Through the Fog of History: The Nanjing Massacre through the Lens of Documentary Modes.

Abstract

Focusing on the research question, "What do the processes of constructing history in Nanjing Massacre documentaries tell us about the shifting patterns shaping the event's collective memory?", this thesis explores two aspects of the Nanjing Massacre documentary films: the historical representation and the construction of the collective memory through these documentaries. By following documentary forms across time, my research engages three modes － compilation films, expository mode, and oral history mode － to classify the Nanjing Massacre documentaries, and this methodology builds the framework of analyzing each mode’s historical reconstruction and shaping collective memory about this historical event. Through textual analysis, I explore the three modes and find they establish a formal pattern of composition and narrative rhythm in which filmmakers manifest renderings of historical trauma. Specifically, the Nanjing Massacre compilation films feature the specific propagandistic aim of their presentation through the voice-of-God commentary combined with images of historical materials. The Nanjing Massacre expository documentaries center on robust historical information through narrative skills and show its profound cultural and educational function. This mode shows the voice-over explanation together with the voices of interviewees and skillful film languages, conveys abundant detailed historical information, and offers broader perspectives of seeing history, while also serving to the historical remembrance. In the Nanjing Massacre oral history documentary films, either Chinese survivors, former Japanese soldiers, or Westerners have been exemplars of communicating with the audience and transmitting historical details and war memories. Meanwhile, the three modes indicate three stages and shifting patterns of shaping the collective memory of the Nanjing Massacre logically: awakening the traumatic memory by compiling clips and voice-of-God commentaries in compilation films; strengthening the memory through intensive historical facts and explanation; and finally transmitting the memory by individual oral testimonies. This thesis fills a gap in the study of the Nanjing Massacre documentaries, especially in the English academic field. It also provides a new perspective on rethinking historical trauma and the way of transferring it into collective memory in different documentary forms that have not received much attention.