| This study investigates the relationship between the Chinese visual tradition, as exemplified in Chinese landscape painting (Shanshuihua) and selected films of Chen Kaige, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Wong Kar wai: Yellow Earth (1984) and Life on a String (1991) directed by Chen; The Time to Live, the Time to Die (1985) and The Puppetmaster (1993) directed by Hou; Chungking Express (1993) and Ashes of Time (1993) directed by Wong. The focus is chiefly on the treatment of space in both painting and films, with particular emphasis on three characteristic aspects of Chinese landscape painting--empty space (kungpai), the multiple perspective system, and narrative space.; On the basis of its explication of painting and film, this dissertation concludes that a continuous tradition exists between Chinese landscape painting and contemporary cinema. Significantly, this is contrary to the dominant view of the relationship between non-Western visual tradition and cinema which has generally stressed discontinuity. This research further investigates what the painterly tradition means to contemporary cinema and what can be rediscovered in the tradition through present cinematic practices. In the process, some problems and distortions found in recent tradition-oriented film criticism are discussed: in particular, the dichotomous view of the relationship of Western culture and Chinese culture; the generalizing approach to Chinese art; the monolithic view of Chinese tradition; and the often error laden claims about Chinese art.; Throughout the discussions of the subject, the researcher has attempted to compare the uses of space in painting and in cinema, particularly between selected Chinese landscape paintings and selected Chinese films. Also compared is the spatial treatment among the works of the three filmmakers. At several points in the dissertation, theories of Western Renaissance perspective and spatial treatment are considered in order to clarify the distinctiveness of these strategies in Chinese landscape painting. Finally, the dissertation concludes with the point that tradition is never static but constantly redefined and reshaped by acts of the present. The Shanshuihua tradition influences and is influenced by the filmmakers in the present through the complex representation of beliefs, feelings, and value-judgments. Through this dynamic interchange, film and visual tradition seems always to (re)discover a different spatial representation. |
