Subtitling Calligraphy-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Subtitling Calligraphy

Published:2021-03-12 Issue:1 Volume:1 Page:115-133
ISSN:2702-2285
Container-title:Journal of Chinese Film Studies
language:en
Short-container-title:

Author:

Nornes Markus¹

Affiliation:

1. University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , MI , USA

Abstract

Abstract This essay examines a regional, not global, dimension of Chinese cinema: the Chinese character in its brushed form. Calligraphy and cinema have an intimate relationship in East Asia. Indeed, the ubiquity of the brushed word in cinema is one element that actually ties works in Korean, Japanese and Sinophone Asia together as a regional cinema. At the same time, I will explore the very specific difference of Chinese filmmakers’ use of written language. On first glance, cinema and calligraphy would appear as radically different art forms. On second glance, they present themselves as sister arts. Both are art forms built from records of the human body moving in (an absent) time and space. The essay ends with a consideration of subtitling, upon which Chinese cinema’s global dimension is predicated. How does investigating this very problem lead us to rethinking the nature of the cinematic subtitle, which is very much alive―a truly movable type?

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Subject

General Medicine

Reference11 articles.

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2. Goodman, N. 1968. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. New York: Hackett Publishing.

3. Hannas, W. 1997. Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

4. Hay, J. 1993. “The Human Body as a Microcosmic Source of Macrocosmic Values in Calligraphy.” In Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by A. Kassulia, and W. Dissanayake, 179–212. Albany: State University of New York Press.

5. Kao, Yu-kung. 1991. “Chinese Lyric Aesthetics.” In Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting, edited by A. Murck, and W. C. Fong, 47–90. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.