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Degenerative Teenager, Family and Puberty: The Phenomenological Body in The River
- 1 University of Edinburgh
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Abstract
The focus on the living conditions of adolesecents has always been an important in Taiwanese cinema. This paper combines philosophical phenomenology represented by Merleau-Ponty’s body theory with the film phenomenology and unites the presentation of the cinematic body with the audience’s corporeal preception to achieve a phenomenological oneness of subject and object. This paper hopes to use The River as a case study to explore tsai’s concern for marginalized groups and how it evokes emotional resonance in the audience; simultaneously, by examining body narrative and body images, it discusses the audience’s visual experience and aesthetic recpetion on a physical and perceptual level, rather than only on a mental one, thus further stinulating academic thinking on the intersubjectivity of film and the body. Specifically, there will be three chapters for analysis: body narrative, situated bodies and role of film technology itself in facilitating the viewers’ visual experience.
Keywords
Tsai Ming-liang, coming-of-age film, film phenomenology, situated body, visual experience
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Cite this article
Li,S. (2023). Degenerative Teenager, Family and Puberty: The Phenomenological Body in The River. Communications in Humanities Research,9,27-34.
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Volume title: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
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