ABSTRACT

The freedom implied in the internal and external projection of these 'landscapes of life' on canvas, on celluloid, or on screen, lies in the availability of mind and heart, that declines to limit one's perception of things and events to their actual forms. Such freedom also allows for the fearless assumption of the hyphen, the fluid interplay of realistic and non-realistic modes of representation, or to quote a Chinese opera expert, of 'bold omissions and minute depictions'. Any revolutionary strategy must challenge the depiction of reality: it is not enough to discuss the oppression of women within the text of the film: the language of the cinema/the depiction of reality must also be interrogated. Within a sexist ideology and a male-dominated cinema, woman is presented as what she represents for man and what the camera in fact grasps is the 'natural' world of the dominant ideology.