asian Aesthetic Traditions

Film Screening (Sept 18): Kurosawa Akira, Rashomon, 1950

Readings:
* Selections from Rashomon edited by Donald Richie, pp. 1-21, 35-47, 97-109

Analytical Posting Options (due Thurs 8am):

1. How have To Live or Rashomon appropriated or reinvented Chinese or Japanese
aesthetic traditions that predate the invention of cinema?
2. Give a shot-by-shot analysis of a clip (< 2 min) from Rashomon and explain its
significance in the films narrative

Creative Posting Option (due Mon noon)

3. Remake, shot by shot, a scene from Rashomon (collaboration of up to 4 people, <
1.5 min)

Part II. Silent Cinema and East Asian Modernity

Week 4 (Sep 25-27) Visual Storytelling in Silent Cinema

Film Screening (Sept 25): Zhang Shichuan, Laborers Love, 1922 (22 min)
Wu Yonggang, The Goddess, 1934

Readings:
* Kristin Harris, The Goddess: Fallen Woman of Shanghai, Chinese Films in Focus, 25
New Takes, pp. 111-119.
* Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema https://muse-jhu-edu.ezp-
prod1.hul.harvard.edu/chapter/1353250

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon if creative):
1. Choose either options 2 or 3 from last week using Goddess instead of Rashomon.
Explain the clips significance in the film as a whole.
2. Illustrate or critique Laura Mulveys theory by analyzing a clip from The Goddess
or by making a short film of your own.

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Week 5 (Oct 2-4) Ozu, Japaneseness, and Modernity

Film Screening (Oct 2): Ozu Yasujiro, I Was Born, But (1932)

Please watch excerpts from Ozus Late Spring (1949) on you own

Readings:
* Alastair Phillips, The Salarymans Panic Time. Ozu Yasujiros I Was Born But(1932)
in Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts, pp. 25-36.
* Mark Nornes, The Riddle of the Vase: Ozu Yasujiros Late Spring in Japanese Cinema:
Texts and Contexts, pp. 78-89

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon if creative):
1. Explain and critique the statement: Ozu is the most Japanese of all Japanese film
directors. Be sure to use specific examples that contextualize Ozus work in his
time.
2. Choose a formal element characteristic of Ozus style and analyze 2-3 examples
from the assigned films. This can take the form of a video essay.
3. Make a short film (< 2 min) that pays tribute to Ozus signature style.

Part III. Representing the National Past

Week 6 (Oct 10-11) The Korean War on Film

Film Screening (Oct 10 Tuesday): Park Kwang-hyun, Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005)

Readings:
* Rosenstone, History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of
Really Putting History onto Film (link on JSTOR)
* Jinhee Choi, Blockbusters, Korean Style, in South Korean Film Renaissance, pp. 31-59.

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon if creative):
1. Does the film Welcome to Dongmakgol do justice to the history of the Korean War?
How do its cinematography and editing contribute to what the film seeks to
express?
2. Storyboard or create a trailer (< 90 seconds) for a historical film about the Korean
War or some other historical event in modern East Asian history

Week 7 (Oct 16-18) A Cinematic Construction of Taiwanese History

Film Screening (Oct 16): Hou Hsiao-hsien, A City of Sadness, 1989

Readings:

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* Mark Nornes & Emilie Yeh, Staging Memories, selections available at:
https://www.publishing.umich.edu/publications/maize-books/staging-
memories
* Tim Corrigan & Patricia White, Listening to the Cinema: Film Soundin The Film
Experience, pp. 177-211

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon after spring break if
creative):
1. How does the film differ from your expectations of a film about a national
trauma? Why do you think Hou Hsiao-hsien chose to represent history the way
he did?
2. Write about the soundtrack of the film, focusing on either the music or the
voiceover
3. Make a fictive trailer for A City of Sadness or make a video essay analyzing the
film.

Midterm paper due on Friday October 20

Part IV. Auteurs

Week 8 (Oct 23-25) Wong Kar-wai and the Hong Kong New Wave

Film Screening (Oct 23): Wong Kar-wai, Chungking Express, 1994

(Oct 24): Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love, 2000

Readings:
* Peter Brunette, Wong Kar-wai, pp. 45-57; 86-101.
* Brian Hu, The KTV Aesthetic: Popular Music Culture and Contemporary Hong Kong
Cinema (journal article available through hollis)

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon if creative):
1. Wong Kar-wai has been called a poet of time. Do you agree? In what ways is
Chungking Express (and his other films) about time? Do his films tell us anything
about Hong Kong?
2. Film a third vignette for Chungking Express (< 2 min). The story should include
voiceovers and give us a sense of the film's visuals and music. Include a
paragraph that introduces or comments on how your story or film is Wong Kar-
wai-esque.

Week 9 (Oct 30-Nov 1) Is Ang Lee an Auteur

Film Screening (Oct 30): Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000
(Oct 31): Ang Lee, The Wedding Banquet, 1993

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Reading:
* Christina Klein, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: a Diasporic Reading (online)
* Chris Berry, Wedding Banquet: A Family Melodrama Affair, in Chinese Films in
Focus: 25 New Takes, pp. 183-190

Weekly Posting Options (due Thurs 8am if analytical, Mon noon if creative):
1. What elements constitute an Ang Lee film? Illustrate your argument with
concrete examples.
2. Create a short martial arts film or scene from a longer film.
3. You will be given a short script and asked to film it anyway you like.

Part V. Genres

Week 10 (Nov 6-8) South Korean Melodrama and Horror

Film Screening (Nov 6): Kim Ki-young, The Housemaid, 1960

Readings:
* Nancy Abelmann & Kathleen McHugh, South Korean Golden Age Melodrama:
Gender, Genre, and National Cinema, Introduction, 1-16.
* Linda Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess in Film Quarterly 44.4 (1991)

Weekly Posting Options from this week onwards TBA

Week 11 (Nov 13-15) J-Horror (Guest Lecture??)

Film Screening (Nov 13): Hideo Nakata, Ringu, 1998 and excerpts from Ju-on: White
Ghost

Readings:
* Jinhee Choi & Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Introduction for Horror to the Extreme:
Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema
* Carlos Rojas, Viral Contagion in the Ringu Intertext, in Oxford Handbook of Japanese
Cinemas

Week 12 (Nov 20) Thanksgiving week. Optional screening on Monday.

Week 13 (Nov 27-29) Beyond East Asian Cinema

Film Screening (April 27): Bong Joon-ho, Snowpiercer, 2014

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Watch Bong Joon-hos Memories of Murder (2003) or Mother (2009) on your own

Reading:
* Klein, Christina. "Why American Studies needs to think about Korean cinema, or,
Transnational Genres in the Films of Bong Joon-ho." American Quarterly 60.4 (2008): 871-
898 (can be linked online)
* Michael Berry, Chinese Cinema With Hollywood Characteristics: or How The Karate
Kid Became a Chinese Film, Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas (can be linked online)

Final Project Screenings & Golden Monkey Awards to be scheduled during reading
period.

Collaboration Policy
You are encouraged to discuss course material with your peers outside the classroom.
When working on creative responses, in particular, you must rely on your peers to
collectively produce a shared piece of work, for which each participant will be
independently evaluated. Consequently, it is important to clearly identify each group
member's contributions to a project.
With regard to the mid-term essay and in-class quizzes, all work must be your own.
This means you are not allowed to consult with your friends in class, circulate notes or
use any kind of electronic device during a quiz, and all information that has been
quoted from or inspired by another source must receive proper attribution. If you are
ever unsure about how to properly cite a source, be sure to ask your TF for clarification.

The Harvard College Honor Code

Members of the Harvard College community commit themselves to producing academic work of
integrity that is, work that adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate
attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and transparent acknowledgement
of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions.
Cheating on exams or problem sets, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of
someone else as ones own, falsifying data, or any other instance of academic dishonesty violates
the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of learning and
affairs.