Interrogating the Real: Traumatic Jouissance in Tsai Ming-liang’s Films
Vol. 47 No.4 12/2017
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Title |
Interrogating the Real: Traumatic Jouissance in Tsai Ming-liang’s Films |
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Author |
Yang Xiaobin |
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Genre |
Article |
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Pages |
725-759 |
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Download |
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Language |
Chinese |
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Key words |
Tsai Ming-liang 蔡明亮, Lacan, the real, trauma/jouissance, (death)drive |
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Abstract |
From the Lacanian perspective, this essay discusses Tsai Ming-liang’s 蔡明亮 constant concern for the unfathomable real in his filmic oeuvre. Tsai strives to demonstrate ruins, failures and fragmented experiences of life through his lens, revealing the inner lack of the symbolic Other (especially the symbolic order of modernity). His expression of slowness in his recent works boldly explores the unbearable traumatic real. It is also notable that his intense presentation of disease, plague or incest simultaneously touches upon pleasure and pain with his unique style. Within his favorite themes such as sex, death and ghosts, the subjective desire usually becomes the drive towards jouissance by traversing the symbolized fantasy through the enjoyment of the symptoms, thereby experiencing the spiritual tremor that interrogates the traumatic real. |