Adored by Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas and Arthur Harari, discover one of the greatest Taiwanese filmmakers!
THE CINEMA OF EDWARD YANG
A book by Jean-Michel Frodon
13.5 cm x 19 cm | 304 pages (including photos)
ISBN: 979–10–93798–33-2
ON THE OCCASION OF A RICH TIME OF EVENTS ABOUT EDWARD YANG FROM THE END OF JUNE: RETROSPECTIVE AT THE LA ROCHELLE FILM FESTIVAL (FEMA), THEN AT THE FRENCH FILM THEATRE AND RELEASES IN CINEMAS THROUGHOUT FRANCE, THEN IN A VIDEO BOX SET.
Revealed to the general public with Yi Yi (Best Director Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival), Edward Yang, a leading figure of the New Taiwanese Cinema, left a lasting mark on cinema between the two centuries with a body of work at the crossroads of Chinese, Japanese, American, and European New Wave influences. He, who knew so well how to film women and the big city, proved capable of seamlessly blending historical tragedy and intimate chronicle, slapstick comedy, emotion, and critical reflection. His untimely death in 2007 left behind a singular oeuvre, a radical departure from the exoticism that had propelled Asian cinema to the forefront of the international stage.
In seven feature films, he delivers a vision of the world without equal in global production, which will earn him the friendship and admiration of the biggest names in world cinema (some of whom testify in this book), but also the wrath of political and financial authorities, whom he will denounce relentlessly.
Richly illustrated with unpublished documents and drawings by this multifaceted artist, this book traces the journey of someone who was, in the same breath, a great stylist and a great observer of the contemporary world.
Contents include: an overview of the life and work of Edward Yang, followed by an analysis of each of his films ( In Our Time/Expectation , That Day, on the Beach , Taipei Story , The Terrorizers , A Brighter Summer Day , Confusion chez Confucius , Mahjong , Yi Yi ), a selection of iconographic documents, two texts by Edward Yang, testimonies and tributes from Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhang-ke, Leon Dai, Martin Scorsese and Pierre Rissient and three in-depth studies of his cinema by Olivier Assayas, Tony Rayns and Isabelle Wu.
Before heading Cahiers du Cinéma until 2009, Jean-Michel Frodon was a journalist and critic at Le Point , then Le Monde . He is the author of numerous books devoted to cinema, notably to Hou Hsiao-hsien, Woody Allen, Gilles Deleuze, Robert Bresson, and Amos Gitai.
Publication date: June 24, 2025
