Topics in Chinese Film and Media Studies: Cinematic Soundscapes

EAFM 220 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

This seminar examines the soundscapes of Chinese film and audiovisual media, with musical highlights from the dawn of sound cinema to the present day. We will proceed chronologically from Republican-era Shanghai cinema, through 1950s to 1970s Cold War musicals and post-1980s New Wave auteurs, to contemporary televisual theme songs and KTV music videos.   The film and media under discussion include musical comedy and musical horror, adaptations from Hollywood and from traditional opera, historical costume films and teen melodramas punctuated by song-and-dance numbers, martial arts cinema with choreographed fight scenes, revolutionary model operas and ballets, postmodern arthouse musicals, documentaries, and popular television dramas with viral musical interludes.  Expanding, transforming, and rejuvenating across time and borders, Chinese musicals provide us with a prism to focus and refract many critical issues such as sound studies, genre theories, intermedial relationships, aesthetic traditions, transnational influences, political propaganda, and entertainment industries.  Students are encouraged to develop original research papers or to make creative projects such as music videos to contribute to the emerging field of Chinese film and media studies—as well as to sing along at screenings!