Introduction: The Poetics of Chinese Cinema
Gary Bettinson
From Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism to neoformalism and cognitivism, the poetics approach to cinema has crucially advanced the study of popular film—and yet poetics has occupied a relatively marginal place in the study of Chinese-language cinema. Since the 1980s, Cultural Studies perspectives have dominated the field, and the art of Chinese cinema has fallen afoul of critical neglect. It is precisely the artistic dimension of movies that poetics—the major research program to which this book subscribes—seeks to illuminate. As schematized by David Bordwell,1 a poetics of cinema encompasses analytical inquiry (examining a film’s visual and aural style, narrative construction, and thematic expression), historical explication (tracing patterns of artistic continuity and change over time), and spectatorial theorizing (offering an account of the interface between a film’s compositional features and the viewer’s activity). This program has been fruitfully adopted in recent years by scholars of Hollywood cinema,2 in ways that enrich our understanding of Hollywood’s stylistic traditions. If we are to achieve a comparable grasp of Chinese cinema—a category encompassing the cinemas of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—then we need to usher in a poetics of Chineselanguage cinema. Such is the purview of this book.
G. Bettinson ()
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
G. Bettinson, J. Udden (eds.), The Poetics of Chinese Cinema, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55309-6_1
1
Why is a poetics of Chinese cinema important? For critics of a culturalist stripe, Chinese cinema gains much of its interest by reference to social upheavals (e.g. the Cultural Revolution [PRC], the 1997 handover [Hong Kong], or the lifting of martial law [Taiwan]). Chinese films acquire salience for the culturalist by embodying such cultural landmarks. But by analyzing the films in “top-down” fashion, the culturalist subordinates a film’s aesthetic qualities to an a priori conceptual scheme; thus the film’s stylistic construction is of interest only insofar as it reflects or embodies sociological meaning. Poetics inverts this critical emphasis, such that the poetician examines the artwork from the “bottom up”—hence, the critic’s point of departure is not a broad sociological premise but “the principled regularities of form and style we can find in the films” (Bordwell 2001: 9). If existing scholarship on Chinese cinema has overwhelmingly prioritized aspects of culture and society, the poetics approach enables us to put the films themselves at center stage.
This is not to disdain culturalist research, or to deny that culture and society shape filmic construction in important ways. Indeed, culturalism and poetics are not mutually exclusive paradigms; it is feasible, for instance, that a film’s formal design can be usefully elucidated by reference to the social milieu from which it springs. But a film’s compositional features are not wholly determined by cultural factors. Other kinds of factors—technological, industrial, economic, artistic—may be at least as important as social cataclysms in shaping the finished work, and a poetics of Chinese cinema can bring these factors to light. Proceeding from the bottom up, the poetician examines the film’s formal and stylistic patterns, and then asks “what real-world activities could plausibly play causal roles in creating them” (Bordwell 2001 : 9). Without dismissing cultural concerns, poetics puts formal analysis at the heart of inquiry. As such, it shifts the field of Chinese cinema studies toward fundamental yet hitherto neglected or marginalized areas of research. Moreover, it provides new insights that are compatible with already existing studies of Chinese cinema.
At the same time, however, a poetics approach can redress many of the fallacies and misconceptions in the literature. One enduring fallacy is the essentialist notion of a distinctively “Chinese” film style, typically characterized by extended takes, distanced framings, and an alternatively sumptuous or austere emphasis on natural landscape. This characterization, I surmise, is chiefly informed by the Fifth Generation films of Mainland China, whose international profile in the 1980s and 1990s greatly shaped Western perceptions of Chinese-language cinema. Yet the notion of a
quintessentially Chinese film language falters on several fronts. For one thing, it fails to distinguish among the cinemas of the three Chinas, each of which fostered quite distinct aesthetic programs (e.g. meditative editing is hardly a hallmark of Hong Kong’s popular cinema). Nor does it acknowledge the stylistic pluralism within each of the cinemas: a Mainland industry that produces both the chintzy Tiny Times 3.0 and the formally elliptical Black Coal, Thin Ice (both 2014) thwarts assumptions of a monolithic Chinese film style. The poetics perspective compels us to treat skeptically such univocal notions of national style and enables us to lay bare, by means of formal analysis, the aesthetic eclecticism of Chinese cinema.
One might counter that the increasing integration of China’s movie industries makes prospects for a dominant national style tenable. Whereas the three cinemas had once largely developed on separate tracks, the Mainland’s economic rise has borne witness to a surge in pan-Chinese collaborations and Asian talent migrating across Chinese borders. As pan-Chinese coproductions multiply, we might ask: are the cinemas of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China still distinguishable as separate entities? Perhaps a homogenous Chinese aesthetic emerges in this burgeoning joint venture trend, a trend whereby PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese filmmaking coalesces. Yet to argue that these Chinese coproductions evince a national style, one would need to show that they are stylistically of a piece, and this is no straightforward task. The Grandmaster (HK-China, 2013), The Rooftop (Taiwan-China, 2013), Love in the Buff (HK-China, 2012), Ip Man (HK-China, 2008), Red Cliff (China-HKTaiwan, 2008), Kung Fu Hustle (HK-China, 2004)—which of these coproductions exemplifies Chinese film style? One might reply that they all embody a Chinese film aesthetic, but, given the aesthetic diversity on display even in this small sample of films, the concept of a “Chinese national style” becomes baggy, imprecise, and uninformative. Still, a poetics of cinema can bring to light recurring norms shared by some or most of these films; it can determine the extent to which those norms are culturally unique; and it can seek causal explanations for these norms, for instance, by tracing their repetition to practices standardized within the Chinese coproduction system.
The perspective of poetics lets us amend another essentialist fallacy, often tacit in the literature and much discussed in the filmmaking community. This fallacy holds that Chinese storytelling—its norms of narrative plotting, its schemas of visual narration, and, fundamentally, the kinds of stories it elects to tell—does not communicate cross-culturally
to mass audiences in Western territories. (Hence, the efforts by Western distributors, such as The Weinstein Company, to render Chinese imports “accessible” by means of extensive reediting, expository intertitling, and other simplifying strategies.) Yet this view neglects salient counterexamples, including House of Flying Daggers (2004), Hero (2002), Infernal Affairs (2002), and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), all of which found commercial success in the West. Worse, it recycles an Orientalist stereotype of Chinese opacity and inscrutability. If we are to demonstrate the cross-cultural intelligibility of Chinese cinema—and here we alight on the terrain of spectatorial poetics—then we would do well to undertake what Bordwell (2001) calls a “transcultural” comparison of Chinese and Western storytelling strategies. We might, for instance, identify transculturally shared stylistic patterns in a Chinese and a Hollywood movie of the same genre, the better to isolate those textual schemas familiar to and comprehended by culturally diverse audiences. In such ways, the poetician can qualify (or disqualify) the cultural essentialism that underlies widely held assumptions about Chinese storytelling and spectatorship.
Poetics can highlight aspects of Chinese cinema neglected in the literature. Slighted by the prevailing sociological hermeneutics is the precise nature of Chinese film practice, the variety of craft practices within and among the three Chinas, and the ways in which standardized work routines shape the Chinese film’s style and form. Under what production circumstances are Chinese films typically made? What institutional and economic constraints shape the finished work? What are the characteristic modes of production, and how have they changed over time? These are phenomena about which culturalism has had little to say, but a historical poetics of Chinese cinema can posit, at a broad level, both the institutional factors governing Chinese film production and the systematic craft techniques and traditions that underpin Chinese film style. These broad principles, in turn, constitute a ground of conventions against which the exceptional or maverick case—for instance, the aleatory work habits of Wong Kar-wai—stand out as legitimately distinctive.
Researching habitual practices and institutional norms may also enhance our understanding of different modes of production. The Sino-US coproduction model, for instance, has intensified in recent years, but precisely how this model is constituted remains opaque. (Indeed, there is no uniform coproduction strategy, but several available partnership options.) As the North American film market shrinks and the Mainland market
blossoms, American studios court PRC producers for collaborations and a greater share of the foreign film quota. Consequently, a flurry of official Sino-US movies has emerged in recent years, and altered the landscape of Chinese film production—titles include The Karate Kid (2010), Looper (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Furious 7 (2015), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend (2016), Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016), and The Great Wall (2016). By contrasting Mainland Chinese and Hollywood institutional norms and working situations, and by examining the formal features of Sino-US films, a poetics approach is best placed to account for the synergies, as well as the points of tension or incoherence, characterizing both the various coproduction systems and the films they beget. Most generally, the formal properties of a Chinese-language film—no matter its mode of production—can be causally explicated, at least in part, by the institutional, economic, and practical specificities of its production.
Culturalists prioritize social reflection exegesis, but there may be other influences bearing on the work besides social ones. Moreover, these influences may inform the film’s aesthetic more directly than, say, the Tiananmen massacre, the lifting of martial law, or the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis. A poetics of Chinese cinema—by operating historically, comparatively, and from the bottom up—can expose the pertinent sources from which the work draws, explicating intertextual precursors (e.g. the preexisting filmic styles to which a particular Chinese fi lm is indebted) or cross-media ones (e.g. the influence of landscape painting on Chinese filmmakers’ pictorial design). The transcultural dimension of poetics, meanwhile, can shed light on international as well as pan-Asian influences (e.g. Bordwell [2001] proposes that Chinese-language cinemas adopted Hollywood’s continuity system as a stylistic point of departure). The poetician’s standard set of heuristic devices—the tool of average shot length (ASL), the Formalist concepts of norms, deviations, and backgrounds—is apt to reveal the intercultural flow of cinematic influence and innovation. Further, transcultural analysis acquires additional importance in light of Hollywood’s appropriation of Chinese movies. American remakes such as The Departed (2006), The Eye (2008), and Tortilla Soup (2001) invite stylistic comparison with their Chinese-language sources (respectively, Infernal Affairs ; The Eye , 2002; and Eat Drink Man Woman , 1994). Likewise, Chinese remakes of American movies— A Woman , a Gun , and a Noodle Shop , 2009 ( Blood Simple , 1984), Connected , 2008 ( Cellular , 2004), INTRODUCTION:
What Women Want (2011/2000), Bride Wars (2015/2009)—demand comparative analysis. As the remake trend flourishes, the poetician is provided neat opportunities to discover not only patterns of innovation and indebtedness but also—contrary to the cultural essentialist position limned above—stylistic and narrative schemas that are readily grasped across cultures.
The value of poetics for the study of Chinese cinema obtains, too, in this research program’s historical dimension. Though the existing literature contains historical discoveries of enduring import, the heritage of Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese cinemas is far from fully chronicled. The limited availability of certain Chinese films, some of which languish in archives, or lack subtitle tracks, has stymied the progress of Western historians. Many early Chinese-language films have not survived; some that existed may never have been documented. Still today, it is a matter of debate as to when Hong Kong filmmaking began. A historical poetics of Chinese cinema won’t resurrect lost films, but its formalist emphasis on historical backgrounds—one aspect of which involves viewing particular films against other related films—encourages scholars to go beyond the canon, examine less familiar artworks, and thereby “fill in” historical lacunas in the literature. Not that the poetician’s task is simply to spotlight neglected or forgotten movies. Rather, by charting the development of stylistic norms over time, the poetician can reveal patterns of continuity and change, identify innovations, and mount historical comparisons with other national cinemas (as well as among those of the three Chinas). In such ways, the poetics program makes an important contribution to the historiography of Chinese film.
Perhaps above all, poetics brings us to a clearer understanding and appreciation of the art of Chinese cinema. By placing questions of form and style at the center of inquiry, poetics undercuts the culturalist assumption that a film’s interest inheres chiefly in its manifestation of social anxieties and crises. The poetics approach allows us to contextualize Chinese cinema’s relation to international film style, laying bare those transcultural artistic conventions on which popular storytelling and cross-cultural comprehension rely. It also allows us to recognize and celebrate the originality of Chinese filmmaking. A poetics can facilitate fine-grained distinctions among the three Chinese cinemas; it can foreground stylistic novelty; and it can shine a light on boundary-pushing films and filmmakers. Not least, it reminds us that Chinese cinema has fostered artistic traditions to match any on the international stage.
POETICS AND PRECEDENTS
The Poetics of Chinese Cinema is the first book to treat Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, and Hong Kong filmmaking from a poetics perspective. Nevertheless, it builds on a small but seminal body of work. No scholar has contributed more to a poetics of Chinese-language cinema than David Bordwell—indeed, he mapped its terrain. Across a host of publications, Bordwell has mounted historical and theoretical analyses of filmic construction within each of the three Chinese cinemas. He has explored King Hu’s “aesthetic of the glimpse” (2002), tracing Hu’s abbreviated combat scenes to pertinent stylistic traditions and revealing the ingenuity with which the director recasts inherited schemas. He has scrutinized the nuanced staging strategies of Hou Hsiao-hsien, and the laconic gunplay sequences of Johnnie To (2005, 2003). He has examined the house style of the Shaw Brothers film studio and compared the action genre traditions of Hollywood and Hong Kong (2009, 2001a). And he has provided blog commentaries on influential figures such as Ann Hui, Li Han-hsiang, Jia Zhangke, Fei Mu, Wong Kar-wai, and Tsai Ming-liang.3 This body of literature pursues and exemplifies, in various ways, Bordwell’s transcultural poetics of Chinese cinema.4
Most extensively, Bordwell has furnished a historical poetics of Hong Kong film. In Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (2000, 2011), he posits a tradition of popular filmmaking typified by a set of (more or less stable) institutional practices, generic conventions, and norms of story and style. At various levels of generality, he details the local, regional, and international contexts for Hong Kong film production and consumption; the modes of film practice and the customary craft habits adopted by local filmmakers; the indigenous “norms of genre, stars, stories, and style” (17); and the ways that these general forces impinge on the films themselves. He alights on striking cases, dwelling on notable films (Chungking Express, 1994), directors (John Woo, Tsui Hark), and stars (Bruce Lee). And he crystallizes a set of tendencies peculiar to Hong Kong films, such as episodic plotting, tonal ruptures, pictorial legibility, postsynchronized sound, and sentimentality. At the same time, the Hollywood continuity style serves as a ground of (transcultural) comparison against which the popular Hong Kong movie stands out in relief. Bordwell’s enterprise also harbors an empirical dimension: the book’s theses are buttressed by primary interviews with Hong Kong personnel working at all levels of the industry. By investigating how
Hong Kong films are designed, Bordwell ventures into the territory of actual film production—territory seldom approached by cultural theorists. As such, he provides fresh knowledge and opens up new areas of investigation, unavailable (or at least untapped) in the culturalist program.
In recent years, other scholars have pursued a poetics of Chineselanguage cinema. James Udden’s No Man an Island: The Cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien (2009) charts Hou’s unlikely rise from a moderately popular director in Taiwan’s fading commercial industry to one of the most venerated auteurs on the international festival circuit. Udden traces Hou’s stylistic and thematic tendencies, now crystallized as authorial traits, to a peculiar confluence of historical factors in 1980s Taiwan. He also critiques the widespread ascription of quintessential “Chineseness” to Hou’s aesthetic style, disparaging such views as uncritical and politically problematic. Similarly, in The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance (2014), I take issue with the dominant approach to Wong Kar-wai’s oeuvre—in this case, culturalist criticism—and mount a poetics analysis of Wong’s sumptuous yet challenging audio–visual style. This analysis demonstrates that an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” permeates every dimension of Wong’s films, from plotting and characterization to narrational strategy and genre engagement. Emilie Yeh, meanwhile, has investigated both Hou and Wong from the perspective of poetics, sketching the narrative and visual tendencies of the former and the musical practice of the latter (Yeh 2005, 2008). Elsewhere, scholars have gestured toward a poetics of performance.5 Mette Hjort (2010), for instance, tracks the performative behavior of Mainland star Ruan Lingyu throughout several scenes from The Goddess (1934), effectively demonstrating how Ruan’s studied activity works in concert with filmic parameters of editing and cinematography to create meaning and elicit emotion. Despite these interventions, however, the research program of poetics—as brought to bear on Chinese-language cinema—is in its infant stage. Few scholars explicitly mount a poetics of Chinese film. The present volume, then, is intended as a step further in the development of this research tradition, as well as a fresh perspective within the field of Chinese cinema studies.
AVENUES OF INVESTIGATION
The chapters in this anthology demonstrate the coherence of the poetics program, but they also suggest the variety of directions that a poetics of Chinese cinema might take. Though the chapters are unified by historically
and theoretically informed analyses of particular films, genres, and oeuvres, they exemplify the multiple lines of inquiry available to the poetician. Chinese-language cinema, partly by virtue of its festival exposure, is an auteurist cinema, and several of the book’s chapters cast apposite emphasis on the stylistic traits of particular filmmakers (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Chen Kaige, Johnnie To, Wong Kar-wai, Fei Mu, and others). At a more general level, the chapters canvass a range of genres and modes of filmmaking, from melodrama and wuxia (swordplay) to detective fiction and documentary. Still more broadly, several of the chapters consider the relationship between the stylistic construction of particular films and the industrial, economic, and sociohistorical forces bearing on that construction. The book’s chapters do not, of course, exhaust the possibilities of the poetics program. But it is hoped that they demonstrate not only the virtues of this research approach but also the intrinsic value of Chinese filmmaking as an enduringly rewarding object of study.
As David Bordwell points out in the following chapter, the concepts of poetics are not rigid or inflexible, and his own model of historical poetics is but one framework among numerous possible alternatives. Bordwell rehearses his poetics program before canvassing some ways in which it has been refined and enriched by the study of Chinese-language cinema. He makes his case by alighting on particular “middle-level” inquiries: the episodic tendencies of Hong Kong film as a potent creative alternative to classical Hollywood dramaturgy; the techniques of editing employed in Hong Kong action cinema, their debts to other national styles, and their revival and recasting of already existing norms; the confluence of factors shaping the filmic style of Taiwanese directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien; the patterns of stylistic influence traversing Asian regional and national borders; and the importance of individuals working within institutions, engaging with norms and conventions, and cultivating personal styles. By means of these research inquiries, Bordwell demonstrates how poetics both illuminates and is illuminated by the films of the three Chinas.
Chris Berry explores the 1970s filmed versions of the Cultural Revolution “model works,” redressing the critical neglect of these highly politicized and affectively charged films. Focusing on the revolutionary operas Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (1970) and Azalea Mountain (1974), and the revolutionary ballet The Red Detachment of Women (1971), Berry debunks the perception of the “model” films as quintessentially Chinese, instead identifying within the films a synthesis of indigenous and foreign elements, and of traditional and modern features. Not that the revolutionary model works were stylistically
inseparable; as Berry demonstrates, the films shared certain aesthetic principles, but Azalea Mountain employs a faster cutting rate, closer framing, and more “immersive” strategies than its model predecessors, the better to engage its viewer both politically and affectively. Nevertheless, through a poetics analysis of the three films, Berry reveals that each obeys the so-called Theory of Three Prominences, a political theory governing cultural products during the Cultural Revolution and which, Berry attests, informed the aesthetic design of the Cultural Revolution model works in crucial ways.
Several of the chapters in the anthology converge on tradition as a cornerstone of poetics. Traditions of various sorts serve a cardinal function in poetics analysis, for they provide a broad ground of norms and conventions against which historical developments and deviations can be weighed. Stylistic continuity and change come forward by reference to pertinent traditions and backgrounds. In a chapter examining the influence of traditional Chinese painting on Chen Kaige’s early films, Peter Rist evokes the paradoxical impulses of the young artist compelled, simultaneously, to emulate and transform established forms and practices. Rist surveys the history of Chinese landscape and scroll painting; delineates this tradition’s stylistic techniques; and limns the limited yet significant influence of classical landscape painting on the formative Chinese filmmakers, such as Fei Mu. Not until the arrival of the Chinese Fifth Generation, Rist argues, did Chinese cinema embrace—albeit in political and experimental ways—the heritage of landscape painting. Rist perceives in Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth (1984) and King of the Children (1987) an urge to innovate, manifested in Chen’s self-conscious (“modernist”) awareness of the artistic traditions infusing the films. Rist demonstrates Chen’s debts to—and deviations from—Chinese landscape painting by means of comparative formal analysis, buttressed by statistical breakdowns of the films’ ASLs and shot scales.
Precisely what is meant by a “traditional” Chinese film style anchors James Udden’s comparative analysis of Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town (1948) and its 2002 remake directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang. Udden contrasts the attitudes toward tradition articulated within the films themselves, juxtaposing their advocacy of Confucian moral values. He also contends that the thematic conservatism of Fei’s film belies the radicalism of its style, the film’s “proto-modernist” aesthetic going largely unnoticed upon the film’s release. Tian’s remake, however, fails to replicate Fei’s innovations of staging, editing, and voice-over narration, instead virtually pastiching
an imagined traditional Chinese discourse. Among Tian’s putatively traditional resources is the long take device, which Udden notes is frequently (mis)taken for a specifically Chinese trait. The chapter explores this and other visual and aural strategies deployed by Fei, disclosing their radicalism within 1940s world cinema, and arguing that they anticipate experimental strategies (by the likes of Robert Bresson, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Jean-Pierre Melville) that would come to define the modernist art cinema of the 1950s and beyond.
The weight of tradition frames Emilie Yeh’s examination of Hou’s Café Lumière (2003). Commissioned as a memorial to Yasujiro Ozu, Café Lumière presented Hou with a unique artistic puzzle: how to mesh his own authorial signature with that of the Japanese master? Here the artist finds himself conscious of, and potentially overshadowed by, a venerable forbear. However, Yeh suggests that Hou foregoes slavish imitation of Ozuian stylistics, going so far as to subvert certain aspects of Ozu’s work in order to differentiate himself. Hou’s stylistic departures from Ozu, Yeh argues, are more instructive than the affinities; moreover, while many critics compare Café Lumière to Tokyo Story (1953), Yeh identifies a more revealing—if lesser known—intertext in the Ozu canon: Tokyo Twilight (1957). As Yeh’s comparative analysis demonstrates, Hou’s “rewriting” of Tokyo Twilight offers a reflection not only on Hou’s stylistic proximity to Ozu but also on Sino-Japanese cultural politics, ultimately pointing the way to a new rapprochement between Taiwan and Japan.
I examine the fate of traditional modes of practice, as well as of local storytelling norms, in my chapter on contemporary Hong Kong filmmaking. I contest some widely held yet specious premises: first, that the “Mainlandization” and “Hollywoodization” of Hong Kong cinema eradicate local filmmaking practices and aesthetic norms; and second, that the local routine of piecemeal script construction yields slapdash plotting, and thus is inferior to the screenplay practices advocated in Mainland China and Hollywood. I argue that not only have local work routines endured in spite of institutional change, but that those practices yield films of considerable complexity and ambition. In addition, I assimilate several of these films to what I identify as a nascent “puzzle film” trend in Hong Kong cinema. Disputing claims of a “post-Hong Kong cinema,” my chapter draws on primary interviews with key participants in detailing both the PRC coproduction system and the characteristic script practices employed by Peter Chan, Johnnie To, and the Milkyway Image studio.
The poetics of digitally produced spectacle forms the basis of Song Lim’s chapter. Focusing centrally on transnational martial arts ventures such as The Grandmaster, Hero, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lim postulates a poetics of slowness—made possible by computer-generated technology—that demotes the genre’s traditional emphasis on corporeal action and stakes a claim for the cultural prestige conferred upon “slow cinema” in contemporary global filmmaking. Lim contrasts the landmark kung fu films of Bruce Lee with their latter-day effects-laden counterparts; and he counterposes the genre’s traditionally “epic” scale with a “poetics of smallness,” in which tiny objects (raindrops, beans) acquire a sensuous and defamiliarizing force. Lim goes on to consider René Viénet’s situationist exercise Can Dialectics Break Bricks (1973) in order to indicate the political potential of Chinese spectacle cinema; and he suggests that films of this genre virtually efface the contributions of a specialized labor force, subsuming the technical crew’s achievements to the auteur-poetician (Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, et al). For Lim, the films’ digitally upholstered action scenes constitute nothing less than a new category of spectacle and inculcate a new kind of spectatorship characterized, primarily, by sensual pleasure. The genre’s traditional stress on speed and epic scale gives way to an aesthetic of slowness and smallness.
Victor Fan contrasts the stylistic traits of 1950s Cantonese cinema against the classical Hollywood style, considering whether Hong Kong directors such as Lee Tit consciously recast the classic continuity system. Fan begins by tracing the lineage of 1950s Cantonese cinema to the centuries-old Cantonese Opera tradition, noting their shared dramatic and narrational tendencies. By the 1950s, he suggests, classical Hollywood norms had importantly modified Cantonese film dramaturgy; and yet certain Hong Kong films of this era deviated from the American style, to particular aesthetic and political effect. Moreover, Fan argues, this narrational deviation was actively desired by the Cantonese-speaking audience—but why? Fan investigates these matters through close formal analysis of Lee Tit’s In the Face of Demolition (1953), a product of the left-wing Hong Kong studio Union Film Enterprise. What emerges from films of this ilk and era is what Fan calls a classical Cantonese style, distinct from its Hollywood counterpart, which addresses the local audience’s failed efforts at political agency, and provides recuperative narratives of sociopolitical change. Such social ideals are dramatized not only through narrative development but also, Fan demonstrates, through purposive strategies of staging and editing.
In the final chapter, Rey Chow probes the aesthetics of the “real” in documentary representations of China. Taking as a point of departure Michelangelo Antonioni’s ethnographic work Chung Kuo/Cina (1972), Chow gets to the heart of this film’s controversy by counterpointing different cultural attitudes toward the function and propriety of photography itself. She draws on the work of Susan Sontag, Pierre Bourdieu, and Roland Barthes to reveal the ways in which Antonioni’s well-intentioned film inadvertently affronts its Chinese subjects and viewers; she investigates the implications of a formal disparity between Antonioni’s objectifying images and subjective voice-over narration; and she suggests that, despite intentions to the contrary, Antonioni exoticizes Chinese culture. Chow goes on to examine the status of documentary realism in the work of Jia Zhangke, whose provocative uptake of the documentary mode in films such as I Wish I Knew (2010) and 24 City (2008) muddies the distinction between fact and fiction. The poetics of “the real” in traditional documentary, Chow contends, gives way in Jia’s aesthetic to “a new kind of conceptual project,” one that envisions China from a wholly distinctive perspective.
If the chapters in this anthology take up diverse lines of inquiry, they all nonetheless epitomize what Bordwell (1995) calls middle-level research; that is, they pursue modest theoretical and empirical objectives, eschewing the Grand Theory that has often dominated the research field. By espousing and undertaking a poetics of Chinese cinema, this book endeavors to advance our knowledge of Chinese film aesthetics. Not least, it seeks to affirm the artistry of particular Chinese movies, of the filmmakers that made them, and of the polystylistic tradition of Chinese cinema itself.
NOTES
1. Bordwell outlines his poetics model in Poetics of Cinema (2008), 11–56; “Transcultural Spaces: Toward a Poetics of Chinese Film” (2001); “Historical Poetics of Cinema” (1989); Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1989), 263–274.
2. See, for example, Todd Berliner, Hollywood Incoherent: Narration in Seventies Cinema (2010); and Warren Buckland, Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster (2006).
3. See David Bordwell’s Website on Cinema: Observations on Film Art. http:// www.davidbordwell.net/blog/
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
Hār′-barth, Othin, 104, 121, 122, 125–137
Hār″-barths-ljōth′, the Poem of Harbarth, 12, 24, 104, 121–140, 142, 143, 152, 167, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 185, 195, 228, 314, 394, 443, 478, 480.
Hat′-a-fjord, a fjord, 278.
Hat′-i, a giant, 278, 280, 281.
Hat′-i, a wolf, 18, 100.
Haug′-spor-i, a dwarf, 7.
Heer′-fath-er, Othin, 13, 14, 69, 92, 94, 218, 390.
Heim′-dall, a god, 3, 12, 18, 20, 90, 97, 115, 166, 167, 178, 202, 203, 213, 228–230.
Heim′-ir, Brynhild’s foster-father, 345–348, 350, 351, 353, 403, 404, 445.
Heith, daughter of Hrimnir, 228
Heith, Gollweg (?), 10.
Heith′-draup-nir, Mimir (?), 393, 394.
Heith′-rek, father of Borgny, 470
Heith′-rūn, a goat, 94, 232.
Hel, goddess of the dead, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 93, 95, 97, 115, 118, 146, 196, 231, 237, 245, 377, 441–443, 518, 551
Hel′-blind-i, Othin, 103.
Helg″-a-kvith′-a Hjor″-varths-son′-ar, the Lay of Helgi the Son of Hjorvarth, 14, 189, 269–290, 292, 293, 295, 298, 300, 302, 304, 309, 313, 318, 332, 358, 359, 371, 506.
Helg″-a-kvith′-a Hund″-ings-ban′-a I (en Fyr′-ri), the First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane, 14, 160, 215, 221, 273, 276, 281, 287, 290–308, 310, 311, 313, 316–319, 321, 322, 328, 358, 364–366, 428, 524.
Helg″-a-kvith′-a Hund″-ings-ban′-a II (On′-nur), the Second Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane, 95, 272, 288, 289, 294, 296, 298, 306, 309–331, 366, 418, 434, 466, 543.
Helg′-i (Had″-ding-ja-skat′-i), Helgi the Haddings’-Hero, 311, 330, 331.
Helg′-i, Hjalmgunnar (?), 344, 345.
Helg′-i, son of Hjorvarth, 269–272, 276–289, 310, 311, 330, 331, 335.
Helg′-i, son of Sigmund, 221, 269, 270, 276, 289–301, 304, 306–336, 339, 340, 357, 358, 364–366, 368, 371, 446.
Hel′-reith Bryn′-hild-ar, Brynhild’s Hell-Ride, 129, 255, 345, 346, 353, 387, 388, 390, 442–447, 450, 511
Hept″-i-fīl′-i, a dwarf, 7.
Her′-borg, queen of the Huns, 411, 413, 414. [569]
Her′-fjot-ur, a Valkyrie, 99
Her′-jan, Othin, 14, 103, 416.
Herk′-ja, Atli’s servant, 465, 466, 468.
Her′-mōth, son of Othin, 218
Hers′-ir, father of Erna, 213
Her′-teit, Othin, 103.
Her″-var-ar-sag′-a, the Saga of Hervor, 366, 484.
Her′-varth, a berserker, 225
Her′-varth, son of Hunding, 316, 317.
Her′-vor, a swan-maiden, 254–256, 259.
Heth′-in, brother of Helgi, 271–273, 284–286, 288, 289
Heth′-ins-ey, an island, 297.
Hild, a Valkyrie, 14, 99.
Hild, Brynhild, 444, 511
Hild, mother of King Half, 223, 224.
Hild′-i-gun, daughter of Sækonung, 222, 223.
Hild″-i-svin′-i, a boar, 220.
Hild′-olf, a warrior, 124.
Him′-in-bjorg, Heimdall’s dwelling, 90.
Him″-in-vang′-ar, Heaven’s-Field, 293.
Hind′-ar-fjoll, Brynhild’s mountain, 383, 384, 388, 445.
Hjal′-li, Atli’s cook, 491, 492, 520, 521.
Hjalm′-ar, a warrior, 225.
Hjalm′-ber-i, Othin, 103.
Hjalm′-gun-nar, a Gothic king, 345, 390, 445
Hjalp′-rek, father of Alf, 335, 336, 358, 359, 365, 369, 454.
Hjor′-dīs, mother of Sigurth, 226, 270, 277, 293, 333, 335, 336, 340, 341, 368, 374, 454.
Hjor′-leif, father of King Half, 223.
Hjor′-leif, follower of Helgi, 298.
Hjor′-varth, a berserker, 225.
Hjor′-varth, father of Helgi, 269–274, 276–278, 284, 287, 289, 331.
Hjor′-varth, father of Hvethna, 227.
Hjor′-varth, son of Hunding, 273, 295, 316, 317, 368.
Hlath′-guth, a swan-maiden, 254–256.
Hlē′-barth, a giant, 128.
Hlē′-bjorg, a mountain, 319, 320.
Hlē′-dīs, mother of Ottar, 222.
Hlēr, Ægir, 132, 152.
Hlēs′-ey, an island, 132, 139, 314, 478.
Hlē′-vang, a dwarf, 7.
Hlīf, Mengloth’s handmaid, 248.
Hlīf′-thras-a, Mengloth’s handmaid, 248.
Hlīn, Frigg, 22.
Hlith′-skjolf, Othin’s seat, 86, 88, 107, 108, 480, 487
Hlokk, a Valkyrie, 99.
Hlōr′-rith-i, Thor, 135, 140, [570]143, 147, 149, 169, 176, 178, 182.
Hloth′-varth, follower of Helgi, 280
Hloth′-vēr, a Frankish king, 459.
Hloth′-vēr, father of Hervor, 254–256, 259.
Hlōth′-yn, Jorth, 23
Hlym′-dal-ir, Brynhild’s home, 444.
Hnifl′-ung, son of Hogni, 498, 515, 529.
Hnifl′-ungs, the people of Gjuki (Nibelungs), 291, 305
Hnik′-ar, Othin, 103, 357, 366, 367.
Hnik′-uth, Othin, 103, 104.
Hǭ′-alf, a Danish king, 437, 454.
Hǭ′-alf, King Half of Horthaland, 223, 224.
Hǭ′-brōk, a hawk, 102.
Hodd′-mim-ir, Mimir, 80.
Hodd′-rof-nir, Mimir (?), 393, 394.
Hog′-ni, brother of Sigar, 312, 313.
Hog′-ni, father of Sigrun, 296, 306, 308, 312, 313, 316–319, 323, 328, 329.
Hog′-ni, son of Gjuki, 226, 343, 350, 354, 361, 404–406, 421, 425–427, 429, 431, 434, 447–449, 453, 456, 457, 459–461, 467, 469, 472, 476, 477, 482, 484–487, 490–93, 498–500, 502–506, 509, 511, 512, 514, 515, 517–521, 523, 529–533, 539, 541, 543, 546–548.
Hǭk′-on, father of Thora, 419, 454, 455.
Hol, a river, 95.
Holm′-garth, Russia, 222.
Holth, son of Karl, 209.
Hȫn′-ir, a god, 8, 20, 25, 162, 358, 359, 493.
Hǭr, a dwarf, 7.
Hǭr, Othin, 10, 51–53, 60, 103.
Horn, a river, 237.
Horn′-bor-i, a dwarf, 7
Horth′-a-land, Half’s kingdom, 222, 223.
Hörv′-ir, follower of Hrolf, 224.
Hos′-vir, son of Thræll, 206
Hoth, slayer of Baldr, 15, 25, 161, 198, 228.
Hoth′-brodd, son of Granmar, 269, 270, 291, 296, 297, 301, 304–306, 309, 316, 317, 319, 321, 322
Hǭ′-tūn, Helgi’s home, 293, 298.
Hǭv″-a-mǭl′, the Ballad of the High One, 4, 28–68, 71, 75, 112, 117, 130, 188, 193, 205, 215, 236, 237, 247, 357, 367, 368, 379, 387, 393, 397.
Hǭ′-varth, son of Hunding, 295.
Hrǣ′-svelg, an eagle, 21, 78, 115.
Hran′-i, a berserker, 225. [571]
Hrauth′-ung, ancestor of Hjordis, 226.
Hrauth′-ung, father of Geirröth, 85.
Hreim, son of Thræll, 206.
Hreith′-mar, father of Regin, 7, 357–359, 361–363.
Hrīm′-fax-i, a horse, 72.
Hrīm′-gerth, a giantess, 189, 271, 278–283.
Hrīm″-gerth-ar-mǭl′, the Ballad of Hrimgerth, 271, 278–284.
Hrīm′-grim-nir, a giant, 118.
Hrim′-nir, a giant, 115, 228.
Hring, a warrior, 306, 307.
Hring′-stath-ir, Ringsted, 293, 308.
Hring′-stoth, Ringsted (?), 293.
Hrist, a Valkyrie, 99.
Hrīth, a river, 95, 237.
Hrō′-ar, brother of Borghild (?), 334.
Hrolf (the Old), King of Gautland, 224.
Hrol′-laug, a warrior, 319, 320.
Hrō′-mund, a warrior, 331
Hrō′-mund-ar Sag′-a Greips′-son-ar, the Saga of Hromund Greipsson, 311, 331.
Hron, a river, 95, 237.
Hrōpt, Othin, 25, 166, 393.
Hrōpt′-a-tȳr, Othin, 66, 105.
Hrȫ′-rek, King of Denmark, 227.
Hross′-thjōf, son of Hrimnir, 228.
Hrōth, a giant, 142.
Hrōth′-mar, lover of Sigrlin, 275, 276, 278, 286.
Hrōth′-vit-nir, Fenrir, 100, 164.
Hrot′-ti, a sword, 385.
Hrung′-nir, a giant, 125, 126, 143, 171, 172, 394.
Hrym, a giant, 21.
Hug′-in, a raven, 92.
Hum′-lung, son of Hjorvarth, 272, 273.
Hund′-ing, enemy of Sigmund, 269, 270, 273, 294, 295, 307, 309–311, 313, 315, 316, 326, 335, 336, 342, 343, 357, 358, 365, 368, 369.
Hund′-land, Hunding’s kingdom, 294, 310, 311.
Hver′-gel-mir, a spring, 94.
Hveth′-na, mother of Haki, 227
Hym′-ir, a giant, 77, 138–150, 163.
Hym″-is-kvith′-a, the Lay of Hymir, 21, 77, 116, 122, 138–152, 163, 170, 174, 179, 180, 182, 183, 391.
Hym′-ling, son of Hjorvarth, 273.
Hynd′-la, a giantess, 217–220, 222, 231–233.
Hynd″-lu-ljōth′, the Poem of Hyndla, 115, 132, 154, 167, 203, 217–233, 273, 292, 307, 314, 350, 427, 454, 457.
If′-ing, a river, 72, 131.
Im, son of Vafthruthnir, 70. [572]
Imth, a giant, 304.
Imth, mother of Heimdall, 229.
Ing′-un, sister of Njorth (?), 165.
Ing′-un-ar = Freyr, Freyr, 165.
In′-stein, father of Ottar, 220, 222, 224.
Īr′-i, a dwarf, 247.
Īs′-olf, son of Olmoth, 224.
Īs′-ung, a warrior, 297.
Ith′-a-voll, meeting-place of the gods, 5, 24.
Īth′-i, brother of Thjazi, 128.
Ith′-mund, follower of Hjorvarth, 273, 274.
Īth′-un, a goddess, 102, 113, 128, 152, 157, 158, 175
Ī′-vald-i, a dwarf, 101.
I′-var, King of Sweden, 227.
Jafn′-hǭr, Othin, 103, 104
Jalk, Othin, 104, 105.
Jar′-i, a dwarf, 7, 247.
Jar′-iz-leif, Atli’s emissary, 456, 457
Jar′-iz-skār, Atli’s emissary, 456, 457.
Jarl, son of Rig, 212–215.
Jarn′-sax-a, a giantess, 125
Jarn′-sax-a, mother of Heimdall, 229.
Jof′-ur-mar, son of Dag, 223.
Jōn′-ak, father of Hamther, 439, 447, 536, 538, 542, 546, 548, 550, 553.
Jor′-mun-rek, Ermanarich, 225, 226, 339, 407, 437, 439, 447, 451, 538–540, 546, 549, 551–554.
Jorth, Earth, 12, 23, 24, 123, 136, 170, 174, 175, 389.
Jōth, son of Jarl, 214.
Jot′-un-heim, the world of the giants, 3, 5, 6, 21, 107, 111, 128, 179–181, 186.
Kār′-a, daughter of Halfdan, 272, 310, 311, 314, 316, 330, 331, 345.
Kār′-i, ancestor of Ketil, 224
Karl, son of Rig, 208, 209.
Kār″-u-ljōth′, the Poem of Kara, 272, 311, 314, 315, 331.
Kef′-sir, son of Thræll, 206
Ker′-laug, a river, 96.
Ket′-il Horth′-a = Kār′-i, husband of Hildigun, 223, 224.
Kīl′-i, a dwarf, 7
Kjal′-ar, Othin, 104.
Kjār, father of Olrun, 254–256, 485.
Kleg′-gi, son of Thræll, 206
Klūr, son of Thræll, 206.
Klypp, father of Ketil, 223.
Knē′-fröth, Atli’s messenger, 448, 482, 483, 502.
Kolg′-a, daughter of Ægir, 299.
Kon, son of Rig, 201, 209, 210, 214, 215, 236, 256, 306.
Kormt, a river, 96.
Kost′-ber-a, wife of Hogni, 449, 500, 502–506, 510. [573]
Kumb′-a, daughter of Thræll, 207.
Kund, son of Jarl, 214.
Lǣ′-gjarn, Loki, 245.
Lǣ′-rāth, Yggdrasil, 94
Lǣv′-a-tein, a sword, 245.
Lauf′-ey, mother of Loki, 9, 157, 168, 177–179.
Leg′-gjald-i, son of Thræll, 206
Leipt, a river, 95, 323.
Leir′-brim-ir, Ymir (?), 242.
Lētt′-fet-i, a horse, 96
Līf, mother of the new race, 80.
Līf′-thras-ir, father of the new race, 80.
Lim′-a-fjord, a fjord, 501, 510
Lit, a dwarf, 7.
Ljōth′-a-tal, the List of Charms, 28, 44, 60, 63, 236.
Lodd′-fāf-nir, a singer, 28, 52–59, 67.
Lodd″-fāf-nis-mǭl′, the Ballad of Loddfafnir, 28, 67, 387, 397.
Lof′-ar, a dwarf, 7, 8.
Lofn′-heith, daughter of Hreithmar, 363.
Log′-a-fjoll, a mountain, 294, 295, 316, 317.
Lok″-a-sen′-na, Loki’s Wrangling, 4, 16, 26, 102, 107, 130, 134, 139, 151–175, 177, 178, 180, 184, 196, 218, 228, 232, 236, 256, 306.
Lok′-i, a god, 1, 8, 9, 11, 15–17, 21, 22, 25, 101, 102, 128, 130, 134, 146, 149–173, 175–179, 196, 198, 200, 228, 230–232, 245–247,
303, 357–362, 417, 493
Lōn′-i, a dwarf, 7.
Lopt, Loki, 154, 231, 245.
Loth′-in, a giant, 282
Lōth′-ur, Loki, 8, 9, 154.
Lūt, son of Thræll, 206.
Lyf′-ja-berg, a mountain, 248, 251
Lyng′-heith, daughter of Hreithmar, 363, 364.
Lyng′-vi, son of Hunding, 336, 368, 369.
Lȳr, Mengloth’s hall, 247
Mag′-ni, son of Thor, 82, 125, 135.
Mān′-i, Moon, 74, 75, 99.
Meil′-i, brother of Thor, 125.
Mēln′-ir, a horse, 306.
Men′-gloth, beloved of Svipdag, 234–236, 238, 239, 241, 248–251, 350, 388, 441.
Men′-ja, a giantess, 436.
Mīm (or Mīm′-ir), a water-spirit, 12, 13, 20, 61, 81, 242, 393, 394.
Mīm′-a-meith, Yggdrasil, 242, 243.
Mīm′-ir, brother of Regin, 359.
Mist, a Valkyrie, 99, 305 [574]
Mith′-garth, the world of men, 3, 4, 92, 100, 101, 129, 186, 221, 223.
Mith″-garths-orm′, a serpent, 17, 21, 23, 24, 122, 139, 145, 146, 170, 196, 230.
Mith′-vit-nir, a giant, 104.
Mjoll′-nir, Thor’s hammer, 82, 126, 149, 169–171, 174, 181.
Mjoth′-vit-nir, a dwarf, 6, 7.
Mog, son of Jarl, 214.
Mog′-thras-ir, a giant (?), 82.
Mō′-in, a serpent, 98.
Mō″-ins-heim′-ar, a battlefield, 304, 322.
Morn′-a-land, an eastern country, 470.
Mōth′-i, son of Thor, 82, 148.
Mōth′-ir, mother of Jarl, 204, 210–212.
Mōt′-sog-nir, a dwarf, 6.
Mund″-il-fer′-i, father of Sol, 5, 74, 99.
Mun′-in, a raven, 92.
Mū′-spell, father of the fire-dwellers, 22, 165.
Mū′-spells-heim, home of the fire-dwellers, 3, 21, 73, 100.
Mȳln′-ir, a horse, 306.
Myrk′-heim, Myrkwood (Atli’s land), 498
Myrk′-wood, a forest in Atli’s land, 476, 483, 484, 487, 498.
Myrk′-wood, a forest in Hothbrodd’s land, 306.
Myrk′-wood, a forest in Muspellsheim, 165
Myrk′-wood, a forest in Nithuth’s land, 255, 256.
Nab′-bi, a dwarf, 220.
Nagl′-far, a ship, 21
Nāin, a dwarf, 6.
Nal, Laufey, 168.
Nāl′-i, a dwarf, 7
Nan′-na, daughter of Nokkvi, 224.
Nan′-na, wife of Baldr, 91.
Nār, a dwarf, 6.
Narf′-i, Nor, 75, 192.
Narf′-i, son of Loki, 16, 167, 172, 173.
Nā′-strond, Corpse-Strand, 17.
Nep, father of Nanna, 91.
Ner′-i, a giant (?), 292.
Nifl′-heim, the world of the dead, 3, 94.
Nifl′-hel, land of the dead, 80, 196.
Nifl′-ungs, the people of Gjuki (Nibelungs), 408, 447, 448, 486, 487, 489, 492, 493, 515, 517, 541.
Nīp′-ing, a dwarf, 6.
Nith, son of Jarl, 214.
Nith′-a-fjoll, a mountain, 16, 26, 27.
Nith″-a-vel′-lir, home of the dwarfs, 3, 16.
Nīth′-hogg, a dragon, 17, 26, 27, 97–99.
Nith′-i, a dwarf, 6.
Nith′-jung, son of Jarl, 214. [575]
Nīth′-uth, king of the Njars, 253–255, 257–268.
Njāls′-sag-a, the Saga of Njal, 399.
Njars, the people of Nithuth, 254, 257, 259, 265, 268.
Njorth, a Wane, 9, 10, 78, 79, 90, 91, 101, 107, 108, 119, 120, 128, 152, 161–163, 165, 167, 175, 179, 180, 228.
Nō′-a-tūn, home of Njorth, 90, 91, 108, 179, 180.
Nokk′-vi, father of Nanna, 224.
Non, a river, 95.
Nor (or Norv′-i), father of Not, 75, 192.
Nōr′-i, a dwarf, 6.
Norn″-a-gests-thāttr′, the Story of Nornagest, 336, 356, 364, 369, 442, 444, 445.
North′-ri, a dwarf, 6
Not, a river, 95.
Nǭt, Night, 66, 75, 192, 389.
Nȳ′-i, a dwarf, 6
Nȳr, a dwarf, 7.
Nȳ′-rāth, a dwarf, 7.
Nyt, a river, 95
Odd′-rūn, sister of Atli, 420, 438, 448, 449, 469–474, 476, 478, 479.
Odd″-rūn-ar-grātr′, the Lament of Oddrun, 132, 420, 438, 447, 449, 450, 469–479, 483, 494, 522, 532.
Ofn′-ir, a serpent, 98.
Ofn′-ir, Othin, 105.
Ō′-in, father of Andvari, 360. Ökk″-vin-kalf′-a, daughter of Thræll, 207.
Ō′-kōl-nir, a volcano (?), 16.
Ol′-mōth, father of Isolf, 224.
Ol′-rūn, a swan-maiden, 254–257, 485.
Ōm′-i, Othin, 104.
Ōn′-ar, a dwarf, 6.
Ōr′-i, a dwarf, 8, 247.
Ork′-ning, brother of Kostbera, 449, 509, 510, 517.
Ormt, a river, 96
Orv′-and-il, husband of Groa, 234.
Orv′-ar = Odd, a warrior, 225.
Orv′-ar = Odds′-sag-a, the Saga of Orvar-Odd, 225
Orv′-a-sund, a bay, 298.
Ōsk′-i, Othin, 104.
Ō′-skōp-nir, an island, 376
Ōs′-olf, son of Olmoth, 224.
Ōth, husband of Freyja, 11, 12, 161, 220, 232.
Ōth′-in, chief of the gods, 1, 3, 4, 8–15, 19–26, 28, 32, 45, 48–53, 60–63, 66, 68–84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 97, 98, 101–106, 108, 114, 117, 121, 122, 125, 126, 129, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139–141, 145, 149, 151, 152, 155, 157–160, 166, 167, 170, 174, 179, 182, 185, 195–200, 202, 203, 213, 218, 219, 221, 226, 228–231, 236, 274, 293–295, 302, 308, 319, 323–327, 330, 332, 335, 339, 342, [576]357–359, 361, 365, 366, 371, 372, 384, 390, 393–395, 416, 428, 445, 474, 483, 487, 493, 494, 553.
Oth′-lings, a mythical race, 221, 223, 226.
Ōth′-rör-ir, a goblet, 51, 61.
Ōtr, brother of Regin, 358, 359, 362.
Ōt′-tar, a warrior, 217–227, 231–233.
Rǣv′-il, a sea-king, 366.
Rag′-nar Loth′-brōk, a Danish king, 366.
Rand′-grīth, a Valkyrie, 99
Rand′-vēr, son of Jormunrek, 439, 538, 551.
Rand′-vēr, son of Rathbarth, 227.
Ran′-i, Othin, 236
Rat′-a-tosk, a squirrel, 97.
Rāth′-barth, a Russian king, 227.
Rāth′-grīth, a Valkyrie, 99
Rāths′-ey, an island, 124.
Rāth′-svith, a dwarf, 7.
Rat′-i, a gimlet, 50
Reg′-in, a dwarf, 7, 359.
Reg′-in, son of Hreithmar, 7, 343, 356–359, 361–366, 369–372, 377–383, 403.
Reg′-in-leif, a Valkyrie, 99.
Reg″-ins-mǭl′, the Ballad of Regin, 7, 8, 114, 151, 270, 295, 308, 333, 336, 342, 343, 356–371, 376, 378, 384, 386, 387, 402, 411, 426, 428, 448, 450, 493, 538.
Reif′-nir, a berserker, 225.
Rīg, Heimdall (?), 3, 201–204, 207, 208, 210–212, 215, 216.
Rigs′-thul-a, the Song of Rig, 3, 90, 167, 183, 201–216, 230, 428, 484.
