Reading cinematic texts in East and West: A space of repression and resistance

According to Lefebvre, space is produced not as a container; a social space is a social product. Then, "[i]f space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production" (Lefebvre 36-37). This dissertation examines the space of repression and resistance through processing discourse of space in the East and West within Jameson's concept of late capitalism. Specifically, this dissertation will explore the lived space of contemporary China through the study of Chinese Sixth-Generation films and Jia Zhangke's films, the postcolonial space of Hong Kong's1997 presented in Wayne Wang's films, and the lived space of the West presented in the films of Wayne Wang and Ang Lee, thereby rediscovering and reconstructing the space of repression and resistance. This dissertation ends with the proposal that, for the era globalziation, constructing a transcultural imaginary while holding an original national, ethnic identity or a struggle for individual subjectivity is an alternative way to resist the dominant power and the abstract space of global capitalism.