Abstract
AbstractThis study explores the trajectory of how a new wave of documentary making has incorporated or resisted dominant social forces to create fissures in the commercial cinematic spaces. Two documentary blockbusters The Long Goodbye (2010) and Beyond Taiwan (2013) are examined to explicate how the restructuring of cinematic spaces in Taiwan has facilitated changes in documentary screening culture and spectatorships, leading to the recent documentary renaissance. This result suggests that independent filmmakers intervene and create the spaces for their documentaries, financially dependent on advance ticket sales and private sponsorship. However, relational distributive venues of documentary film within a larger public sphere are increasingly privatized and commercialized in the age of global neoliberalism. The various and creative methods applied in the exhibition of documentary blockbusters have illuminated the intersection of documentary and mainstream commercial cinema sites and practices, and have s...
Highlights
In November 2013, Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above, a documentary film shot from a helicopter that takes audiences on a bird’s-eye journey across Taiwan’s various landscapes, was released to 44ABOUT THE AUTHORSHong-Chi Shiau (PhD. 2003, Temple) is a professor of communications management at Shih-Hsin University in Taiwan
The research analyzes how grass-root innovative methods applied in both cases to distribute and exhibit documentary films make fissures in the mainstream commercial cinema sites
This reception study relates the popularity of both cases to that Taiwanese audiences anxiously situate their precarious local identity against a myriad of socio-political crises since the late 1990s
Summary
In November 2013, Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above, a documentary film shot from a helicopter that takes audiences on a bird’s-eye journey across Taiwan’s various landscapes, was released to 44ABOUT THE AUTHORSHong-Chi Shiau (PhD. 2003, Temple) is a professor of communications management at Shih-Hsin University in Taiwan. The box-office success of Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above, or the sense of “depoliticised humanitarianism” it has arguably conveyed as suggested by critics and scholars, becomes more illuminating if one can explain the willingness of initial exhibitors to carry a documentary, and why audiences were persuaded that a documentary was worthy of theater-viewing on the commercial exhibition circuit.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
