Juvenile Patriarchy and Its Subversive Other in the Early Cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Christopher Lupke will speak about the cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien at the University of Kansas.

Bursting on the scene in the early 1980s, Hou Hsiao-hsien revolutionized the face of Taiwanese cinema and has left an indelible mark upon it. His films have long been concerned with family relationships, the development of (gendered) identity, trangression, and conflicts between the city and the countryside. Focusing his discussion in Hou's A Summer at Grandpa's, Lupke analyzes the way language and power are combined in nearly imperceptible ways to shape familial and friendship relations in Hou's films, even as these established and establishing relations are subtlely undermined by visual images and some figures who do not have complete access to language. Co-sponsored by CEAS and the KU Dept of East Asian Languages & Cultures.