DWF 2005, n.1. Luci d'oriente

DWF
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Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-

DWF / Luci d'oriente - 2005, n. 1 (65) january-march

EDITORIAL by Patrizia Cacioli and Paola Masi

MATERIA

This issue enquires on Asian film productions, especially India e China, in order to experience the gaze of some "natwes", some socalled "others" on themselves e on us.

Go to the summary

An other important component of the Chinese cinema is the reelaboration of the past, to rethink it with a modern consciousness e sensibility, in a particular mood of love e nostalgia. The mutual attirance between East e West can produce a happy synthesis, like the italian film of Ermanno Olmi Singing behind the screens.

In "Melodrama/subjectivity/ideology: Western melodrama theories e their relevance to recent Chinese cinema" (1993), Ann Kaplan proposes an interesting approach to intercultural textual analysis.

She notices how Hollywood classic melodrama, as well as theatrical melodrama
in the 19th century, present recurring features which have been reproposed by later North American films e European - but also by Chinese cinema. After retracing the main points of Kaplan's paper, Pilozzi tries to use her approach to look at Bollywood popular films.

The essay is about the Indian cinema e particularly about Mira Nair movies production. The first part is based on the historical evolution of Indian Cinema from its origins till our days e it is focused on women. It describes the way through which Indian Cinema e most of all Bollywood movies symbolize women.

Two are the woman patterns imposed by the Bollywood style: the courtesan, modern prostitute, who has given life to the kotha movie stream; e the lakshmi, the wife-mother, a purity symbol trough which "he man" could reach his spiritual evolution. Independent Indian cinema, instead, suggests another figure of woman, strong, independent e complex. Most of these films denounce Indians women bad conditions.

An emergent filmmaker is Mira Nair; in her works she describes the fight women undertake in order to assert their own identity. In fact the female protagonists of her films, with firmness e resolution, try to catch up their own subjectivity, aware of their beauty e of their own moral force. Female evolution proceeds with a strong force in a world that generally does not allow women to become aware of themselves.

Dwyer, Rachel e Divia Patel (2002) Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press

Erens, Patricia Brett (2000), "The Film Work of Ann Hui" in The Cinema of Hong Kong. History, Arts, Identity, a cura di Poshek Fu e David Desser, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 176-195.

Jain, Jasbir e Sudha Rai, edited by (2002) Films e Feminism: Essays in Indian Cinema. New Delhi, Rawat

Mishra, Vijay (2002) Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire. New York, Routledge

Nayar Sheila J. (2004) "Invisible Representation. The Oral Contours of a National Popular Cinema", Film Quarterly, Vol. 57 n. 3, pp. 13-23.

Silbergeld, Jerome (1999) China into Film. Frames of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema. London, Reaktion Books

The author reads Sophocle's tragedy e some of its contemporary commentaries - Jacques Lacan, Patrick Guyomard, Judith Butler - regarding generational differences e transmission: if Lacan thesis about the guilty desire of the mother is a too fast diagnosis, Butler's resolution in a "whole symbolic with no natural reference" isn't persuasive yet. Collin, according to the attempt of Guyomard, claims for the rediscovery of new e contemporary modes of asymmetry in parenthood.

LALITHA GOPALAN, Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, London, British Film Institute, 2002, 218 pp.

rev. by Paola Bono

REY CHOW, Il sogno di Butterfly. Costellazioni postcoloniali, edited by Patrizia Calefato, Roma, Meltemi, 2004, pp. 257.

MONICA CAPUANI, Lei. Conversazioni private con le donne che hanno accompagnato I monologhi della vagina in Italia, preface by Maria Serena Sapegno, Luca Sossella Editore, Roma 2004.