1987 ~ 2012 Taiwan Film Studies

The "new wave" movement between1982and1987played animportant role in Taiwan film history. It made a giant leap on the artisticaesthetics and intrinsic cultural characteristics, and had a profound impacton Taiwan movie culture, artistic pursuits and styles. However, Taiwanmovie was trashed in an instant dark niche after the "new wave"movement. On the one hand, the film-makers had to consciously conformto the "new wave" spirit and style; on the other hand, they had to facevarious challenges of the silent Taiwan film market. It took Taiwan filmmakers20years’ hard work to explore the new road and recoverthemselves. In2008, they started to turn for the better.This thesis is mainly on the films from1987to2012after the "newwave" movement. From this25-year Taiwan films’ analysis, it’s notdifficult to find out that their cultural bases, artistic concept and filmlanguage not only have inherited the "new wave" tradition, but also havehad developments and breakthroughs. Most of all, we can see they haveshown the humane care of the artists, as well as the focus on man andman, man and nature, man and society. This is a fundamental changefrom the political advocacy of the "new wave"."The new film" is awatershed of Taiwan films, although only a short period, it plays a crucialrole. Though Taiwan films after the "new wave" were sentenced to deathby many scholars and filmmakers, awaits for the rebirth after fire burning with strong vitality.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the main part of thisthesis is composed of four chapters.In Chapter one, I divide Taiwan films1987-2012into three stages:transition period, the period of decline and recovery period, and try tosummarize the evolution of each stage. Because Taiwan’s principalcreative personals after "the new wave" are "new wave" directors as wellas their descendants, and the "new cinema" play an important role inTaiwan film history, the development of Taiwan film industry areinextricably linked with the "new cinema". This chapter mainly studiesthe start and development of the "new cinema".The next three chapters select three phases to summarize and discussTaiwan film features since1987in order to describe an overallimpression of the Taiwan films. From the cultural point of view, ChapterTwo analyzes the influences of physical geography, folk beliefs andpersonal characteristics, moreover, discusses how they demonstrate theregional characteristics in the movies. From the aesthetic point of view,Chapter Three discusses the three human perspectives in Taiwan movies:self-interest, thought of other as well as with the special perspective ofchildren viewing social life. Chapter Four focuses on movie cameralanguage, interpreting the unique charm of cinematic language on Taiwanmovie role and mentioning Taiwan photographers’ pursuit of "smell of the image" concept.On the basis of preliminary outlook of Taiwan films, the Closingremarks predict the future development of Taiwan movies and introspectthe problems in Taiwan movies.