The Eng-Lite Program Lecture Series: Talk No 7
Time：2023.05.12（Fri.）10:30-12:00
Topic：Magic Lantern Shows and Early Cinema in Colonial Taiwan
Lecturer：Laura Jo-Han Wen, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Randolph-Macon College
Host：Wen-Hsun Chang, Associate Professor and Institute Director, Graduate Institute of Taiwan Literature, National Taiwan University
Venue: Online
By Conrad C. Carl
Today’s talk will bring us back to the early days of cinema in Taiwan and we are delighted to have Laura Jo-Han Wen with us to elucidate the time when light turned into stories. Wen is an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Randolph-Macon College and wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on early cinema in colonial Taiwan. Wen’s motivation behind her research, she says, is that although there have been some monographs and research articles on early cinema, they have yet to thoroughly discuss the relationship between the rise of cinema and colonialism.
The first focal point of this talk is Taiwan’s early cinema as part of the transnational intermedial culture of the early 20th century. This culture is often less visible in discourses that highlight narratives of technological advancements within which early cinema has hitherto most often been discussed. The other aspect Wen focuses on is the similarly neglected issue of colonialism as it relates to early cinema in Taiwan.
1895 is not only the year that Taiwan became Japan’s first overseas colony. It also marks the advent of cinema in Taiwan. In other words, Taiwan’s colonial history and its history of cinema are intricately linked right from the start. One way to highlight this connection is to look at the early depictions of magic lantern shows, i.e. public screenings of animated images, which can be regarded as the precursor for modern cinema. For instance, during these screenings, one could also see scenes concerning the First Sino-Japanese War, after which, Taiwan became Japan’s colony.
The history of magic lantern shows can be traced back to the 17th century and is regarded as an alternative beginning to modern European and American cinema. This coincides with the heyday of phantasmagoria, i.e. a form of horror show where magic lanterns were used to project scary images onto a screen, and the theater of the bizarre and irrational. Some scholars argue that these magic lantern shows already demystified the screen, an effect usually attributed to the conventionally ‘first’ instances of cinema in the late 19th century. In other words, the audience perceived the images on the screen not as magic but as art; they were lifelike instead of life-itself. One can argue that the significance of these magic lantern shows in the history of cinema lies in precisely the effect they had on the audiences, as these screenings cultivated a culture of modern spectatorship. The practice of magic lantern shows fundamentally changed the relationship between producer, image, and audience, a reconstructed relationship that would shape cinematic media and its consumption until this day. But magic lantern shows were not only present in the West. In Japan, for instance, utsushi-e, a kind of screening show, was common to come by as early as the late Edo period. Some decades later, we could witness a real ‘lantern fever’ through the new fashion Scholars in Japanese visual culture observe a shift of themes in gentō, where supernatural folktales gave way to depictions of realistic scenes, once again marking the demystification of the screen. Screenings became a tool for educational purposes and thus closely linked to the modernization of Japanese screen culture.
But what about the relationship between war and Japan’s cinema? Professor Wen cites the scholar Peter B. High who identified three stages of Japanese cinema and its relation to war: First, the Russo-Japanese War period (1904–05) where early film screening cultivated a public curiosity about the ‘authentic’ image. In the late 1910s, Japanese films started to propagate a distinct military spirit. And finally, the Fifteen-Year War (1931–1945), a period where films were produced predominantly in the name of ‘heroism.’ Wen points out an interesting discovery in High’s book. Instead of moving in between images of foe and friend, those films were mainly concerned with Japan’s self-image. In Taiwan’s context, then, Wen proposed to consider the following question: If the audience changes—one of the three components of the cinematic dynamic between producer, screen, and audience—how do we understand this practice of Japanese self-image cultivation in times of war in colonial Taiwan? To provide some insights into this question, Wen now turns her attention to two films of the 1940s.
Sound played an important role, specifically in documentary features such as Go Southward to Taiwan from 1940. Not only did this film include a narrator—so to speak a spokesperson for the ambitions of colonial Japan, who spread imperative information about Taiwan’s role in the Japanese empire—the producers would also start incorporating sound and music to elicit certain emotional reactions. Another example is the 1943 film Sayon’s Bell, a widespread story and film during Japan’s war mobilization efforts. It is based on a true story about an Atayal girl who went missing while she helped carry the luggage for a Japanese man. Sayon, the name of the 17-year-old, was then later turned into a heroine by the Japanese authorities and presented as a symbol of Japanese patriotism in the colony. In other words, the journey of becoming Japanese was the narrative imposed on Sayon’s character. But in fact, what it shows more than anything else is the precariousness of the colonial body, an insight Wen takes from Homi Bhabha, Judith Butler, and other postcolonial scholars.
Professor Wen concludes her talk with a quote from Thomas LaMarre: “Modernity is one and multiple.” Taiwan’s example provides an opportunity for researchers to rethink conventional narratives about the dynamics of early cinema which were usually understood in terms of technological innovations and less about the bearing colonial practices had on its development. This would facilitate a more diverse discourse about early cinema, one that not merely takes non-Western contexts into account but also has profound implications for this research field in general.
This talk resonated deeply with our listeners. In the discussion afterwards, a variety of topics were touched upon, ranging from the identity and composition of the Taiwanese audiences, to the relationship between music and film and comparative aspects of colonial film practices. We are very grateful for Professor Laura Jo-Han Wen’s insightful and thought-provoking talk and eagerly await her future research!