Identity draft two

Respond to the following questions and submit this homework as “second draft”. Copy-and-paste this assignment directly into your folder in Teams and write your responses there. Point deduction applies to perfunctory and/or inadequate answers. As rough draft, I still expect your thought to be clear and coherent; no point taken off for syntactical errors or poor diction. I’ll offer feedback and help you develop your final draft for the second paper.

1. German philosopher Hegel is believed to have said that “State is the march of God on earth”. If there is such a thing as “national spirit”, or folksgeist, as revealed in the history of a country, what then is the spirit of China as represented in the five historical films making “a people conscious of the path of development taken by its own spirit”? What are some of the national characteristics you think the filmmakers, though no Hegel or Marx, are attributing to the Chinese as a people as they reconstruct the history of China as a state?
2. What does Chen Kaige say about the Chinese as a culture and society by making Farewell My Concubine? What values and attitudes are identified as responsible for the national crises depicted? What lead to massive human suffering and what are the lessons of these past events as elaborated in the film?
3. What does Zhang Yimou say about the Chinese as a culture and society by making To Live? What values and attitudes are identified as responsible for the national crises depicted? What lead to massive human suffering and what are the lessons of these past events as elaborated in the film?
4. What does Lu Chuan say about the Chinese as a culture and society by making The City of Life and Death? What values and attitudes are identified as responsible for the national crises depicted? What lead to massive human suffering and what are the lessons of these past events as elaborated in the film?
5. What does Gu Changwei say about the Chinese as a culture and society by making Peacock? What values and attitudes are identified as responsible for the national crises depicted? What lead to massive human suffering and what are the lessons of these past events as elaborated in the film?
6. What does Feng Xiaogang say about the Chinese as a culture and society by making Aftershock? What values and attitudes are identified as responsible for the national crises depicted? What lead to massive human suffering and what are the lessons of these past events as elaborated in the film?
7. As cultural reflections, do you see the idea of social progress endorsed in these historical films that take you to revisit China’s past? What, if anything, have you learned from these historical films as Chinese, American, Oriental, Occidental, Asian, Westerner, white, black, brown, man, woman, Christian, atheist, etc ? In what ways do you feel unhappy as a viewer and historian about the way past events are reconstructed or narrated?