The Cultural Revolution and Cinema: An International Symposium

Date: 

Saturday, April 16, 2016, 9:30am to 5:30pm

See also:

Location: 

S020 | CGIS South | 1730 Cambridge Street | Cambridge, MA

What was cultural about the Cultural Revolution, or was the decade only a cultural desert? Upon the fiftieth anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, this symposium considers the cinematic production and reception, practices and legacies of that tumultuous decade. The mass criticism of several “poisonous weed” films in the mid-1960s helped to launch the Cultural Revolution, and the 1970s saw the expansion of the film exhibition network and radical growth of film audiences. If film was the mass medium that reached the most number of people, were these people simply “brainwashed” by what they saw, or were there more alternative modes of reception? With the censorship and rejection of nearly all films made before 1966, what special film aesthetics and genres emerged in the Cultural Revolution? How did cinema interact with other propaganda media? What was the political role of film production, exhibition, and criticism, especially given the intense involvement of top political leaders? What has been the afterlife of Cultural Revolution cinema, and how are the decade’s films and everyday movie- going remembered today? These questions will be addressed in the three panels—Revolution through Cinema, Revolutionary Aesthetics, and Cinematic Memories—plus a roundtable discussion.

Agenda: 

9:30am -  Welcome and Opening Remarks

David Der-wei WANG, Harvard University

9:40-11:10am Revolution through Cinema

Chair: David Der-wei WANG, Harvard University

Poisonous Weeds and “Correct” Artistic Practices: on Xie Jin's Two Stage Sisters.

Richard PEÑA, Columbia University

The Red Guards as Film Critics

Yomi BRAESTER, University of Washington, Seattle

Friends vs. Enemies: Diplomacy and Documentary Cinema in the Cultural Revolution

Ying QIAN, Columbia University

11:30-12:30 Revolutionary Aesthetics

Chair: Jie LI, Harvard University

 “The Production and Reception of Female Ballet Characters in the Cultural Revolution”

 Laikwan PANG, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Chinese Socialist Formalism and the End(s) of Revolutionary Cinema in the Cultural Revolution

Jason MCGRATH, University of Minnesota

1:30-3:30 Cinematic Memories

Chair: Richard PEÑA, Columbia University

Models on Film: On the Docks and the Geopolitics of Remediation

Laurence CODERRE, University of Michigan

From Paean for “Barefoot doctor” to “Conspiracy Art”: The 1975 Film Chunmiao

Rudolf WAGNER, University of Heidelberg

Why Remember Everyday Movie-Going in Cultural Revolution Shanghai?

Chris BERRY, King’s College London

Rural Movie Projectionists: Maoist Cinema as a Material and Spirit Medium

Jie LI, Harvard University

4:00-5:30 Roundtable Discussion

Chair: Eugene WANG, Harvard University

Carma HINTON, George Mason University

Catherine YEH, Boston University

Yomi BRAESTER, University of Seattle, Washington

Chris BERRY, King’s College London

Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and the CCK Foundation Inter-University Center for Sinology.

Download a compilation of conference abstracts here. 

This symposium also coincides with a film program at the Harvard Film Archive, Xie Jin, Before and After the Cultural Revolution (April 15-May 1).  Please refer to http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2016marmay/xie.html for more details.