Term Exam 2 Visual & Performing Arts Coursework Paper

Please answer three out of four essay questions below.

165: 262 The Chinese Cinema Spring 2020 Term Exam 2 Please answer three out of four essay questions below. This is a limited open-book exam. You are allowed to refer ONLY to your class notes and our weekly assigned critical articles. References to external resources are not needed and not allowed. Access to the internet during the exam is strictly forbidden. We are looking for your own ideas, responses, and analysis. Academic cheating or plagiarism will not be tolerated. It is your responsibility to abide by the rules. Failure to do so will result in a zero for the exam. Please set up a 3-hour exam time to complete it. Your answers should each be at least 400 words in length. They should display a grasp of the content of the films in question and an awareness of the issues discussed in class. Please focus on producing good close readings of the films and of your critical interpretations. Your answers are due by 10pm on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. No extensions. Please upload your answers (in the format of word document) to the course dropbox at Sakai. 1. In Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, the waitress, Faye at the Midnight Express, loves listening to loud music, particularly, “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and Papas. Please consider how is the song “California Dreamin’” used throughout the second part of the film? In the following conversation, Faye explains to Cop 633 about why she does that: Cop 633: You like noisy music? Waitress: Yes. The louder the better. Stops me from thinking. Cop 633: You don’t like to think? What do you like? Waitress: Never thought about it. What does that say about Faye’s personalities? How does Faye’s way of listening to music reveal about her life and her relationships? How does the usage of music help describe key questions of urban alienation and (lack of) effective communication in a postmodern city like Hong Kong? 2. Please discuss Ma Xiaojun’s (nickname Monkey, the protagonist of In the Heat of the Sun) activities in his father’s room, in other people’s rooms, at school, in public spaces in Beijing (streets, restaurant, swimming pool, and others)? How do you agree with the following argument in the critical article by Weijie Song, “Transgression, Submission, and the Fantasy of Youth Subculture: The Nostalgic Symptoms of In the Heat of the Sun”: “In the film and in reality, perhaps the most charming fantasy of the youth subculture is the action of ‘walking in the city,’ not only physical movement but also a process of alternative education or enlightenment. It indicates youth, action, encounter, discovery, friendship, dreams, longing, passion, and love, especially when the walking is constituted as an ‘imagined memory’ connected with lived experiences from twenty years before.” 3. Zhang Yimou’s film, To Live, explores the intricate entanglements between the political and the personal lives in modern China. Whereas events in the political domain, such as the civil war and the Great Leap Forward movement, greatly controlled and changed people’s lives, do you think that the personal life is still able in some respects to find a way to maintain its autonomy, to remain independent of the political domain? How is personal life in the film portrayed, compared with political life? To what extent do you agree that the personal life is able to triumph over the political life in this film? Please find moments in the movie to support your idea. 4. Food is an important theme in the film, To Live. Choose TWO kinds of food and briefly discuss the following questions: how are they depicted in the film and what roles do they each play in terms of building the film plot? What are the symbolic meanings of these two types of food, consumed or unconsumed, especially when considering food is one of the fundamental needs to maintain a person’s life?