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Sound Shimmers, "Luminosity in the Darkness": Ear-Witnessing Cold War Paranoia in Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day
- JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
- Michigan Publishing
- Volume 61, Issue 4, Summer 2022
- pp. 132-156
- 10.1353/cj.2022.0050
- Article
- Additional Information
ABSTRACT:
This article examines the cinematic soundscape and audiovisual interplay in Taiwan New Cinema filmmaker Edward Yang's historical epic Gǔlǐng jiē shàonián shārén shìjiàn (A Brighter Summer Day, 1991) to initiate a dialogue with scholarship in radio, sound, music, and media and cultural studies. It investigates how the film reconstructs through sound and ear-witnessing the historical memory of early 1960s Taiwan amid pervasive Cold War paranoia. In doing so, the article emphasizes the re-creation of a holistic acoustic experience and the effects of sonic mediation and remediation through audiovisual media such as radio and records, situated in the larger context of Cold War geopolitics in East Asia and beyond.