Yu Yang

This study explores how post-1990s commercial cinema absorbs and reconfigures the narrative ambiguity of art cinema. Through formalist and cognitive analyses of Pulp Fiction, Memento, Mulholland Drive, and Inception, this study identifies a hybrid form of complexity that merges aesthetic indeterminacy with market-oriented storytelling. The concept of hybrid complexity reveals cinema's evolving balance between openness and control, demonstrating how ambiguity becomes both an artistic strategy and a commodity in contemporary media culture.

This article examines silence and stillness as central aesthetic strategies in contemporary slow cinema, exploring their capacity to evoke contemplation, resist narrative acceleration, and offer alternative temporal experiences in an era of media saturation. Drawing on Paul Schrader’s theory of transcendental style, with its progression from everyday realism to decisive stasis (2018), Ira Jaffe’s conceptualization of slow movies as an existential counter to the spectacle-driven “cinema of action” through curtailed motion and spatiotemporal vacancy (2014), and Tiago de Luca and Nuno Barradas Jorge’s plural, global framing of slow cinema’s challenge to instrumentalized time (2016), the study employs a transcultural comparative approach. Through the interpretive lens of Emersonian Transcendentalism, American filmmakers Terrence Malick, Paul Schrader, and Kelly Reichardt deploy silence as a site of individual spiritual trial, ethical introspection, and quotidian transcendence amid modern alienation. In contrast, guided by Daoist aesthetics, Chinese directors Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, and Bi Gan utilize stillness, long takes, and minimal dialogue to foreground emptiness (xu), non-action (wuwei), and relational flux, integrating human experience with environmental and temporal processes. By placing these practices in dialogue, the article argues that silence and stillness operate as transcultural strategies that converge in their defiance of contemporary hyper-acceleration while remaining rooted in distinct philosophical horizons—Emersonian self-reliance versus Daoist interdependence—thus broadening slow and transcendental cinema scholarship toward a more inclusive global perspective.

This paper examines the historical formation of the concept of “Nihonga” (Japanese-style painting) in modern Japan, its distinction from ukiyo-e, and a comparative analysis of “line” in Chinese and Japanese painting traditions. Tracing Nihonga’s emergence within Meiji-era institutional frameworks as a response to Western art, it contrasts Nihonga’s single-piece, artist-centered production with ukiyo-e’s mass-reproduced, collaborative nature. The central comparison focuses on “line” not as mere technique but as a carrier of differing aesthetic and perceptual values across East Asian traditions. Finally, these insights are linked to contemporary creative practices that treat Nihonga materials and processes as flexible methodological resources rather than fixed tradition. The study argues for understanding Nihonga as an evolving framework open to reinterpretation in response to present-day concerns.

The term “Northeastern Renaissance” carries a dual meaning: on the one hand, it represents an artistic movement that emerged in the late 2010s in the three Northeastern provinces of the People’s Republic of China (as well as the eastern regions of Inner Mongolia), bearing a manifesto-like quality; on the other hand, it is also ironic, as the Northeastern provinces have long been perceived as a region that was historically beyond the reach of China’s traditional elite culture, thus having little to revive or restore. This duality is reflected in the audio-visual works of Northeastern post-industrial culture, particularly in their depiction of sex and violence. These works exhibit an ambiguous attitude toward sex and violence—both critical and humorous. Building upon the absurdist foundation of Northeastern post-industrial culture, as discussed in the author’s 2024 academic presentation, this paper further explores the dual nature of sex and violence. The structure of the paper is as follows: The first section reviews my 2024 discussion on the absurdity in Northeastern post-industrial audio-visual works. The subsequent chapters focus on Drifting Away, a crime drama that aired in 2025, whose narrative elicited polarized reactions from the audience—some fervently idolized the four butcher-like serial killers, while others found the moral implications deeply unsettling. Finally, the author will analyze this contrast through the lens of the duality in Northeastern post-industrial culture, demonstrating how the intersection of Northeastern migrant culture and post-industrial conditions has given rise to a satirical art form that challenges traditional Chinese moral values.

This study explores how Angelo Badalamenti’s music serves as a narrative tool in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, focusing on “Laura Palmer’s Theme” and “Audrey’s Dance.” Examining these compositions’ harmonic structure and emotional resonance reveals how Badalamenti’s score enhances Lynch’s surreal storytelling and deepens character development. The primary objective is to demonstrate how music reflects the psychological states of key characters and shapes the narrative structure, blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasies. The article is structured into three main sections: an introduction that outlines the research purpose and framework; a literature review that examines Lynch’s narrative style and the function of music in surreal cinema; and a case analysis focusing on “Laura Palmer’s Theme” and “Audrey’s Dance,” highlighting their role in constructing character identities. This interdisciplinary approach integrates film music theory, semiotics, and narratology to provide new insights into the collaboration between Lynch and Badalamenti and its impact on audience perception.

Since 2019, Northeastern post-industrial culture has been a popular topic of discussion; the general public refers to it as the Northeastern Renaissance. Crises of identity, honor, and faith have been recurring themes in several Northeastern films released in recent years. Furthermore, these cinematic narratives frequently generate somber humor by presenting an enormous contrast between ideals and actuality. The article examines how the post-industrial narrative context of Northeast China has influenced audio-visual cultural products and contemporary Chinese popular culture. To elucidate the fundamental aspect of the Northeast narrative, the article’s author employs the absurd theory of Albert Camus. The main structure and viewpoints of the article are as follows: The first is after presenting individuals’ contemplations on the Northeastern Renaissance-instigated post-industrial narrative of the Northeast. In the following sections, the article explores the narrative context of post-industrial audio-visual works in Northeast China, focusing on the absurdity depicted in the documentary Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002). The authors’ analysis reveals how the documentary captures the socio-economic decline and the resulting human experiences of absurdity and dislocation. Key findings indicate that the narrative structure and visual style effectively convey the bleak realities of post-industrial life, offering critical insights into the region’s socio-cultural transformation. These findings suggest that future research should explore the intersection of visual media and social change in other post-industrial contexts.

The article will be divided into three parts: 1. Explain the literary origins of the nesting pattern and its relationship to cinema narrative, and analyse the nesting tactics commonly used in films under Hollywood’s classical narrative. 2. Describe the variations in nested structures in films made in the 1990s, focusing on self-reflexive nesting, which emerged as a new model beyond conventional nesting during this period. 3. Distinguish the literary style of embedded narratives from the visual recognition mode and provide an example of how the latter is used in films to create impossible puzzles.

The deceptive clues in the impossible puzzle film confirm the viewer’s internal expectations and allow retrospective attributing. In the film, a transcendental object negates an internal expectation, causing a retrospective blockage. Retrospectivity does not stop there; the transcendental object reinterpreting deceptive clues in the associative area leads to repeated attribution. This article consists of three parts. First, it discusses impossible puzzle films in the context of complex narrative classification. The following section introduces the Jungian concept of synchronicity and illustrates how it works. The article concludes with a case study of Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018), which contains more complicated puzzles and explains how mind-game narrative techniques create deceptive clues and induce deceptive retrospective attribution.

Connecting research and production, art research represents a breaking of the barrier between creation and academia. However, there is also a contradiction contained in this kind of research deriving from its methods, since the process of art-based practice must, by its very nature, involve the subjectivity of the artist. I use my own studies as the research object to discuss this issue, and this article presents the problems I encountered during my artistic practice and research of ambiguous roles. This paper has two main points of focus. First, I explore how the fallacy of self-referentiality is presented in paintings and films, and, second, I draw on my short film practice during my master’s study period to explain how the shots present a continuum in relation to the “absent one” and produce interface effects. However, the second point is not necessarily the result of the first one. This kind of connection and contradiction between practice and cognition in the process of art research is that I will analyse and discuss here.

In the film “Kaili Blues” by Bi Gan, intricate clues create complex connections between the plots steered by various characters. This relationship manifests in splitting time and alternating between dream and reality. This article analyzes Bi Gan’s approach to temporality and dreams by focusing on how he employs various film metaphors to deal with poetic narratives in his films. The article consists of three sections: First, it introduces the (puzzle) storytelling form of “Kaili Blues” as a promising area in many Chinese films. Second, it examines how puzzle films contribute to the ambiguity (plots) between characters from the perspective of infinite games. Moreover, third, the article discusses the two levels of metaphors in “Kaili Blues” that result from the condensation and displacement of metaphors, including the mutual projection of roles caused by the time-forking effect and the audience’s associations caused by the significance of dreams in Chinese tradition (or local) culture.

Gilles Deleuze demonstrated the key role of flashback in dealing with the relationship between actual image and recollection-image when interpreting the temporality of images. He established two criteria for judging whether a flashback implies a recollection-image by stating that: (1) it serves as some kind of prompt in the narrative to make the viewer perceive that the scene has entered a flashback; (2) it relies on fate or forking time. But Deleuze also mentioned that, if the context or condition disappears, the recollection-image represented by the flashback will lose its support, at which point, the pure recollection will also disappear. In this case, the actual image no longer forms a connection with the sensor-motor, but is suspended, which produces a fantasmatic effect. Bi Gan extends this suspension in his film “Long Day’s Journey into Night” by removing the character being referred to in the flashback, stripping it from figure and confining it in the voice-over. The film features an extreme use of several effects in the sensory-motor situations and the flashbacks, as described in Deleuze’s “Cinema 2: Time-Image,” namely recollection, dream, and falsification. Thus, the boundary between flashback and reality is completely broken. In addition, Bi Gan uses doppelgangers in the second part of the film to reconstruct the ambiguity of actual images and recollection-images in the first part, turning them into pure fantasies. This essay will analyze issues relating to the images and characters in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and show how this film constitutes a typical case of recollection-images transformed into fantasies through the power of falsification.