Description
Instructor(s)/Supervisor(s)/Coordinator(s): Daisy Yan DUThis graduate course concentrates on the film culture in socialist China (1949-1976). The major theoretical problematic of the course resides in the convoluted relationship between totalitarian politics and film as propaganda and art. Focusing on live-action feature films, model operas, animated films, and documentaries, this course will explore aspects of film industry, aesthetics, authorship, projection and viewing, soundscape, and internationalism. It will also discuss conceptual issues regarding national identity, ethnicity, gender, children, machines, and animals against the backdrop of an authoritarian regime. Following a chronological order, the course will begin with the socialist transition in 1949, and then move to the Seventeen Years (1949-1966) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).