The Cinematic in Fictions | Episode 29

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Quarry Bay apartment building, Hong Kong (photo by the author)

Each week on The Matterhorn podcast, I discuss a way to layer fictions and discover the nuances of truth, using my novel as a catalyst but looking at other works of fiction as well as theory and interdisciplinary ideas. Each week, I also spend a little time on places & spaces, as part of a continued discourse on these ideas.

Thursday, I’ll be back with a 5-minute actionable version of today’s show, and Saturday I’ll share the next chapter of A Hong Kong Story. If you want to choose which posts you receive via email, please visit this page.

I’m keeping all of this completely free for listeners/readers with the option of patronage and support through my Bookshop.org affiliate page. Thanks for joining us today!

Today’s episode links to “Part I: Quarry Bay, i” in A Hong Kong Story.

Table of Contents

A full transcript can be accessed on the desktop web version.

Keywords:

• Cinematic in fictions - some questions

• Quasi-real

• Filmic apartment ellipsis

• Fruit Chan & Hong Kong filmmakers

• Literary examples of using the cinematic & ideas for you

  • Allusions

  • “Haunting” the text

  • Genres

  • Montage

  • Cultural iconic

  • Absence

  • Film/society/politics

  • Cinematic Book genre

• Place & Space focus - apartment buildings (see the trailers for some examples)

• PS Let’s talk about “Adaptation” another time! I have a lot to say about it.

Texts:

Books are linked to my affiliate page on Bookshop.org where I receive 10% of profits on any purchase. 80% of their profits go to independent bookstores. This helps to keep all my work paywall-free. Thanks for your support!

• Video on post above - Hong Kong at night from Pixabay

• My PhD dissertation - “Immigrant Imaginaries in the Filmic Apartment Ellipsis” - Fruit Chan is discussed throughout

• Quick overview of HK cinematic history

• Avenue of Stars & HK film history

• Subversive HK cinema and walking a fine political

• mise-en-abyme in films

• Hong Kong Screenscapes

• Shaolin Soccer film

• Dumplings (2004) - Fruit Chan (director), Christopher Doyle (cinematography)[trailer above] Made in Hong Kong (1997) Fruit Chan (auteur) Durian Durian

• HKIFF - independent film festival

• Wong Kar Wai: Happy Together (scene), Chungking Express (trailer), In the Mood for Love (recent New Yorker feature on aesthetic)

• Ann Hui - A Simple Life, The Way We Are, Night and Fog

• Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window, Vertigo (rooftop chase scene)

• Gilles Deleuze: Cinema 1 and 2

• Sigmund Freud “The Uncanny”

• Paul Auster - Book of Illusions

• Rushmore film

• Chelsea Martin - Tell Me I’m an Artist

• Column McCann - Let the Great World Spin

• Jeffrey Eugenides - The Virgin Suicides

• Graham Greene - The Third Man

• When we call a book cinematic, what do we really mean? LitHub

• Flick Lit - novels about cinema

• Langston Hughes: “Advertisement for the Waldorf Astoria”