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Benoist_Shanghai
Low Seater
Joined: May 18, 2003
Posts: 3057
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 Posted:
Oct 07, 2004 - 10:29 AM |
 
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| Post subject: When Chinese integrated "Shoah" into history |
[AUTOMATED TRANSLATION+MANUAL CORRECTIONS]
The day when the Chinese integrated "Shoah" into their history
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3208,36-381882,0.html
LE MONDE | 06.10.04 | 15H48
Beijing from our correspondent
Claude Lanzmann has just completed in China a round during which he projected Shoah, his masterpiece on the genocide of the Jews, in three universities of Beijing, two of Shanghai and one of Nankin.
The French director could note at which point its film "spoke" to Chinese who had a rather vague idea of the Holocaust. Several time, this nine hour long movie was followed by a debate with the spectators, estimated by the Embassy of France to amount to 20,000 people.
"I had seen the List of Schindler, but what Shoah taught me, it is the way in which one can organize a genocide on an industrial level, observe Zhen Ji, young student of the school of cinema of Beijing. I am from Nanjing and, obviously, I cannot prevent myself from doing a parallel with the massacre perpetrated by the Japanese... "on December 13, 1937, the army of the Mikado had been devoted to a slaughter with unimaginable proportions on the population of Nanjing, massacring approximately 300 000 people. Lanzmann speaks about "integration of Shoah to her own history".
"I knew what were the Nazis, but I would never have imagined the dimension of the Polish or Ukrainian anti-semitism, Raise Pan Ziqing, professor in a school of cinema. Shoah is a construction of the memory and truth."" One does not film what does not exist, because nothing exists any more ", explains Claude Lanzmann, adding: "the perception of the spectators indeed was very violent compared to Nanjing. But I pointed out that, if all the torturers and the victims resemble each other, there had not been on behalf of the Japanese the will of eradicate a whole population."
"If I wanted to carry out a film on this massacre, what would you advise me?", asked a wannabe director. "I would say to you: "Go to Japan! See the beheaders!""
And Lanzmann to venture on a still supersensitive ground in China: "Me, I am ready to make a film on the Cultural revolution of Mao. That would be a formidable film!" Undoubtedly, but the era postmaoïst and the economic opening do not allow yet, for the moment, to transgress prohibition to return publicly on one of the catastrophic errors [he means Genocide here, doesnt he...?] of the 'Great Leader'...
Bruno Philip
ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN the EDITION OF The 07.10.04 |
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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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Oct 11, 2004 - 10:59 PM |
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The Cultural Revolution was just another episode in China's glorious history. We should, when discussing it, not of course forget that other recent golden period, the Great Leap Forward, in which 43 million poor pricks starved to death in a single year.
Long Live Mao - the greatest Agent that CIA ever had! |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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Nick-la
Wonder Wit
Joined: July 19, 2003
Posts: 3675
Location: Wasted on this site
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Oct 12, 2004 - 10:26 AM |
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Oh come on guys - everyone makes mistakes!
Killing almost 100 million people and moving a country backwards for 20 years might be a big one, but at least he got rid of the japanese! And no, the whole US bomb thing was irrelevant. |
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I'm surrounded by idiots. |
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serend
FooJay
Joined: Aug 31, 2004
Posts: 1712
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Oct 13, 2004 - 04:41 PM |
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I think I understand Benoist's point. A well-put criticism of the current Chinese mentality, made with a few changes of font.
Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking have different aspects of horrors, and I don't really understand the competitive spirits expressed by some Chinese sometimes. I can only venture a guess that this is a post-traumatic response of victims who are afraid their own suffering may be trivialized compared to other horrors of history. Give them time.
I wish Lanzmann success on making a much-needed film on the Cultural Revolution of---not Mao, but the Chinese! If Germans of 1930s and 40s were collectively guiltyof participation or acquiescence, I don't see why Chinese are not held accountable for their own crimes against themselves in the same way. Parents betrayed their children, children their parents, men their wives, wives their husbands, students their teachers...... That would be a formidable film, indeed! |
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