A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Search This Blog

Thursday, October 16, 2025

A Confucian Confusion (Edward Yang, 1994)

Chen Shiang-chyi and Suk Kwan Ni in A Confucian Confusion

Cast: Chen Shiang-chyi, Yiwan Chen, Danny Dun, Hung Hung, Elaine Jin, Chen Limei, Richie Li, Suk Kwan Ni, Bosen Wang, Weiming Wang, Yeming Wang. Screenplay: Edward Yang. Cinematography: Chang Chan, Hung Wu-hsiu, Li Lung-yu, Arthur Wong. Production design: Ernest Guan, Tsai Chen, Edward Yang, Yao Jui-chung. Film editing: Chen Po-wen. Music: Antonio Lee. 

Edward Yang's A Confucian Confusion is a satiric but ultimately benign look at yuppies in a boom town, Taipei in the '90s. Nothing is fixed and stable about their lives, as they rise and fall, couple and uncouple in their pursuit of fortune. It's animated by the lively performances of its ensemble and the typically novelistic detail of Yang's narrative. The film itself had deteriorated somewhat since it was released, and has been restored, but I still found some of its scenes less clearly lit than they could have been. 

Posted by