The Forgotten, the Repressed, and the Marginalized in Chinese Film History, 1940s-2010s

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Remembering and forgetting are two sides of the coin that is called history. What accounts for the dynamics of remembrance and oblivion, glorification and repression in filmmaking and history writing? This panel aims to “rescue” the forgotten, the repressed, and the marginalized in Chinese film history and to explore the mechanisms of remembering and rediscovery. More specifically, the four papers provide historical details, visual analyses, and social observations related to overlooked films and film-related phenomena from the 1940s to the present. In doing so, the panel seeks to shed new light on our understanding of the entangled past and present of Chinese cinema.

Pickowicz’ paper challenges a fixed-border, national film history by examining border-crossing filmmaking activities during the tumultuous (and under-researched) wartime and post-war era (1944–1958). Braester focuses on renewed interest in the largely forgotten cinema of the Mao era. By exploring various factors that warrant a rediscovery of this kind, his paper makes a connection between forgetting and remembering. Hu’s paper looks at a repressed dimension of revolutionary history, namely, female desire. Her close reading of an important but ignored war film made by a female director in the 1980s throws light on the re-emerging female consciousness embedded in post-socialist cinema. Huang’s focus examines marginalized voices in contemporary rural China that are articulated in independent documentary filmmaking. Taken together, the four papers piece together a richly variegated and multi-layered picture of Chinese cinema, focusing on the complexities of its forgotten past and its redeemed present.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh

Chair

• Paul Pickowicz, University of California, San Diego

Individual Presentations

• Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Traumas of War, Border Crossing Survival Strategies, and the Fragmented History of Chinese Filmmaking, 1944-1958 - Paul Pickowicz, University of California, San Diego

• Hidden in Plain Sight: “Forgotten” Films and the Cinephiliac Impulse - Yomi Braester, University of Washington

• Rescuing Female Desire from Revolutionary History: Chinese Women’s Cinema in the 1980s - Lidan Hu, Sichuan University

• Marginalized Voices of the Everyday: Jia Zhitan and His Village Documentaries - Xuelei Huang, University of Edinburgh

Discussants

• Jing Jing Chang, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Emily Baum, University of California, Irvine