A friend of mine Ying is a documentary filmmaker as well as a scholar of Chinese documentary films. I just read an interview she gave about her research at http://dgeneratefilms.com/academia/cinematalk-interview-with-ying-qian-of-harvard/. It took me a long time, because I did not know most of the subject matter of the films she mentioned. In addition, I do find the academic language hard to digest.
After reading it, I wrote her an email:
"I read the interview online you forwarded me, and it took me a while, partly because I don't know or have not seen any of the documentary films mentioned in the interview. From googling them and reading a little about them, I have found most of the subjects of these documenatary films to be rather heavy stuff - i.e. it kind of gets to you. I think perhaps I have an escapist attitude in that I intentionally do not watch any films that might get to me - e.g. I stay clear of all films by Jiang Zhangke, after watching "The World" which really depressed me. I also try to stay clear of Wang Xiaoshuai's films after watching "Beijing Bicycles" which also depressed me. Life is heavy enough that the most intellectual type of entertainment I am willing to try are Woody Allen's films.
But of course these documentary films are not meant to entertain - they are meant to educate and inform. I admire people who make it a living, because such heavy subject matter must also get to them as well - and in fact, if they did not care, they would not have made the films.
At the same time, I also wonder if perhaps this is a rather dangerous way of living, in that Iris Chang poured her passion into her work, and she was eventually consumed (literally) by her work. Of course in the end it's her depression that took her life, but look at what she was doing for a living - I don't think anyone in her shoes could have avoided depression.
Overall, i think most people (myself included) are really just chickens. We can't really look life in the eye and see for what it is. We need to believe in some kind of adult fairy tales, even if we know that they are not true. We want to believe that life is beautiful, because anything else would have been too hard to bear. And these documentary films (just by subject matter alone since I have seen none of them) tell the reality as it is, and perhaps too many of us simply don't have the courage to see the reality.
I can watch tragic films if they feel remote and impossible, and yet simultaneously approachable."
She wrote me back, and I found her perspective rather interesting and informative:
"Dear Sofie,
Thank you for taking the interview so seriously and reading about the films that it had mentioned. I agree with you that these filmmakers tackle very heavy stuff, but I think they tackle these topics, not because they are brave, but because they actually cannot escape the harsh reality living in China. In China, "real" filmmakers who have got lots of funding make blockbusters--these films are even worse than the Hollywood counterpart. They are fantasies through and through. These filmmakers have an additional incentive to escape reality--the fact that they can live such an easy life and make these films has to do with their willingness to cooperate with the state government, to paint a bright picture of a society that is far less from being bright.
Independent and documentary filmakers are a bunch of "losers"--honestly. They don't have the priviledged backgrounds that can get them normal success in the Chinese society. They live in that harsh reality they portray in their work. Or, even if they might have the capital to get successful and rich in the society, they might have some family grievances behind them, that they cannot rest in peace with the society. So portraying the pain of the society is often not a choice, but a necessity. Jia Zhangke has changed his filmmaking priorities considerably after he went from underground to above the ground, i.e. after his anguish went away due to improved conditions of work and living.
On another note, I think journalism in general has to look at the heavy side of society; and documentary cinema is part of journalism; even though they are more in-depth and may not follow the most up-to-date news items. So I suppose besides emotional anguish, there is also a professional mandate. They are like doctors fighting cancers of the society.
Iris Chang is a different case, however. I think there is a way to study a catastrophe without being totally emotionally sucked in. Iris Chang had a naivete about her, a naivete shared by many Asian Americans who grew up in a sympathetic, peaceful, and affluent America. This naivete, I believe, was what made her work on Nanjing a bit limited scholarly, being too much of a victim narrative; it also made her susceptible to the fervor of nationalism and fierce identification with the victims. A more seasoned researcher into the Nanjing massaccre would know that massacres had happened throughout human history; they were a staple of war and conquest. Not that the researcher must be cold-hearted towards the victims, but s/he would know that rendering the massacre as a horror story would not help. The world has heard many horror stories, and that has not stopped wars (Susan Sontag has a great essay on this topic, about the ineffectiveness of horror images to stop wars--US pulling out of the Vietnam War might be an exception, but the pull out only partially had to do with the demonstrations). The researcher must understand the mechanics of massacre, down to the most bureaucratic and practical level (as Hannah Arendt said, the evil is the most mundane), in order to know how we can prevent it from happening again.
I think we need both fairtales and reality to survive this world (and have our kids survive it too). I don't think Winston could understand the world's evils -- war, famine, climate change, illness... And it's better that he doesn't. But as adults we all have to shoulder realities. Your companies design drugs to fight disease--that's a big part of reality too. And only when we are in touch with realities can we really have the capacity to vote ..."
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