Lost in Translation

King Homay King

Description

In a nuanced exploration of how Western cinema has represented East Asia as a space of radical indecipherability, Homay King traces the long-standing association of the Orient with the enigmatic. The fantasy of an inscrutable East, she argues, is not merely a side note to film history, but rather a kernel of otherness that has shaped Hollywood cinema at its core. Through close readings of The Lady from Shanghai, Chinatown, Blade Runner, Lost in Translation, and other films, she develops a theory of the "Shanghai gesture," a trope whereby orientalist curios and decor become saturated with mystery. These objects and signs come to bear the burden of explanation for riddles that escape the Western protagonist or cannot be otherwise resolved by the plot. Turning to visual texts from outside Hollywood which actively grapple with the association of the East and the unintelligible-such as Michelangelo Antonioni's Chung Kuo: Cina, Wim Wenders's Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and Sophie Calle's Exquisite Pain-King suggests alternatives to the paranoid logic of the Shanghai gesture. She argues for the development of a process of cultural "de-translation" aimed at both untangling the psychic enigmas prompting the initial desire to separate the familiar from the foreign, and heightening attentiveness to the internal alterities underlying Western subjectivity.

Sujets

• East Asia
• Far East

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 09 août 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822392927
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

lost in translation

Homay King

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Orientalism,Cinema,and

theEnigmaticSignifier

duke university press durham and london2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .

∫2010 Duke University Press

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Carter & Cone Galliard by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

for my father, jan hwa king . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 . 1the enigmatic signifier 19 2 the shanghai gesture 44 3 the chinatown syndrome 75 4 the great wall 102 5 the lost girls 138 Notes 171 Bibliography 189 Index 201 .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .

I first encountered the work of Jean Laplanche in a Freud seminar taught by Kaja Silverman at the University of California, Berkeley. Leo Bersani subsequently introduced me to Laplanche’s writings on the enigmatic signifier in a seminar on sociability. This book would not exist without either of these inspirational thinkers: they are its two welcome internal alterities. Many friends, family members, colleagues, and mentors deserve thanks for formative input, constructive criticism, helpful free associa- tions, or necessary distraction during this book’s development. They include Patty Ahn, Emma Bianchi, Duncan Black, Judith Butler, David Cast, Seymour Chatman, Sylvia Chong, Timothy Corrigan, Susan Courtney, Peter X. Feng, Gregg Flaxman, Suzanne Gauch, Oliver Gaycken, Steven Gontarski, Elena Gorfinkel, Christiane Hertel, Guo- Juin Hong, Nora Johnson, Jan King, Maura King, Noreen King, Ste- ven Levine, Lázaro Lima, Heather Love, Catherine Liu, Rei Magosaki, Bakirathi Mani, Gridley McKim-Smith, Imke Meyer, Rob Miotke, Jena Osman, Katrin Pahl, Masha Raskolnikov, Rebbie Ratner, B. Ruby Rich, Katherine Rowe, Sascha Russel, Gayle Salamon, James Salazar, Lisa Saltzman, Bethany Schneider, Beth Shea, Sheila Sideris, Rosi Song, Louis-Georges Schwartz, Gustavus Stadler, Jill Stau√er, Kate Thomas, Karen Tongson, Domietta Torlasco, Michael Tratner, Sharon Ullman, Linda Williams, Carina Yervasi, Catherine Zimmer, and Tina Zwarg. I o√er my deep appreciation to Lee Edelman and the anonymous