Song Hwee Lim (University of Exeter)
Slowness, Nostalgia, Cinephilia: Tsai Ming-liang and the Discursive Death of Cinema
Discourses on cinephilia seem to have resurfaced within film studies in recent years only to pronounce the death of cinema itself. With its aesthetic of slowness and sense of nostalgia, Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Bu San, 2003) is particularly suited for an examination into the discursive construction of the death of cinema. This article argues that, by drawing our attention to the stillness of the image and the experience of time, Tsai’s film proclaims that cinema and cinephilia are both alive and well, and that contemporary film culture will continue to engender new ways to rekindle an old love of cinema.
