侯孝賢 電影回顧展

choi

Kristin M Jones, A Taiwan of History, Memory and Mystery. Wall Street Journal, Sept 10, 2014.
online.wsj.com/articles/film-retrospective-also-like-life-the-films-of-hou-hsiao-hsien-1410301281
(review on a touring retrospective "Also Like Life: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien,” including such locations as “Museum of Moving Image[,] Through Oct 17” and “Center for Moving Image Arts At Bard College[,] Through Dec 9”)

Note:
(a) Museum of the Moving Image (New York City)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_the_Moving_Image_(New_York_City)
(in Queens)
(b) “the great Taiwanese director recalls how as a child he climbed a tree to steal mangos, and while looking down experienced ‘an acute sense of space and time’ that later helped inspire him to become a filmmaker.”

感受到時空所給他的孤寂感/ 好像時空整個凝結在那裡

(c) “Born in 1947 in Guangdong, China, Mr Hou [Hsiao-hsien] 侯孝賢 moved with his family to Taiwan in 1948. During the 1980s he became a major figure in the groundbreaking New Cinema movement 台灣新電影, a flowering of innovative films portraying ordinary lives in a changing Taiwan. His breakthrough film, ‘The Boys From Fengkuei’ 風櫃來的人 (1983)”
(i) 風櫃洞, 交通部觀光局澎湖國家風景區, undated.
www.penghu-nsa.gov.tw/user/Article.aspx?Lang=1&SNo=03000082
(ii) Go to images.google.com and search with “風櫃洞.”  There are indeed caves.

(d) filmography: “Goodbye South, Goodbye" (1996)  南國再見，南國
(e) “The quietly devastating ‘A Time to Live and a Time to Die’ 童年往事 (1985), based on Mr Hou's memories and the centerpiece in a coming-of-age trilogy, follows a family that has emigrated from mainland China as the children grow up and the older generation suffers illness and death. The father bought bamboo furniture, expecting their stay to be temporary; the grandmother tries to walk back to the mainland. In these films, Mr Hou's visual style, at once detached, grounded in vivid quotidian detail and imbued with mystery, allows the spectator to gaze unflinchingly at sorrow and death—watching his films can feel like seeing clearly into the darkest of waters. The tragedy is profound in the first film in a trilogy about Taiwanese history, ‘A City of Sadness’ 悲情城市 (1989), the story of a family's destruction during a turbulent transitional period in the 1940s, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.”

quotidian (adj: from quotidie every day, from quot (as) many as + dies day):
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quotidian

(f) “The retrospective takes its title from a puppet troupe in ‘The Puppetmaster’ 戲夢人生 (1993), a haunting dramatization of the life of the Taiwanese puppeteer Li Tien-lu 李天祿 [1910-1998] (who also played fictional characters in other Hou films). Incorporating Mr Li's on- and offscreen narration, it follows several decades of his life, including periods when street theater was banned and when he was recruited to create propaganda. In long takes, spacious landscapes, chiaroscuro interiors and richly hued puppet plays open windows on individual and collective history. It was followed by ‘Good Men, Good Women’ 好男好女 (1995), which interweaves the story of an actress haunted by her past with scenes in which she plays a woman who traveled to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance decades earlier, with tragic consequences. Mr Hou took another formal approach in the exquisite ‘Flowers of Shanghai’ 海上花 (1998), with slowly gliding camera movement and a visual scheme inspired by the glow of gas lamps and candlelight reflected on silk. Based on a novel by Han Bangqing 韓邦慶 [1856 - 1894; 江蘇松江（現屬上海市）人], this heart-rending series of elliptical, intertwined vignettes—filled with muffled emotion and interrupted by fades to black—unfolds within a late Qing dynasty brothel.”
(i) long take
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_take
(ii) Ronny Wang, Long Take 一鏡到底. 痞客邦, June 16, 2008
ronnywang.pixnet.net/blog/post/18789462-long-take-一鏡到底
("在電影中有一種技術叫做 Long Take ，中文就叫一鏡到底[.] 顧名思義，就是完全沒有轉鏡，不會喊卡，一直拍到膠捲拍完為止[.] Long Take 的難度在於不能夠 NG ，因為只要一 NG 拍好的整捲都浪費掉了[.] 所以在 Long Take 裡面所有的運鏡，台詞，動作全都要一氣呵成，不能有任何錯誤")

(g) “He continually experiments with new themes and visual ideas. With a voice-over set 10 years in the future, ‘Millennium Mambo’ 千禧曼波 (2001) begins in Taiwanese bars and apartments and ends in a snow-blanketed Japanese city. He filmed again in Japan in ‘Café Lumière’ 珈琲時光 (2003), set in Tokyo [in Japanese language], which pays tribute to the films of Yasujiro Ozu. In ‘Flight of the Red Balloon’ (‘Le voyage du ballon rouge,’ 紅氣球 2007), about a little Parisian boy, his film-student babysitter and his frazzled performance-artist mother, the camera is a benign observer like the inanimate friend in Albert Lamorisse's ‘The Red Balloon’ (‘Le ballon rouge,’ 1956), which reappears in the story.”
(i) mambo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambo
(ii) lumière (noun feminine; ultimately from Latin noun neuter lūmen light): “light”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lumière
(iii) The Red Balloon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Balloon
(a 1956 fantasy featurette directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse)

(h) “The retrospective coincides with the publication of the absorbing monograph ‘Hou Hsiao-hsien,’ edited by Mr Suchenski (Austrian Filmmuseum [sic] and Columbia University Press, 2014). Along with interviews and critical essays, it includes contributions from three of the many directors who have been influenced by Mr Hou, such as Mr Assayas and Hirokazu Koreeda. The series features Mr Assayas's ‘HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien’ as well as landmarks of the Taiwanese New Cinema. Mr Hou's forthcoming film, ‘The Assassin’ 聶隱娘 (2015), based on a Tang dynasty martial-arts story, promises more formal innovation within his signature style, and is likely to reflect his deep curiosity about the world.”
(i) Olivier Assayas
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Assayas
(1955- ; a French film director)
(ii) Hirokazu KOREEDA  是枝 裕和
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirokazu_Koreeda
(1962- )

Japanese English dictionary
* kore これ 《此れ(P[rincipal]); 是; 是れ》 (pn [pronoun]): “this”
* eda 枝 【えだ】 (n): “branch; bow; bough; twig”
(iii) Österreichisches Filmmuseum - The Austrian Film Museum
www.filmmuseum.at/en
(in Vienna, Austria)