Projected comrades: a comparative study of ideologies in Cultural Revolution and May ’68 cinema

This thesis compares the ideologies in Chinese films made during the Cultural Revolution and French films contemporaneously influenced by the May ’68 milieu. By examining the content and methods of the political messages delivered in ten selected cinematic texts, the study finds that the Chinese films display a tendency to convey more political, more exclusive (to specific real-life political figures and entities), and more consistent messages, with a grander narrative, while the French counterparts tend to be more universal (rather than limited to specific, real-life political figures or entities), inconsistent, and self-reflective. All the texts share discontents with the portrayed status quo to different extents, but with one notable difference: the Chinese films provide the answer, whereas the French films often end in impasse, without proposing any viable solution at all.