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水鐘:《你那邊幾點?》的液態憂鬱 Clepsydra: The Fluid Melancholy in Tsai Ming Liang's What Time is it There?

作者
白大維
Author
David Barton
摘要

此篇論文的標題「clepsydra」所指的是水鐘。我在文中的論點為,蔡明亮電影《你那邊幾點?》全片由兩種不同的時間狀態貫穿而成,其一為流動的時間,以電影裡隨處可見的流水作為象徵,另一則是靜止的時間狀態,作為象徵的是片中亦不斷強調突顯的數位時間。就台灣的脈絡而言,水鐘與數位時間所形成的對比,癥候式地再現了台灣作為阿岡本所稱的「例外狀態」(a state of exception)特殊的歷史經驗。蔡明亮的這部電影於父喪的影響之下拍攝而成,片中在模糊的時間中界地帶搬演著此一喪父的主題,在那兒靜止的時間與流動的時間衝突、撞擊出如夢境一般的場景,夢境裡生命之水與死亡之泉交融匯流。

Abstract

Clepsydra, my title for this submission, refers to the water clock. I argue in my paper that there are two states of time running through Tsai Ming Liang's movie, What Time is it There, a fluid state symbolized by the prevalence of water in the movie and a static state, symbolized by digital time, also highlighted in the movie: the clepsydra versus digital time in Taiwan is a symptom of Taiwan's particular historical experience of being a state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben would have it. Tsai Ming Liang's movie is filmed under the influence of the deaths of fathers: this death of the father theme is played out in a time of limbo, where static time and fluid time clash in a dream scenario of the water of life meeting and mingling with the water of death.