Cancelled: Prince of the Himalayas

Special Screening

Friday November 2, 2012 @ 6:30 PM
Price: $15.00
Member Price: $13.50

Due to the results of Hurricane Sandy, this screening with Special Guest Sherwood Hu has been cancelled.

Included in ticket: Post-screening talk - Professor Taylor Carman interviews Sherwood Hu.

After the Rubin Museum's first theatrical screenings in the US of Sherwood Hu's exhilarating high-altitude Hamlet last year, we revisit the film on the occasion of the director's rare visit to New York.

Set in ancient Tibet under the shadow of the Himalayas, the film is a visually ravishing historical epic with stunning scenery, richly saturated color, and lush costuming. As the proto-typical tale of oedipal anxiety, or of the terrifying possibilities of taking action in the social world, this film re-invents a story we thought we knew. The film is not available on DVD.

"Here, at last, a Hamlet that makes emotional sense of the plot and the back story. - Bob Ellis, The Sydney Morning Herald.

"With Prince of the Himalayas, Sherwood Hu confirms his status as one of China's most interesting directors with a glorious visual style married to a fascinating dramatic tale." - Hollywood Reporter

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About the Speakers

Prince of the Himalayas is directed and co-written by Sherwood Hu, one of the most exciting and dynamic directors to emerge from China. Born and raised in Shanghai, Sherwood relocated to the US to receive his Masters of Arts degree from New York State University and earned a Ph.D. in directing from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

He created The Legend of Prince Lanling, a lavish stage production which received an Honorable Mention from the Kennedy Arts Center, and which he later adapted into his first feature film, Warrior Lanling, an epic ritual film about ancient China. His second feature, Lani Loa: The Passage had Francis Ford Coppola and Wayne Wang as its executive producers, and was one of the first U.S.-China co-productions.

Hu went back to China to direct a 40-episode television series, Purple Jade for China Central Television. He returned to epic costume period film work with Prince of the Himalayas, his own adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in ancient Tibet, and performed entirely in the Tibetan language.

Mr. Hu is a guest professor at the Shanghai Drama Academy where he supervises and mentors graduate students.

Taylor Carman is a Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University where his research interests include nineteenth and twentieth-century European philosophy, existentialism, hermeneutics, and phenomenology. This marks his third appearance at the Rubin. He has written extensively about Hamlet in view of Heidegger’s beliefs: “It is a popular misconception that Hamlet ins wracked by indecision, that he cannot make up his mind, that he is irresolute. The suggestion is not obviously right even in the ordinary sense of the word ‘resolute,’ but it is plainly false given Heidegger’s account of resoluteness as an owning up to the nullity of guilt…” (from Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse and Authenticity in Being)