China & Chinese (Videos/PPoints): k-12

Sunday, April 22, 2007

China 1972: A Visual Memoir of the People's Republic

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9 minutes 1972

www.archive.org/details/KevinMurphyChina1972AVisualMemoir_0

A rare glimpse of China during the Cultural Revolution. The film was shot and edited by Kevin Murphy who, at age 15, accompanied his father as part of the Canadian Government's first trade exposition in Beijing, held in the second two weeks of August 1972.
As Murphy, now a criminal defence lawyer, recalls nearly thirty-four years on: "I shot the film in Super 8 myself and it was pretty much unwatchable in its raw state until I had the benefit of digital editing software which made it possible to edit out the bumpy bits and making the scene transitions less jagged."
As Murphy recalls, this was "early days" -- just under six months after Nixon's visit in February. Canada had recently established a mission in Peking and was somewhat aheadd of other western powers in that regard. The teenaged Canadian was allowed to go on the trip because his father paid the cost of his trip and the youth worked for part of the time as a "gopher" for the Canadian Trade Exposition helping with sorting luggage, printing press badges, running messages.