Edward Yang
Edward Yang | ||
|---|---|---|
| (attended) | ||
| Spouse |
Kaili Peng (m. 1995) | |
| Awards | Hanyu Pinyin | Yáng Déchāng |
Edward Yang (
Youth and early career
Yang was born in Shanghai in 1947, and grew up in
A brief enrollment at
While working in Seattle, Yang came across the Werner Herzog film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972): this encounter rekindled Yang's passion for film and introduced him to a wide range of classics in world and European cinema.[10] Yang was particularly inspired by the films of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni (Antonioni's influence has shown up in some of Yang's later works).[11] He married Taiwanese pop-singer and music legend Tsai Chin in May 1985.[12][13] They divorced in August 1995, and he subsequently married pianist Kaili Peng (彭鎧立).[10]
Film career
Early works
Yang returned to Taiwan in 1980, where his former USC friend Wei-Cheng Yu asked him to write the script for and serve as a production aide on his film, The Winter of 1905 (1981), in which he also had a small acting role. The film went on to be nominated for a Best Cinematography award at the 1982 Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards. His script brought him to the attention of Sylvia Chang, who hired him to write and direct an episode of the television miniseries she was producing, Eleven Women. Yang's two-and-a-half hour episode, "Duckweed" (also known as "Floating Weeds"), concerned the story of a country girl who moves to Taipei with dreams of entering the entertainment industry, and was his first directorial effort.[14][15]
The following year, Yang was asked to direct and write a short for the seminal Taiwanese New Wave omnibus film In Our Time (1982), which featured other short films from fresh young directors such as Yi Chang, Ko I-Chen, and Tao Te-chen. Yang's contribution, "Desires" (also known as "Expectation"), is about a young girl's experiences going through puberty.[16]
That Day, on the Beach
Yang then followed that short with several of his major works. While his contemporary
Taipei Story
Yang followed with his second feature film, Taipei Story (1985), where he cast fellow auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien as the lead, a former Little-League baseball star named Lung trying to find his way in Taipei. Taipei Story also starred Yang's future wife, Tsai Chin, as Chin, the female lead and girlfriend of Hou Hsiao-hsien's character, Lung. The film was also nominated for two awards at the 1985 Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards: Best Leading Actor (Hou Hsiao-hsien) and Best Cinematography (Wei-han Yang).
Terrorizers
Yang's third feature film was
A Brighter Summer Day
Yang's fourth film was
In December 2015,
A Confucian Confusion
Yang's fifth film was
Mahjong
Yang's sixth film was
Yi Yi
However, Yang was best known for his seventh and final film,
The film won the "Best Film" award from the
Yi Yi was also named "Best Film of the Year" (2000) by the following film critics and writers:
The film also won 2nd place for Best Director, Best Film and Best Foreign Language Film in the 2000
Yi Yi also placed third in a 2009 Village Voice Film Poll ranking "The Best Film of the Decade," tying with La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000) and Zodiac (2007), and also placed third in a 2009 IndieWire Critics' Poll of the "Best Film of the Decade."
The film is also currently available on
Plays and other work
In 1989, Yang formed his own production company, "Yang and his Gang", which was renamed "Atom Films and Theater" in 1992, after one of Yang's favorite anime television shows while growing up, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy.[26] Atom Films and Theater not only was involved in the production and financing of films, but also staged theatrical productions and plays, as well as experimental high-tech multimedia pieces.[26] In 1992, Yang also put on a production of a play he wrote entitled Likely Consequence, a video-taped performance of which can be viewed on The Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD of A Brighter Summer Day (1991), released in March 2016.
Yang, in addition to narrative audiovisual works, also worked in the advertisement business, releasing in 1997 a TV commercial for Mitsubishi with music composed by his then-wife Kaili Peng.[27]
In 2001, Yang had finished a script about a young kid who travels the world with just a cellphone and a credit card. Regarding that, "those two things are all you need now. It's a new world and there are a lot of stories we can tell each other," said the cineaste.[28] In the same year, Yang also hoped to make a film in Seattle and a second world war story set in Taiwan.[28]
In addition to these unrealized projects, Yang planned to make The Wind, an animated feature with Jackie Chan budgeted at $25 million, to be drawn by Yang, heading a team of animators.[6]
Death
Yang died on June 29, 2007, at his home in
Style and themes
Yang's visual style comprehended deliberate pacing, long takes, fixed camera, few closeups, empty spaces, and cityscapes.[6]
Yang, in addition to being interested in the impact of the changes of Taiwanese society on the middle classes,[6] attempted to examine the struggle between the modern and the traditional in his films, as well as the relationship between business and art, and how greed may corrupt, influence, or affect art.[30] For that reason, many of his films (other than Yi Yi) are extremely difficult to find, since Yang did not consider selling films for money his primary purpose as an artist, and also felt that film distribution, especially in Taiwan, was something out of his control.[7]
Yang always set his work in the cities of Taiwan. As a result, Yang's films—especially A Confucian Confusion, Taipei Story, Mahjong and Terrorizers—are commentaries on Taiwanese urban life and insightful explorations of Taiwanese urban society.[3][31]
Yang also collaborated with many of his fellow Taiwanese film-makers in his films: for instance, in Yi Yi he cast as the lead well-known auteur, novelist, and screenwriter Wu Nien-jen, director of the award-winning A Borrowed Life, which Martin Scorsese has cited as one of his favorite works and one of the most influential films of the '90s.[32] He also cast fellow film-maker Hou Hsiao-hsien as the lead in his 1985 film, Taipei Story, where Wu Nien-jen also had a brief part as a taxi driver and an old friend of Hou Hsiao-hsien's character. Yang also taught theatre and film classes at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Several of his students showed up in his films as actors and actresses.[8]
Legacy
In 2000, Yang formed Miluku Technology & Entertainment to produce animated films and TV shows. The first animated feature that Miluku was slated to produce was an animated feature titled The Wind with
Filmography
Features
- In Our Time (1982) - segment "Desires"/"Expectation"
- That Day, on the Beach (1983)
- Taipei Story (1985)
- Terrorizers (1986)
- A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
- A Confucian Confusion (1994)
- Mahjong (1996)
- Yi Yi (2000)
Further reading
- John Anderson, Contemporary Film Directors: Edward Yang (University of Illinois Press 2005)
References
- ^ "詹宏志解读台湾新电影30年_影音娱乐_新浪网". ent.sina.com.cn. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
说是在1986年的11月6日，杨德昌的40岁生日，
- ^ "151 Auteur Theory: Taiwan Film Auteurs | SP 2015 | UC Berkeley Department of Film & Media". August 20, 2017. Archived from the original on August 20, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2023.
- ^ a b Austerlitz, Saul (July 19, 2002). "Edward Yang". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
- ^ IMDb, Edward Yang, Awards, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0945981/awards
- ^ a b International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. Eds. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 2: Directors. 4th ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 2001. p1092-1094. 4 vols. "Edward Yang" accessed through Thomson Gale's Biography Research Centre 1 July 2007
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Sklar, Robert (October 18, 2010). "The Engineer of Modern Perplexity: An Interview with Edward Yang". Cineaste. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
[p]arents always want you to be in technology, so that when you graduate you can get a good-paying job, and they feel secure. If you're interested in the humanities, they think you're going to starve. On college-entrance exams I did too well. I qualified for the higher echelon in education, which led me into engineering, and I felt terrible. I wanted to retake the exam and do worse. Reality takes you in another direction. After I got my bachelor's degree I entered graduate school in the U.S. and studied electrical engineering again. I went into the newest and hottest program, the Center for Informatics Research at the University of Florida, which I think was the first information technology program.
- ^ a b Shelly Kraicer and Lisa Roosen-Runge, Edward Yang: A Taiwanese Independent Filmmaker in Conversation, [1] Archived December 27, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Associated Press, Edward Yang, 59, Director who focused on Taiwan Life, http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6280205, July 2, 2007.
- ^ a b "Edward Yang, 59; filmmaker focused on modern Taiwanese life". Los Angeles Times. July 2, 2007.
- ^ Simon Abrams, Slant Magazine, A Rational Mind: The Films of Edward Yang, http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/a-rational-mind-the-films-of-edward-yang
- ^ XinhuaNet News, Tsai Chin to sing to commemorate her ex-husband, "Tsai Chin to sing to commemorate her ex-husband". Archived from the original on January 5, 2016. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
- ^ Tsai Chin Biography, http://chrisroughan.webs.com/tsaichin.htm Archived January 30, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0231133308.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Floating Weeds". JonathanRosenbaum.net. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
- ^ Edward Yang Retrospective, see page 3, http://www.iias.nl/sites/default/files/Persbericht-Retrospectief-Tropentheater.pdf
- ^ The Terrorizer, Awards, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091355/awards
- ^ Jameson, Fredric, The Geopolitical Aesthetic. “Remapping Taipei.” London: BFI Publishing, 1992, pp. 114–157.
- ^ a b The Criterion Collection, A Brighter Summer Day, https://www.criterion.com/films/28596-a-brighter-summer-day
- ^ "Berlinale: 1996 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved January 1, 2012.
- ^ "IMDB: Awards of Mahjong". imdb.com. Retrieved October 13, 2009.
- ^ "IMDB: Yi Yi: A One and a Two". imdb.com. Retrieved October 13, 2009.
- ^ Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times, A Second Look: 'Yi Yi', http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/20/entertainment/la-ca-second-look-20110320
- ISBN 9780252029936.
- ^ The Criterion Collection, Yi Yi, https://www.criterion.com/films/781-yi-yi?q=autocomplete
- ^ a b Anderson (2005), p. 10.
- ^ Notebook (November 16, 2022). "Rushes: "RRR" Sequel, Charles Burnett in Lisbon, Edward Yang's Mitsubishi Commercial". MUBI Notebook.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
- ^ Dargis, Manohla (July 2, 2007). "Edward Yang, 59, Director Prominent in New Taiwan Cinema, is Dead". The New York Times.
- ^ Abrams, Slant Magazine, http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/a-rational-mind-the-films-of-edward-yang
- ^ Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice, Edward Yang, Urban Dweller, http://www.villagevoice.com/film/edward-yang-urban-dweller-6433541
- ^ Andrew Chan, Film Comment, Patriarch on the Sidelines, http://www.filmcomment.com/article/wu-nien-jen-a-borrowed-life-patriarch-on-the-sidelines/
- ^ "UPI, "Filmmaker Edward Yang dies at 59" July 1, 2007". Archived from the original on January 18, 2008.
External links
 | This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (August 2019) |
- Edward Yang at IMDb
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Exiles in Modernity: The Films of Edward Yang" (Chicago Reader)
- Interview by Shelly Kraicer and Lisa Roosen-Runge (Cineaction)
- Interview by Duncan Campbell (Guardian UK)
- CBS2 Report on Edward Yang's Death
- "The Taiwan Stories of Edward Yang and Wu Nien-jen," Harvard Film Archive
- "A Rational Mind: The Films of Edward Yang" The Film Society of Lincoln Center