Door Game (中文版)
2005, 26 minutes
[Click to view video clip] [Click to view clip on Vimeo] [Click to view clip on YouTube]
[概念／陳述／字幕劇本 full portfolio of this work (2007) in pdf]
a Linda Lai video / PAL 4:3 / b & w + color /
**This work, made after the writing of a bilingual critical essay (2005), has three more iterations -- Door Games Window Frames: Near Drama as both 3-channel automated projection (2012) and single-channel video version (2012), and Doors Medley (2014). Together they form a Generative Series, by which a work could be understood in its entirely or as a "seed" potential of future iterations. With this method, I carry on my deconstructive exploration of melodramatic aethetics and poetics in HK Cantonese cinema.
Concept / Artist Statement
Banging doors can be highly symbolic narrative objects – or are they simply a mechanical measure, or just a slip of tongue?
Door Game is a narrative game playing with the found footage of a number of family ethics melodramas from HK Cantonese cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. By re-assembling loose fragments into some kind of coherent structures, I reveal the hidden logic of the genre, exposing the repetitive elements. Through story-creation, my critique of the gender-biased, formulaic quality inherent to Cantonese melodramas evolves. I want to expose the arbitrariness of pathos and ethos in the Cantonese melodramatic tradition, especially to point out how narrative logic turns open options into moral necessity, and how a particular form of morality is turned into absolute truth via plotting…
Door Game comprises of three episodes: “Door Drama: please enter,” “(Short-)Circuiting Melodrama” and “Trap Doors.” From one to the next, the narrative function of sight and sound in Door Game diminishes. Images and sounds become more and more pure signs and tokens of shared story-telling practices, whereas the expressive and narrative function of the written text grows. Towards the end, text and noise take over images, and critique overrides narration.
The 3-episode found-footage exercise is an artistic realization of what Salen and Zimmerman say about “games” in Rules of Play, “To play a game is to rely on and interact with the representations the game generates… Games can represent. Games are representations.” (p. 364)
Production Notes:
All movies consulted are film adaptations of air-wave dramas (on radio) by Li Wo.
Main stories are constructed from footage of the following films:
Blossoms in Rainy May I (1960, dir. QIN Jian, Hong Kong)
Blossoms in Rainy May II (1960, dir. QIN Jian, Hong Kong)
Second Spring (1960, dir. WANG Tianlin, Hong Kong)
Additional head shots from:
How Two Naughty Girls Thrice Insulted Siu Yuet-pak (1952, dir. WU Hui, Hong Kong)
Oriole’s Song (1956, dir. LI Chenfeng, Hong Kong)
Additional video footage: Linda Lai
Script/Research/Visual narrative & sound design:
Linda Lai
Editing:
Maggie Chan, Terrence Chan, Linda Lai
[Screening history]
* September/November, 2005: PLAY>, Hong Kong Art Centre and Habitus
** October 2006: Official Selection for the "Experimental Film" section of the WOMEN MAKE WAVES 2006 festival (Taipei) 2006 [第13屆女性影展（臺北）實驗片類].
*** December 22, 2006 (Kaohsiung) as part of the “Hong Kong Playground” month-long exhibition at Kaohsiung’s Kao Yuan University of Technology [高雄高苑科技大學高苑美術中心]
****Notthatbalai Art Festival 2007 (July 21 – August 5), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
*****August/September 2016: "Not Early Not Late" [不早不晚], Pace Beijing, Beijing (4 Aug - 15 Sep 2016)
[My Writing on the work]
*Scholarly essay published (HK Film Archive) that leads to the making of this video work: Chinese version / English version
《戲門》
2005, 26 分鐘
**此作品為我的一個「衍生式系列」的首個錄像。創作源於寫了一篇受香港電影資料館邀請的評論文章，總覺有些思緒不是文字可以完全表述的，便創作了《戲門》。其後的幾年，透過三個不同的創作媒體和敘述實驗，生出了三個作品，包括《景框戲門》（自動演算三窗投影）（2012），《景框戲門》（單窗錄像）（2012）和《重重門。門對門》（單窗錄像）（2014）。這可以說是我對原作的解構與延伸，同時體會了每一個作品同時是「一粒種子」這個衍生性藝術的原理。如是，我繼續對五六十年代港產粵語通俗劇電影的形式、情操的摸索。
創作概念
嘭嘭的開門關門聲響個不絕，煞有介事的像喻意著甚麼似的。或許罷。也可能純屬無心的畫蛇添足，也可以是純技術性的裝置。
無論如何，誠意邀請觀眾與我共睹一個本來已經似是而非的愛情家庭倫理故事如何逐步化解、肢離破碎，以至朽壞。《戲門》由三部分組成，從（一）“穿/串門 ٠入戲”到（二）“戲框 - 情愛短路”到（三）“機關重重”，影像的敍事功能漸漸淡化而失效，化為零丁的符碼、象徵、無特殊用途的裝置，任憑誰來詮釋橫添意義，或者變成文字書寫的附從品，最後更淪為可隨意挪移的“死物”，給割開、擠破、塗改、刪除。反之，文字的書寫越來越超前，表達性逐漸取替呆濟的人物影像，甚至如猛獸般一口一口的吃掉影像，無休的吞吐著、嘶叫著。
《戲門》從香港五六十年代粵語長片中找來“現成”材料進行戲弄。幾套參照和挪用的作品均為播音皇帝李我先生天空小說改編，由不同人導演的電影，當中展列著的，卻是文藝片的通式和濫調，尤其情節鋪陳峰迴路轉的偽造性如何把某種道德立場推為人性所出的情理，構成真理一般的性別規範，可真叫絕！於是我決定遊戲一番。正如Salen 和 Zimmerman在Rules of Play一書中說的∶“遊戲有表徵作用，遊戲本身就是表徵”（364頁）。而我，就以表徵對策表徵，玩個不停。
製作資料
劇本/研究/聲效及視覺敍事設計：
黎肖嫻
剪接／特效：
陳寬欣 、陳坤浩、黎肖嫻
主幹故事來源：
《五月雨中花》上集（1960 / 秦劍導演）
《五月雨中花》下集（1960 / 秦劍導演）
《翠樓春曉》（1960 / 王天林導演）
另加人物特寫來自：
《兩個刁蠻女三戲蕭月白》（1952 / 吳回導演）
《出穀黃鶯》（1956 / 李晨風導演）
另加錄像片段：黎肖嫻
放映記錄（請看英文版）