MISES EN SCÈNE DE LA CIVILITÉ : ENTRE TAIYUPIAN ET RÉALISME SAIN, TROIS FILMS DE LEE HSING DU DÉBUT DES ANNÉES 1960

Abstract

The three films by Taiwanese director Lee Hsing 李行 studied here, Good Neighbors 兩 相好 (1962), Our Neighbor 街頭巷尾 (1963) and Oyster Girl 蚵女 (1964), have in common to depict modes of civility facilitating the formation of a peaceful community. The ways they represent some social tensions unfolding in Taiwan at that time, as well as the manner
they relate to the ideology of the Kuomintang regime make these movies eminently programmatic. Yet, we observe that, within the two years it took him to complete these three cinematic works, Lee went from fostering a project of “authentic” civility, conducive to the development of a democratic spirit, to celebrating a “fake civility” in accordance to the logic of a hegemonic power. This evolution corresponds to the filmmaker’s transition from the taiyupian (films in Taiwanese) industry, to which Good Neighbors still belongs, to the guoyupian (films in Mandarin) industry with Good Neighbor, then to “healthy realism” 健康寫實, a movement sponsored by the Central Motion Picture Corporation 中 央電影公司, Kuomintang’s main production company, with Oyster Girl. The first part of this article shows how Good Neighbors creates a space of “authentic” civility through its sound dimension; the second stresses how Lee’s arguments evolved in Our Neighbor and Oyster Girl, two films where “civility” is nothing more than a frame imposed on people to prevent them from engaging in any genuine debate. It thus seems possible to us to argue that while the taiyupian industry gave Lee sufficient freedom to promote a model of “authentic” civility, “healthy realism” and its constraints diverted him from this endeavor and led him to champion a “fake civility” useful for the perpetuation of an authoritarian regime.