Communications in Humanities Research

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Communications in Humanities Research

Vol. 9, 31 October 2023


Open Access | Article

Degenerative Teenager, Family and Puberty: The Phenomenological Body in The River

Shuyan Li * 1
1 University of Edinburgh

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Communications in Humanities Research, Vol. 9, 27-34
Published 31 October 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Shuyan Li. Degenerative Teenager, Family and Puberty: The Phenomenological Body in The River. CHR (2023) Vol. 9: 27-34. DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/9/20231092.

Abstract

The focus on the living conditions of adolesecents has always been an important in Taiwanese cinema. This paper combines philosophical phenomenology represented by Merleau-Ponty’s body theory with the film phenomenology and unites the presentation of the cinematic body with the audience’s corporeal preception to achieve a phenomenological oneness of subject and object. This paper hopes to use The River as a case study to explore tsai’s concern for marginalized groups and how it evokes emotional resonance in the audience; simultaneously, by examining body narrative and body images, it discusses the audience’s visual experience and aesthetic recpetion on a physical and perceptual level, rather than only on a mental one, thus further stinulating academic thinking on the intersubjectivity of film and the body. Specifically, there will be three chapters for analysis: body narrative, situated bodies and role of film technology itself in facilitating the viewers’ visual experience.

Keywords

Tsai Ming-liang, coming-of-age film, film phenomenology, situated body, visual experience

References

1. Song, H. (2014). Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness. USA: Univ of Hawaii Pr.

2. Edmund, H. (1989). Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book. Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz, and André Schuwer. Dordrecht, Boston and London: Kluwer. First published 1952, p.102.

3. Ramm, B.J. (2021). Body, Self and Others: Harding, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on Intersubjectivity. Philosophies, 6(4), pp.1-27.

4. Chojnacka, M. (2021). Satre and Merleau-Ponty’s Theories of Perception as Cognition in the Context of Phenemenological Thought in Cognitive Sciences. Diametros, 18 (67), pp.21-37.

5. Sobchack, V. (1992). The Address of Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

6. Chow, R. (2004). A Pain in the Neck, a Scene of “Incest,” and Other Enigmas of an Allegorical Cinema: Tsai Ming-liang’s “The River.” CR: The New Centennial Review, 4(1), pp.123–142.

7. Wijaya, E. (2021). Screening Today: The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn.Discourse, 43(1), pp.65-97.

8. Wilder Seth A.,(2021). Sentimental journey? The drifting rhythms of Tsai Ming-liang’s Journey to the West. Asian Cinema, 32 (1), pp.3-18.

9. Punday, D. (2003). Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

10. Luna, A. M. (2005). [Review of Narrative Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Narratology, by Daniel Punday]. Style, 39(3), pp.367–370.

11. Deleuze, G. (1989). Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Tomlinson, H. & Galeta, R. London: The Athlone Press.

12. Zhang, J. (2021). From Rupture to Extension: Escape and Expropriated Poor Quality Images. Contemporary Cinema, 309 (12), pp.151-156.

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-041-7
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-042-4
Published Date
31 October 2023
Series
Communications in Humanities Research
ISSN (Print)
2753-7064
ISSN (Online)
2753-7072
DOI
10.54254/2753-7064/9/20231092
Copyright
31 October 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated