The Film Red Detachment Of Women

The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, is effective in raising awareness of the injustice the Chinese people experienced during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and later communist policies in China. When Li’s parents got married in 1946, they were not living in poverty. However, when the Japanese invaded China during WWII and forced all the civilians into communes, Mao then kept these communes and the Li family lost their wealth—they faced injustice and marginalisation. The Chinese population were marginalised by Mao’s use of communist principles and propaganda. They were forced into believing Mao’s views—that the West (Capitalist countries) were filthy and bad, while China was good. Li’s visit to America was an eye-opener.

The films Stage Sisters and Yellow Earth were made twenty years apart in different political climates in China. The films have similarities drawn from policies and ways of thinking that were set in place during the Cultural Revolution and have differences that show the progression filming style and acting post Cultural Revolution thinking.

The eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Wolfgang van Goethe is quoted as saying: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free”. If Goethe, who died in the early 1800s, could have looked forward a hundred and twenty years to Mao Zedong’s Communist China, he would have doubtless seen his words ring painfully true. Mao’s dynastic rule survived on elimination of any thought deemed contrary to his own. Those who dared to speak out were dealt with swiftly and severely. Yet some people did not believe they were free, and were willing to do risk everything to subvert Mao’s manufactured culture. “The Mao Button”, “Black Walls”, and “Dogshit Food” are short stories that criticize the

The cultural revolution is a strange period in Chinese history laced with intense struggle and anguish. The cultural revolution mobilized the all of society to compete for all opposing factions that they belonged to (Ong, 2016). Mao mobilized the young people of society during a background of political turmoil, which helped Mao to mobilize the students in order to enforce his political legitimacy and ideas (Ong, 2016). Mao’s charismatic authority created his personality cult and most defiantly leant a helping hand in mobilizing the red guard movement (Ong, 2016) (Weber, 1946) (Andreas, 2007). No matter which faction of the red guard they belonged to, they all mobilized against their common enemy; the better off, upper class. (Ong, 2016). Multiple ideologies within the youth led red guard movement explain why the movement gained momentum and became incredibly powerful (Walder, 2009).

The autobiography Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin is set in rural China where he was born and where he grew up in. The text shows Li’s life in how he transcends from his ‘poor’ roots, as he becomes a prominent ballet dancer. The text exposes Li’s physical and mental struggles, which his mental struggles, have a larger toll against him. The conceptual struggles are presented as Li leaves his family to go to Madame Mao’s Dance Academy, when Teacher Gao ridicules him and how he grew up with the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. Mental struggle is presented when Li moves to the dance academy, which proves a bigger toll on Li than his physical struggles.

Originally, Liang’s “parents were deeply involved in all the excitement of working to transform China into a great Socialist country” (4). Over a serious of unfortunate events, though, he became the child of a “Rightist’s cap” mother and a “Reactionary Capitalist stinking intellectuals” father (9, 51). Impacted by the shattering of his family and horrific bloodshed created by fighting, Liang Heng began to question the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that his “family had scarified so much… but it had given [them] nothing in return” (148). Liang Heng presents his shift in ideology to demonstrate that most Chinese were no longer in support of a Communist nation. His “troubles were common enough and anyone could see there was a discrepancy between the glorious words of the newspapers and [their] painful reality (232). Even Liang Heng’s father, after many years of devotion, found that he could no longer defend the Party’s policies after he experienced the ill-treatment of the peasants in the country

The launch of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966 was due to a culmination of political and ideological struggles that had divided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the end of the Great Leap Forward. As said by Che Guevara, “A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall”. Che Guevara’s statement is accurate to an extent in relation to the causes of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Although China was vulnerable during the twentieth century and Mao Tse-Tung, Chairman of the CCP, took control of this susceptibility, the Chinese Cultural Revolution was already ‘ripe’, someone just had to provoke it to ‘fall’. The Chinese Cultural Revolution can be considered a power struggle between Mao and his rivals. Mao needed to regain the control that he had lost after the failure of ‘The Great Leap Forward’ and the Chinese Cultural Revolution was a means for him to do so. Mao genuinely believed in an equal society and went about this belief in a very severe manner. Che Guevara’s statement is not entirely accurate as the Chinese Cultural Revolution was just part of a progression that was taking place and although Mao provoked it to fall, China was ultimately ripe for a revolution.

This memoir of Ma Bo’s sent shock waves throughout China when it was published and was even first banned by the Communist Government. This passionate story paints a clear picture for what the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution was really like. Many Chinese living today can attest to similar if not identical ordeals as expressed in Ma Bo’s story. The toils of being a young Red Guard in inner China were experienced by many if not millions. The horrors and atrocities were wide spread throughout the country, not just in Inner Mongolia. The experiences illustrated in Blood Red Sunset uniquely belong to Ma Bo’s entire generation of mislead Chinese. As expressed in the books dedication the Cultural Revolution

In Jan Wong’s entrancing expose Red China Blues, she details her plight to take part in a system of “harmony and perfection” (12) that was Maoist China. Wong discloses her trials and tribulations over a course of three decades that sees her searching for her roots and her transformation of ideologies that span over two distinctive forms of Communist governments. This tale is so enticing in due part to the events the author encountered that radically changed her very existence and more importantly, her personal quest for self-discovery.

The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chines culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member in the Chinese society nor the poor we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, An American woman whom helps him write the book. When

There is, on the other hand, much evidence to support that the campaign was a genuine attempt at reform. In his ‘Contradictions’ speech, given to leading party workers in early 1957, Mao complained of the oppressive way some party officials were applying policies and hinted that it was time to begin permitting intellectuals to voice their opinions. Furthermore, in 1956, he had been tolerant of Hu Feng, a writer who challenged the idea that all artistic merit should be judged based on Marxist-Leninist values, even as other CCP leaders viciously censured him. These two examples show that Mao, although previously disdainful of intellectuals, may have begun to see their importance, and thus may have been honestly inviting their criticism when the Hundred Flowers Campaign began.

Mao’s Cultural Revolution was an attempt to create a new culture for China. Through education reforms and readjustments, Mao hoped to create a new generation of Chinese people - a generation of mindless Communists. By eliminating intellectuals via the Down to the Countryside movement, Mao hoped to eliminate elements of traditional Chinese culture and create a new form Chinese culture. He knew that dumbing down the masses would give him more power so his regime would be more stable. This dramatic reform affected youth especially as they were targeted by Mao’s propaganda and influence. Drawing from his experiences as an Educated Youth who was sent down to the countryside Down to the Countryside movement, Ah Cheng wrote The King of

A long time ago there was a mother that gave birth to a little girl named Red. She had dark red hair and big brown eyes. she was only 19 inches. she only weighed 7 pounds. she was so cute when she was born. She was born really healthy. She was crying for her mom. Her mom decided she wanted to hold her so that she could say good bye. The adoptive parents were already to take her home. The mom crying but she knew she did the right thing.

In Mao's era, there was also little room for free speech due to the immense censorship that pervaded the period. Individual thinking and Confucian philosophy were renounced with a youth movement, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, to criticize everything and to revive the spirit of the revolution. Until his death in 1976, when Deng Xiao Ping took control of the Communist Party, Mao accentuated maintaining the revolutionary ideals of communal 'freedom' and the ultimate sacrifice of the individual for the enhancement of China.

Montage, a name synonymous with Editing, is an original film style with different techniques used by the Soviet filmmakers between 1924 and 1930 to construct a film narrative. Montage is the connection between one shot and the other, a continuous or discontinuous relationship between shots. According to David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (2012: 478), Soviet directors maintained that, “through editing, two shots give birth to a feeling or idea not present in either one”. This ‘feeling’ or ‘idea’ then guides a viewer into understanding or making a “conceptual connection” of the narrative (Bordwell 1972: 10). Strike (1925) and Mother (1926), directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin respectively, are films made in the Soviet Montage era that show a juxtaposition between shots across the film. This essay discusses the different techniques used in these films that show the functions and effects of Montage.