My appreciation goes to Sheldon Lu for giving me the opportunity to present an earlier version of this paper at the Modern Language Association's 2003 convention in the session, “Asian Cinema in the Age of Globalization.” Thanks also to the University of California's Center for Ideas and Society for providing a residential fellowship, which allowed me to complete this article, and to my East/West research group colleagues Derek Burrill, Mariam Beevi Lam and Yenna Wu for their insightful readings and helpful feedback on a draft of this piece. My gratitude to Craig Stein for his expert editorial and technical support in addition to his generous sharing of ideas.
Notes
1My thanks to Mariam Beevi Lam for sharing her insights on Maggie Cheung's career and Olivier Assayas's depiction of it.
2The last name of Virginie Ledoyen, whose parents are Spanish, is Fernandez, complicating her “Franchness.” Although one's parents' nationality does not dictate one's own, it is notable that she assumed a “very French” stage name, borrowed from her paternal grandmother, “masking” her Spanish surname. < http://www.adoring.net/virginieledoyen/biography.htm >. Accessed February 3, 2004.
3Hsieh 94. This translation from the French, as well as all subsequent ones, is my own.
4Thanks to Yenna Wu for inspiring my reading of re-education as re-molding in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.
5I define the “film proper” as everything that takes place prior to the tacked-on coda or flash-forward frame gratuitously added to the novel in the cinematic adaptation and occupying its last thirty minutes. See Seguret.
6Ghost Dog, review of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, December 23, 2003, Cinémasie. < http://www.cinemasie.com/fiche/oeuvre/balzac/noscritiq ues.html?langtext = fr >. Accessed February 10, 2004.
7Many thanks to Craig Stein for pointing out that Truffaut's Milk Bottle scene takes over Tsai's screen and suggesting the implications thereof.
8Godfrey Cheshire, Independent On-line, Movie Feature, October 29, 2003, < http:// indyweek. com/ durham/2003-101-29/movie.html >. Accessed February 4, 2004. Other critics who characterize Tsai as Beckettian are Tony Rayns (Sight & Sound, July 2002, 57), Nick James (Sight & Sound, September 2002, 27) and Jean-Sébastien Chauvin, “Et là-bas, quelle heure est-il? de Tsai Ming-liang,” Citation Cahiers du cinéma, (October 2001), 80–81.
9Even if a French New Wave filmmaker such as Jean-Luc Godard used long takes in a film such as Breathless, his jump cuts and handheld camera radically contrast Tsai's static shots.