Announcement: Unspoken Cinema Journal. Call for submissions.

Unspoken Cinema Journal

Bela Tarr issue – Call for submissions

To coincide with recent remarks made by Béla Tarr, that his next film may be his last, Unspoken Cinema Journal is delighted to dedicate its inaugural issue to the uncompromising Hungarian master.

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Unspoken Cinema Journal is a quarterly periodical devoted to scholarship, discussion and the promotion of contemplative cinema. Despite its elusive definition, we recognize contemplative cinema as one that departs from the safety of neorealism and transcendental style; to fearlessly explore the undrawn aesthetic boundaries of minimalism, mutism, existentialist and materialist film. We also recognize contemplative cinema as a truly transcultural cinematic avant-garde.

Our intention is to deliver as rich and engaging exploratory film criticism in this field as possible. Unspoken Cinema Journal encourages written and image (still) based submissions from a wide range of styles. We welcome established contributors as much as lesser known cinéphiles. Accepted formats include: polemical writing, manifestos, photo essays, transcribed interviews, traditional academic essays and journalistic reports. We advance no restrictions on ideological or hermeneutic approach. Unspoken Cinema Journal is also committed to open access, we believe that content should be accessible to the widest online readership.

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Suggested – but not exhaustive – topics for the Béla Tarr issue:

Responses to journeys and travel in Tarr’s cinema; constructions of spatio-temporal geography. Explorations of the (a)political and historical landscape of Tarr’s world. Tarr’s cinema versus the conventions of commercial infrastructure. Image essays on Tarr’s cinematographic discourse: A camera as stalker, voyeur or omnipresence. Retrospectives and overviews of Tarr’s cinematic legacy. We are especially interested in contributions on Family Nest (1979) and The Man From London (2007).

Style guidelines

Articles, reports, transcriptions 800 - 2500 words and essays 3000 - 6000. Submit as A4 word format (double-spaced), using MLA referencing style.

Deadline for issue 1 is 19th January 2009, although we will continue to accept for future issues. All successful contributions shall appear at the forthcoming website.

All contact, enquiries and submissions: unspokenjournal@googlemail.com

image: Flickr.

Tarr Béla quits cinema?

Supportive Petition for Tarr Béla

In the September issue of Cahiers (#637), one of the best filmmaker working today, Béla Tarr, casually declares at the end of an interview being fed up. He wants to end his career after his next film (in production now in November 2008) which will be his last. Tarr Béla, the Hungarian auteur who gave us : The Man From London (2007), Werckmeister harmóniák (2000), Sátántangó (1994), Damnation (1988), Almanac of Fall (1985), The Prefab People (1982), Family Nest (1979)...
Excerpt from the end of the interview (my unauthorized translation), by Cyril Neyrat and Emmanuel Burdeau made in Paris, on June 26, 2008 :

[about The Man From London]
Cahiers : you suppressed almost all dialogue from Simenon's novel. The lines remaining are very strong, and performed with power. Where from does this excess of emotional expression?
Tarr : I maybe come back to my roots, Family Nest, my first movies in which I was very expressive. I admit I feel deeply fed up. I'm going to quit cinema, but not right away.

CdC: why fed up?
Tarr: I can't stand this fucking polite equality, "petite-bourgeoise", existing in the world. This deal between the poor and Society, how they are forced to accept this order, and we accept this shitty world, it's unbelievable. So no, I have to show what is really going on : people are fed up, their emotions are strong, powerful. And the question is : how these emotions are exploited, controlled, before the big bang.

CdC: Do you really mean to quit cinema?
Tarr: Yes. I just want to make one last film.

CdC: Do you have a scenario?
Tarr: Absolutely. I intend to start shooting in October. When you'll see it, you'll understand why it can only be my last film. I will shoot it in Hungary. Only 3 protagonists, a very small budget, a film very simple. Even more simple, purer.

CdC: What will you do then?
Tarr: Oh, I have plans. No, I don't want to die. I like life, I appreciate it, of course. I know very well how shitty it is, but I'm able to appreciate it. On one condition : that I'm able to do something. Or else..."

This interview is very disturbing, and I'm surprised Cahiers didn't even investigate the point, left him hanging there without trying to find out what he really meant by this. He also declared in a screening of The Man From London, in Paris (Sept 8, 2008) :

"he wanted to paint, take photographs and write in the future, avoiding the role of 'burned out director'."

In another interview for the French website DVDrama (19 Sept 2008):

Tarr Béla : "I never compromised. If one day I had been stopped to do what I wanted, then I would have aborted the film,thus cinema altogether. I disagree with the idea that a film should be made at all costs because it is necessary to make a film, and in fact to sell out to the system. [...] By the way, I think my next feature film will be the last one and the pinnacle of my career.

DVDrama: Why the last one?
Tarr : Because I'm appalled by today's cinema. I think spectators want less and less a demanding cinema. [...] During all my career I made sure never to underestimate the capacity of the audience and I made films for those who like that, because I think they deserve it that such cinema must exist.

DVDrama: Should this renunciation be perceived as despair?
Tarr: Maybe, yes, but it's also because my cinema requires too much money and that I always used to push the rules in each new film, inventing ideas of mise en scène, while developing my own style. [...] With The Man From London, I realised that I maybe reached the limit of my capacity to renew myself and to create new forms.

I don't know what are his motivations, if it's personal or if it's the struggle of making films in the margin... he probably knows what he's doing. The publicity stunt to boost his next film is highly unlikely.
Anyway, I'm disheartened at the idea that there will be no more masterpieces made by Tarr Béla, for us to anticipate and discover and explore and enjoy... after that last one. It's impossible. We need a Tarr Béla working to show there is light. Personally I believe he is the most sophisticated filmmaker in the world today. He's like Tarkovsky in his time, the one who understands the medium the best and pushes it where nobody else led it before, because he masters camerawork, photography, direction and timing so perfectly. He's a genius and we need many more of his films. Let's just tell him that he's not replaceable.

If only to show him support and love, I would like to propose to readers of Unspoken Cinema, and every admirer of his oeuvre in the world, to pass on a symbolic petition asking Tarr Béla to reconsider his decision, if it is even possible. The idea of a petition might sound ridiculous, but I prefer this gesture to the late regrets of an obituary, looking back with nostalgia on all the unfinished projects.
In any case, we need to get together, and make sure to give a triumphant reception to his next film, if it happens to be his last. Maybe a Tarr Béla blogathon would suit this event.


Please sign here to show your support, pass it on to everyone and share your opinions on the situation.

LINKS :: TSAI Ming-liang

TSAI Ming-liang 蔡明亮 (born October 27, 1957, Ku Ching, Malaysia) = 51 yold in 2008

13 films / 12 screenplays (1st film: 1991/latest film: 2009)
INSPIRED BY : François Truffaut (Les 400 coups), Grace Chang, King Hu (Dragon Inn), Edward Yang?
C.C.C. films (strict model in red) : Visage (2009); Madame Butterfly (2008); It's a Dream (2007)v; I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)v; The Wayward Cloud (2005)v; Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)v; The Skywalk Is Gone (2002)v; What Time Is It There? (2001)v; The Hole (1998)v; The River (1997)v; Vive L'Amour (1994)v; Rebels of the Neon God (1992)v; Boys (1991);
INFLUENCE ON : Lee Kang-sheng, Lisandro Alonso, James Lee?

Quick scroll : BIBLIOGRAPHY | BOOK | ONLINE ARTICLES | INTERVIEW | WEBSITES | DOCUMENTARY

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Visage / Face (2009) IMDb

• Pre-production Press conference in Paris (14 Oct 2008) video [Chinese]
  
• "Tsai's Visages: When Salome faced the Dharma" Translation by: Edwin Mak (Faster than instant noodles, Oct 2008) | at Unspoken Cinema | [CHINESE]
  
• Press kit - Cannes Festival (PDF, videos, photos) - trailer
  
• Face By: Jordan Mintzer (Variety, 22 May 2009)
  
• Film Review : Face By: Peter Brunette (The Hollywood Reporter, 22 May 2009)
  
• Cannes 2009 Press conference (05-23-2009) video 40' [FRENCH] [ENGLISH] [CHINESE] with Tsai Ming Liang, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Fanny Ardant, Laetitia Casta, Lee Kang-Sheng, Lu Yi-Ching, Vincent Wang, Jacques Bidou, Marianne Dumoulin, Henri Loyrette.
  
• Links By: David Hudson (IFC The Daily, 23 May 2009)
• In Favor of Imagery : Tsai's Visage Paints a Puzzling, Pretty Picture By: Eric Kohn (indieWIRE, 23 May 2009)
  
• Through the Looking Glass By: David Phelps (The Auteurs, 25 May 2009)
  
• "Visage" : la sensualité de Laetitia Casta, nouvelle Salomé By: Isabelle Regnier (Le Monde, 3 Nov 2009) [FRENCH]
  
• "Visage" By: François Lorès (Bonjour Cinéma, 17 Nov 2009)
• Fantasmas de cera. Visage (Tsai Ming-liang, 2009) By: Carles Matamoros Balasch (Transit, n°5, May-Jun 2010)
• (add link here)

Madame Butterfly (2008)

• "Crónica 5 : Mostrarse o desparecer" By: Fernando Ganzo (elumiere.net, Jul 2009) [SPANISH] [FRENCH]
  
• (add link here)

It's a Dream (2007) (segment in Chacun son cinéma) IMDb

• “We Are the World Cinema: Chacun son cinéma, ou, Ce petit coup au coeur quand la lumière s’éteint et que le film commence.” By: Nicholas de Villiers (Senses of Cinema #45, 2007)
  
• (add link here)
  

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone 黑眼圈 Hei yan quan (2006) IMDb

• GreenCine Daily digest (9 May 2007)
  
• "2006 TIFF--Hei Yan Quan / I Don't Want To Sleep Alone" By: Michael Guillen (The Evening Class, 13 Sept 2006)
  
• "Sleepless in Malaysia. Tsai Ming-liang's goes home" By: J. Hoberman (The Village Voice, 1st May 2007)
  
• Review By: Louis Proyect (Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist, 1st May 2007)
  
• "Pays natal, matière plastic" By: Cyril Neyrat (Cahiers du cinéma, #623, May 2007) [FRENCH] - English
  
• "Unspoken Truth: Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" By: Michael Koresky (indieWIRE, 8 May 2007)
  
• "Once Upon a Mattress, a Tone Poem Made Up of Moods" By: A. O. SCOTT (NYT, 9 May 2007)
  
• "Step Into Liquid: Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" By: Keith Uhlich (The House Next Door, 9 May 2007)
  
• "Cutting for change" By: Allan Koay (TheStar online, May 14, 2007)
  
• "Sleep therapy: Robin Wood on Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" By: Robin wood (Art forum, May 2007) cached part 1 - 2 - 3
  
• "Beyond the Horizon" By: Mark Cousins (Sight and Sound, July 2007)
  
• "“New Crowned Hope” films from Asia: Strengths and weaknesses" By: Richard Phillips (WSWS, 10 July 2007)
  
• "Dialogue vs. Duplicity: Notes on Syndromes and a Century and I Don't Want To Sleep Alone" By: Ryland Walker Knight (The House Next Door, 18 July 2007)
  
• "Butterfly Dream" By: Ian Johnston (Bright Lights film journal, Aug 2007)
  
• "Male gaze and body on I don't want to sleep alone" Translation by: Mei KO (柯鳥, 7 May 2008) in Chinese
  
• Yvette Biro, "Tender is the regard" Film Quarterly, Vol.61, n°4 (Summer 2008), P. 34-40 on Tsai's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone & JZK's Still Life
• "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone" By: Robin Wood (CineAction, #75, 2009)
  
• (add link here)
  

The Wayward Cloud 天邊一朵雲 Tian bian yi duo yun (2005) IMDb

• "Histoire d'Eau" By: Andrei Plakhov (FIPRESCI, 2005)
  
• "Berlinale diary 4" By: Filmbrain (Like Anna Karina's Sweater, 2005)
  
• Review By: Jeremy Heilman (Movie Martyr, 13 Jul 2005)
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2005)
  
• "How Sweet to Be a Cloud? Fancy and Fucking Collide in Tsai-Ming Liang's Latest" By: Ian Johnston (Bright Lights film journal, Nov 2005)
  
• "The 400 Blow Jobs" By: Helen Bandis, Adrian Martin, Grant McDonald (Rouge, 2005)
  
• "Scellé par un baiser" By: Stéphane Delorme (Cahiers du cinéma, #607, Dec 2005) [FRENCH]
  
• Discussion at a_film_by By: Craig Keller (a_film_by, 15 Dec 2005)
  
• "The Wayward Cloud" By: Adam Balz (Not coming to a theatre near you, 20 Dec 2005)
  
• "The Wayward Cloud" By: HarryTuttle (Screenville, 26 Dec 2005) part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
  
• "The Round, the Flat, and the Impossible: The Wayward Cloud" By: Chris Fujiwara (Undercurrent, April 2006)
  
• "Watermelon-Eating Contest! Tsai Ming-liang's latest is wayward, indeed" By: Nathan Lee (The Village Voice, 13 Feb 2007)
  
• "A Tale of Love, Drought and Desperation" By: A. O. Scott (NYT, 23 Feb 2007)
  
• (add link here)

Aquarium (2004) segment in Bem-Vindo a São Paulo IMDb

• (add link here)

Goodbye, Dragon Inn 不散 Bu san (2003) IMDb

• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 15 Oct 2003)
  
• "Fantômes chinois à Nantes" By: Elisabeth Lequeret (Cahiers du cinéma, #586, Jan 2004) [FRENCH]
  
• "L'antre de l'adieu" By: Antoine Thirion (Cahiers du cinéma, #592, Jul-Aug 2004) [FRENCH]
  
• Review By: Daniel Kasman (d+kaz, 20 Sept 2004)
  
• "The Films in His Life" By: Nick Pinkerton (reverse shot, winter 2004)
  
• “Goodbye, Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming-liang’s political aesthetics of nostalgia, place, and lingering.” By: Kenneth Chan (Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 1.2, 2007)
  
• “Realism, intertextuality and humour in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn.” By: Chris Wood (Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 1.2, 2007)
  
• Review By: Marc Raymond (Foreigner's guide to Film culture in Korea, 22 June 2008)
  
• (add link here)

The Skywalk Is Gone 天桥不见了 Tian qiao bu jian le (2002) IMDb

• "Goodbye City, Goodbye Cinema: Nostalgia in Tsai Ming-liang’s The Skywalk is Gone" By: Brian Hu (Senses of cinema, 2003)
  
• Review By: Andrew Schenker (Not in a theatre near you, 24 April 2008)
  
• (add link here)

What Time Is It There? 你那边几点 Ni na bian ji dian (2001) IMDb

• "Poisson" By: Charles Tesson (Cahiers du cinéma, #558, June 2001) [FRENCH]
  
• "Taipei-Paris, aller-retour" By: Erwan Higuinen (Cahiers du cinéma, #558, June 2001) [FRENCH]
  
• "A director treading water" By: Steve James (WSWS, 8 Sept 2001)
  
• "Et là-bas, quelle heure est-il ? de Tsai Ming-liang" By: Jean-Sébastien Chauvin (Cahiers du cinéma, #561, Oct 2001) [FRENCH]
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2002)
  
• "Een Taiwanese Don Quichote" By: Mike Lebbing (Filmkrant, #231, March 2002) [DUTCH]
  
• Review By: Tony Rayns (Sight and Sound, July 2002)
  
• "The European Undead: Tsai Ming-liang’s Temporal Dysphoria" By: Fran Martin (Senses of cinema, June 2003)
  
• (add link here)

Fish, Underground 与神对话 A Conversation with God (2001) IMDb

• "Cutting Edge and Missed Encounters—Digital Short Films by Three Filmmakers" By: Bérénice Reynaud (Senses of cinema, May 2002)
  
• (add link here)
  

The Hole 洞 Dong (1998) IMDb

• "The hole" By: Jean-Marc Lalanne (Cahiers du cinéma, #525, June 1998) [FRENCH]
  
• "Les vies du chat" By: Olivier Joyard (Cahiers du cinéma, #534, April 1999) [FRENCH]
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2001)
  
• Matsumura, Tatsuya. “Internal Borders, or De-translating the Construction of Male Homosexuality: Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole and the Imaging of ‘Okama’ in Contemporary Japan.” Paper presented at the QGrad Conference, UCLA, October 16, 2004.
  
• "Love Streams" By: Jeff Reicher (reverse shot, winter 2004)
  
• "Peering into the hole..." By: Fred Patton (DVD Beaver, ?)
  
• (add link here)

The River 河流 He liu (1997) IMDb

• "Histoire d'eau" By: Jean-Marc Lalanne (Cahiers du cinéma, #516, Sept 1997) [FRENCH]
  
• "City Without Tears" By: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader, 2000)
  
• "Notes on Tsai Ming-liang's The River" By: Fiona A. Villella (Senses of cinema, 2001)
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2001)
  
• "Innerspace" By: Ken Chen (reverse shot, winter 2004)
  
• (add link here)

Vive L'Amour 愛情萬歲 Ai qing wan sui (1994) IMDb

• "Where Is the Love? Hyperbolic Realism and Indulgence in Vive L'Amour" By: Chris Berry. Island On The Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After. Edited by Chris Berry and Feii Lu. Hong Kong University Press, (2005).
  
• "Tsai Ming-liang's Vive l'amour: Taipei's lonely souls" By: David Walsh (WSWS, 24 October 1994) cached
  
• "L'amour mon cul" By: Camille Nevers (Cahiers du cinéma, #490, April 1995) [FRENCH]
  
• “Alienation, Aesthetic Distance, and Absorption in Tsai Mingliang's Vive L'Amour” By: Richard Read (New Formations, #40, Spring 2000)
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2001)
  
• Review By: Andrew Schenker (Not coming to a theatre near you, 10 June 2008)
  
• (add link here)

Rebels of the Neon God 青少年哪吒 Qing shao nian nuo zha (1992) IMDb

• "Des torrents de larmes" By: Olivier Joyard (Cahiers du cinéma, #523, April 1998) [FRENCH]
  
• Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 2002)
  
• “Only Connect” By: Nick Pinkerton (reverse shot, winter 2004)
  
• (add link here)
  

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GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Reynaud, Bérénice, "Deux cinéastes d'Asie majeurs", Cahiers du cinéma, #490, April 1995 (on Kar-Wai Wong ; Ming-Liang Tsai) [FRENCH]
  
• Jousse, Thierry, "Cinéastes chinois d'aujourd'hui", Bérénice Reynaud ; Olivier Assayas ; Pierre-Olivier Toulza ; Antoine de Baecque, Cahiers du cinéma, #497, Dec 1995 (on Kar-Wai Wong ; Stanley Kwan ; Edward Yang ; Hsiao-Ming Hsu ; Hsiao-Hsien Hou ; Ming-Liang Tsai ; Kaige Chen ; Yimou Zhang ; Wen Jiang ; Yuan Zhang ; Ying Ning) [FRENCH]
  
• "Une onde mauvaise à boire. La trilogie taiwanaise de Tsai Ming-liang" By: Sandrine Marquès (revue Eclipses, #28, 1999) [FRENCH] on Rebels, Vive l'Amour & The River
• Joyard, Olivier, "Yang Kuei-mei, dansons sous le pluie"[sic], Cahiers du cinéma, April 1999, Hors série "Made in China" [FRENCH]
  
• Read, Richard, “Alienation, Aesthetic Distance and Absorption in Tsai Ming-liang's Vive l'amour”, New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory /Politics, 40, 2000
• Chiwen Liu, Kate, “Family in the Postmodern 'Non-Places' in the Films by Atom Egoyan and Ming-liang Tsai”, Fu Jen Studies: Literature and Linguistics, 34, 2001
• Jones, Kent, “Here and There: The Films of Tsai Ming-liang”, in "Movie Mutations" Ed. BFI, 1998-2002
• Joyard, Olivier, "Auteurs, classe affaires", Cahiers du cinéma, #568, May 2002 (on Elia Suleiman ; Abbas Kiarostami ; Kar-Wai Wong ; Hsiao-Hsien Hou ; Ming-Liang Tsai) [FRENCH]
  
• Chauvin, Jean-Sébastien, "Tsai réapparaît", Cahiers du cinéma, #573, Nov 2002, on The Skywalk is gone [FRENCH]
  
• Ciment, Michel “Ming-liang Tsai” in "Petite planète cinématographique. 50 réalisateurs, 40 ans de cinéma, 30 pays", Paris, Ed. Stock, 2003 [FRENCH]
  
• Matsumura, Tatsuya. “Internal Borders, or De-translating the Construction of Male Homosexuality: Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole and the Imaging of ‘Okama’ in Contemporary Japan.” Paper presented at the QGrad Conference, UCLA, October 16, 2004
• Berry, Michael. “Tsai Ming-liang: Trapped in the Past.” Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia UP, 2005
• Tessé, Jean-Philippe, "Berlin, petite pêche", Cahiers du cinéma, #600, April 2005 (on Yoon-ki Lee ; Ming-Liang Tsai ; Alexandre Sokourov) [FRENCH]
  
• Frodon, Jean-Michel, "Tsai Ming-liang au Louvre", Cahiers du cinéma, #603, Jul-Aug 2005 [FRENCH]
  
• Frodon, Jean-Michel, "Venise impériale", Stéphane Delorme, Cahiers du cinéma, #616, Oct 2006 (on Zhangke Jia ; Ming-Liang Tsai ; Johnnie To ; Kiyoshi Kurosawa ; Shinji Aoyama ; Apichatpong Weerasethakul ; Garin Nugroho ; David Lynch) [FRENCH]
  
• Chan, Kenneth. “Goodbye, Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming-liang’s political aesthetics of nostalgia, place, and lingering.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1.2 (2007)
• Wood, Chris. “Realism, intertextuality and humour in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1.2 (2007): 105–16.
• Martin, Fran. “Introduction: Tsai Ming-liang’s intimate public worlds.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1.2 (2007)
• Balsom, Erika, "Saving the Image. Scale and duration in contemporary art cinema" CineAction, #72 (2007)
• Yvette Biro, "Tender is the regard" Film Quarterly, Vol.61, n°4 (Summer 2008), P. 34-40 on Tsai's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone & JZK's Still Life
  
• Saburaud, Frédéric, "Tsai Ming-liang : l'épure et la manière. Le cinéma a-minima 1" Trafic, n°72, hiver 2009
• (add reference here)

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BOOK on Tsai Ming-Liang

• Yee Chih-yen, “New discoveries, the second new wave : overview” Trans. Sam Ho, Taiwan, Ed. Variety Publishing, 1994 (on Ang Lee ; Ming-Liang Tsai ; Hsiao-Ming Hsu ; Kuo-Fu Chen)
• Rivière, Danièle. “Tsaï Ming-liang. Repérages” Trans. Andrew Rothwell "Scoutings". Dir. Jean-Pierre Rehm, Olivier Joyard & Danièle Rivière. Paris: Ed. Dis Voir, 1999. [FRENCH] [ENGLISH] | book review By: Tara Forrest | By: acquarello
  
• (add reference here)

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GENERAL ONLINE ARTICLES

• "In Taiwan, an Anti-Modern Poet Of Modern Anomie" By: Leslie Camhi (NYT, 24 June 2001)
  
• "Tsai Ming-liang Opens the Floodgates" By: Dennis Lim (The Village Voice, 26 June 2001)
  
• "Tsai Ming-liang: Cinematic Painter" By: Jared Rapfogel (Senses of cinema, 2002)
  
• "Of space and solitude. The MFA celebrates the genius of Taiwan’s Tsai Ming-liang" By: Chris Fujiwara (The Phoenix, 28 Feb 2002)
  
• "The European Undead: Tsai Ming-liang’s Temporal Dysphoria" By: Fran Martin (Senses of cinema, 2003)
  
• "Perhaps the Flood ..." By: Yvette Biro (Rouge, #1, 2003)
  
• "What Time Now?" By: Lesley Chow (Bright Lights film journal, ?)
  
• "Tsai Ming-liang at the Cinematheque" By: Donato Totaro (Off-screen, 30 April 2005)
  
• "Leaving the cinema: metacinematic cruising in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn" By: Nicholas de Villiers (Jump Cut, 2007) part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
  
• "Tsai-Fi" By: Adrian Martin (Tren de Sombras, 2007) | in [Spanish]
  
• "Tsai Ming-liang: Taiwan to KL" By: Sashin (Scribbles and Ramblings, 7 May 2007)
  
• "The Incomplete Tsai Ming-liang" By: Roger Clarke (Sight and Sound, Dec 2007)
  
• "Presence and Absence. Towards a Working Conception of Screen Characters" By: Andrew Schenker (Bright Lights film journal, Feb 2008)
  
• "Le cinéma de Tsai Ming-liang : au plus près de la vie" By: Philippe Dussol (Objectif cinéma, ?) [FRENCH]
  
• "New Urban Spaces : The films of Tsai Ming-Liang" By: Michelle Baitali Bhowmik (Journal of the Moving Image, #7, Dec 2008)
  
• (add link here)

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INTERVIEW

• Interview By: Michel CIMENT (Positif, n° 410, 1995) [FRENCH]
  
• Interview By: Bérénice REYNAUD (Cahiers du Cinéma, n°516, 1997) on The River [FRENCH]
• "An interview with Tsai Ming-liang, Director of The Hole" By: ? (World Socialist Web Site, Oct 1998)
• "La clarté du présent" By: Emmanuel Burdeau & Olivier Joyard (Cahiers du cinéma, Hors série "Made in China", April 1999) [FRENCH]
  
• "Une histoire de famille" By: Olivier de BRUYN (Première, n°295, 2001) [FRENCH]
• Interview By: Philippe PIAZZOT (Le Monde, Aden, n°176, 2001) [FRENCH]
• Interview By: Erwan Higuinen; Trad. Thien See-chua (Cahiers du cinéma, #561, Oct 2001) [FRENCH]
  
• "Confined Space—Interview with Tsai Ming-liang" By: Nanouk Leopold (Senses of cinema, 2002)
  
• "Cities and Loneliness; Tsai Ming-liang's What Time Is It There?" By: ? (IndieWire, ?)
  
• "Creativity + A Search for Truth = Box Office Rewards?" By: Ann Translated (Compass magazine, May 2002)
  
• "Ghost Writer" By: Jeff Reichert and Erik Syngle, Translation by Shujen Wang (reverse shot, winter 2004)
  
• Berlin Press conference of Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-ching, Chen Shiang-Chyi, Bruno Pesery for The Wayward Cloud (16 Feb 2005) [video]
  
• "Lee Kang-sheng ne faisait jamais ce que je voulais" Rencontre Tsai Ming-Liang et Lee Kang sheng By: Jean-Michel Frodon (Cahiers du cinéma, #603, Jul-Aug 2005) [FRENCH]
  
• Interview Tsaï Ming-liang By: MAxime C. (Cinemasia, Dec 2005) [FRENCH]
• "2006 TIFF--The Evening Class Interview With Tsai Ming-Liang" By: Michael Guillen (The Evening Class, 14 Sept 2006)
  
• Tsai Ming-liang at Cannes' L'Atelier for Visages (France Culture, 2007) [FRENCH]
• Interview Tsaï Ming-liang By: Benjamin Dessaint (Cinemasia, 19 April 2007) [FRENCH]
  
• "L'esprit révolutionnaire. La diffusion selon Tsai" By: Antoine Thirion & Emmanuel Burdeau; Trad. Vincent Wang (Cahiers du cinéma, #624, June 2007) [FRENCH]
  
• "Of Human Bonding" By: Aysegul Koc (CineAction, #71, 2007, p.48)
  
• "How does arthouse and indenpendent cinema relates to commercialism?" Room 999, Jan 2009
  
• Salomé et le Dragon : un portrait de Tsai Ming Liang (France Culture, Champ Libre, 15 May 2009) [FRENCH] radio
  
• (add link here)

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TEXT BY Tsai Ming-liang

• "On the Uses and Misuses of Cinema" By: Tsai Ming-liang (Senses of Cinema, 13 March 2011) 
• (add reference here)

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WEBSITES

• directortsai's diary [CHINESE] official blog
  
• Tsai Ming-liang's MySpace
• Great Directors profile (Senses of cinema, Darren Hughes)
• Wikipedia page
• Critical Culture downloads
  
• Ciné Club de Caen [FRENCH]
• Cinemasie [FRENCH]
  
• (add link here)

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DOCUMENTARY ON Tsai Ming-liang

• Yang ± Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema (1996/Stanley Kwan/Hong Kong) IMDb
  
• Fleurs dans le miroir, lune dans l'eau (2009/François Lunel/France) 
• (add reference here)
  

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Please complete, correct when needed. This is an ongoing resource page to be updated.

Ana Balona de Oliveira on Colossal Youth

Rooms of Colossal Bones – Pedro Costa’s Trilogy
(26 June, 2008) By Ana Balona de Oliveira (full article at Mute)

excerpts:

"It is not surprising James Quandt titled an essay on the director’s work ‘Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa’ [at Artforum]. Some of the shots of Bones, In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth, most frequently those of poorly lit and impoverished interiors, resemble painterly still lives: dark shacks into which scarce rays of sunlight enter just to illuminate a half empty bottle of wine, a smashed piece of old furniture, unexpected red flowers, but also the back of a neck, an old, beaten up hand, the longing of an immigrant labourer’s eye for his Cape Verdean forgotten youth and lost love. The phrase ‘still lives’ gains here, therefore, a double meaning – not only does it refer to the painterly, shadowy objects that accompany the quietly empty despair of Fontaínhas’ inhabitants, but also to these ghostly characters’ lives themselves, filmed in the resistant stillness of their hopeless bodies."

"Showing an understanding of the Portuguese lineage of film-makers to which Costa very independently pertains (albeit limited to no more than two of its most notorious names), Quandt correctly approximates the director to Manoel de Oliveira and João César Monteiro’s ‘propensity for the long take and tableaux structure, a fondness for haunted, life-battered faces and desolate landscapes, and a Dostoyevskian sense of life as hell’ (Quandt, ‘Still Lives’, in Cinematheque Ontario). Here one could surely add the films of Paulo Rocha, José Álvaro Morais and Teresa Vilaverde."

She equates the formal contemplation of the filming style to the contemplative lives of its subjects. There is an intent to depict people's genuine life at the pace of real life events.
I don't know the films of Morais, anybody has an idea? I've seen Villaverde's Transe, which is definitely CCC, in my mind. Rocha seems a bit surrealist or burlesque, which uses a paced rhythm and wordlessness for a parabolic message rather than going for actual naturalism. [Sorry I thought of Glauber Rocha, I don't know Paulo's films]

"Costa’s films are not documentaries, except for Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?, despite the fact that the director has increasingly chosen to work with non-professional actors, available light and an ever less intrusive occupation of the filming location by an ever more reduced crew and inconspicuous recording device. The films are long and composed of densely concentrated, non-moving shots which do not connect within a structure of linear narrative fluidity. The viewer of Bones, In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth is challenged by this choice of intermingling past and present moments that are susceptible to being narratively perceived only by means of a very close attention to details, such as Ventura wearing builders’ clothes and a head bandage in some of the scenes, and a retiree’s black suit in others. These details might guide the viewer along a non-linear path of extremely long, steady shoots, where only the textures of an immutable present seem to matter and no obvious explanations about before and after are given. This inevitably creates the ‘vertical’ tension inherent to the almost total absence of ‘horizontal’ tracking shots.

Focussing on Bones, Shigehiko Hasumi discusses the notion of ‘a vertical power that breaks the viewer free from the story’s linear cause and effect’. He continues, ‘the present moment is made visually absolute. While not abandoning the time flow of the film, this “absolutification” of the present moment is a bare, unadorned directorial technique that creates a raw filmic continuity for fiction, which otherwise would be subordinated to narrative flow and human psychology. Only rarely in film is the ultimate state of fiction thus so simply integrated with the ultimate state of documentary’, Shigehiko Hasumi, ‘Adventure: An Essay on Pedro Costa’ (2005), in Rouge Pedro Costa, Collosal Youth, 2004"

At a screening in Paris, Jean-Marie Straub was there with his friend Costa and said there was no flashback, that we had to read the film in a linear way (Costa didn't confirm this though).
I like how Ana Balona explains how CCC narrative works through attention to visual details rather than relying on plot cues.
I'm not sure I understand the horizontal/vertical dialectic there. No horizontal tracking shots, OK, most are static shots. But how does it make it a "vertical" film? I can't put my finger on the meaning of this "vertical tension", however I wholeheartedly agree with this "absolutification of the present moment", "raw filmic continuity" !

"Besides the paused rhythm, there is an excruciating silence, cut only by the characters’ words and the apparently unpremeditated mechanical and human sounds penetrating the neighbourhoods and rooms where action slowly unfolds. No other soundtrack is heard. Furthermore, actors spend many hours rehearsing each scene and line with the director to reach an outcome of nude simplicity and precision with an almost emotionally inexpressive declamatory effect.

Dennis Lim wrote that ‘[In Vanda’s Room] feels at times like a documentary but is actually the result of long conversations and multiple takes. Ms. Duarte [Vanda] and her friends, who sit around, talk, prepare heroin fixes, smoke and shoot up, are not documentary subjects so much as actors playing themselves’ (Dennis Lim, ‘Director’s Quest for Truth Among the Downtrodden’, in NYT). In this context, Straub, who also works with non-professional actors, said what Costa could perhaps have said about his own work: ‘some people have the impression – because we reject verisimilitude and TV-style cinema … – that there is no psychology in our films. But that’s not true. All this is psychology. There is no psychology in terms of the performance of the actor because there is a dramatic abstraction that goes deeper than so-called verisimilitude. But it’s there, in between the shots, in the very montage and in the way the shots are linked to each other, it is extremely subtle psychology’ (Jean-Marie Straub, in Pedro Costa, Où gît votre sourire enfoui?/ Onde jaz o teu sorriso? / Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?, 2001)."

What Costa says about the presence of an underlying/implicit subtle psychology within the characters is very interesting. He admits not to go for the versimilitude of a documentary, so the essence of CCC is not necessarily "absolute realism", but an asymptotic approach to the Real. And unlike TV or melodrama, this tentative mimetism of reality is not obtained through dramatisation (synthetic caricature of emotions) but by decomposition of life-like moments, in their context, with awkward timing, uncomfortable silences... instead of a perfect theatrical timing that pumps up the audience on cue.

"In Colossal Youth, some of this vertically mute tension is slightly released only when Ventura plays a Cape Verdean record and we listen in to its warmly melancholic musical murmur. As Straub put it, there is no ‘musical soup’ to help sustain the lack of idea and form."

Absence of soundtrack, emphasis on real-life ambient sounds, of course.

Tsai's Visages: When Salome faced the Dharma

Today in Paris, Taiwan director Tsai Ming-Liang described his new film Face [Visages, 臉] commissioned by France’s Louvre Museum, as one that is going to be crazy. This is because Tsai wants to take notions of Buddhism into, and clash them, with the free-spiritedness of Western art as exemplified by those exhibited in the Louvre.

Tsai Ming-liang stressed that the film will be very special, "because there is such a strange combination: the refreshingly beautiful Laetitia [Casta], * French Nouvelle Vague director Truffaut’s leading actor [Jean-Pierre] Léaud, as well as his last actress Fanny Ardent, a non-French speaking director, and my own alter ego ‘little-Kang’ (Lee Kang-sheng); all wrapped by the Louvre, the film shall be a gift. "

Tsai Ming-liang’s own Buddhist beliefs have a special importance on the film’s theme, particularly the notion of Three Dharma Seals [三法印] “impermanence [諸行無常], impersonality [諸法無我] and unsatisfactoriness [涅盤寂靜],” states of which the film shall attempt to portray. These concepts came to Tsai after three years of visiting the Louvre. He hopes to show “how everything is illusory, just as cinema is illusory, but what is important is how the face of illusions exist, and must be endured.”

In casting Laetitia therefore, Tsai Ming-liang was most interested in her unique face, "I can feel intimate, as the audience can feel intimate with the face". But also, due to the language barrier, Laetitia has spoken of how she viewed Tsai Ming-Liang’s appearance "one looking like a Buddha, but a Buddha that is a bit crazy."

After Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung declined the original offer to star, Tsai Ming-liang immediately began looking for a replacement, maintaining the requirement of creating a film around its starring role; which would make it easier to market, the most part of his struggle until the emergence of Laetitia. So much that Tsai excitedly remarked “because of her, she entirely changed my traditionalist conception of Salome.”

As a former model, Laetitia brings to cinema the aura gained from her previous casting as the prestigious Marianne bust. Tsai gets very excited when reflecting on the relationship between films, models and the way people generally think of actors; citing the French director [Robert] Bresson’s meditations on film actors as models.

Tsai is also aware that Laetitia’s own background in fashion, will affect his take on Salome, becoming almost a Salome of fashion. Laetitia’s background will seem like a previous life, an echo from a lifestyle of fashion and designers that Tsai is willing to welcome to the film, “that world is too big, but it does stimulate in me many new ideas, I think it will be fun.”

Laetitia recognised in Tsai Ming-liang's film the hallmarks of a true auteurist, including so much of that which is free and poetic, "I am not afraid of his past but instead find it useful," but unlike other directors sharing in the hope that their roles be taken to like good students, “we worked together on my performance in order to enhance the narrative”, adding further that “he is a foreign director without biases, I really began to feel like a true actress.”

Laetitia is also very excited to be performing with Lee Kang-sheng, "because they do not know what might happen”. In reply, Lee Kang-sheng spoke of Laetitia as refreshing and distinct, seemingly both intimate and accessible as well as aloof like a noble; providing the role with an abundant potential for subtlety, "we believe that the it will be a very happy collaboration.”

Tsai Ming-liang also spoke about his casting of Léaud; since Léaud offered himself as a solid and ever-present face of Truffaut’s films from the age of fourteen, the impact of this method then, influenced Tsai to choose the same film-making path, “to me, he has my total respect, he is like an idol, a god.”

"Through my contact with him however, he became human, he would age; even in facing the myriad harshness of reality, for example, becoming obsolete, finding little work and experiencing ill health, Truffaut would, if he was still alive, certainly agree with how I shot him today, he would shoot him just as he is now.” Tsai reassured Léaud that their collaboration as director and actor “will be planting the seeds of the fruit of eternal love.”

Original Chinese text at UDN.com, posted by Tsai Ming-Liang at his blog: Director Tsai's Diary, this translation by Edwin Mak. Image: Tsai Ming-Liang.

* The author uses the first name of Laetitia rather than her surname, my translation keeps to that usage henceforth.