空間．族裔．認同：論王穎的《尋人》

Space, Ethnicity, and Identity: Reading Wayne Wang's Chan Is Missing

10.7015/JEAS.200306.0373

單德興(Te-Hsing Shan)

王穎（《尋人》） ； 黑色電影 ； 都市漫遊者 ； 城市空間 ； 族裔認同 ； Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing) ； film noir ； flâneur ； urban space ； ethnic identity

歐美研究

33卷2期（2003 / 06 / 01）

373 - 408

繁體中文

華美導演王穎的首部影片《尋人》被譽為亞美獨立製片的經典。在這部低成本的黑白片中，他運用舊金山華埠兩名計程車司機尋人討債的過程，試圖建構失蹤者陳雄的形象，呈現個人認同的複雜、游移，以此反映美國華人的認同與處境。本文挪用黑色電影及都市漫遊者的論點，探討城市空間（華埠的族裔化空間）、其與認同的關係，指出失蹤者有如留白，允許不同的解讀，形成「一個陳雄，各自表述」的現象，質疑了本質論的迷思。此片不僅演出了個人與族裔認同的變動不居，更是王穎思索舊金山華埠這個既是場域又是景觀的空間，介入這個作為競爭場域的異域奇觀，呈現自己面對複雜的華人認同時的立場、觀察與對策。片中的認同政治與場所政治，多少改變了觀者對於舊金山華埠與美國華人的看法。

Wayne Wang's debut film Chan Is Missing (1982) is regarded as a classic Asian American independent production. In this low-cost black-and-white film, the Chinese American director employs the structure of a detective story, in which two San Francisco Chinatown taxi drivers try to get their money back from the missing person Chan Hung. During the process of investigation, different stories are told about Chan that reveal the complexity and heterogeneity of personal identity and, thus, ethnic identity. Appropriating concepts from ＂film noir＂ and ＂flâneur,＂ this paper explores issues of urban space (especially Chinatown as an ethnicized space), and its relationship to identity. It argues that Chan acts as a blank that challenges the essentialist myth about identity. In addition to demonstrating that personal and ethnic identity are always in flux-in the process of becoming, rather than in a state of being-Wang examines San Francisco Chinatown as both a site and a sight. The film is at once his critical intervention into this exotic spectacle as a site of contestation, and a graphic presentation of the director's position, observation, and strategy regarding the problematics of Chinese American identity. The identity politics and politics of location represented in this film substantially change the viewers' conception about San Francisco Chinatown and Chinese Americans.

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