Play and Liminality in Chinese Cinema: Star Studies in the Perspective of Performance Theory

Abstract

Abstract: Star studies sees film stars as "structured polysemy" and anticipates a salient system of meaning for us to decode and appreciate. Performance theory treats meaning as "conjunctural" rather than "structured" and privileges coincident, improvisation and juxtaposition. Approaching star studies through performance theory helps explore a wealth of filmic techniques and performance tactics. This article focuses on Tony Leung Chiu-Wai's "self-effacing" performance of repetition and examines special cases of play and liminality as well presence and absence in Chinese cinema. These cases challenge our conventional habit of thought and cognition and reveal an unlimited potential of alternative and alteration vis-à-vis history and reality.

Key words: Chinese cinema, performance theory, star studies, play, liminality, alteration

Zhang Yingjin, Yi Qianliang. Play and Liminality in Chinese Cinema: Star Studies in the Perspective of Performance Theory[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(2): 21-31.

References

Arthur, Paul. “Review of In the Mood for Love.” Cineaste 26.3 (2001): 40-41.
Austin, Thomas, and Martin Barker, eds. Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. London: Arnold, 2003.
Bettinson, Gary. “Happy together?: Generic Hybridity in 2046 and In the Mood for Love.” Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema. Ed. Warren Buckland. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 167-86.
Brunette, Peter. Wong Kar-wai. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Bruno, Giuliana. “Surface, Fabric, Weave: The Fashioned World of Wong Kar-wai.” Fashion in Film. Ed. Adrienne Munich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. 83-105.
Butler, Jeremy. “The Star System and Hollywood.” The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Eds. John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 342–53.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Chang, Eileen. Afterword. “Why Did She Do It?” Lust, Caution: The Story. By Schamus, James. New York: Anchor Books, 2007. 63-68.
Chang, Hsiao-hung. “Transnational Affect: Cold Anger, Hot Tears and Lust, Caution.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 35.1 (2008): 31-50.
Chi, Robert. “Exhibitionism: Lust, Caution.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 3.2 (2009): 177-87.
Ciment, Michel, and Niogret Hubert. “Entretien avec Wong Kar-Wai.” Positif 477 (2000): 76-80.
Conquerwood, Dwight. “Performance Studies: Intervention and Radical Research.” The Drama Review 20 (2002): 325-41.
Donald, Stephanie Hemelryk. “Tang Wei: Sex, the City and the Scapegoat in Lust, Caution.” Theory, Culture & Society 27 (2010): 46-68.
Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: British Film Institute, 1979.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Gledhill, Christine, ed. Stardom: Industry of Desire. London: Routledge, 1991.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959.
Hollinger, Karen. The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. London: Routledge, 2006.
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. New York: Harper, 1970.
Khoo, Olivia. “Love in Ruins: Spectral Bodies in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.” Embodied Modernities: Corporeality, Representation, and Chinese Cultures. Eds. Fran Martin and Larissa Heinrich. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. 235-52.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution and Its Reception.” Boundary 2, 35.3 (2008): 223-38.
Liao, Hsien-hao Sebastian. “Becoming Modernized or Simply “Modern”: Sex, Chineseness, and Diasporic Consciousness in Lust and Caution.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 36.2 (2010): 181-211
Liu, Yichang. “Intersections.” Trans. Nancy Li. Renditions 29/30 (1988): 84-101.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. South Bend, IN: Gateway, 1962.
Nochimson, Martha P. “Lies and Loneliness: An Interview with Tony Leung Chiu Wai.” Cinéaste 30.4 (2005): 16-17.
Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 1993.
Pollock, Della. “Performance Trouble.” The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies. Eds. D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. 1-8.
Rayns, Tony. “Charisma Express.” Sight and Sound 10.1 (2000): 34-36.
Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
Shen, Vivian. “History, Fiction, and Film: Lust, Caution Revisited.” Asian Cinema 22.2 (2012): 305-21.
Tan, Yuh-yi. “Resisting the Lure of the Fetish: Between Abjection and Fetishism in Kar Wai Wong’s In the Mood for Love.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 36.2 (2010): 149-79.
Teo, Stephen. “Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time.” Senses of Cinema 13 (2001). .
- - -. “2046: A Matter of Time, a Labour of Love.” Sense of Cinema 35 (2005). .
- - -. Wong Kar-wai. London: British Film Institute, 2005.
Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
- - -. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982.
- - -. “Body, Brain, and Culture.” Zygon 18.3 (1983): 221-45.
Wang, Xiaoping. “Making a Historical Fable: The Narrative Strategy of Lust, Caution and Its Social Repercussions.” Journal of Contemporary China 19.65 (2010): 573-90.
Wong, Kar-wai. Tête-bêche: A Wong Kar Wai Project. Hong Kong: Block 2 Pictures, 2000.
Yu, Sabrina Qiong. “Vulnerable Chinese Stars: From Xizi to Film Worker.” A Companion to Chinese Cinema. Ed. Yingjin Zhang. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. 218-38.
Yue, Audrey. “In the Mood for Love: Intersections of Hong Kong’s Modernity.” Chinese Films in Focus II. Ed. Chris Berry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 144-52.
张爱玲：《色，戒》，收入《惘然集》，《张爱玲全集》，第12卷。台北：皇冠，1991年。第9-36页。
[- - -. “Lust, Caution.” The Complete Works of Eileen Chang. Vol. 12. Taipei: Huangguan, 1991. 9-36.]
Zhang, Yingjin. “Witness outside History: Play for Alteration in Modern Chinese Culture.” Modernism/Modernity 20.2 (2013): 349-69.

[1]	Hu Wenqian. German Films in Early Chinese Cinematic Concepts [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2023, 43(2): 129-139.
[2]	Liu Jianxin. Mao Jin’s Emphasis on Celebrated Drama and the Compilation of Sixty Plays [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2021, 41(3): 166-175.
[3]	Zhu Hengfu. A Hundred Year Modern Peking Opera: Practices and Experiences [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2021, 41(2): 16-25.
[4]	Zhang Shiyang. The Breakthrough and Limitations of Qi Biaojia’s Xiqu-play Criticism [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2021, 41(2): 158-166.
[5]	Zhang Yingjin. Film Posters as an Alterative/Alternative Archive for Chinese Film History [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2019, 39(6): 33-45.
[6]	Zhao Jia. Baroque Irony in Contemporary French Fictions: A Case Study of "Playful Fiction" [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2019, 39(6): 168-174.
[7]	Chen Yihan . The "Expropriated" Subject: A Case Study of the Negative Character Qian Shouwei in "Model Plays" [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2019, 39(3): 88-.
[8]	Huang Xiaoju, Zhao Weiguo. The Literati Purport of Jiazhuan and Theoretical Reflection on Its Ideas of "Using Literature as Play" [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2018, 38(6): 125-131.
[9]	Xu Dajun . The Play-text Forms of Early Zaju and Narrative Sanqu in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2017, 37(5): 63-75.
[10]	Li Pengfei. The "Drama-embedded Mode" of Popular Novels of the Ming and the Qing Dynasties [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2016, 36(4): 111-121.
[11]	Wilt L. Idema, Wu Guanwen. The Nature of Crime and the Role of the Judge: Judge Bao in Ballad-Stories [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2016, 36(2): 107-117.
[12]	Zhu Hongbo. Multiple Metaphors behind the Playing: An Explanation of Hu Shi's Interpretation of A Journal to the West [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(1): 196-203.
[13]	Xu Mofan. A Cultural Study of Unrelated Homonym in Internet Language [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2013, 33(6): 69-76.
[14]	Wang Yi. Investigating the Connotations of the Genre of Paixie in Ancient Chinese Poetry [J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2012, 32(4): 48-55+137.