“One Moment of Beauty”: An East-West Dialogue of Paul Tillich and Farewell My Concubine

Authors

  • Kris H. K. Chong Fuller Theological Seminary

Keywords:

Paul Tillich, Botticelli’s art, Chinese cinema, aesthetics, religion

Abstract

This paper looks at Paul Tillich’s discourse on the religious dimension in art and culture, and the way Sandro Botticelli’s painting shaped his aesthetics. Since Tillich’s depiction of his encounter with beauty through art is so similar to a Beijing opera scene in Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige’s movie, Farewell My Concubine, I will draw on Tillich’s aesthetic notions to dialogue with the motion picture. To my knowledge, there is no scholarly work in whole or in large part that analyzes Tillich’s thoughts in conjunction with this film from a theological perspective. At the same time, the opera scene discussed in this paper is also a less investigated aspect of this movie.

 

Author Biography

Kris H. K. Chong, Fuller Theological Seminary

MPhil, University of Cambridge.

Phd student, Fuller Theological Seminary. Concentration in Theology and Culture, dissertation focuses on Theolgoy and Chinese Film.

Interest in Chinese (language) films, Christian theology, Japanese film and culture, Japanese and Chinese literature.

 

 

References

• Chen Kaige, dir. 1993. Farewell, My Concubine. IMDB.

• Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. 1957. Translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Mariner Books, 1968.

• Hong Lanxing. 1993. “Chinese Movie Wins Top Prize at Cannes.†Beijing Review, June 28.

• Irvine, Dean. “Chen Kaige: Capturing the Best and Worst of Times.†CNN.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/03/09/ta.chenkaige/#cnnSTCText (Accessed October 14, 2013).

• Lau, Jenny Kwok Wah. 1995. “'Farewell My Concubine’: History, Melodrama, and Ideology in Contemporary Pan-Chinese.†Film Quarterly 49, no. 1 (Autumn): 16-27.

• Lynton, Norbert. “Expressionism.†In Concepts of Modern Art. Edited by Nikos Stangos. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994.

• Manning, Russell R. Theology at the End of Culture: Paul Tillich's Theology of Culture and Art. Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005.

• Scharlemann, Robert P. 1985. “Tillich and the Religious Interpretation of Art.†In The Thought of Paul Tillich. Edited by James Luther Adams, Wilhelm Pauck, and Roger Lincoln Shinn. San Francisco: HarperCollins.

• ______. 2004. Religion and Reflection: Essays on Paul Tillich's Theology. Edited by Erdmann Sturm. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

• Tillich, Paul. 1951. Systematic Theology. Vol. 1, Reason and Revelation: Being and God. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951.

• ______. 1966. On the Boundary: An Autobiographical Sketch.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966.

• ______. 1975. Systematic Theology. Vol. 2, Existence and the Christ. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1975.

• ______. 1987a. “One Moment of Beauty.†In On Art and Architecture. Edited by John Dillenberger and Jane Dillenberger. New York: Crossroad.

• ______. 1987b. “Lecture 1: Human Nature and Art.†In On Art and Architecture. Edited by John Dillenberger and Jane Dillenberger. New York: Crossroad, 1987.

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Published

2014-04-15

How to Cite

Chong, K. H. K. (2014). “One Moment of Beauty”: An East-West Dialogue of Paul Tillich and Farewell My Concubine. Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies, 2(2). Retrieved from https://ajouronline.com/index.php/AJHSS/article/view/1124

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014): April 2014

Section

Articles

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