Constructed Memory in Chinese Cinema: Narrating Emotion in Red Sorghum and In the Heat of the Sun

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This essay examines “memory films” of modern China as a way for exploring the relationship between memory and history. Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (1987) introduces a narrator who as a child witnessed atrocities during the Sino-Japanese War. Jiang Wen’s In the Heat of the Sun (1994) relies also on a narrator who conveys childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution. While their historical backgrounds are all about historical disruption, the two visual texts reveal more than a simple narration of messages (such as Jameson’s national allegory) because they employ memories. Subsequently, the relationship between memory and history lies not in opposition but in collaboration. Memories of historical pain demand the return of emotion, which further suggests that history should be supplemented by retrieving memory. Historical accuracy remains impossible to realize; on the other hand, the search for and narration of memories are indispensable to consolidate the trajectories of Chinese people’s emotions. The memory films are successful because they evoke how people felt during the tumultuous events of modern China.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 Braester, Y., "Witness against history: Literature, film, and public discourse in twentieth-century China" Stanford University Press 2003

2 Pang, L., "The distorting mirror: Visual modernity in China" University of Hawai‘i Press 2007

3 Jameson, F., "The current in criticism: Essays on the present and future of literary theory" Purdue University Press 139-158, 1987

4 Wang, Q. E., "Review of the book Witness against history: Literature, film, and public discourse in twentieth-century China, by Y. Braester" 44 (44): 190-194, 2007

5 Zhang, Y., "Red sorghum (Hong gaoliang) [Motion picture]" Xi’an dianying zhipianchang 1987

6 Chow, R., "Primitive passions: Visuality, sexuality, ethnography, and contemporary Chinese cinema" Columbia University Press 1995

7 Wang, Y., "Perspectives on Chinese cinema" British Film Institute 80-103, 1991

8 Halbwachs, M., "On collective memory" University of Chicago Press 1992

9 Ahmad, A., "Jameson’s rhetoric of otherness and the “national allegory" 17 : 3-25, 1987

10 Jiang, W., "In the heat of the sun (Yangguang canlan de rizi)[Motion picture]" Zhongguo dianying hezuo zhipian gongsi 1994

11 Wang, B., "Illuminations from the past: Trauma, memory, and history in modern China" Stanford University Press 2004

12 Zhang, Y., "Colonialism and nationalism in Asian cinema" Indiana University Press 30-41, 1994

13 Zhang, Y., "Chinese national cinema" Routledge 2004

14 Zhang, X., "Chinese modernism in the era of reforms" Duke University Press 1997

15 Nora, P., "Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire" 26 : 7-24, 1989