Interiority, Masks, and The Banquet

Authors

  • Yuk Sunny Tien Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

Cluster: Asian Shakespeares on Screen: Two Films in Perspective

Edited by Alexa Huang

The Banquet (2006), the first Chinese feature film based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, explores and reformulates the nature of self and identity. Director Feng Xiaogang makes a clear distinction between the outer and inner selves, interpreting the outer self as a mask that is used to conceal one's emotions or inner self. On the other hand, the film challenges the binaries of interiority and appearance and suggests that behaviors can be internalized and gradually inhabit the inner self. The theatrical self and the inner self therefore can no longer be clearly differentiated.

Author Biography

Yuk Sunny Tien, Pennsylvania State University

Sunny Yuk Tien graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University with a B.A. in Translation and Chinese, and an M.Phil. in Translation. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include Shakespearean adaptations, cultural and translation theory, and gender studies. She has published "The Banquet Scene in Macbeth and Curse of the Golden Flower," in Wissenschaftliches Seminar Online 6 (2008): Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, "The Translation of Shakespeare's Suggestive Language," Translation Quarterly 41 (2006): 27-93, and other works.

ssue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2009. Image: Two dancers from a still from The Banquet pose with their faces close together.

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Published

2009-05-01

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2009): Spring/Summer

Section

Articles