Jan. 26, Paola Iovene

Friday, January 26,  4:30 – 6:30 pm, CWAC 152 (Please note the room change from last quarter)

Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions in Romance on Lushan Mountain (1980)

Professor Paola Iovene

Associate Professor in Chinese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations , University of Chicago

Film still from Romance on Lushan Mountain (1980)

Considered “an iconic example of Chinese cinema from the Reform era,” Romance on Lushan Mountain (Lushan lian, 1980) was mostly shot on location in Autumn 1979. The gorgeous landscape of Lushan—its waterfalls and peaks enshrouded in clouds as well as its historical sites—underscores the growing affection between the protagonists and conveys a not-so-subtle vision of cultural nationalism in which love for the motherland and for ancient Chinese culture replaces party loyalty as markers of Chineseness in the early post-Mao era. This paper analyses the narrative function of recurrent shots of stone inscriptions, speculating on the significance of Chinese characters in cinema and on the concepts of landscape and location that emerge from this film.

Friday, January 26,  4:30 – 6:30 pm, CWAC 152

Persons with concerns regarding accessibility please contact Nancy P. Lin (nancyplin@uchicago.edu)

nancyplin

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *