Post-cultural revolution Chinese cinema of betrayal: the figure of the collaborator and the doubling paradigm

Drawing on the prevailing theoretical paradigm of post-Holocaust
research, which defines primarily the post-traumatic subject positions
of victim and perpetrator, this paper focuses on the Chinese cinema’s
representation of collaboration during the Cultural Revolution (CR). It
discusses the issue of betrayal inside the real or symbolic family, which
is still unexplored and even overlooked by Chinese cinema research.
Furthermore, it analyzes the prolonged and profound identity crisis
generated by the CR as presented by twenty-first century blockbuster
(e.g. Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home) and independent films (e.g. Wu
Wenguang’s 1966: My Time in the Red Guards and Investigating My
Father) especially through the figure of the collaborator and the
destructive dynamics of betrayal. In these films, the process I term
the ‘doubling paradigm,’ and its ‘doubling effect’ enable the spectator
to come to terms with the dimensions of pain and loss caused by
collaboration, and the ethical repercussions of revolutionary morality.
Following an analysis of the four forms of collaboration which emerge
from this corpus, this discussion points to the potential contribution of
Chinese ‘cinema of betrayal’ to the undertheorized subject position of
the collaborator, beyond the Chinese case.

Morag, Raya (2020) “Post-Cultural Revolution Chinese Cinema of Betrayal: The Figure of the Collaborator and the Doubling Paradigm” Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies: 1-20.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2020.1750566