영웅을 숭배했던 개인들을 위한 변명 ― 영화 『패왕별희』의 문화대혁명 재현

Abstract

Chen Kaige's 1993 film Farewell My Concubine has been criticized mainly for describing the entire modern Chinese history as a time of violence and collective craziness, and for catering to Orientalist views of China. Instead of simply criticizing the limitations of the film in terms of realism, this paper attempts to rethink the particular image of the Cultural Revolution that is being established in the film. In order to do so, the paper focuses on the fact the film completely leaves out the model theaters of the CR period where revolutionary heroes gain extreme prominence,as well as the masses' cult of these heroes, while it actively advocates Dieyi's devotion to the hero of the traditional Peking opera Farewell My Concubine. My argument is that the film approves Dieyi's devotion to the hero of Peking opera as a way to vindicate in part the masses' worship of the revolutionary heroes,including Mao Zedong himself, during the CR. In this way, the film provides the participants of the CR with an excuse for their hero worship in the movement. Also, the film justifies Dieyi's desperate need of the hero in the theatrical world by putting him firmly in the position of a victim. Seen in this way, the film under study can be considered as an attempt to account for the terrifying collective experience of the CR, but what it ends up with is no more than a passive and regressive rendering of it.