Communist China through Cinema

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The purpose of this course is to study how the history of Communist China is told, revealed and questioned by some Chinese film productions (fiction and documentary, official or independant). We will focus on the moments of the Mao Era, between 1949 and 1976 from the Land Reform to the Cultural Revolution. The course will be divided in two parts: History and Memory. In the first part we will study the Mao era (1949-1976) and some of its films in order to understand how they can document the historical event of this time period. In a second part (Memory), we will study films made after that time period, from 1980 onward, but that have for background the 1949-1976 period. This will help us to reflect upon how history is told, by confronting the official history, the known facts, the memories of the witnesses and the narrative given by the films.