Nation-building, a Nun and a Bionic Boy

This chapter initiates the book’s study of the post-studio 1970s as an important turning point that marks the transition from the pre-national cinema of the golden age to the post-national one today. It explores the socio-political context of post-independent Singapore, such as the state’s efforts at nation-building, the global focus of its policies and the arrival of television, which resulted in a changing audience and the development of a different cinema that was also internationally oriented. Like the country within which it operates, this is a cinema in transition and the films perform a Singapore that is either absent or foreign.

Merdeka!: Merger, Separation and a Transnational Golden Age

This chapter begins the book’s study of the golden age as a pre- national cinema, and examines the period as a transnational cinema that mimics Singapore’s positioning as a transnational space. Borrowing Sheldon Lu’s argument on Chinese cinema, it shows that film production in Singapore arose as ‘an event of transnational capital from its beginning’. To that end, the chapter considers the development, practices and migrant constitution of the film industry vis-à-vis the socio-political circumstances of this burgeoning nation, including Singapore’s complex relationship with Malaysia, and places Singapore cinema within the larger transnational network of film production and distribution in the region, Hong Kong and China.

One People, One Nation, One Singapore

This chapter begins the book’s examination of Singapore’s revival cinema as a post-national one, emerging after Singapore had already transitioned from Third to First World, as heralded by the title of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs. Central to this perspective is the performance of national identity, primarily the difference between the state’s version of the nation and the other Singapores produced by this cinema. This chapter develops and expands on my prior work on this period and explores a series of acts and gestures that constitute the state’s performance of a successful Singapore as a unified, homogeneous national identity, including the Singapore Story, policies, speeches and the ubiquitous annual National Day Parade.

Not so Foreign: the Case of Saint Jack

This chapter develops on the topic of foreignness in Singapore films and discusses the ways that Singapore has been depicted in films made outside the country, especially by Hollywood. It addresses the tendency to polarise local- and foreign-made films as inside/outside perspectives and argues that they all perform a Singapore that is equally foreign regardless of where they were made. The chapter also problematises the tendency to limit the study of national cinema to locally-made films by making the case for how a Hollywood production like Saint Jack (Peter Bogdanovich, 1979) can be considered a Singapore film.

Influence, Hybridity and How the Past is a Foreign Country

This chapter discusses two ways that films from the golden age could be considered Singapore films. First, when viewed within the context of its time, the golden age is a cinema of hybrid films produced by a culturally heterogeneous and transnational industry and country. The hybridity of the films is apparent in the narrative, musical style and language which reveal a diversity of influences ranging from other cinematic conventions such as Hollywood and Bollywood cinemas and performance practices like bangsawan theatre. Second, watching these films now creates a ‘consciousness of doubling’ between the Singapore in the films and the one materially present today. It is precisely because we see (an)other Singapore being performed at each viewing that the films from the golden age can be considered Singapore films.

Revival Cinema: ‘Other’ Singaporeans in (An)other Singapore

This chapter argues that films of the revival engage the national through a relational force of counter-performative strategies present in the narrative, film style, use of language such as Singlish, depictions of spaces like the Housing Development Board’s heartland, and the prevalence of heartlanders as ‘other’ Singaporeans left out of the state’s performance of success. Together, these films not only produce different Singapores. They perform (an) other Singapore.

Introduction

This chapter establishes the historical context and theoretical framework of this study on Singapore and its cinema. It introduces the fragmented history of the cinema and resulting discursive fracturing that Celluloid Singapore will address. The chapter also explains the book’s approaches to national cinema as a reframing of the relationship between nation and cinema; the transnational and national as constitutive rather than mutually exclusive conceptions; identity as performative; and films as cinematic performances that produce multiple Singapores. Each of these Singapores adds to and negotiates with the myriad ways that Singapore can and has been performed on screen and elsewhere. As such, the Singapore we see on screen are not only transformed versions of material reality, or different from the Singapores performed in other contexts. Celluloid Singapore is essentially already (an)other Singapore.

Singapore Cinema in Singapore

By way of conclusion, this last chapter discusses current developments in Singapore cinema through recent films like Ilo Ilo (Anthony Chen, 2013), Meeting the Giant (Tay Ping Hui, 2014) and To Singapore with Love (Tan Pin Pin, 2014). It also examines the 7 Letters anthology of films (2015) and Eric Khoo’s In the Room (2015) as tributes against the context of Singapore’s fiftieth birthday celebrations. Analysis of these films shows that although the industry has grown, the heartland is still a site of contestation and the existence of other Singaporeans in (an)other Singapore continues to persist. The chapter also develops and expands on my prior argument on Singapore cinema’s position as (an)other cinema in Singapore.