So, um, as you guys know, I will be in Xinjiang, uh, for the first half of August, so I'll just give you guys a little bit of a mini-episode today. So today I'd like to review the 2003 documentary "Morning Sun," a film about the Cultural Revolution.

Now, while "Morning Sun" came out almost 20 years ago, I want to talk about it because it's probably, in terms of English-language documentaries about the Cultural Revolution, probably one of the most interesting, and it's one of the few that I know of that is a feature-length film.

Um, so a little bit of background about the film. Um, so probably a lot of my listeners are fans of William Hinton, as in, yes, that William Hinton, the Marxist author that did "Fanshen" and "The Hundred Day War" and many other books about the Chinese Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.

Well, William Hinton had a daughter, her name is Carma Hinton, she was born in Beijing in 1949, and she, uh, and she moved back to the States with her father back in the '50s, I believe. Um, she is a documentary filmmaker who teaches at George Mason University, and she's done a number of excellent documentaries about China.

Um, she did the "Longbow Trilogy," which is "Small Happiness," "To Taste 100 Herbs," and "All Under Heaven." Yes, that's it, "All Under Heaven." Uh, and they all take place in, uh, Longbow Village, as in the Longbow Village in Shaanxi Province that her father, uh, talked about in "Fanshen." Um, she also did a very nice one called "One Village in China," uh, "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," which is an epic, epic three-hour documentary about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

It was actually one of the first documentaries I ever saw as a kid, and, uh, it really helped launch my interest in Chinese history and culture. So hats off to Carma, thank you. I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her. Um, and then finally, her last major film. She's done a few other short films, but she— her last major film was in 2003 with "Morning Sun." "Morning Sun" is, uh, phew, it's an interesting one.

It garnered a lot of positive reviews. It won the American Historical Association John E. O'Connor Film Award, uh, in 2004, and was nominated, or a finalist, at many other awards and film festivals. So with that background, let me tell you guys what I thought of the film.

So one thing that I really liked from the start about "Morning Sun" is that it opens with the 1964 film, "The East Is Red." Sets a fantastic tone. And, you know, she gets into— Hinton really gets into how that movie set the tone that the generation, the Red Guard generation, you know, they wanted to lead a revolution themselves. They wanted to be like their parents and grandparents.

Um, I gotta say, one thing about the movie is the visuals and archival footage are second to none. Absolutely amazing work on her part, finding and compiling all that footage. Um, another thing that you— I give a lot of credit to her is she was able to find people like Li Rui or, uh, Liu Ting, Liu Shaoqi's daughter. Um, he found, um, actually, multiple members of Liu Shaoqi's family are interviewed. A lot of notable figures. Uh, Song Binbin, as in the young Red Guard who pinned her Red Guard armband on Mao's arm on August 18th, 1966, at the first major Red Guard rally. Yes, she's interviewed in it too.

It's really interesting to see just how many people she was able to get for the in— for the interview parts of the film. Um, it's definitely not an entirely sympathetic— it's not a sympathetic film towards the Cultural Revolution, but it is relatively nuanced. So I'm just gonna kinda go through some of the things I liked and some of the things I didn't like.

Um, one problem I had, especially at the beginning, is Hinton really glosses over, you know, the motives of Mao's rivals. Uh, it risks giving the audience the sense that figures like Liu Shaoqi to be innocent bystanders, uh, and she really only slightly hints at Liu's attempt at market reforms.

But at the same time, she admits that Mao had a valid concern about the Soviet Union's economy and social degeneration. So, yeah. Um, another problem I have is she often conflates many party policies from the Socialist Education Movement with that of the Cultural Revolution, particularly in the early part of the documentary. Um, though, like I said, it's a nuanced take. She does emphasize the idealism, the hopes, and the good intentions of the Red Guards.

She admits students were understandably unhappy with the education system, especially when it came to the concept of, uh, Confucian pedagogy, still based on bland, rote memorization. Uh, she admits that the work teams exacerbated the situation in the opening months of the Cultural Revolution, and that the pushback by the Red Guards was understandable, albeit excessive.

Uh, she also, uh, when discussing the destruction of precious ancient relics during the Destroy the Four Olds campaign and Red August, she does show that many Red Guards were children or grandchildren of people who had been oppressed by landlords, old Guomindang officials, um, religious clergy. So their attacks on already toppled reactionaries and members of the Old Society was, even if Hinton thinks it was unjustified, she admits that it was understandable.

So, you know, kudos to her there. Um, I liked especially the scene where they discuss ne— revolutionary networking. It's a fan— I think that's my favorite part of the whole thing, uh, because it truly captures the idealism and excitement of the period of August through November of '66. Um, my main gripe is, unfortunately, Hinton spent so much time on the 1966 through '67 period that she glosses over the period of '68. She really glosses over the year 1968.

Then she kind of cuts to 1969 with the Ninth Congress and all that, and then she just kind of, in the last 15 minutes of the documentary, wraps everything up that happened between 1970 and 1976 in a very rushed and hurried fashion.

So, um, I think that she should have made the documentary a little less top-heavy, you could say. But, you know, even though Carma Hinton makes it clear that she views the Cultural Revolution as a net negative. You know, I gotta admit, I actually liked this film.

It did have, uh, you know, it had points where she gave credit where credit was due. She perfectly captured the idealism and the, the agony and the ecstasy, you could say, of the Red Guard movement. So I definitely commend her for that. And, um, no matter how you, uh, feel about her political leanings and how she did not take up her father's Maoist politics, I still think that Carma Hinton is a fantastic director and producer.

Uh, I'm a big documentary junkie myself, so when it comes to those kinds of things, I really appreciate a good documentary, even if I disagree with the conclusion it arrives at. So definitely check it out if you can find it.

Um, "Morning Sun," a film about Cultural Revolution by Carma Hinton. And, uh, I gotta also say, definitely check out her magnum opus, "Gate of Heavenly Peace," which was released in 1995. It's also still available on DVD and Blu-ray and maybe a few streaming sites. So check those out and, uh, engage with the material and see if you like it. All right, my friends.

Well, I will try to catch you on the last week of August when we will be talking about the Red August. See you guys later.