Thirty-two New Takes on Taiwan Cinema (Hardcover)
Thirty-two New Takes on Taiwan Cinema covers thirty-two films from Taiwan, addressing a flowering of new talent, moving from art film to genre pictures, and nonfiction. Beyond the conventional framework of privileging “New and Post-New Cinema,” or prominence of auteurs or single films, this volume is a comprehensive, judicious take on Taiwan cinema that fills gaps in the literature, offers a renewed historiography, and introduces new creative force and voices of Taiwan’s moving image culture to produce a leading and accessible work on Taiwan film and culture.
Film-by-film is conceived as the main carrier of moving picture imagery for a majority of viewers, across the world. The curation offers an array of formal, historical, genre, sexual, social, and political frames, which provide a rich brew of contexts. This surfeit of meanings is carried by individual films, one by one, which breaks down abstractions into narrative bites and outsized emotions.
Film-by-film is conceived as the main carrier of moving picture imagery for a majority of viewers, across the world. The curation offers an array of formal, historical, genre, sexual, social, and political frames, which provide a rich brew of contexts. This surfeit of meanings is carried by individual films, one by one, which breaks down abstractions into narrative bites and outsized emotions.
Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh is Lam Wong Yiu Wah Chair Professor and Dean of Faculty of Arts at Lingnan University.
Darrell William Davis is Honorary Professor in the Visual Studies Department at Lingnan University.
Wenchi Lin is Professor of English and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at National Central University, Taiwan.
Darrell William Davis is Honorary Professor in the Visual Studies Department at Lingnan University.
Wenchi Lin is Professor of English and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at National Central University, Taiwan.
"Beyond the book’s educational value, I believe that the editors and authors of this book successfully arouse readers’ curiosity about the details of Taiwanese society, history, and its struggles, through thoughtful analysis of these films. . . . This book is thus more than a book on Taiwanese film: it curates Taiwan’s history and struggles through the cinematic lens."
—Asian Studies Review
— Julie Yu-Wen Chen
"32 New Takes on Taiwan Cinema marks an exciting advancement in the (English-language) scholarship on Taiwan cinema, presenting informative background information, thematic groupings, historical contextualizations, and accessible film interpretations that will be of interest to scholars, students, and general readers."
—Modern Chinese Literature Culture
— Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley
"All in all, Thirty-two New Takes on Taiwan Cinema is a book that many cinephiles and scholars of Taiwan cinema have eagerly anticipated. I am confident that it will be invaluable to researchers and educators in the fields of Taiwan studies and cinema studies. By delving into the representative films studied in this anthology, readers should gain a profound understanding of the trajectory of Taiwan's sociopolitical transition over the past 70 years and its corresponding impact on the development of its cinema."
— Daw-Ming Lee
—Asian Studies Review
— Julie Yu-Wen Chen
"32 New Takes on Taiwan Cinema marks an exciting advancement in the (English-language) scholarship on Taiwan cinema, presenting informative background information, thematic groupings, historical contextualizations, and accessible film interpretations that will be of interest to scholars, students, and general readers."
—Modern Chinese Literature Culture
— Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley
"All in all, Thirty-two New Takes on Taiwan Cinema is a book that many cinephiles and scholars of Taiwan cinema have eagerly anticipated. I am confident that it will be invaluable to researchers and educators in the fields of Taiwan studies and cinema studies. By delving into the representative films studied in this anthology, readers should gain a profound understanding of the trajectory of Taiwan's sociopolitical transition over the past 70 years and its corresponding impact on the development of its cinema."
— Daw-Ming Lee