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STRANGERS TO OURSELVES:
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Hsueh-jen Hsiung

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STRANGERS TO OURSELVES:
EXPLORATIONS OF SELF AND OTHERS WITH FEMINIST FILM THEORY

By

Hsueh-jen Hsiung

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Telecommunication

1 996

ABSTRACT

STRANGERS TO OURSELVES:
EXPLORATIONS OF SELF AND OTHERS WITH FEMINIST FILM THEORY

By

l-lsueh-jen Hsiung

The development of feminist ﬁlm movement and the characteristics of feminist ﬁlms
are brieﬂy reviewed in this project. Then, the formal strategies suggested by feminist
ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers are used to create a thirty-three-minute-long video in which a
female viewpoint of the experiences of female Taiwanese students as foreigners in the
United States is presented. In addition, this project is intended to examine the legitimacy
of a male creator in a feminist ﬁlm while women’s cinema is often deﬁned as a cinema
“by and for women.” However, after a focus group discussion of the video text, the
results suggest that this is not considered as a feminist ﬁlm and the presence of the

creator’s maleness in the video is recognized by the viewers.

To my beloved family...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank Dr. Gretchen Barbatsis for her total support to my creative
freedom in developing this project. In addition, I owe her a grateful thank for her help in
writing this thesis and her patience with my terrible English.

Secondly, I would like to thank my teacher Robert Albers for helping me to access the
equipment in the video studio.

Thirdly, I would like to thank my actresses Wan-yin, Yi-wen, Shu-lan and Wen-yin
for joining this project and helping me with patience. They did a great job. I also owe a
grateful thank to Pei-fen for allowing me to interview her and sharing her valuable
opinions with me.

Fourthly, I would like to thank my production crew I-lien, Tricia, Jeremy and Yi-wen
for their help.

Finally, I owe a grateful thank to all other Taiwanese students who have contributed

their efforts to this project. Thank you all!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURE ............................................................................................................ vi
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................. 4
Development of Feminist Films ................................................................................... 5
Women’s Movement ............................................................................................... 5
Independent Film Movement .................................................................................. 7
Academic Film Studies ........................................................................................... 8
Characteristic of Feminist Films ................................................................................ l3
Deconstructive ....................................................................................................... l 3
Feminine Writing ................................................................................................... 15
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 19
CHAPTER 3
DESIGN ........................................................................................................................... 20
Program Design .......................................................................................................... 20
Evaluation Design ....................................................................................................... 23
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS ........................................................................................................................ 26
Program Design .......................................................................................................... 26
Self-evaluation ............................................................................................................ 33
Group-evaluation ........................................................................................................ 39
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 43
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................. 45
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 51
APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................... 54

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure l - Description of Scenes ........................................................................................ 26

vi

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

To those who have been to and lived in a foreign country for a period of time, the
very ﬁrst experience of encountering a totally different culture and people must always
be thrilling and unforgettable. Besides all the excitements, novelty, and glamour, those
foreigners must experience something stirring under the skin for they are caught between
two different languages, two different cultures, and two different worlds for the ﬁrst time
in their lives. To some foreigners, the psychic effect and actual behavioral inﬂuence of
such an experience might be so subtle that they would not notice its existence at all.
However, to others, such an experience might have so much impact on them that they
can not cope with it accordingly and it could leave more inﬂuences on their later lives
than they would have expected.

Having been in the United States for almost three years as a foreign student myself, I
have experienced a signiﬁcant change in me and my view of the world. I have also
noticed that a lot of my fellow countrymen have gone through similar changes.

Although each case is unique, I still think there is something related among their
experiences and mine. So when I was in search of a topic for my thesis, I decided to
look into the lives of my fellow countrymen and try to use video as a medium to

represent my interpretations of their lives.

When ﬁrst looking for an explanation of foreigners’ symptoms, the term “culture
shock” came in my mind. “Culture shock” does explain some aspects of foreigners’
experiences, especially when they just arrive in a new country and try to adjust
themselves to the new environment. It seems to me, however, that “culture shock”
theory focuses more on the pathology of foreigners’ symptoms and how foreigners can
help themselves to make a smooth transition to the world.

My interest is more focused on the psychology of the foreigners and the implications
of such an experience of being away from the home land on their later lives, which Julia
Kristeva describes in “Strangers to Ourselves.” The author deals with the history status
and psychology of the foreigners among us/ within us. In the “Toccata and Fugue for
the foreigner,” the ﬁrst section of nine making up her text, she probes a polyphony of
foreigners’ voices as they ﬂee and chase and touch one another. And she also dwells on
the foreigner’s position between languages, a negative space marked by not speaking
one’s mother tongue. Although Kristeva does not address the differences of race, class,
and gender, her response to both the internal and external manifestation of “otherness”
does account for my own experience and observations as a foreigner in the United
States.

Taking Kristeva’s text as a point of departure, I have created a video text which
probes the foreigner’s position-- foreignness, otherness, and a negative space between
languages. However, I do not intend to use this project to suggest the universality of a
foreigner’s position regardless of differences of race, class, and gender. So I decided to

choose a relatively small and highly homogeneous group of people, female Taiwanese

students, as my main subjects and focus on their lives in the United Stated as my main
concerns. By doing so, I explore differences among their experiences and probe a
polyphony of their voices while such a selection of samples may suggest a lot of
similarities among them. But how can I proceed from there? How can I represent the
aforesaid ideas in this video project? And what kind of techniques should I use?
Feminist ﬁlm theory informs my approach to the subject. Techniques suggested by
feminist ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers present the female point of view, and the foreigner’s
position» foreignness, otherness, and a negative space between languages» is the ﬁrst
thing to be portrayed. I brieﬂy review the history of contemporary feminist ﬁlm
movement and the characteristics of feminist ﬁlm theory. Then, by using the techniques
suggested by feminist ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers, I create a video text which aims at
presenting the female viewpoint of the experiences of female Taiwanese students as
foreigners in the United States. In the end, I will examine the effectiveness of the
aforesaid attempt and the legitimacy of a male creator in a proclaimed feminist work. I

use a self-evaluation and a group-evaluation by female Taiwanese students.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, ﬁrst, I will ﬁrst brieﬂy review the history and context of
contemporary feminist ﬁlm movement and the development of feminist ﬁlm theory.
Then I will characterize recent women’s cinema and specify particular techniques
deployed by those ﬁlmmakers and explain why their ﬁlm practices are considered as
feminist by many feminist ﬁlm critics.

Actually long before the contemporary feminist ﬁlm movement , there were several
pro-suffrage ﬁlms produced by some prominent feminists during 1912 and 1914.1 These
ﬁlms were attempts to educate and persuade the expanding movie-going public of the
suffragist’s normalcy and of their just demands. And early suffragists made explicitly
political, ﬁctionalized ﬁlms which followed the traditional melodramatic ﬁlm structure
of the period. By the 19203 the structure of the movie industry had changed
considerably from the pre-war period. The movie industry quickly became an enormous
enterprise in which power was highly centralized and resources were tightly controlled.
So it was no longer possible for outsiders to produce and contribute movies as suffragists

and others had occasionally done before the war.

 

' Jan Rosenberg, Women ’5 Reﬂections: The Feminist Film Movement. Ann Arbor MI, UMI Research
Press (I979), p.1-24.

It was not until late 19603 that contemporary feminist ﬁlm movement began to
surface and the development of feminist ﬁlm theory and criticism was initiated.
According to Judith Mayne, the development of feminist ﬁlm theory and practice was
shaped by three major phenomena of the late 19603 and early 19703; the women’s
movement, an independent ﬁlm movement, and academic ﬁlm studies.2 In the following
section, I will brieﬂy describe how each force contributes to the development of feminist

ﬁlm theory and practice.

Development of Feminist films

ﬂamenlsmoxemem

Since the 19503, women groups have included the media in their overall criticism of
economic, political, and social institutions of American society. To contemporary
feminists the images of women and of men in the media, the impact of the images, and
the stereotypes on female identity was a central component in the persuasion of sexism.

Since the 19603, however, feminists have been divided on propositions toward the
prescription for the media.3 One main branch of the women’s movement is the women’s
rights perspective (the “older” branch) which grew out of the mainstream politics of the
President’s Commission on the Status of Women (established by President Kennedy in
1961) and the State Commissions, formed in the wake of the National Commission. The
women’s rights branch has focused primarily on the images of women and the status of

women workers in mainstream television, advertising, and the movies. But, due to its

 

2 Judith Mayne, “Feminist Film Theory and Criticism,” Signs | I, no. I ( I985), p.81-100.
3 See note 1.

mainstream tendency and orientation, the women’s rights perspective directed its media
efforts at changes within the dominant institutions. It focused on examining and
criticizing television, advertising, and the movies for how they present the images of
women and treat the employment problem of women within the media industry. Also,
the rights group went on try to reform the sexist practices and ideology which they
uncovered.

Another main branch of the women’s movement is called the women’s liberation
perspective (the “younger” branch), whose members received their political socialization
and training in the protest movements of the sixties- the civil rights, new leﬁ, and anti-
war movement. In style and strategy, the liberationists criticized mass culture but rather
than trying to reform it from within they tried to create alternative forms to challenge
and replace it. The women’s liberationists poured a lot of energy into producing their
own, separate alternative media, mainly newspapers, magazines, and ﬁlms. As far as
ﬁlm production is concerned, they acquired the knowledge and experience from non-
Hollywood, “homemade ﬁlm,” both in the underground ﬁlm movement that took root on
the campus in the sixties and through ﬁlmmaking skill which were more widely taught
on college campuses in the sixties than ever before. Although early feminist ﬁlmmakers
in the younger branch of women’s movement worked independently and initially did not
know each other’s projects, they were united by shared political understanding of their
ﬁlm projects. And all of the initial ﬁlmmakers had been in women’s consciousness

raising groups, an experience which was central to the development of their ﬁlms. The

crucial point is that the early ﬁlmmakers were moved primarily by social and political,
not aesthetic impulses.
Independentﬁlmmmmem
There has been a long tradition of the independent ﬁlmmaking in America since the

turn of the century. However, since the movie industry became an enormous enterprise
in which power was highly centralized and resources were tightly controlled by the

twenties, early political activists and others who wished to make movies had to work
- outside of, and in opposition to, the new establishment. They could not afford the most
up-to-date ﬁlmmaking equipment and could not exhibit their ﬁlms in regular movie
theaters. Furthermore, as time went on, technological changes accompanying the
introduction of sound ﬁlms led to further consolidation of power and control within a
few major Hollywood studios, making individual experimentation and independent
ﬁlmmaking much more difﬁcult. Also, there was a time when the political climate, the
period of McCarthyism, made such independent ﬁlmmaking, often time politically
opposed to the mainstream ideologies, much harder. Even though facing such
difﬁculties, several groups or organizations such as the Workers’ Film and Photo League
during the late 19203 and Frontier ﬁlms during the 303 and 403 managed to survive and
make their own political ﬁlms. Explicitly left-wing and left-leaning groups viewed their
ﬁlms as vehicles for political organizing and consciousness raising and tried to use the
progressive documentary form inspired by the legendary practice and promise of the

soviet ﬁlm industry to replace the dominant cinematic conventions of ﬁction ﬁlms.

After the setback during McCarthyism in the 19503, political ﬁlmmaking reached its
most active peak in America in the 603. Development of new, lightweight, relatively
inexpensive cameras and synchronized tape recorders during World War Two created
the preconditions for a critical political ﬁlm movement. Also, in the early 19603, cinéma
ve'rité emerged as a new ﬁlm aesthetic in America. By rejecting many traditional
documentary techniques, such as artiﬁcial sets, scripts, and dramatic structures,
ﬁlmmakers tried to use “cinéma ve'rité” ﬁlm techniques to “capture life.”

Newsreel, a new left ﬁlmmaking and distribution collective, was the single most
important group involved in making political ﬁlms in the late 19603. Newsreel tried to
ﬂee the control that giant media power had on people’s imaginations and political
consciousness. For those early feminist ﬁlmmakers who had been in the movement and
especially in Newsreel, this experience provided necessary directions as well as aesthetic
orientation for early feminist ﬁlms.

Aeademieﬁhnsludies

If the ﬁrst two phenomena set up a more political agenda for the feminist ﬁlm
movement and theory, then academic ﬁlm studies stressed a more theoretical agenda--
not necessarily apolitical, but certainly not political in the same way.“ From the outset,
the women’s movement had made clear that stereotyped images of women represented
in patriarchal culture were the target for critique, and should be replaced by “positive”
images offered by feminist ﬁlmmakers. Then, for those who were involved in feminist

ﬁlm criticism, it was a clear agenda to demystify the mechanism behind the powerful

 

4 See note 2.

cinema of Hollywood “dream factory” which was thought by feminist to reinforce the
patriarchal ideologies. Furthermore, they tried to envision a new way of representing
“positive” images of women in women’s cinema by which they could help to bring
about changes in society.

Since interest in academic ﬁlm studies revived at the same time that literary
semioticians were testing the linguistic paradigm against other non-linguistic forms,
such as ﬁlm, “interdisciplinary” studies were simultaneously becoming more important
within the university. And the British journal Screen, one of the journals concerning
feminist ﬁlm criticism, was the most important testing ground for the methodologies that
had shaped contemporary ﬁlm theory: semiotics, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.

At ﬁrst, feminist ﬁlm critics started with the textual analysis on Hollywood classical
cinema to demonstrate that “women as women” were not represented in the cinema, they
did not have a voice, and the female point of view was not heard. Also, more early
feminist works tried to demonstrate how the stereotyped images of women were used as
a fetishistic object for men’s desire, and as a sign in a male-dominated cinema to sustain
the patriarchal ideologies. Such efforts to attack the Hollywood “dream factory”
corresponded with the early feminist ﬁlms in which realist ﬁlm techniques were used to
represent “positive” images of women. Later, feminist ﬁlm critics turned their attention
to the formal mechanism and meaning production of “realism” which was primarily used
in classical Hollywood cinema because they believed that sexist images of women can
not be understood or changed for progressive ones without considering how the

operations of narrative, genre, lighting, mise en scene, etc. work to construct such

10

images and their meanings. Realist ﬁlm strategies, regarded as a signifying system by

ﬁlm critics, were also criticized; critics argued that5

o cinematic realism perpetuates illusionism by showing what is on the screen is a
decoded reﬂection of the “real world.” Through the innocent camera, cinematic
realism seems to capture “real life,” but, in fact, it just creates a credible and coherent
cinematic world in which the signiﬁed and the signiﬁer can hardly be separated.

o Cinematic realism produces suturing which smoothes over possible contradictions,
incoherences, and eruptions that might reﬂect a reality far less ordered, coherent, or
continuous.

o By using realist strategies of camera, sound, editing, mise en scene, cinematic
realism conceals the production of meaning production in which the spectator is
engaged. It means the spectator is seldom actually aware in watching a ﬁlm that she
or he is making meanings.

o The spectator-text relations characteristic of realist representations position their
reading subjects as unitary and non-contradictory, and thus as passive and incapable
of intervention in the signiﬁcation process.

In the early stage, contemporary feminist ﬁlmmakers employed realist strategies and
cine’ma vérité for ready use and political emergency to produce feminist ﬁlms which

were aimed at promoting consciousness-raising and “positive” images of women, but,

 

5 E. Ann Kaplan, “Theories and Strategies of the Feminist Documentary,” Millennium Film Journal, no.
12 (Fall/Winter 1982-83). Also see Christine Gledhill, “Recent Development in Feminist Criticism,”
Quarterly Review of Film Studies 3, no. 4 (Fall 1978). and Annette Kuhn, Women '3 Pictures: Feminism
and Cinema. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1982), p.15 1-71. and Julia Lesage, “The Political
Aesthetics of the Feminist Documentary Film,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 3, no. 4 (Fall 1978).

ll

later, many feminist ﬁlm critics argued that there existed several limitations and
problems for feminist ﬁlmmakers’ recourse to “cinematic realism.”

First, they argued that cinéma vérité, or the “cinema of non-intervention” does not
break the illusion of realism. By means of innocent camera, vérité ﬁlmmakers tried to
capture “truth” and “reality” on celluloid, but they failed to realize that a ﬁlmmaker is
not dealing with reality, but with the pro-ﬁlmic event which is coded ﬁrst in the
infrastructure of the social formation and secondly by the superstructure of politics and
ideology. And, also by suturing, the way of narration in those early feminist ﬁlms
produces a syntagmatic ﬂow of event, an easy diachronic progression, a cinematic world
which might not reﬂect a reality far less ordered, coherent, or continuous.

Secondly, the concerns about women’s realist ﬁlms can be summarized by the charge
of essentialism. At ﬁrst, feminist ﬁlmmakers tried to claim a speciﬁc female power
which would ﬁnd expression if allowed to be explored freely. They sought to reinforce
satisfaction in being a woman, especially as the culture did the opposite. They wanted to
encourage solidarity among women through emotional appeal. However, such
approaches to realist strategies harbor a danger of not taking into account the social
construction involved in femininity.

Several feminist ﬁlm critics, including Laura Mulvey, Pam Cook, and Claire
Johnston, also used Lacan’s psychoanalysis to further analyze women’s place in
traditional narrative ﬁlms. They argued that the female is constructed as image,
spectacle, and passive icon for gaze, to be looked at. At the same time, the male is

constructed as the bearer of the look and has an active role in forwarding the story in the

12

mechanisms of visual pleasure of classical ﬁlm text.‘5 Furthermore, by using Lacan’s
adaptation of Freud’s theory of the oedipal complex, feminist ﬁlm critics argued that the
female is only constructed as the castrated or the “other,” an empty sign in the symbolic
world dominated by the law of Father. In addition, in the signifying system of the
classical ﬁlm text, woman is spoken; she does not speak.

Accordingly, many feminist ﬁlm critics argued, as Claire Johnston put it, that
women’s cinema must be a counter-cinema. They argued that only counter-cinema can
work against the institutional practices of dominant cinema, usually at the levels of both
form and content, and challenge audiences’ expectations and assumptions about life.
Counter-cinema means that feminist ﬁlmmakers should use either non-realist or anti-
realist strategies to create a new women’s cinema which can deconstruct and challenge
patriarchal ideologies in dominant Hollywood cinema.

In the mid-seventies, Johnston, Mulvey and Wollen in Britain began to develop a new
feminist avant-garde. While it drew on earlier perspectives (Russian formalism, Brecht,
surrealism, and the recent counter-cinema directors like Godard and Duras), it was new
in its particular combination of semiology, structuralism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis.
This new women’s cinema by Johnston, Mulvey and Wollen was characterized as theory
ﬁlms for they were informed directly by the theories. Besides the theory ﬁlms, during
the same period of time, there were other alternative ﬁlm practices which were not

arisen, in any immediate or determined sense, from the theories, but were regarded by

 

6 See Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975). and
“Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ Inspired by Duel in the Sun.” Framework, no.
10 (Spring 1979), p. 3-10. Also see Pam Cook and Claire Johnston, “The Place of Women in the Cinema
of Raoul Walsh.” Edinburgh Film Festival Publication ( 1974) and Claire Johnston, “Dorothy Arzner:
Critical Strategies.” The Work of Dorothy Arzner, British Film Institute Publication (1975).

l3

feminist ﬁlm critics as of relevance to feminism and the assumptions of feminist
counter-cinema. Anyway, all these feminist ﬁlms, theory ﬁlms and alternative ﬁlm
practices, were considered as important to the development of feminist ﬁlms.
Although each theory ﬁlm and alternative ﬁlm practice of women’s cinema reﬂects
each creator’s interest, they also share some common characteristics. According to
Annette Kuhn, all these feminist ﬁlms roughly fall into categories of “deconstruction”

. . . . 7
and “femmme writing.”

Characteristics of Feminist Films

Deconstnietion

As the term suggests, “deconstruction” means ﬁlms work by a process of breaking
down. Deconstructive cinema is aimed at breaking down the textual operations and
modes of address characteristic of dominant cinema to provoke spectators into
awareness of the actual existence and effectiveness of dominant codes, and consequently
to engender a critical attitude toward these codes. Deconstructive cinema anticipates a
transformation in spectator-text relations from the passive receptivity or unthinking
suspension of disbelief fostered by dominant modes of address to a more active and
questioning position. However, deconstructive cinema is not simply deﬁned by its
formal strategies. The distinguishing mark of deconstructive cinema, as against other
non-dominant or anti-dominant forms, is its recruitment of the spectator’s active relation

to the signiﬁcation process for certain signiﬁeds, or areas of substantive concern. And

 

7 Annette Kuhn, Women ’3 Picture; Feminism and Cinema. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1982),
p. 151-7].

14

as far as feminism is concerned, it points to the ﬁlms which engage the current
problems, the real issues, the things actually at stake in feminist communities. Then,
deconstructive cinema may be deﬁned by its articulation of oppositional forms with
oppositional contents. And only when deconstructive cinema deﬁnes itself in relation to
dominant cinema, it exerts its most power from the deconstructive strategies.

For those feminist ﬁlms which fall this category, their formal strategies share

following characteristic in common.

0 They draw attention to the cinematic process and break the illusion that we are

watching not a ﬁlm, but “reality.”

0 They refuse to construct a ﬁxed spectator, but try to create a multiplicity of
spectator-text relationship which would make him or her to be actively involved in
the processes of the ﬁlm, rather than be passively captured by it.

0 They try to replace the pleasure that usually comes from the manipulation of our
emotions (particular around the oedipal complex in the case of the commercial
cinema-- the narrative relies on identiﬁcation, eruption, resolution, and completion)
with pleasure in learning (cognitive processes.)

The following are the deconstructive strategies frequently employed by ﬁlmmakers to

achieve the above objectives.

0 intercutting among different kinds of discourse (or genre) such as documentary,

docu-drama, and drama

0 narrative interruption and fragmentation

15

E .. ..

Compared with “deconstructive cinema” which mainly aims at challenging the
signifying practices of dominant cinema along with its accompanying dominant
ideologies, “feminine writing” refers to those ﬁlms which are more focused on probing
the possibility of a speciﬁcally feminine or feminist language for their creators are
convinced that in a sexist society women have no language of their own and therefore
are alienated from the dominant forms of expression. But the distinction between the
deconstruction of existing forms of representation and the creation of new ones is, to
some extent, one of degree rather of kind. And in any case, in a situation where certain
forms of representation are culturally dominant, alternative forms will always tend to be
constructed as a challenge to dominant forms.

However, the deﬁnition of and the approaches toward a speciﬁcally feminine or
feminist language are still far from reaching any consensus. Conversely, through the
efforts by different female ﬁlmmakers, the territory explored for a new language keeps
expanding and the approaches employed by them become more diversiﬁed, although
hard to be easily generalized. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily mean that they will
contradict one another, but only enhance the possibility of a speciﬁcally feminine
language on the behalf of feminist politics.

The following are two early, critically acclaimed works in which “feminine voice”
speaks through several speciﬁc areas, such as relations of looking, narrativity and
narrative discourse, subjectivity and autobiography, ﬁction as against non-ﬁction, and

openness as against closure. Each ﬁlm would be given with a short description of

16

content and, particularly, formal strategies by which these ﬁlms are considered by
feminist ﬁlm critics to hold out the possibility of a feminine language for women’s
cinema.
Lives of Performers [Yvonne Rainer, USA, 1972]

Lives of Performers, which is subtitled “a melodrama,” is a reworking of the
conventions of popular narrative genres, like those of the “backstage romance.” In
thirteen long sequences, it tells the story of the relationships between a man and two

women, a triangle. The following are the characteristics of formal strategies employed

in this ﬁlm.

0 The interpenetration of ﬁctional and non-ﬁctional worlds and lack of narrative
closure set up a radical heterogeneity in spectator-text relations and ﬁnally refuse
any space of unitary subjectivity for the spectator.

O The plot proceeds by ellipsis and accretion. The accretions (like a single long take
with virtually static camera) allow the spectator to have the option of pleasurable and
open-ended contemplation of an image which constructs no particularly privileged
viewpoint. The ellipses offer the possibility of a more active pleasure of piecing

together fragments of the story-- like working on puzzle.
0 This ﬁlm is told with so many asides by creator herself and characters that this

heterogeneous narrative voice makes identiﬁcation with characters in the classical

cinema impossible.

l7

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quaidu Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, Belgium

1975]

This ﬁlm is a chronicle of three days in the life of Brussels house wife, a widow and
mother who is also a prostitute.8 In this ﬁlm Akennan scrutinizes housework in a
language appropriate to the activity itself, showing a woman’s activities in the home in
real time to communicate the alienation of woman in the nuclear family under European
post-war economic conditions. More than three hours in length and nearly without any
dialogue, the ﬁlm records Jeanne Dielrnan’s breakdown through a minute observation of
her performance of household routines and a daily visit from a man- a different one each
day, at ﬁrst systematic and unvarying, later increasingly disarranged, until by the end of
ﬁlm she permanently disrupts the patriarchal order by murdering her third client. The
following are the characteristics of formal strategies employed in the ﬁlm.

0 This ﬁlm is photographed at medium distance from its subject with static camera
mounted at ﬁve feet from the ground. And there are no reverse shots, match cuts,
cut-ins, or close-ups, and point of view shots maintain a relentless distance from the
action. Often times, it is just a single long take.

0 In the director’s own words, the relatively low mounting of camera corresponds with

her own height and thus constructs a “women’s-eye-view” on the action.
0 Akerrnan’s decision to employ only medium and long shots also stems from a
feminist critique: the decision to free her character from the exploitation of a zoom

lens and to grant her an integrity of private space usually denied in close-ups, thereby

 

8 Also see Teresa de Lauretis, “Rethinking Women’s cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory.” New
German Critique 34(Winter 1985).

18

also freeing the audience from the insensitivity of a camera barreling in to
magnifying a woman’s emotional crisis.

0 The refusal of reverse shots in the ﬁlm entails a denial of the “binding-in” effect of
the suture of classic cinema: the spectator is forced to maintain a distance in relation
to both narrative and image, constructing the story and building up narrative
expectations for herself.

Besides the characteristics found in these two ﬁlms, Kaja Silvennan examines several
feminist ﬁlms and points out that a good deal of feminist ﬁlmmaking has focused
attention on the female voice, especially the dis-embodied, off-screen voice.9 By
dislocating voice from image, these ﬁlms employ different techniques to examine
relations between female voice and female body and to construct a new female
subjectivity in women’s cinema.

However, as I mentioned before, there is no consensus whatsoever on the deﬁnition
and techniques of or the approaches to women’s cinema by feminist ﬁlm critics and
ﬁlmmakers.10 Further, since the 803, issues such as lesbianism, class, and race have
been brought into the discussions of women’s cinema, further complicating a deﬁnition
of “femininity” in the representations of women’s cinema. At the same time, more
radical experiments in women’s cinema are questioned by some feminist ﬁlm critics

who suggest that avant-garde techniques alienate women viewers. Accordingly, these

 

9 Kaja Silvennan, “Dis-Embodying the Female Voice.” Re- Vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism, ed.
Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp, and Linda Williams (Frederick, Md: University Publication of
America, Inc., in association with American Film Institute, 1984.)

'0 See Teresa de Lauretis, “Guerrilla in the Midst: Women’s Cinema in the 803.” Screen 31, no. 1 (Spring
1990), p.6-25.

l9

feminist ﬁlm critics encourage conventional forms as important to reaching ordinary

women viewers.

Summary

A contemporary feminist ﬁlm movement has developed dramatically since the late
19603. With collective efforts from feminist ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers, women’s
cinema has ﬂourished in terms of quantity and quality. Also, feminist ﬁlms have
transformed from basically a documentary style, which was used to serve the purposes
of consciousness-raising and political intervention, to a wide range of formal
experiments which more reﬂect feminist interests in and concerns with ﬁhn aesthetics as
well as effectiveness of formal strategies. Despite the diversiﬁed ﬁlm practices by
various feminist ﬁlmmakers and the unsettled debates by feminist ﬁlm critics about the
deﬁnition of “femininity” involved with feminist ﬁlms, all the efforts by feminist ﬁlm
critics and ﬁlmmakers to develop a new women’s cinema can be generalized into three
characteristics. First, in form, they were prone to employ alternative formal strategies
other than realist ﬁlm strategies which are usually used in dominant Hollywood cinema.
Furthermore, they tried to create a new ﬁlm language of their own, a speciﬁcally
feminine or feminist ﬁlm language. Secondly, in content, they tried to include current
issues and important problems concerning feminist communities in their ﬁlms. Finally,
in result, they hoped that all these feminist ﬁlm projects can bring about changes

concerning women’s status in society as well as on the screen.

Chapter 3

DESIGN

Women’s cinema is arguably deﬁned as a cinema by and for women. Accordingly,
this project aims at creating a video text in which the techniques suggested by feminist
ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers are applied to present female point of view of the
experiences of female Taiwanese students as foreigners in the United States and to
examine the legitimacy of a male creator in a feminist project. Female Taiwanese
students are the foremost target audience, though, anyone who is around or related to
female Taiwanese students can be included as a focus of the experiences.

The project design is divided into two parts: program design and evaluation design.
In program design, I delineate what formal strategies I borrow from feminist ﬁlm theory
to achieve the desired objectives. In evaluation design, I describe howl evaluate the

creative process and the effectiveness of the ﬁnal product.

Program design

The main subjects of this project are female Taiwanese students. The theme focuses

on different aspects of their lives in the United States.

20

21

First, I take several ideas from Julia Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselvesll in which the
author deals with the history status and psychology of the foreigners among us/within
us. In the “Toccata and Fugue for the foreigner,” the ﬁrst section of nine making up her
text, she probes a polyphony of foreigners’ voices as they ﬂee and chase and touch one
another. Based on her own experience of being a foreigner in France for many years,
she dwells on the foreigner’s position between languages, a negative space marked by
not speaking one’s mother tongue. The following are the ideas I take from Kristeva’s
text and use in this program design.

0 foreignness

o otherness

o alienation

o a dark space between languages
0 a polyphony of foreigners' voices

So the content reﬂects a multiplicity of subjectivity concerning female Taiwanese
students as foreigners to represent fragmented, alienated, and temporal moments of lives
of different female Taiwanese students who are situated between two languages, two
cultures, and two worlds.

With basic areas and direction of concerns in content ﬁnalized, formal strategies are
taken into consideration for further program design. The prominent characteristics of
formal strategies I take from feminist ﬁlm theory is that they all work against realist ﬁlm

strategies which are used in dominant Hollywood cinema. As I mentioned in Chapter 2,

 

” Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press (1991), p. 1-40.

22

feminist ﬁlm critics argued that cinematic Realism perpetuates illusionism by showing

what is on the screen as a decoded reﬂection of the “real world.” They argued that

cinematic Realism produces suturing which smoothes over possible contradictions,

incoherences, and eruptions that might reﬂect a reality far less ordered, coherent, or

continuous. Furthermore, cinematic Realism conceals the process of meaning

production and positions the reading subject as passive and incapable of intervention in

the signiﬁcation process. Accordingly, feminist ﬁlm critics argue that cinematic

Realism needs to be challenged and replaced by alternative formal strategies, maybe a

speciﬁcally feminine or feminist ﬁlm language, for the success of feminist ﬁlms. The

following are the formal strategies I take from feminist ﬁlm theory:

namtimfragmentationandjntermntign: used to force the viewer to piece together

the fragments of a story and to be an active meaning constructor rather than a passive
message receiver in the process of signiﬁcation of the text
WWW such as ﬁction, interview,
documentary footages, monologue, dramatizations of ﬁction accounts: used to l)
evoke distanciation which denies the identiﬁcation involvement of the viewer with
the text and a critical attitude which rejects passive receptivity and disbelief of the
viewer; 2) force the viewer to engage in a constantly shifting and transforming
spectator-text relationship (or viewing subject position) and to be an active meaning
constructor; 3) reveal the video text itself as a creation of meaning and a set of signs
asynchronous sound (disembodied, off-screen voice): used to force the viewer to cast

attention to and ponder on the relationship between sound and image

23

o W such as color as against black & white (image,)
Mandarin as against English (speaking language,) still as against moving (image):
used to disorient the viewer and force the viewer to ponder on the content as well as

the ways of expression

Evaluation design

The purpose of the evaluation design is to assess the creative process and the
effectiveness of the ﬁnished video text. It is divided into two sections: self-evaluation
and group-evaluation.

Self-evaluation focuses on my personal record of the whole creative process: from
how I came up the idea of this project, how I approached this project, how I came to the
decision to use feminist ﬁlm theory as my methodology, and how I ﬁnalized my script,
to howl executed the production.

The group.evaluation focuses on how the selected group of viewers, female
Taiwanese students, respond to the ﬁnished video program. A focus group discussion
was used to generate this information after the viewing. Six questions were used to
stimulate the discussion between the viewers and the creator and to assess the
effectiveness of the ﬁnished program in achieving the objectives set for this project.

As I mentioned in the introduction chapter, the main objective of this video project is
to employ the formal strategies suggested by feminist ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers to

portray female viewpoint of the experiences of female Taiwanese students as foreigners

24

in the United States. Also, this project is intended to investigate the legitimacy of a male
creator in a proclaimed feminist work.
Then the following are the six designed questions and the explanations of how each
question was designed to gather information regarding the objectives of this project.
0 What’s your ﬁrst impression, reaction, or feeling after viewing this video?: used
to get general information regarding the instant response of each viewer to the video
0 Does it relate to your own experience in the United States? If not, why? If yes,
how?: used to understand how this video relate to the personal experience of each
viewer
0 Does it portray the experiences of female Taiwanese students in the United
States from female point of view?: used to examine the effectiveness of this video
in presenting female point of view
0 What do you think about this video in terms of formal strategies?: used to assess
the viewer’s opinion regarding the formal strategies I used in this video
0 Does it relate to feminism or feminist aesthetics, in any sense, by your own
understanding?: used to assess whether this video qualify as feminist work by
viewer’s opinion
0 Does the fact that the creator of this “proclaimed” feminist video project is male
bother you or change your whole perception of this project?: used to assess the

legitimacy of a male creator in a proclaimed feminist video project

25

Summary

In program design, Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves regarding the psychology of
foreigners provided several important ideas such as foreignness, otherness, a dark
space between languages and a polyphony of foreigners’ voices for the development
of content. Then, the formal strategies, such as narrative fragmentation and
interruption, interpenetration among different kinds of discourse, and
asynchronous sound, which I took from feminist ﬁlm theory were central to the
program design. They provided most of designed effects I wanted viewers to experience
in viewing this video. In evaluation design, self-evaluation and group~evaluation were
created respectively to record how the creator proceeded in the creative process and to
assess the effectiveness of the ﬁnished program in achieving the objectives set for this

project through a list of designed questions for a focus group discussion.

Chapter 4

RESULTS

This chapter discusses the program design, and presents results of self and group
evaluations. The program, being the essence of this creative work, is discussed at
length. Then self-evaluation focuses on the creator’s personal note of the whole creative

process. Finally, a summarized record of a focus group discussion is presented.

Program design
Stranger to Ourselves is 33 minutes in length and consists of thirteen long scenes.
Each scene is shortly described in terms of content, discourse, image and speaking

language in Figure 1.

Figure 1- Description of scenes (also see Appendix)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scene Title Description Discourse Image Language
1 Railroad Frank walks along the railway tracks; he leaves a Narrative Color Mandarin
message on Jan’s answer machine
2 Airport Yi-lin and Pei-wen are waiting for Jan in the lobby Narrative Color Mandarin
3 Taipei A female Taiwanese student recounts her feelings Monologue B&W English
Impressions during her stay in Taipei
4 Airport Yi-lin and Pei-wen are waiting for Jan, and then Narrative Color Mandarin
Jan arrives
5 Lansing Streets Yi-Iin chats with Jan about the decision whether Narrative B&W Mandarin
(Pei-wen’s Car) America is a place to stay or not

 

 

 

 

 

 

26

 

Figure 1 (continued)

27

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 Interview A female Taiwanese is interviewed about her Interview B&W English
personal opinion regardirLChina’s military threat
7 Railroad Side Jan, Yi-lin and Pei-wen are staying by the railway Narrative Color None
tracks where Frank had killed himself
8 Story A female Taiwanese student recounts her breakup Testimony B&W English
with her ﬁrst love
9 Frank’s Jan stays at Frank’s apartment alone and Narrative Color English,
Apartment accidentally overhears the quarrel between Yi-Iin Mandarin
and Je-ming
10 Yi-lin and Pei- Pei-wen overhears the quarrel between Yi-lin and ’ Narrative Color Mandarin
wen’s Apartment Je-ming, and then she’s got a call from her friend
11 Lansing Streets Jan is wandering around the city of Lansing Narrative Color Mandarin
(Frank’s Car)
11A Memories Drarnatization of the breakup and quarrel between Dramatized B&W English
Jan and Frank ﬁction
accounts
”8 Lansing Streets Jan recounts her breakup with Frank while she is Narrative Color Mandarin
sitting on the side of road
12 Yi-lin Yi-lin explains how she found out what happened Narrative Color, English
between Jan and Frank B&W
13 Pei-wen and Yi- Jan, Yi-lin and Pei-wen are watching the videotape Narrative Color None

 

lin‘s Apartment

 

which Frank gave to Jan

 

 

 

 

Then, the program is discussed in terms of content and formal strategies.

Content:

In content, the program consists of a ﬁction narrative, a monologue “Taipei

impressions,” an interview with documentary footage and a testimony “A love story.”

The ﬁction narrative which consists of ten scenes and runs through the whole video

serves as a backbone of the work. It opens with a suspicious suicide of a male

 

28

Taiwanese student named Frank. Before his death he asks his ex-ﬁancee Jan to come
back to East Lansing to take care of the aftermath. Then Jan comes back to East Lansing
as Frank wished and meets with her old friend Yi-lin and a newcomer named Pei-wen.
As Jan re-visits East Lansing where everything is no longer the same, she ﬁnds out Yi-
lin is going to break up with her boyﬁiend Je-ming and also re-discovers her relationship
with Frank in the past. But Jan assures herself once more that her breakup with Frank is
the only thing she could and should do.

The monologue “Taipei impressions” with a montage of still images is about a female
Taiwanese student who expresses her feelings as she ﬁrst went back to Taiwan. The
interview with documentary footage is about the personal reactions of a female
Taiwanese student toward China’s military threat against Taiwan. Finally, the testimony
“A love story” is about a female Taiwanese student who recounts her breakup with her
ﬁrst lover.

Formal strategies:

The program is discussed according to the design of formal strategies in Chapter 3.
WWII: The ﬁction narrative is a central part of the
program and runs through the program from the beginning to the end. However, the
narrative needs to be inserted by three other parts, a monologue, an interview, and a
testimony, to create the effect of narrative fragmentation and interruption.

In the scenic sequence from scene 2 to scene 4, the ﬁction narrative ﬁrst proceeds in
the airport lobby where Yi-lin and Pei-wen are waiting for Jan. In the meantime, Yi-lin

is thinking about her ﬁght with Je-ming and Pei-wen seems to be bothered by Frank’s

29

suicide. Then, scene 2 fades into scene 3 “Taipei impressions” in which a female
Taiwanese student express her feelings as she went back to Taiwan for the ﬁrst time
after leaving home. After scene 3, the program goes back to the narrative which
continues with scene 4 in the airport lobby. The narrative proceeds as Pei-wen is
wondering about Frank’s suicide and his relationship with Jan. So, for the ﬁrst time,
between scene 2 and scene 4, the ﬁction narrative is inserted with a seemingly irrelevant
and independent scene. A gap in the narrative is created to allow the viewer to bridge
the narrative and contemplate the content of the monologue With regard to the narrative.
In the scenic sequence from scene 5 to 9, the narrative proceeds in the city of
Lansing. Yi-lin chats with Jan about the decision of whether the United States is a place
to stay or not when they drive through the city of Lansing. Then scene 5 fades into
scene 6 in which a female Taiwanese student is interviewed about her personal opinion
regarding China’s military threat against Taiwan and her participation in a rally. In this
long scene, documentary footage and two chyron pages are incorporated into the
interview. Then it fades into scene 7 “Died in a strange land” in which the narrative
resumes again at the railway tracks where Frank had killed himself. In scene 7, Jan, Yi-
lin and Pei-wen are staying by the railway tracks without saying any words. After scene
7, it fades into scene 8 “A love story” in which a female Taiwanese student recounts her
breakup with her ﬁrst boyfriend. Then the narrative resumes in scene 9 “A message” in
which Jan stays at Frank’s apartment alone and accidentally overhears the quarrel
between Yi-lin and Je—ming. So in this scenic sequence the narrative is inserted twice

with seemingly irrelevant and independent scenes. Two consequent gaps are created to

30

interrupt the narrative and to force the viewer to bridge the fragmented narrative. All
gaps are designed to allow viewers to be active meaning constructors.

These designs of narrative fragmentation and interruption depend on the narrative
ﬂow. Whenever it runs smoothly and well, it needs to be cut off and then resumed
again.

Was: As I mentioned earlier, the
program consists of a ﬁction narrative, an interview with documentary footage, a
monologue with a montage of still images, and a testimony. Each of these four different
formats can be considered as a speciﬁc discourse. In addition, the technique of
dramatization of ﬁction accounts used in scene 11A can be considered a speciﬁc
discourse. All together, these ﬁve kinds of discourse are used to evoke distanciation
which denies identiﬁcation involvement of the viewerwith the text and a critical
attitude which rejects passive receptivity and disbelief of the viewer.

In the scenic sequence from scene 1 to 4, the narrative ﬁrst starts from scene 1 and
continues through scene 2. Then it changes into a monologue with a montage of still
images in scene 3. The narrative resumes back again in scene 4.

In the scenic sequence from scene 5 to 9, the narrative continues through scene 5 and
fades into an interview with documentary footages in scene 6. Then the narrative
resumes again in scene 7 and fades into a testimony in scene 8. Finally the narrative
carries on again in scene 9. So in this particular sequence, the program penetrates

through different kinds of discourse consecutively.

31

In the scenic sequence from scene 11 to 13, the narrative ﬁrst proceeds in scene 11
and fades into dramatization of ﬁction accounts in scene 11A. The ﬁction narrative
resumes again in 118 and proceeds through scene 12 and 13 to the end of program.

Concluded from the brief description of scenic sequence, we can see the constant
interpenetration among those ﬁve different kinds of discourse (a narrative, a monologue
with a montage of still images, an interview with documentary footages, a testimony,
and dramatization of ﬁction accounts) is created through out the program. This
arrangement of scenic sequence is designed to create as many transitions among
different kinds of discourse as possible. The viewer who is directed through an array of
different discourses is expected to cut off her/his close involvement with the program
and critique the experiences of female Taiwanese students portrayed in the program with
input of her/hi3 own experience. Such arrangement of scenic sequence also force the
viewer to constantly negotiate herself/himself among different viewing subject positions
and become an active meaning constructor and realize all creative works are just a
creation of meaning and a set of signs.

Wad: This particular formal strategy is used to force the viewer to cast
attention to and ponder on the relationship between sound and image. Often times, an
off-screen and disembodied voice is used to achieve that goal.

In scene 3 “Taipei impressions,” a monologue of a female Taiwanese student who
talks about her alienation, melancholy and depression when she went back to Taiwan for
the ﬁrst time after leaving home is set against a montage of still, black and white images

of Taipei streets. By contrasting the negative remarks (sound) on and the familiar still

32

pictures (image) of Taipei, it allows the viewer, especially Taiwanese students, to ponder
on the relationship between sound and image, and her/his own experience of being away
from home.

In scene 5, the narrative proceeds with a conversation between Jan and Yi-lin while
they are driving through the city of Lansing. The conversation regarding whether the
United States is a place to stay is set against the moving , black and white images of city.
As with the above example, scene 5 allows the viewer, especially foreigners, to compare
her/his own experience with such opposition between sound and image.

In these two particular places (just separated by one scene,) the contrarieties are
created to allow the viewer to ponder on what does “home” really mean.
W: The techniques such as color as against black and
white (image,) Mandarin as against English (speaking language,) and still as against
moving (image,) are used in several places in the program to disorient the viewer and
force the viewer to ponder on the content as well as the ways of expression.

In scene 5, I deliberately portray Lansing in black and white and one-half—normal-
moving-speed images through Jan’s camcorder (Jan’s point of view) to show that any
city can be represented as pale and rundown through special treatment of images. Same
as in scene 3, Taipei is represented through a montage of postcard-like , black and white
images which is directly set against normal color, moving images on the television. All
these designs are used to reveal that all video representations are a creation of meaning

and a set of signs.

33

Another important employment of this formal strategy in this program is that I use
Mandarin (speaking language) and color (image) in the ﬁction narrative except scene 5
(B&W) and scene 9 (English,) and English and black and white images in the rest of
discourse. Accordingly, as the program is interchanging between different discourses, it
is also interchanging constantly between different ways of expression. This widens the
gap between different discourses and force the viewer to cast attention at the formal

strategies as well as the content with a critical attitude.

Self-evaluation

The original idea of this project was inspired by my real-life experience as a foreign
student in the United States. Living in a foreign country for the ﬁrst time, I have sensed
myself going through a subtle, but signiﬁcant change which I believe would have a
profound effect on my life. I also noticed that ﬁiends from my country had a similar
experience while managing their lives in the United States. Close female friends were
kind enough to share their personal feelings, problems, even secrets with me which gave
me a chance to understand what they had gone through psychologically during the time
they stayed in the United States. What surprised me most was that most of them had
been abroad at least once before they came to the US and they were all ﬂuent in English.
In which case, it seemed to me that they were much unlikely to have any problem of
living in the US than those who didn’t have that kind of experience and language skill.
But, still, they were like others having problems of positioning themselves in the

American society. So I began to wonder why this would happen. 13 there any “truth”

34

behind the appearance of this whole psychic chaos? Then I found this book, Julia
Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves, which gave me a lot of material and accounts
regarding the psychology of foreigners.

In the ﬁrst chapter of Strangers to Ourselves, called “Toccata and Fugue for the
foreigner,” Kristeva particularly probes a polyphony of voices as the foreigners ﬂee and
chase and touch one another. Her exploration of a polyphony coincided my observations
and understanding of situations for women ﬁom my country. In addition, her thoughts
on the foreigner’s position within/between languages, a negative space marked by “not
speaking one’s mother tongue, gave me the idea to employ two speaking languages in
the project: English in public and Mandarin in private. The ideas of “otherness” and
“foreignness” which represents the foreigner’s marginal position in either culture while
s/he is staying in a foreign country, were brought forth by Kristeva’s elaboration on the
psychology of the foreigners for the ﬁrst time. Combining Kristeva’s ideas with my
own experience, I decided to develop a video text to portray the lives of female
Taiwanese students in the US.

Then, how can I represent such ideas like multiplicity of subjectivity, otherness, and
foreignness in a video text? What kind of format should I use to achieve that goal?
Documentary, docu-drama, or just pure ﬁction-drama? At ﬁrst, I thought ﬁction-drama
would be the choice because I was prone to use it and, based on my observations,
ﬁction-drama seemed most likely to capture the “reality” of the lives of female
Taiwanese students. I looked through a few books and articles about documentary ﬁlms

for the deﬁnitions. I found out that the format “Documentary” is usually used to probe

35

public issues, to reconstruct history, and to reveal the “tru ” of the world in a sense.
And as far as the private psychic side of one’s life is concerned, it appears that
documentary does not have its full strength in portraying that. While I actually began to
write a story about lives of female Taiwanese students for this project, I still could not
ﬁnd other materials to convince me that ﬁction-drama was the clean-cut choice.

At this point, I discovered Ann Kaplan’s article, ”Theories and Strategies of the
Feminist Documentary. It led me to a new way of thinking, a Feminist perspective. Her
‘ article made me reconsider the way I used to treat my subjects, female Taiwanese
students, and the vantage point I took to look into the “reality” that I supposed. I
realized that what I thought was taking a ”neutral” standpoint, was actually a male and
hierarchical one.

I turned, thus, to feminist ﬁlm theory as the foundation and framework of this
project. I found several important books and articles which helped me to ﬁnalize the
choice of methodology. To me, it was clear that the feminist approach ﬁt with the
project because the subjects of the project were female. But, then, it also raised another
question about me as the creator. According to feminist ﬁlm critics, ﬁlms are generally
considered “women’s cinema” because they are produced “by women and for women.”
As a male creator, I became problematic in this project, and my role as creator became a
key research question. Can I, as a male creator, use the techniques employed and
suggested by feminist ﬁlm makers and critics to produce a video text with a feminist

perspective and feminine sensibility? And I had to ask myself this question through out

36

the creative process, from script writing, designing blocking, lighting, and shooting, to
editing.

Using the techniques suggested by feminist ﬁlm critics, I ﬁnished the ﬁrst draft of
the script which consisted of ﬁction-drama, ﬁctional interview, real interview, and real
documentary footage. I gave this draft to several female Taiwanese students, including
some prospect actresses, for feedback. Their responses were quite diverse, but they were
all similarly confused by the strategies I used. One of the readers told me that there was
no plot or story developing, she could not ﬁnd any confrontations and resolutions.
Saying “ There is no drama here,” she referred to what is experienced in traditional
cinema. I had to explain to them what I tried to do with this fragmented storyline
disrupted by other seemingly unrelated interviews and documentary footage. Even so,
they did not see enough dramatic ingredients in each segment to pull viewers in. They
thought I might create a disoriented feeling and dissociation when I take viewers
abruptly from one segment to another. I went back to rewrite the drama and tried to
engage viewers more in each segment.

One of the readers, who later became the actress in this project, told me that there is
no discussion concerning sexuality, a main issue of the Feminist movement. She also
pointed out that this is a project more or less about the state of mind of the foreigners
and the things happening around them which she thought might not be gender speciﬁc.
And she told me if I want this project to be considered as feminist, I should , at least,
touch on the topic “sexuality.” Actually, she was right. Among the most fervent

discussions, sexuality becomes the foremost issue when the feminists attack the

37

patriarchal ideology. And in their political ﬁlm projects, the feminist ﬁlmmakers and
critics also consider the release of female desire and sexuality from the conﬁnement of
the mainstream or dominant cinema as their main purpose. So, in my ﬁrst draﬁ, lacking
such an important issue did raise some concern about this so-called “feminist” project. I
think the reason why I didn’t touch on that issue was that I was afraid I could not address
it properly. I reviewed the original idea and purpose of this project, and I reafﬁrmed to
myself that its main purpose was to use the feminist ﬁlm theory and techniques to
portray the lives of female Taiwanese students as foreigners in the American society.
However, if the issue of female desire and sexuality is involved in the lives of those
students, then I should and must put it in this project. So, when I went back to write my
second and third draft, 1 did put more efforts into redesigning the plot to show some
aspect of that issue. The readers’ responses to the later edition of the script seemed more
positive.

There were several other changes the readers recommended. Some dialogue was not
like their normal conversations and the plot lacked emotion and passion. And I think the
most important thing I learned from this process is a realization that everyone
experienced the script differently and wanted different things from the screen. By this
process I, as a male creator, could try to imagine female experiences, the “Other,” and
even transgress the “gender line.”

It was even harder for me to envision a female, or feminine way of looking after I
ﬁnalized the script. When I began to shoot the project, I just kept asking myself “13

there any essential difference in the way genders see and picture the world?”, “Is there

38

any difference in the way genders look at women?” and “How are they different?” For
feminist ﬁlm theorists, feminist ﬁlm projects are supposed to release female characters
and female images from the entrapment of the traditional cinema, where they are objects
of voyeurism, and restore their subjectivity on the screen. But, some of the techniques
suggested by these theorists, such as framing, camera angle, and place of looking, are
more or less subjective interpretations; 1 did not ﬁnd any works on the responses of a
general public to such feminist ﬁlm techniques. I asked some of my female friends
about the question of a female or feminine way of looking. They told me they believed
there is a difference, but they could not speciﬁcally point out what it is. One of my
female ﬁiends told me that she saw a so-called feminist ﬁlm once. As she recalled, there
was not a single way of constructing images which she could refer to or consider as a
female way of looking. However, she still considered the ﬁlm, which was consisted of
several different visual styles, as feminist, female, or feminine. And she thought the
visual styles of the feminist ﬁlm project would be more versatile and emotional, if not
logical. Her response gave me a fresh new idea. Since I didn’t have any deﬁnite
feminist ﬁlm techniques in my mind, maybe I should use different visual styles, as long
as they work with the subject matter, and let the viewers decide which part is the female
style, and which is not.

During the production stage, some female friends who had seen rough cuts asked me
why I had shot some scenes in certain ways. In one scene, I shot more proﬁle shots than
any other angle. At ﬁrst, I didn’t recognize that. Then I found out it was my personal

preference and it could be attributed to my own personality. So it appeared that even

39

though I tried to or envision a female way of looking, it turned out to be my own
“signature.” Then I began to wonder whether my gender would affect how viewers
would react to the techniques I used. At that time, I was really experiencing the anxiety
and confusion of trying to represent a female perspective and vision while I was a male
creator. There were too many questions I could not answer. I turned to viewer, in a

structured group viewing.

Group-evaluation

In July 2nd, I set up a viewing session in which there were 7 female and 3 male
Taiwanese students attending. Aﬁer the viewing session, we had a discussion which
lasted for two and a half hours. In the discussion, everyone was free to express his/her
thoughts on the video program and ask questions, but it mainly focused on the questions
I put on the questionnaire. The following are the summarized opinions and discussions
regarding each designed question:

0 What’s your ﬁrst impression, reaction, or feeling aﬁer viewing this video?

One viewer particularly expressed that this video was too sad to her, and she said the
creator made it look sad on purpose. Other viewers did not answer this question
speciﬁcally. However, the overall impressions I got from them were incomprehension
and disorientation. Seemingly they were confused by the formal strategies I used in this
video.

0 Does it relate to your own experience in the United States? If not, why? If yes,

how?

40

Most viewers can relate themselves to different parts of the video to a degree.
However, almost everyone thought the segment which deals with the personal opinions
of a female Taiwanese student regarding China’s military threats to Taiwan in March,
1996 was the part they could relate to most because they knew it was “true” and “real”
or they had joined the rallies personally. Compared with the documentary part, other
segments seemed more like “acting,” “performing” or “faking” to them, although they
could relate to the story a little bit. Due to the creator’s inability or refusal to create a
more powerful and effective ﬁction narrative, this video failed to draw viewer’s attention
to and effect viewer’s identiﬁcation with the fragmented story. One viewer suggested
that more substantial materials concerning the gender issues should add to the story to
make it more powerful and tangible.

One viewer asked me why I used a love story as a main plot in this video, although
she knew I would do so before she saw it. I told her that although female Taiwanese
students might be engaged with different things in their everyday lives, I , according to
my own observations, believed that romantic relations made much more impacts on their
lives. So a love story became my choice of main theme and hopefully could evoke the
same kind of reaction from female Taiwanese students after they saw the video.

0 Does it portray the experiences of female Taiwanese students in the United States
from female point of view?

Some viewers thought this video was not about women, although it seemed there
were mainly women in the video for most of time. The main reason was that F rank’s

suicide drew all the attention to this mystery and to Frank himself. Although everything

41

seemed related to the female Taiwanese students around Frank, Frank’s mysterious
suicide still overwhelmed other female voices and lingered on viewer’s mind until the
end. So they thought this video was not speciﬁcally concerned with the experiences of
female Taiwanese students, and this video did not present a female perspective.

Some other viewers thought the reason why this video was not speciﬁcally about
female Taiwanese students or a female point of view was that the issue of foreigner’s
state of mind was much more obvious and clear the ones of female Taiwanese students.
In addition, they thought the issue of foreigner’s state of mind was more general and
gender free. So, even though this video in some point well communicated the feelings,
such as alienation, detachment, melancholy, and sadness, that foreigners might have,
they still thought it was not speciﬁcally about female Taiwanese students.

Some viewers particularly expressed their concerns regarding the last scene in which
Jan touched and caressed Frank’s face . They interpreted Jan’s gesture as a resolution
and a reconciliation to the past and thought this gesture would contradict the women’s
self-awareness this video tried to convey. I replied to their comments that this gesture
did not suggest that Jan was in love with Frank again. This gesture only meant a mutual
understanding of each other’s position. However, I admitted that this gesture did serve
as some kind of closure to the whole story and this video.

0 What do you think about this video project in terms of formal strategies?

Generally the formal strategies seemed to distance and confuse viewers, and make

them frustrated in grabbing the content. One viewer even interpreted such “chaos” in

from and content as my struggle and inability in creating a smooth and linear story.

42

Due to the viewers’ unfamiliarity with the formal strategies I took from feminist ﬁlm
theory, I had to brieﬂy review the theory and explicate the purposes of using such
techniques to them. After realizing the program design of this video, they still seemed
uncertain about the effectiveness of such formal strategies to communicate with ordinary
audiences. But some viewers thought, as far as the formal experiment was concerned,
this video could be considered successful.

One viewer asked me why I used two speaking languages in this video. Then I told
her I got the idea of a dark space between two languages from Julia KriSteva’s Strangers
to Ourselves and I thought this formal design might exemplify foreigner’s alienation
between two worlds. She thought this particular design might show far less effect on the
viewers other than Taiwanese students, such as Americans.

Then, one viewer expressed that this video contained a clear intent to “educate”
audiences especially regarding the mechanism of classical Hollywood cinema and how
to deconstruct it. What she meant was this video still treated its audience as
“uneducated, unthinking, and uncritical” viewing subject. So it tended to inform and
teach audience the mechanisms behind the images, and change the way how viewers saw
movies.

0 Does it relate to feminism or feminist aesthetics in any sense by your own
understanding?

Actually we never got into the discussion of feminism or feminist aesthetics. But, as
I mentioned earlier, most viewers did not consider this video as a project really related to

women. According to some viewers’ interpretation, this video is actually a male-

43

centered project. So, in this regard, this video is far from being called a feminist project

or relating to feminist aesthetics.

0 Does the fact that the creator of this “proclaimed” feminist video project is male
bother you or change your whole perception of this project?

Regarding this question, it seems no need for further discussion since this video was
not considered related to feminism or feminist aesthetics. However, one viewer
expressed that men can still keep doing any project which is concerned with current
issues of women in society. And all efforts by both genders should be welcomed and
appreciated for improving women’s status in society. But, as far as women’s cinema
and feminist aesthetics are concerned, she thought the whole purpose was to let women

to speak out in their voices.

Summary

In program design, by showing examples in the ﬁnished program it exempliﬁes how
the ideas from Julia Kristeva’s Strangers to Ourselves and the formal strategies, such as
narrative fragmentation and interruption, interpenetration among different kinds of
discourse, asynchronous sound, and contrasting ways of expression, are used to achieve
the objectives of this project: present a female viewpoint of the experiences of female
Taiwanese students in the United States and deconstruct realist formal strategies of
dominant Hollywood cinema. In self-evaluation, the personal record by the creator is
used to examine how each decision in approaching the program design was made during

the creative process. And it also shows how the creator incorporated the comments of

44

female Taiwanese students into the development of the program. Finally, in group-
evaluation, through a focus group discussion of the designed questions it shows how the
viewers react to the ﬁnished program and why this video is not considered related to

female Taiwanese students and feminism.

Chapter 5

CONCLUSIONS

In this project there are two most important goals I want to achieve: ﬁrst presenting a
female point of view of the experiences of female Taiwanese students as foreigners in
the United States, and secondly using the formal strategies suggested by feminist ﬁlm
critics and ﬁlmmakers to achieve the ﬁrst goal, and to assess the possibility of a feminist
or feminine ﬁlm language. The ﬁrst goal seems more straightforward and self-evident.
And the reason I used feminist ﬁlm theory to approach the ﬁrst goal is that I think this
project is concerned with female Taiwanese students, so it must be a feminist project.

Since late 1960, a contemporary feminist ﬁlm movement has developed so rapidly
both in ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmaking. In order to challenge the patriarchal ideologies of
dominant Hollywood cinema and envision a new women’s cinema, feminist ﬁlm critics
and ﬁlmmakers have suggested and experimented with many formal strategies in their
ﬁlm projects. Although the formal strategies used in different feminist ﬁlms are quite
different from each other, they are all designed to work against the realist strategies of
dominant ﬁlm practices. Combining with the progressive content and the deconstructive
formal strategies, many feminist ﬁlm critics believe, a new women’s cinema has to be a
counter-cinema which is intended to bring changes on screen and in society. Personally

I agree with those feminist ﬁlm critics and support their approach to a new women’s

45

46

cinema. So, in the beginning of this project, I was convinced that the only thing I had to
do was to sue the formal strategies suggested by feminist ﬁlm critics and ﬁlmmakers to
make a feminist ﬁlm about the experiences of female Taiwanese students as foreigners
in the United States.

As shown in the program design of Chapters 3 and 4, the formal strategies of
narrative fragmentation and interruption, interpenetration among different kinds
of discourse, asynchronous sound, and contrasting ways of expression are used to
create a ﬁagmented yet related video. Each formal strategy adds a different dimension
to create as many gaps as possible which would force the viewer to be an active meaning
constructor. These formal strategies, which consists of the major program design, are
the heart of this video project.

Among the aforementioned formal strategies, narrative fragmentation and
interruption, and interpenetration among different kinds of discourse are the most
noticeable features of this video, but also the ones which confuse and disorient the
viewer most. For me personally, these two formal strategies exemplify that life consists
of different dimensions, relationships and problems, and sometimes it is not so ordered,
coherent and continuous. In the video, such formal strategies force the viewer to move
in and out abruptly, and experience fragmented aspects of different discourses. In a
certain way, they work against realist strategies of dominant Hollywood cinema which
smooth over possible contradictions, incoherences, and eruptions in its representations of
the “real world.” So they force the viewer to constantly negotiate among different

viewing subject positions, and bridge over the fragmented segments of the ﬁction

47

narrative, and produce a meaning of her/his own. In addition, these two formal
strategies reveal the video text itself as a visual representation of discourses, a creation
of meaning, and a set of signs to force the viewer into becoming a critical reader of a
video text in terms of content and form.

Asynchronous sound is another important formal design in this video. This formal
strategies is frequently used in feminist ﬁlm projects for examining the relationship
between sound and image. The female voice is always tied with the female body on the
screen for which many feminist ﬁlm critics believe it reinforces the entrapment of
female voice in female biological body, often times regarded as inferior to male one.
Then, by using off-screen and disembodied voice, it allows the viewer to examine the
relationship between voice and image, and the subjectivity and authority of the female
voice against a documentary-like “real” image.

Contrasting ways of expression, as I mentioned in Chapter 4, is used to extend the
gaps created by the aforesaid formal strategies and to make gaps among different
discourses more obvious yet complicated. Such formal strategy forces the viewer to
experience in-betweenness, transformation, and contrariety more intensely and
frequently.

Overall, these formal strategies work for me very well. They create the formal
distinctions which I desired in the beginning of this project. Maybe the form itself
seems more important to me in this project, nevertheless, only when working with the
subject, the state of mind of female Taiwanese students, the form reaches its full

potential. The thing I would like to change if I could start it over again is to improve the

48

content, to make each segment of discourse more substantial and tangible to female
Taiwanese students, and probably to add more materials regarding femininity and
sexuality.

The viewers in the group-evaluation seemed confused and frustrated with the formal
strategies while they were watching the video, yet they can not comprehend the creator’s
intention of using such avant-garde techniques to deconstruct the pleasure of traditional
cinema and to search alternative pleasure for women’s cinema. Maybe they are used to
traditional representations of dominant Hollywood cinema which are more coherent and
smooth. So it is hard for the viewers to accept this kind of representation which
demands extra efforts from the viewers to decipher the meanings of formal design along
with the content. Therefore, some feminist ﬁlm critics question and challenge the use of
avant-garde techniques which often alienate women’s viewers. They suggest that
conventional forms, such as soap opera and romance, may serve well in challenging the
political status quo.12 However, I still think there is no need to dismiss provocative
feminist ﬁlm practices immediately since part of the reason those feminist ﬁlms are not
accepted well is a lack of wide distribution and frequent screenings. Then, it is another
issue concerning the huge institution of dominant ﬁlm industry that feminist ﬁlm critics
and ﬁlmmakers have to work on to make their works recognized and accepted by
women’s viewers.

Regarding the objective to examine the legitimacy of a male creator in a

“proclaimed” feminist ﬁlm, I set up a plot in the program design in which I play the role

 

'2 See Jane Gaines, “Women Representation: Can We Enjoy Alternative Pleasure?” Jump Cut
29(February I984.)

49

Frank who kills himself in the very beginning. And before he kills himself, Frank asks
his ex-ﬁancee Jan to come back to the aftermath left behind him. Then, Jan comes back
to East Lansing and the story unfolds with a female perspective. In addition, there is a
“fake” title page, “created by JAN YANG,” within the ﬁrst scene. Such an arrangement,
for me personally, exempliﬁes the recession of a male creator and the introduction of a
female perspective without the involvement of my maleness. But, have I really killed
myself as a male creator in this project? Apparently, the answer is no. As indicated in
the ﬁnal scene that Jan touches Frank’s face on the television screen, I still have to deal
with my own maleness in the end, although I keep hiding behind the screen for most of
the time. So I still can not erase my presence as a male creator in this project.

However, it is very interesting that the viewers in the group-evaluation recognize the
problem of authorship. They point out that this project is not really concerned with
female Taiwanese students, but with the male creator and his view of the female
Taiwanese students around him. So they notice my presence as a male creator behind
this “proclaimed” feminist ﬁlm. Then concluded from the above discussion, I have not
killed myself in this video project.

Regardless the results of this project, I still think the continuous efforts in the formal
experiment along with the progressive content regarding the current issues and real
problems in feminist communities are necessary. It may create a new kind of pleasure
other than the ones of traditional cinema, such as identiﬁcation and resolution, and allow
viewers to grow with feminist ﬁlms. However, different approaches to a new women’s

cinema do not necessarily contradict to one another. On the contrary, different

50

approaches bring forth the differences which already exist in society and the deﬁnition
of the term “femininity.” Hopefully, it may also bring forth the changes on the screen

and in society for which all feminists desire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bovenschen, Silvia. “Is There a Feminine Aesthetics?” New German Critique, no. 10
(1977,) pp. 111-37.

Cook, Pam and Johnston, Claire. “The Place of Women in the Cinema of Raoul Walsh.”
Edinburgh Film Festival Publication (1974.)

Doane, Mary Ann. “Women’s Stake in Presentation: Filming the Female Body,”
October, no. 17 (1981,) pp. 23-36.

Ellis, Jack C. The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of English-Language
Documentary Film and Video. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 1989.)

Gaines, Jane. “Women Representation: Can We Enjoy Alternative Pleasure?” Jump Cut
29 (February 1984.)

Gledhill, Christine. “Recent Development in Feminist Criticism,” Quarterly Review of
Film Studies 3, no. 4 (Fall 1978,) pp. 457-93.

Johnston, Claire. “Dorothy Arzner: Critical Strategies.” The Work of Dorothy Arzner,
British Film Institute Publication (1975,) pp. 1-8.

Kaplan, E. Ann. “Theories and Strategies of the Feminist Documentary,” Millennium
Film Journal, no. 12 (Fall/Winter 1982-83.) pp. 44-67.

Kaplan, E. Ann. Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera. New York: Methuen
(1983)

Kaplan, E. Ann. “Feminist Criticism and Television,” Channels of Discourse.
Reassembled 2nd ed., The University of North Carolina Press (1992.)

Koch, Gertrud. “Exchange the Gaze: Re-Visioning Feminist Film Theory,” New German
Critique 34 (Winter 1985,) pp. 139-53.

Kristeva, Julia. Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press
(1991)

51

52

Kuhn, Annette. Women '3 Pictures: Feminism and Cinema. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul (1982.)

Lauretis, Teresa de. “Rethinking Women’s Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theories,”
New German Critique 34 (Winter 1985,) pp. 154-75.

Lauretis, Teresa de. “Guerrilla in the Midst: Women’s Cinema in the 803,” Screen 31,
no. 1 (Spring 1990,) pp. 6-25.

Lesage, Julia. “Feminist Film Criticism: Theory and Practice,” Women and Film, no. 5/6
(1974,) pp. 12-14.

Lesage, Julia. “The Political Aesthetics of the Feminist Documentary Film,” Quarterly
Review of Film Studies 3, no. 4 (Fall 1978,) pp. 507-24.

Mayne, Judith. “Feminist Film Theory and Criticism,” Signs 11, no. 1 (1985,) pp. 81
-100.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn
1975,) pp. 6-18.

Mulvey, Laura. “Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ Inspired by
Duel in the Sun.” Framework, no. 10 (Spring 1979,) pp. 12-15.

Penley, Constance (ed.) Feminism and Film Theory. London, BFI (1988.)
Rabiger, Michael. Directing the Documentary. Boston: Focal Press (1992.)
Renov, Michael (ed.) Theorizing Documentary. New York: Routledge (1993.)

Rich, Ruby. “The Crisis of Naming in Feminist Film Criticism,” Jump Cut 19 (1978,)
pp. 9-12.

Rosenberg, Jan. Women ’s Reflections: The Feminist Film Movement. Ann Arbor MI,
UMI Research Press (1979.)

Rosenthal, Alan. The Documentary Conscience: A Casebook in F ilmmaking. Berkeley,
California: University of California Press (1980.)

Rosenthal, Alan. New Challenges for Documentary. Berkeley, California: University of
California Press (1988.)

Rosenthal, Alan. Writing, Directing and Producing Documentary Films. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press (1990.)

53

Silvennan, Kaja. “Dis-embodying the Female Voice.” Re- Vision: Essays in Feminist
Film Criticism, ed. Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp, and Linda Williams
(Frederick, Md: University Publication of America, inc., in association with
American Film Institute, 1984.)

Smith, David L. Video Communication: Structuring Content for Maximum Program
Eﬂectiveness. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Pub. Co. (1991.)

Stem, Lesley. “Feminism and Cinema: Exchanges,” Screen 20, no. 3/4 (1979-80,) pp. 89
-105.

Zettl, Herbert. Sight, Sound, Motion; Applied Media Aesthetics. Belmont, California:
Wadsworth Pub. Co. (1973.)

APPENDIX

Appendix

 

1 RAILROAD
EXTERIOR, AFTERNOON

FADE UP
A close high-angle shot of the railroad tracks. A man is walking along the railroad.
He walks away from the camera to the distance.

TITLE
B&W, KEY
“STRANGERS TO OURSELVES”
FADE OUT
FADE UP
TITLE
B&W, KEY
“by JAN YANG”
FADE OUT
CUT

All a sudden, there comes a loud whistling sound of an approaching train. Then, cut
to a shot of a train passing by. Next is a sound of telephone ringing in the sound
track. After the telephone rings four times, the answering machine starts working.
ANSWERING MACHINE

Hi! Jan and Mia are not able to answer your call right now. Please leave your message
after the beep.

There is a sound of “beep. ” After beep, a man begins to leave his message.

FRANK (M)

Hi! Jan. This is Frank. Haven’t been in touch with you for a long time. How are you
doing? (pause)

I’m calling you to bid farewell to you. (pause)

Also, there is one favor I want you to do for me, that is...

Then there comes a loud sound of a passing train again. It overwhelms Frank ’3
voice.

FADE OUT

54

55

Appendix

 

2 AIRPORT
INTERIOR, AFTERNOON

FADE UP
A shot of airport building. A shot of airport run way. A shot of clouds in the sky. In the
corner of airport lobby, there are two women standing next to each other in front a
huge window. One is Yi-lin, and the other is Pei-wen. They are looking outwards
through the window and waiting for Jan.
YI-LIN (M, Inner thought)
The snows have melted away without leaving any trace behind.
But who knows how soon is the next blizzard?
Any way, in few days, I will be away from this freezing place for good and back in
Taiwan.
Yeah! Far away from here...by myself.
This kind of ending...may be better.
After all, Je-ming wants to stay.
Then we should not force each other into things anymore. (long pause)
Pei-wen was asked to pick up Jan by at short notice.
She doesn’t know I had a quarrel with Je-ming last night.
Maybe she thinks I was feeling depressed for Frank’s death.
I wished I was! (pause)
PEI-WEN (M)
Yi-lin, have you ever thought of committing suicide?
Yl-LIN (M)
Suicide!...No! Never!
PEI-WEN (M)
I think Frank must have suffered a tremendous pain. An unbearable pain!
Then he would not have made such a decision.
But I don’t know what was that for.
YI-LIN (M)
I don’t know either. (pause)
Yl-LIN (M, Inner thought)
Maybe after Jan arrives, many things would be much more clear.

56

Appendix

Maybe Frank shouldn’t stay after Jan had left
Maybe It would be much better if Frank had gone back to Taiwan.

 

FADE OUT
3 TAIPEI IMPRESSIONS
FADE UP
VIDEO TRACK: still, B& W images of Taipei city.
AUDIO TRACK:

Last summer, I went back to Taiwan for vacation.

During the time I stayed in Taipei, actually I felt quite uncomfortable.

Trafﬁc jam, crowded streets, noise, and heat.

They all bothered me.

I don’t know why.

I just felt alienated.

I rather stayed home than went out.

And I talked with my friend about it.

They just said I overreacted.

And I will be ﬁne. Maybe!

But, that time, I just wanted to come back here so bad.
That kind of feeling just scared me.

I don’t know howl became that way.

For more twenty years I lived in Taiwan.

I always felt homey and safe.

But, after that summer, everything would not be the same again.
And the word “home has a new meaning for me, thereafter.

FADE OUT

 

4 AIRPORT
INTERIOR, AFTERNOON

FADE UP
Same as Scene 2.

57

Appendix

PEI-WEN (M, Inner thought)

December 27.

It has been exactly three months since I came to Lansing.
Back then, it was Yi-lin who picked me up at the airport here.
I think she probably would mot remember this.

Yi-lin is very quiet today.

Is it about Frank? (pause)

Usually she stayed the night at Je-ming’s apartment.

But for three days, she came back to stay home.

Je-ming called her this morning, she even didn’t want to answer it.
Did they....? (pause)

I don’t know.

Suddenly, I want to leave here so desperately!

Pei-wen is looking at the sky through the window...
YI-LIN (M)

Pei-wen, Pei-wen,

I forgot to tell you after picking up Jan, You need to take her around to do with Frank’s
stuffs.

PEI-WEN (M)

Oh! O.K.!

Yi-lin, I’m very curious. _

What is the relationship between Jan and Frank?

Yl-LIN (M)

They were engaged once?

PEI-WEN (M)

Engaged?

YI-LIN (M)

Yes, right before they came to America.

PEI-WEN (M)

How comes you didn’t mention that before?

YI-LIN (M)

I thought there was no need to mention that!

58

Appendix

And, after all, you will hear that from someone else.

Pei-wen doesn ’t give up digging.

PEI-WEN (M)

Then what happened?

Yi-lin turns to look at Pei-wen. Then she begins to talk.

YI-LIN (M)

In the beginning, their relationship seemed pretty normal.

They looked like a sweet newlywed couple in front of everybody.

But, after a while, I heard talk that they had some quarrel.

Actually I was living next door to them at that time.

So I could overhear their quarrel sometimes.

However, isn’t it pretty normal to have this kind of things in life?

So I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Before long, I never heard that they quarreled anymore.

I thought they had been back to those sweet happy days!

But, at the meantime, someone said Jan went out late at night.

Moreover, people said she was seeing another man on the sly.

Before long, nobody saw her around here anymore.

I heard she transferred to LA

After that, I never saw again.

Both Yi-lin and Pei-wen go silent for a while. Then Yi-lin takes a look at her watch
and says.

YI-LIN (M)

It’s about time. We should see if she has arrived.

They walks toward the passenger exit.

Seen through Jan ’s camcorder (B& ”9: the interior of the airport building. The
camcorder starts to pan from right to left. Then we see Pei-wen and Yi-lin enter the
frame. Then it stops panning.

YI-LIN

Jan?

Jan moves away her camcorder.

59

Appendix

JAN
Hi! Yi-lin.
FADE OUT

 

5 LANSING STREETS] PEI-WEN’S CAR
EXTERIOR, AFTERNOON

FADE UP
Seen through Jan ’5 camcorder (B& W): the landscape of Lansing is passing by.
YI-LIN (M)
I think you probably have not been back to Lansing since you left.
JAN (M)
Uh-huh!
Yl-LIN (M)
See anything different yet?
JAN (M)
To be frank with you, I could not remember Lansing very well.
1 mm (M)
Probably it is that you have gone from here for too long.
JAN (M)
Probably.
But Lansing looks similar to many other cities, doesn’t it?
Yl-LIN (M)
Really?
YI-LIN (M)
I haven’t heard any news from you since you transferred to LA.
So, how are you doing?
JAN (M)
Not bad. I applied for practical training after graduation.
And I stay in LA doing my internship.
YI-LIN (M)
Do you plan to stay there for a long time?

60

Appendix

JAN (M)
It depends!
YI-LIN (M)
Actually I can understand why many people want to stay in the US.
The living environment here is really better than Taiwan.
Some people say it is hard to a job here.
Actually the situation in Taiwan would not any better.
It would not be surprising to choose to stay.
JAN (M)
Really? (pause)
How about yourself?
YI-LIN (M)
Oh! I will go back to Taiwan in a week.
JAN (M)
Then why don’t you stay here?
Yl-LIN (M)
I think it would be better for me to go back.
I don’t know.
I feel like I won’t have the homey feeling unless I go back to Taiwan.
JAN (M)
Really?
FADE OUT

 

6 INTERVIEW
B&W, DOCUMENTARY

FADE UP
A female Taiwanese student is interviewed about her thoughts on mainland China ’3
military threat to Taiwan and her participation in rallies.

FADE OUT

61

 

Appendix
7 RAILROAD SIDE
EXTERIOR, AFTERNOON
FADE UP
TITLE
B&W
“Died in a strange land”
FADE OUT
FADE UP

Even this is a sunny day, it is still pretty cold when wind blows. Yi-lin is leaning on
the car parked on the road shoulder by the railroad and looking Jan sitting by the
railroad tracks quietly. Jan appears to be contemplating something. And Pei-wen still
stays inside the car. She turns to look at Pei-wen and Jan, and doesn ’t say a word.

It is too quiet, but nobody seems willing to break the silence.

Jan looks at far side, the far end of the railroad tracks. Then she lowers heads to
looks at the railroad under her feet. They remain silent

 

FADE OUT
8 STORY
B&W, INTERVIEW
FADE UP
TITLE
B&W
“A love story”
FADE OUT
FADE UP

A female Taiwanese student tells a love story of her own.
FADE OUT

62

 

Appendix
9 FRANK’S APARTMENT
INTERIOR, EVENING
FADE UP
TITLE
B&W
“A message”
FADE OUT
FADE UP

There is a long beep in the sound track. The living room is dark. Jan is walking
toward the sofa. Then, she sits on the sofa. A moment later, she lies down on the
sofa. Not for long, she slips into the ﬂoor.
JAN
Hi! Mia. It is too bad you are not home. I really need someone to talk to. (pause)
I’m staying Frank’s apartment right now. It’s kind of strange feeling. Things haven’t
changed much in this apartment. Even a very little thing. It brings back so much
memory. (pause)
Agony memory! (pause)
All those quarrels, confrontations, and cold wars. (pause)
But I still can’t believe he is gone. (pause)
Why? Why now? (pause)
Talk to me!

FADE OUT

FADE UP
It is still dark in the living room, and the TV is still on. But Jan is sleeping on the
sofa with the telephone handset in her hand. All a sudden, the phone stam ringing.
Jan is awakened by the phone. She answers it.
JAN

Hello! Hello!

But it seems nobody is on the other end of the phone. She hangs up the phone. Then
she seems lost. She sis still on the ﬂoor. Then she seems hearing some noise coming
from the neighbor. She stands up and checks it out. Jan walks toward the wall and

63

Appendix

leans on it to listen. She overhears two people, a man and a women, arguing with
each other.

JE-MING (M)

You said you want to go back to Taiwan. It is difficult to ﬁnd a job here. If I'wanted
you to stay with me while waiting on a job, deﬁnitely you would have said no. So I
didn’t tell you that I was trying to ﬁnd a job in advance. I thought if I do get a job, that
would be better. If I don’t, then I go back to Taiwan.

YI-LIN (M)

You thought if you did ﬁnd a job, then I have no reason not to stay, right?

JE-MING (M)

But there is such good opportunity right now. How could I give it up?

YI-LIN (M)

I did not tell you to give it up.. If you want to stay, then you stay. Nobody is gonna stop
you.

JE-MING (M)

But I wish you’d stay, too. Don’t leave! (pause)

LYNN (M)

What do you want me to do if I stay? Have you ever thought about my job, my friends,
and my life? If I wanted to stay, I would have made such plan. (long pause)

I won’t force you to go back. You better stay.

FADE OUT

 

10 YI-LIN AND PEI-WEN’S APARTMENT (BEDROOM)
INTERIOR, EVENING

FADE UP
In the bed room, Pei-wen opens the bedroom door a little bit. Then, she closes the
door and sits on the ﬂoor.
YI-LIN (M)
All these things I can handle by myself. Don’t bother!
JE-MING (M)

Are you still mad at me? (pause)

Appendix

Pei-wen closes the door and sits down on the ﬂoor against the wall.

Yl-LIN (M) .

That envelope is for Jan. Give it to me. (pause)

JE-MING (M)

You should know that I didn’t change the plan of going back to Taiwan with you on

purpose. It just happened so abruptly. (pause)

This opportunity is really rare. And their offer is not so bad. So I promised them.
Yl-LIN (M)

Then why didn’t you tell me that you want to ﬁnd a job to stay?

JE-MING (M)

I did allude to it back then. You said you wanted to go back to Taiwan. Also it is
difficult to ﬁnd a job here. If I wanted you to stay with me while waiting on a job,
deﬁnitely you would have said no. So I didn’t tell you that I was try to ﬁnd a job in
advance. I thought if I did get a job, That would be wonderful. If I don’t, then I go back
to Taiwan.

All a sudden, the phone starts ringing. Pei stands up quickly to answer the phone.
PEI (M)

Hello! Huei-chun, it’s you! I have been waiting for your phone call for so long. I keep
searching for you, but I couldn’t ﬁnd you. Where have you been? (pause)

There are so many things I want to tell you, you know that? (pause)

The person I kept referring to killed himself the day before yesterday. Right at the
railroad tracks by the campus. (pause)

Don’t ask me! I don’t know!

You know what? I met him for the last time just a few hours before he killed himself.
(pause)

We ran into each other on the street. We talked for a while. It went pretty well. He
seemed pretty normal. He even said he is interested in going out with me. I just could

not tell how could he kill himself soon after that. (long pause)

65

Appendix

FADE OUT

 

11 LANSING STREETS] FRANK’S CAR

EXTERIOR, LATE EVENING
FADE UP

Jan is driving Frank ’s car all alone in the streets of Lansing. She wanders around.
JAN (M, Inner thought)
In the dead of night,

I’m wandering
once again
through this remote, alien city

hidden in my memories.

Reﬂecting the dim yellow light
from the streetlamps,
the appearance of this city recalls

all similar nights.

I’m wandering
from a city to another

endlessly.

Searching or escaping?

I do not know.

But I do know one thing.

When another city limit is crossed,
I am

wandering.

66

 

Appendix
FADE OUT
1 1A MEMORIES
B&W, INTERIOR
CUT

Under the spotlight, Jan is carrying a suitcase. She seems determined to leave.
FRANK

You still want to leave!

What do you want from me really?

I don’t know what I did wrong to make you torture me like this.
You don’t say a word (pause)

and won’t let me touch you! (pause)

What’s wrong with you?

Unless you tell me why, or I won’t let you go.

Frank tries to grasp Jan ’s hands and won ’t let her go.

JAN

No! Let me go!

FRANK

Then, tell me!

JAN

Let me go!

FRANK

Are you tired of me! (pause)

Or you’ve got someone in your mind! Tell me! Tell me!

Jan is struggling in Frank ’3 arms. Then she drops her suitcase.
JAN

I just can’t love a MAN as I did before, anymore!

FADE OUT

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Appendix

 

11B LANSING STREETS! FRANK’S CAR

EXTERIOR, LATE EVENING
JAN (M, Inner thought)

Yes!
When all the turmoil calm down,
gradually
FADE UP

Jan is sitting on the shoulder of road not far from her car. She looks around and

seems easy and ascertained.
JAN (M, Inner thought)
I begin to see myself

on the edge of night.
And those complicated bygones hidden in my memories

all seem extremely clear and lucid once again.

Awake this body from long long sleep.
Loving man is not its only destiny.
That universal order,

sealed under its skin,

is only other’s murmurs in the land of dream.

In front of the very cruelty of this strange land,
freedom is like an endless lone escape.
Farewell to all my hypocrisies.

Leaving is unequivocal

for the promised land I belong,

forever elsewhere,

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Appendix

forever.

Jan stands up and gets in the car. She starts the car and drives it away.

 

1 2 YI-LIN
INTERIOR

Continued from Scene I 1 B.
Jan drives Frank ’s car away. Then it begins with the night view of city Lansing.
Buildings, streets, stores, traffic, neon lights, and so on.

Then Yi-lin ’s voice appears on the audio track.
YI-LIN

There she goes

out of house

into the night

all by herself

as always.

Just because she always seemed so far away,

I never had a chance to know her.

Until that night.

That night,

she drove the car out again.

But the car broke down in the middle of the road.

Then, she called me and asked me to give her a ride home.
And, on the way home, I ﬁnally asked her the questions which had been on my mind for
solong.

First, she seem reluctant.

But, later, she began to explain what happened in the past.
Then, I realized everything.

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Appendix

I was surprised Jan didn’t speak for herself in the past.
But she said she didn’t care.
Then I told her Frank left something for her.
A videotape.
FADE OUT

 

13 PEI-WEN AND YI-LIN’S APARTMENT
INTERIOR, LATE EVENING

FADE UP
TITLE
B&W
“A VIDEOTAPE”
FADE OUT
FADE UP
Late at night.

In Pei-wen and Yi-lin ’s apartment, TV is still on. .

But , surprisingly, it is Frank ’s image appearing on the screen.

Jan is sitting close to TV and watching Frank quietly.

Yi-lin and Pei-wen are sitting next to each other on the ﬂoor by the sofa.
Everybody remains silent, even Frank.

They are all waiting Frank to talk.

Supposedly he would, he didn ’t.

Time seems standing still.

Probably he can not stand the situation. Suddenly he just walks away from the
screen.

He just leaves three astonishing people in the living room.

Jan lowers her head sadly. We could not hardly hear her sigh.

Pei-wen and Yi-lin exchange their silent look.

Before long, Frank comes back.

70

Appendix

This time, he seems ascertained. And Jan looks at him. She seems to understand
what happened. Then she reaches her hand to touch Frank ’s face on the screen.

Her hand moves slowly and softly.

Lying in Yi-lin ’s arms, Pei-wen watches all this happens before her eyes. She is hold

her exciting breath.

FADE OUT

(M) for Mandarin

   

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