History In Movies

To explore one race’s interpretation of historical events from the perspective ofmovies, and to explain it from the perspective of history and society can explore theignored field in a society in the past.“Cultural Revolution”---the political movementfrom1966to1976creates the darkest and gravest ten years in China’s modern history.This unprecedented cultural catastrophe and serious race disaster has been influencingscholars from various fields. From witness to onlooker, from inspection to reflection,the movie creation of thirty years after cultural revolution inevitably reflects thishistorical event. The study of movies in this time period can distinguish the mind trackof filmmakers from three generations step by step but clearly. This mind track revealstheir various ways of seeking under the guidance of society and ideology.With the help of the theoretical resources of film ontology, the dissertation probesthe nature of films from the sense of reality. Mainland films of thirty years (mainlyabout critical periods in history) after the “Cultural Revolution” are the analytic objects.By the interpretation pattern of film keywords of Susan Hayward, this paper choosesfilm keywords as the entry point. Through the analysis of movies from differentperiods, it presents various aspects and forms of real life. When these aspects andforms are combined, the mind map of China’s social development is depicted. As aresult the film case study shows the macro-social effect, which transforms simple filmcase study into the comprehensive of art history, social history and cultural history. Inthis way, film has become a channel and medium to understand “China”.The time span of history in the study of this paper is not long. It follows the routesof time and specific topic, with the researches on the movie ontological aesthetics as itscore questions. Political ideology, film narration pattern and film reception group arethree main analysis approaches in this paper. By this way, it explores a series ofproblems such as: the political revolution reflection, modern race image, individual spirit evolution, the change of social culture and alteration of intellectual generation in“Cultural Revolution” films. As to the design of chapters, this paper presents its thesisfrom different aspects: from mainstream to edge. It involves three chapters besides thepreface.Chapter One: Wounded Movies---the Memory of “Cultural Revolution”. Thereturn of realism and the reflection of film ontology both boomed ten years after theCultural Revolution. The year1979has become the reviving year of Chinese films.The theme of how to face the wildness and ridicule of these ten years for bothindividuals and the whole country is focused. Films, as the representation of ideology,make uttermost reflection from this point of view. The first arrays of films authorizedstart to flourish, and these films won excellent film prizes issued by Ministry ofCulture. Examples are like Troubled Laughter, the Thrill of Life, Trail of Tears andEvening Rain. These films reconstruct “Cultural Revolution” from variousperspectives with muddled self-awareness. Some of the movies are just theinterpretation of policy but lack the plot of film ontology. Then, Xie Jin’s trilogy of“Cultural Revolution” Legend of Tianyun Mountain, Wrangler, Hibiscus Town broughtfilms to narrative pattern of story-telling. These three films put individual’s destinyinto the background of times. Each of them is better than the previous one. Thereflection of history and reality has reached the top among all the third generationdirectors who have witnessed the “Cultural Revolution” by themselves.In this chapter, the author tries to clear out two films that were never released tothe public---Bitter Love and Maple. Bitter Love brings about the largest argument onart criticism in new age. This argument influences principal direction of film creationand literature creation. Maple has been banned by the mainstream ideology just oneyear after it was published. The passionate red guards were presented as the subject toreflect this historical movement. They are the witnesses, participants, persecutors andthe victims. This identity creates a unique narrative point of view and narrativestructure. This film reserves the beginning period of Red Guards’ life experience. Inaddition, it documents those behaviors which are hard to understand and evenridiculous today. All the interpretation of text and visual impact bring people back tothe bloody and crazy days. No matter how this is interpreted by the later generation,this will be the most direct source.Besides interpretation of typical movies of Cultural Revolution, this chapter also explains in different social contexts, how “Cultural Revolution” movies judge“Cultural Revolution” from the perspective of marginal groups and the bottom public.It also interprets how they represent “Cultural Revolution” closely, how their world oflife plays with world of politics and how to arrange personal life after historicaldisaster from the point of view of human nature and family. Although the reflectionintensity of the overall quality of these movies is somehow immature and filled withstereotype, the critical strength is bold. As we look back to these “Cultural Revolution”movies of1980s, we could see that they don’t disappoint that age. This reflects overallcreation level of a dynamic film community.Chapter Two: Wounded Memory of Generation of the Young Intellectuals. After1990s, the inspection and reflection of history is more ornamental and epic than“wound” movies. Farewell to My Concubine directed by Chen Kaige, The Blue Kite byTian Zhuangzhuang, Living directed by Zhang Yimou and other movies appeared inthis period. These directors have witnessed “Cultural Revolution” themselves and theyhave their own views and experiences different from the third generation moviecommunity. Most of these directors choose to bring film narration to history and cardhumanity comprehensively from omniscient point of view or onlooker’s point of view.The movies represent absurdity to the limit, for “Cultural Revolution” is an alienationperiod to people. Most of these directors were born at the beginning of1950s. They arethe flowers of new age who are “born in new China and grow up under red flag”. Theirideal to build a new China and realize communism is unprecedentedly passionate. Allof them are immersed into fanatical lofty sentiments and aspirations, and they believedfirmly in the ideal world depicted by the leaders. They are the first arrays of babies innew China, yet they witnessed the whole course of disaster of the period. This uniqueexperience gives them unique wound memories. In the Heat of the Sun and The SunAlso Rises directed by Jiang Wen are among these, and it offered an interpretation ofthe history of “Cultural Revolution” from a completely new perspective both bycontent and by form.Chapter Three: Historical Record of Individual Seeking. The newsreels of“Cultural Revolution” are full of realism and visual impact and present experiences ofdifferent periods and lives of different groups during “Cultural Revolution”. TiexiDistrict directed by Wang Bing focused on the biggest base of heavy industry inChina——Tiexi District in Shenyang City, and Tales of Twenty-four Cities directed by Jia Zhangke also focused on the third line factory of war industry which was onceflourishing. Both the two movies take factory as its background, describing life ofindustry workers after the disorganization of their factory. How the big group ofworking class who became fast to the bottom of society was settled in history when theintrinsic social pattern was changed? These directors who were born between the endof1960s and beginning of1970s have shown their real memory. Characters in themovies all have specialty of that period. The poverty of spirit resource, difficulty ofreality form silent strength in front of dignity and value of humanity is worth deepthinking.1966，My time as Red Guard directed by Wu Wenguang and My Chronicle of“Cultural Revolution” directed by Xu Xing change the focus back to themselves. Theyreflect the rough growth of that period by telling stories about themselves. Theserecords beginning from personal track have shown deep research of historical truth andvarious kinds of influence to the existence of real life through experience of an area, ageneration and a man.In conclusion，Chinese movies in30years after “Cultural Revolution” record thelife of three generations who belong to creation groups of three periods of ages andthey are distinctive. Witnesses of “Cultural Revolution” who were born in the1950shave experienced that absurd and bloody period. So they slide over withoutinvestigating the real reason in their creation. Directors born after the1960s areparticipants and onlookers of “Cultural Revolution”. They inquire destiny beyondhumanity and they doubt absurdity and vanity of existence. Directors born after1970sbegin to ask as they open their eyes more and more to visual fields. Kracauer once saidthat “movies bring incentive of deep soul out of water by popping out lots ofsuperficial phenomenon in daily life”. Visible world is expressed by fa ade. The“truth” of world will appear by doubting the fa ade. It expresses the emotional worldof these directors, while it is independent, or it has recorded unique daily lifebelonging to that very period of time. This independence would even bring to you totaldifferent explanations, in which the value and fascination of movies of “CulturalRevolution” exist.