Our regular Philosophical Screens series, which explores cinema through a philosophical lens, returns this month with a focus on one of the most genre-bending films about noodles. Join our regular film philosophers Lucy Bolton and Catherine Wheatley, as well as guest speaker Victor Fan of King’s College London, to consider the film’s themes of pleasure, self-perfection and tradition.
Speakers
Victor Fan graduated with a PhD from the Film Studies Programme and the Comparative Literature Department of Yale University, and an MFA in Film and Television Productions at School of Cinema-Television (now School of Cinematic Arts), University of Southern California. Prior to his position at King’s, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, McGill University. He is the author of Cinema Approaching Reality: Locating Chinese Film Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) and Extraterritoriality: Locating Hong Kong Cinema and Media (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). His forthcoming monograph, Cinema Illuminating Reality: Media Philosophy through Buddhism, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2022.
Fan’s articles have been published in peer-review journals including Journal of Cinema and Media, Asian Cinema, World Picture Journal, Camera Obscura, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Screen, Film History: An International Journal, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 24 Images: Cinéma, Dianying yishu [Film Art], Zihua [Zifaa or Word blossoms], Siyi, and many edited volumes. His film The Well was an official selection of the São Paolo International Film Festival; it was also screened at the Anthology Film Archives, the Japan Society, and the George Eastman House.
Besides his academic career, Fan also worked with film festivals in Europe and Asia.
Fan is a classically trained musician and a working composer. He was a performance artist with his own theatre company Post [ET]2! in Hong Kong between 1993 and 1996. He also worked as a freelance sound editor, film composer, and re-recording mixer. He worked at Fissionarts (Los Angeles) and Solar Film/Video Productions (NYC) between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s. In New York, he also wrote for the magazines Film Festival Reporter and Film Festival Today, covering news from the MIX Festival, the New York Underground Film Festival, the African Diaspora Film Festival and MOXIE Film.
Catherine Wheatley is Reader in Film and Visual Culture at King’s College London. Her books include Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema, Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethic of the Image, the BFI Film Classics book on Caché, and, with Lucy Mazdon, Sex, Art and Cinephilia: French Cinema in Britain. Catherine also writes regularly for Sight and Sound magazine.
Lucy Bolton is Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London. She is the author of Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch (EUP 2019) and is currently writing a book on philosophy and film stardom.
Reading Suggestions:
Willy Blackmore, 2017. ‘Tampopo: Ramen for the People’. https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4523-tampopo-ramen-for-the-people
JAPAN 2021
100 YEARS OF JAPANESE CINEMA
After Life (Wandafuru raifu)
Wed 1 Dec 18:10; Fri 10 Dec 20:40; Mon 13 Dec 20:40; Wed 29 Dec 14:20
In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida)
Wed 1 Dec 20:50; Sat 11 Dec 20:45; Wed 22 Dec 18:20
Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no sôretsu)
Thu 2 Dec 18:00 (+ pre-recorded intro by Professor Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Kyoto University); Tue 14 Dec 14:30; Mon 27 Dec 15:50
The Shifting Spaces of Modern Japanese Cinema
Thu 2 Dec 20:40
Woman of the Dunes (Suna no Onna)
Fri 3 Dec 18:00 (+ intro by Espen Bale, BFI National Archive); Sat 18 Dec 17:30
Tokyo Drifter (Tôkyô nagaremono)
Fri 3 Dec 20:50; Thu 23 Dec 18:30
Black Rain (Kuroi ame)
Sat 4 Dec 17:50; Tue 28 Dec 18:15
Straits of Hunger (aka A Fugitive from the Past) (Kiga kaikyô)
Sun 5 Dec 16:30; Sat 18 Dec 14:30
Woman of the Lake (Onna no mizûmi)
Mon 6 Dec 18:00; Wed 15 Dec 20:50
Silence Has No Wings (Tobenai chinmoku)
Mon 6 Dec 20:55; Wed 15 Dec 18:00
The Long Darkness (Shinobugawa)
Wed 8 Dec 20:40; Sun 19 Dec 12:40
Pale Flower (Kawaita hana)
Thu 9 Dec 18:00; Sun 19 Dec 18:20
Death By Hanging (Kôshikei)
Fri 10 Dec 17:50; Fri 17 Dec 18:00
Muddy River (Doro no kawa)
Sun 12 Dec 11:50 (+ intro by season co-programmer Alexander Jacoby); Thu 23 Dec 20:40
The Demon (Kichiku)
Sun 12 Dec 14:50 (+ intro by season co-programmer Alexander Jacoby); Sun 19 Dec 16:00
The Man Who Stole the Sun (Taiyô wo nusunda otoko)
Sun 12 Dec 18:00; Thu 16 Dec 20:10
Tampopo
Mon 13 Dec 18:00 (+ intro by Catherine Wheatley, King’s College London); Fri 17 Dec 20:45; Tue 28 Dec 15:10
Philosophical Screens: Tampopo
Mon 13 Dec 20:15 Blue Room
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yuki Yukite, Shingun)
Sat 18 Dec 11:40; Mon 27 Dec 18:20
Moving (Ohikkoshi)
Sat 18 Dec 20:35; Wed 29 Dec 20:30
Fire Festival (Himatsuri)
Mon 20 Dec 17:50; Mon 27 Dec 13:20
Suzaku (Moe No Suzaku)
Tue 21 Dec 17:45; Thu 30 Dec 21:00
Shall We Dance? (Shall we dansu?)
Tue 21 Dec 20:30; Thu 30 Dec 17:40
Love Letter
Wed 22 Dec 20:50; Tue 28 Dec 12:10
Supported by
In partnership wtih
With special thanks to
With the kind support of:
Janus Films/The Criterion Collection, Kadokawa Corporation, Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Kokusai Hoei Co. Ltd, Nikkatsu Corporation, Toei Co. Ltd
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Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email