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