Nanjing: Memory and Oblivion
Abstract
Nanjing: Memory and Oblivion (2006) Directed by Michael Prazan Distributed by Icarus Films www.icarusfilms.com 52 minutes. French with English subtitles. Nanjing: Memory and Oblivion As its title suggests, this film is less about the Japanese massacre of civilians in Nanking (aka Nanjing) in 1937 than about the struggle between those who insist it be remembered and those who want it erased from history. Unsurprisingly, though, the film spends a significant amount of its running time presenting the facts under dispute. Otherwise, how would we know what the fuss is all about? Thus the film, as in almost any conceivable film of this sort, takes the side of those who wish the massacre to be remembered. (One wonders how a denialist would make a documentary in support of his position. How could he show what is under dispute except by showing it, and thus establishing it? Documentaries are suitable for evidencing a positive, not a negative.) The film presents the widely accepted version of what happened: in 1937, the Japanese army marched into Nanking and, over a period of weeks, slaughtered somewhere between two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand men, women, and children not just indiscriminately but sadistically. Director Prazan assembles his account of the atrocities through interviews with survivors and Japanese veterans, photographs and amateur film footage, newsreel footage, and contemporary newspaper accounts. In the midst of the savagery recounted in this part of…
Read the paper
Related studies
- Contribution of social science to large scale biodiversity conservation: A review of research about the Natura 2000 network
- The alignment of agricultural and nature conservation policies in the European Union
- Determination of ecological significance based on geostatistical assessment: a case study from the Slovak Natura 2000 protected area
- Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons
- Farmers' acceptance of results-based agri-environmental schemes: A German perspective
- Approaches to Identify the Value of Seminatural Habitats for Conservation Biological Control
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.