Cinematic Amnesia as Remembering: Coming Home (2014) and Red Amnesia (2014)

Authors

Ying Bao, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-21-2018

Publication Title

Arts

Publisher

MDPI

Volume

7

Issue

4

First page number:

1

Last page number:

8

Abstract

This article examines the trope of amnesia—the crisis of memory—in two recent Chinese-language films dealing with traumatic memories of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath: Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home (Guilai, 2014) and Wang Xiaoshuai’s Red Amnesia (Chuangru zhe, 2014). Cinematic representation of real and symbolic amnesia, I argue, can be an affective way to overcome historical amnesia, both institutionalized by the Party-state and privatized by individuals. By exploring the dynamics between forgetting and remembering at both collective and individual levels, we can reach a deeper understanding of the profound impact of the Cultural Revolution and its present-day repercussions.

Keywords

Amnesia; China; The Cultural Revolution; Memory; Trauma

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

File Format

PDF

File Size

265.11 Kb

Language

English

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Repository Citation

Bao, Y. (2018). Cinematic Amnesia as Remembering: Coming Home (2014) and Red Amnesia (2014). Arts, 7(4), 1-8.
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/arts7040083