“Turns out that lonely people are all the same.”
This course will explore the Hong Kong New Wave auteur Wong Kar-Wai, director of In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express, two films regularly included on critics’ and directors’ favorite-films-of-all-time lists. On Instagram, tens of thousands of people engage with Wong Kar-Wai “content” @wongkarwaiuniverse and @wongkarwaimonamour.
Wong Kar-Wai is known for possessing a singular film style that includes rich cinematography and visuals (primarily shot by cinematographer Christopher Doyle), evocative soundtracks, and emotional and exciting storytelling. He is also known for having an improvisational and mysterious directing style, and for experimenting with genres like martial arts (wuxia), action, romance, and road movies. In addition to his longtime collaboration with Doyle, Wong has worked with Chinese film stars like Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Faye Wong, Andy Lau, Gong Li, and most significantly, Tong Leung Chiu-Wai.
Film scholar Gary Bettinson, whose work we will read in the course, refers to Wong’s filmmaking as sensuous, sumptuous, and complex, marked by narrative “disturbances.” Throughout the term, we will ask how these disturbances force us to question modernity, urbanity, and connection/longing/loneliness, as we seek new questions and methods to study Wong’s films. What insights might trans studies, ecocriticism, or new media studies tell us about Wong Kar-Wai’s films?
In the course, we will consider nearly all of Wong’s filmic output. In addition to In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express, we will study Happy Together, Ip Man, 2046, Days of Being Wild, As Tears Go By, Fallen Angels, My Blueberry Nights, and The Hand (short). We will contrast these films with examples of adjacent films, including Dumplings/Gau Ji (shot by Christopher Doyle), Once Upon a Time in China (directed by Tsui Hark), Rouge (starring Leslie Cheung), An Autumn’s Tale (directed by Mabel Cheung), and Moonlight (directed by Berry Jenkins).
Assignments:
Students will regularly practice formal visual analysis, both in oral and written form.
Two papers are required: 1) a shorter paper that close reads one scene or sequence from a Wong Kar-Wai film of the student’s choosing, and 2) a longer research paper on a topic related to Wong Kar-Wai’s filmmaking—his “universe”—in consultation with the instructor.
Ideally, students enrolling in the course should have some scholarly film training, whether in ENG, ACM, AMST, or another department. ENG 320 and other upper-division courses in theory are also strongly advised.