The Avant-Garde in Western Films and Chinese Art

Please note this lecture will be given in Chinese. German abstract films and American underground films are among the two most important schools of twentieth-century Western avant-garde cinema to emerge since the 1920s. In German abstract cinema, Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter’s works have been directly inspired by Chinese art. Meanwhile, Maya Deren has been praised as “the mother of American underground cinema,” with her film Meditation on Violence advancing the artistic expression of martial arts. The works of these filmmakers embody Chinese culture, particularly Daoist thought.