ABSTRACT
In this essay, I examine the representation of Taipei in Taiwan cinema during the Cold War, with a specific focus on Bai Jingrui’s films from the 1960s to the 1970s. As a prominent filmmaker in Taiwan, Bai Jingrui is known for his stylistic innovation and the urban theme in his films. Building on Henri Lefebvre’s discussion on the production of space, I examine the KMT government’s representations of space and the representational spaces in Bai Jingrui’s movies that captured people’s lived experience during this period. I look at Taipei as a contested space for political and cinematic representations and investigate the ways in which Bai Jingrui negotiated his representation of the city and the KMT government’s nation-building project that glorified Taipei as a symbol of modernity, progress, and home.
