The Filmic Bodies of Wong Kar-wai

This thesis analyses the films of Wong Kar-wai as important examples of affective film performance. It explores the particular performative and cinematic techniques found in his work. Through the close examination of these techniques this thesis suggests how Wong creates conditions for spectators to engage bodily with performing bodies on screen.The thesis treats film performance as a matter of film style, seeing it as always constructed through combinations of the performing body, the camera and the edit. It approaches performance on film as a filmic body; an amalgam of performative and cinematic techniques inextricably melded together. This thesis sets up fragmentation as the key trait of Wong’s film style, central to his filmic bodies and to the way spectators may engage affectively with them. In particular, the thesis addresses how multiple levels of fragmentation, both performative and cinematic, operate in concert. Visual, temporal and spatial fragmentation are analysed as central components of Wong’s filmic bodies in this regard. Further, this stylistic analysis suggests a notion of affective intertextuality, based on stylistic connections between his films, as vital to how spectators can engage bodily with his filmic bodies. This thesis works from the assumption that spectators engage with cinema in a bodily way. It contributes to a current drive in film studies to re-insert the body of the spectator into understandings of how we engage with cinema. New approaches to film performances outside the traditional concerns of representation make up a smaller part of this “re-insertion”. Through close analysis of film performance as a key element of Wong’s film style this thesis aims to contribute both to debates on Wong and the affective power of performance on film