The Harvard Film Archive will present “Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang” from March 29 to May 22, 2024 in the United States. The program brings together all of Edward Yang’s (1947-2007) feature-length films to pay tribute to Yang, a leading figure of the Taiwan New Cinema.
Born in Shanghai and brought to Taiwan by his family in 1949, Yang grew up appreciating cosmopolitan Taipei’s cultural riches, yet he never aims to merely flatter modern life. Yang dissects the alienation and hypocrisy of contemporary society through his “New Taipei Trilogy”—“A Confucian Confusion (1994),” “Mahjong (1996),” and “Yi Yi (2000).” Yang won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2000 for “Yi Yi,” and the film also ranked eighth on the BBC’s list of the 21st Century’s 100 greatest films.
After receiving his graduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in the mid-1970s, Yang stayed in the US, working as an engineer for around seven years. When he turned thirty, he made up his mind to pursue filmmaking, which he had been deeply passionate about. Yang came back to Taiwan in early 1980s and launched a twenty-year career, inaugurated by the film “In Our Time (1982),” followed by “That Day, on the Beach (1983),” “Taipei Story (1985),” “Terrorizers (1986)” and “A Brighter Summer Day (1991).” Through filmmaking, Yang demonstrates insights and critical visions ahead of his time in terms of urban representation, gender power, political reflection, historical violence, and social change.
For more information, please visit: https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/chronicles-of-changing-times-the-cinema-of-edward-yang.