My first point of research is the film Chinatown. It was a required film for my American Studies class, Hollywood: The Place, The Industry, The Fantasy.
I thought I had seen it before, but I don't think I ever got the whole way through.
It made me question what the idea of Chinatown is, what it stands for.
Some things talked about in class/things I want to explore/think about:
- Chinatown as a construct, a non-place, irrational, impenetrable, past, unknowable geography of Asia, unconscious - Id
- images can be misleading
- how do we know it's true
- "drawing a line in water is impossible"
- whole film is saturated in a strange color -- yellow, which can mean sunshine, but also sickness; sick sunshine
- issue of remembering and forgetting
- "you may think you know what's going on, but you don't"
- not accurate history, but a historical truth is told in forgetting and remembering
- impossible to "forget it"
- can he/WE really forget?
- getting the truth is always bad
- personal and political lies that we want to suppress
- to "move on" is American
- ultimate boundary is crossed -- repression of invisible labor, what it took to create the American Southwest
I thought I had seen it before, but I don't think I ever got the whole way through.
It made me question what the idea of Chinatown is, what it stands for.
Some things talked about in class/things I want to explore/think about:
- Chinatown as a construct, a non-place, irrational, impenetrable, past, unknowable geography of Asia, unconscious - Id
- images can be misleading
- how do we know it's true
- "drawing a line in water is impossible"
- whole film is saturated in a strange color -- yellow, which can mean sunshine, but also sickness; sick sunshine
- issue of remembering and forgetting
- "you may think you know what's going on, but you don't"
- not accurate history, but a historical truth is told in forgetting and remembering
- impossible to "forget it"
- can he/WE really forget?
- getting the truth is always bad
- personal and political lies that we want to suppress
- to "move on" is American
- ultimate boundary is crossed -- repression of invisible labor, what it took to create the American Southwest