Your second short paper✓ You can write your second short paper on any topic related to the films of Wong Karwai, King Hu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee, as well as those of Japanese film directors.
o Please note that the topics we discussed in class are not thesis statements. It is
your responsibility to develop a focus and an appropriate thesis statement in your
paper. A valid thesis is Not a question; it should be understandable and coherent;
a thesis should be arguable: it is Not obvious and would require evidence to
prove.
✓ Length: 2~3 pages (at least 600 words), doubled-spaced, and written in 12 pt. Times New
Roman font. Please be advised that the page count does not include the bibliography and
title page. MLA citation format is preferred, but make sure to use one format
consistently.
✓ Due on Brightspace by March 23, 11:59pm.
✓ Paper rubric:
o Clear claim (2 points possible): Claim is appropriate, sophisticated, easily
identified, clear and precise.
o Effective use of evidence (2 points possible): Clear and precise evidence offered;
specific examples from texts that directly support the claim and analysis.
o Analysis and development (2.5 points possible): Essay does not present
superficial statements of ideas; evidence is shown to be linked to the claim;
complexity of the evidence is addressed; argument advances logically and no
digressions or repetitions.
o Writing Conventions (2.5 points possible): Introduction draws in the reader;
conclusion satisfies without repetition; easily identified topic sentences; clear
links to previous paragraphs; sentences are clear, graceful, and varied in structure;
document is absent of grammatical and spelling errors.
o Length (0.5 points)
o On time Submission (0.5 points)
© Sufeng Xu. All rights reserved
How to cite a film in MLA format
• List films by their titles. Include the names of the directors, the film studios or distributors, and the
release years.
• Farewell My Concubine. Dir. Chen Kaige. Miramax Home Entertainment, 1993. Film.
• To emphasize specific directors, begin the citation with the name of the director, followed by the
appropriate title for that person.
• Chen Kaige, dir. Farewell my Concubine. Miramax Home Entertainment, 1993. Film.
• Give individual names in normal order: surname last for Western names, surname first for East
• Asian names (Chen Kaige) unless they publish in English and write their surname last.
• Exceptions: if the person is known by a name in Western name order, you don’t have to change
the name order (in the case of Ang Lee, for example).
Lecture 2.1
1
How to write a paper
Preparation:
Decide on a topic: what do you plan to examine and analyze in your paper? What is your thesis?
How will you go about demonstrating the thesis of your paper?
1. If you want to do a comparison, select two appropriate sources; otherwise, you will find it
difficult to determine criteria that will allow you to generate the kind of information that is
expected.
Writing your paper:
1. Title: should not be too long (more than two lines)
2. First paragraph (Introduction):
Your thesis is clearly stated in the first paragraph (thesis statement)
o Thesis: the point that an essay is trying to prove
A valid thesis:
o It is not a question
o understandable;
o coherent: goes through the entire essay; it should not make two points
– A complex thesis, with interrelated parts is OK, as long as it’s clear
how the different parts relate to each other
o A thesis should be arguable:
– This statement is not obvious, and it would require evidence to prove
o Examples:
– “Gender inequality in China has its roots in Confucian tradition”
– “Although women in Confucian tradition were essentially kept in
an inferior social position, some women also established a degree
of status and power for themselves/there was always complexity
of women’s position”
– …
3. The body of your text:
Don’t present superficial statements of ideas;
Clear and precise evidence offered; specific examples from texts that directly support
the claim and analysis;
4. Conclusion: In your concluding section, you should summarize your main findings and state
a clear conclusion.
5. Bibliography: MLA recommended; or use one citation form consistently
Other requirements:
1. Organization, grammar, mechanics, spelling, punctuation, sentence structures;
2. Length;
3. On time submission
Comparison
• If you want to write a comparison essay, select appropriate sources; otherwise, you will find it difficult to determine criteria that will allow you to
generate the kind of information that is expected.
• First paragraph (Introduction):
• Write one sentence introducing your topic; justify your selection of the two sources
• Providing brief summaries of the two sources being compared, conveying the objectives and main ideas (write about two or three
sentences describing the highlights of each source).
• Your thesis
• The body of your text:
• do not simply provide a single discussion of the features of one source, followed by a discussion of the other—organize your analysis
according to your comparison criteria. In other words, use a “part-by-part” method of organization, rather than a “whole-by-whole” method.
• In your first body section, state the first criterion (or analysis question) as a heading, and provide a sentence which justifies it as a useful
criterion for comparison. Then, compare your two sources according to how useful they are with respect to the criterion. Provide specific
examples.
• Your comparison/review should have at least two such sections, each dealing with a different criterion.
• Conclusion:
• In your concluding section, you should summarize your main findings and state a clear conclusion.
Lecture 4
© Sufeng Xu
1
University of Ottawa
Zhao Jiping’s Score in Raise the Red Lantern:
Representing China at a Cultural Crossroads
Justin Munger (7582412)
East Asian Cinemas (ASI 3111)
Professor Sufeng Xu
February 7th 2018
Throughout history and across innumerable nations, art has served as a reflection of the
society and the culture in which it was created. The political and socio-economic atmospheres
surrounding an artist and their work inevitably exert pressure on artistic creation, allowing
elements of these atmospheres to be found within the art. China was no exception to this global
trend, and especially not in the late 20th century. Emerging from a tumultuous century, China
was now at a culturally significant crossroads where the ancient past, the shadows of communist
censorship, and the neon lights of the West were meeting head-on1. It is in this ripe soil that art
began to germinate and take root that expressed some of the Chinese people’s views on this
confusing era. Likely familiar to many Western film buffs, Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red
Lantern was released in 1991, and rose to relative fame on the international film scene, with
western critics delivering high praise for the work2. While Zhang Yimou received accolades for
the direction of the film, significantly less attention was paid to an integral part of Raise the Red
Lantern’s success: Zhao Jiping, a Shaanxi born composer. His soundtrack on the film supported
the underlying political tones, while also providing an interesting synthesis of Western and
Chinese musical elements, which reflected the political and socio-economic climate of China at
the time. Specifically, Zhao Jiping represented the confluence of China’s traditional past, its
Soviet influences, and the influx of Western culture in the early 1990s through instrumentation
and idiomatic compositional conventions.
The first major element of Chinese culture that Zhao Jiping chose to represent in scoring
Raise the Red Lantern was traditional Chinese music. The traditional music’s appearance is
fairly obvious to many a Western ear, as it primarily takes root in three forms: pentatonicism,
Jonathan P.J. Stock, “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root.
Accessed 6 February, 2018.
2
Roger Ebert, “Raise the Red Lantern,” last modified March 27, 1992. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raisethe-red-lantern-1992
1
2
instrumentation and the appearance of traditional opera. Pentatonicism (the subdivision of the
octave into 5 pitches), although not omnipresent, is common in much of traditional Chinese
music, often heard with embellishments outside of the pentatonic system3. In addition to its
occurrence in traditional music, it is also a stereotypical hallmark of Chinese music to most
Western ears, especially in the 20th century. Zhao Jiping employed this tonal system throughout
the vast majority of the music on the score, especially tracks with vocal music4. Instrumentation
and Chinese Opera are also used by Zhao to represent a more traditional China, with traditional
instruments appearing on almost every track, with special focus on percussion in the opening
scenes of the film, and the use of the flute when played by the Master’s son. Chinese operatic
singing itself is featured heavily in the soundscape of the film due to the Third Mistress being an
ex-opera singer, and her voice can be heard singing in a traditional operatic style at regular
intervals.
The next element of China’s socio-political landscape that I wish to address in Raise the
Red Lantern’s soundtrack is the influence of Soviet music. Soviet music was something that
citizens of China at the time would have been extremely familiar with, as the Chinese
Communist Party used Soviet Socialist Realism5 as the principal artistic ideology during the mid
and late 20th century, especially during the Cultural Revolution6. Zhao Jiping chose to use mass
choirs as the primary representation of this Soviet ideology. These choirs were an integral part of
socialist realism in Soviet art, as they exemplified a genre in which the proletariat masses could
join together. It was symbolically representative of the cooperative efforts of the proletariat, and
3
Mei Pa Chao, The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Zhao Jiping, Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact disc.
5
Christopher Norris, “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 4 February, 2018.
6
Ching-chih Liu, “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): Revolutionary Modern Peking
Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline
Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2010.
4
3
became extremely popular in China under the enforcement of Maoist thought during the Cultural
Revolution7. This style of singing can be most clearly heard on the track Songlian’s Madness End Credits, where multiple female choirs join together singing ostinatos in layered textures with
instrumental accompaniment.
The final element of 1990s China that I wish to address in the soundtrack is the
representation of the Western culture and modernization. Leading up to this period Deng
Xiaoping had begun opening the doors to Western culture, and it made a remarkable impact on
China as the influx of goods and media began. Comparisons between China and the West were
inevitable from both sides, and it caused much reflection on the part of the Chinese as to who
they were as a national identity, and what their place was on the global stage8. Zhao Jiping
seemed to represent this modern and Western concept through the inclusion of a synthesizer in
his soundtrack (although it is mysteriously absent on the official soundtrack released a few years
later). The synthesizer provides large, swooping drones underpinning instrumental music most
notably in the opening scenes of the movie, where it supports frantic percussion as the title
screen and initial credits roll by. The synthesizer was first commercially distributed in the 1960s
by Buchla and Moog, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that more affordable models became available
for the greater public9. This meant that the synthesizer would very likely have been in the initial
waves of Western electronic products beginning to make their way to China in the 1980s, and
would have been a strong musical symbol of Western technology and culture to a Chinesetrained composer.
Paul Tiszai, “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of Marxism.” PhD
dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
8
Yiman Wang, “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.” Positions 15.2 (Fall
2007): 319-343.
9
Hugh Davies, “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
7
4
Whether these types of representation are wholly conscious or not (and I believe them to
be), elements of the socio-political and economic atmosphere surrounding an artist and their
work will almost always manage to manifest itself within the created work. Zhao Jiping, in his
creation of the soundtrack for Raise the Red Lantern, managed to represent a tumultuous period
for China, and to give voice to the three major conflicting cultural influences at the time, the
traditional past, the Soviet past, and the Western influence of the present. His soundtrack
represents China at a time when its cultural direction was up for debate, and artists all wished to
weigh in and provide commentary. Even today, his compositions provide insight for audiences
into the minds of artists of his day, and augment the messages already present in the film.
5
Bibliography
Chao, Mei Pa. The Yellow Bell. New York: Gordon Press, 1974.
Liu, Ching-chih. “Yangbanxi and the Music of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976):
Revolutionary Modern Peking Opera, Ballet, Symphonic Music and Songs.” in A Critical
History of New Music in China. Translated by Caroline Mason. Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press, 2010.
Davies, Hugh. “Synthesizer.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed 6 February,
2018.
Ebert, Roger. “Raise the Red Lantern” last modified March 27, 1992.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/raise-the-red-lantern-1992
Feldman, Daniel Lewis. “Ideology and the Manipulation of Symbols: Leadership
Perceptions of Science, Education, and Art in the People’s Republic of China, 19611974.” Political Psychology 6, no. 3 (Sept. 1985), 441-460.
Zhao, Jiping. Raise the Red Lantern (Official Soundtrack Album), Milan East, 1994, compact
disc.
McGrath, Jason. “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a
Transnational Aesthetic.” The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the
Turn of the Twenty-first Century, edited by Zhen Zhang. Durham: Duke University Press
(2007), 81-114.
Norris, Christopher. “Socialist Realism.” Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane Root. Accessed
4 February, 2018.
Stock, Jonathan P.J. “China, People’s Republic of: Since 1911.” Grove Music Online. Edited by
Deane Root. Accessed 6 February, 2018.
6
Tiszai, Paul. “Maoism: The Political Philosophy of Mao Tse-Tung the Third Theoretician of
Marxism.” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1957.
Wang, Yiman. “Screening Asia: Passing, Performative Translation, and Reconfiguration.”
Positions 15.2 (Fall 2007): 319-343.
7