Taiwanese Master of Identity Visits Campus for Screening

Personal identity in various guises will receive consideration in two examples of the New Taiwanese Cinema, screened at UW–Madison Feb. 6 and 13.

The films’ director, Edward Yang, is considered one of the founders of the New Taiwanese Cinema movement. David Bordwell, professor of communication arts and an expert on contemporary Asian film, says Yang has achieved international acclaim by combining penetrating social commentary with an innovative visual style.

“He has a gift for suggesting the mood and meaning of a scene through the spaces between characters and their relation to the setting,” Bordwell says. “He’s especially good on urban landscapes, showing how people feel not quite at home there.”

In “The Terrorizers” (1986), shown at 7 and 9 p.m. Feb. 6, Yang traces the mysteriously intersecting lives of several disconnected, disenchanted urbanities. Using an experimental narrative style, Yang explores the rootlessness, lack of continuity with the past and moral void that yield severe identity crises for the characters.

He investigates identity from another perspective in the four-hour-long “A Brighter Summer Day” (1991). He bases the film on the real-life killing of a girl by her 14-year-old boyfriend. Elvis worship, gang fights, first love and family dysfunctions all play an essential role in the climactic murder. The film will be shown Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. only.

Both films are being offered in conjunction with the Elvehjem Museum’s exhibition “Bridge: Illusion in Clay,” by Taiwanese artist Ah-Leon. The films, in Mandarin with English subtitles, will be free, open to the public and screened in 4070 Vilas Hall. For more information, contact Bordwell at 262-7723 or 262-3543.