While the whole world is talking about China’s rise in wealth and power, most focus has been placed on understanding China’s present policies and future orientations. However, very little attention is devoted to examining how historical consciousness affects present China. People take for granted that the past—particularly the landmark traumas of the communist decades—is a far-reaching historical discontinuity, and that China’s profound changes in every aspect of society have rendered the past increasingly irrelevant. However, this thesis argues that this assumption is wrong. This thesis explores the ways that Chinese filmmakers rearticulate the historical traumas which continue to affect Chinese society in the post-WTO era. I will identify three historical traumas that feature prominently in the interplay between past and present. The first, revolution and modernization, occupies a hegemonic status in socialist history. The second historical trauma is the tradition and modernization entrenched in Chinese modern historiography. The third is the 1980s and post-1989 modernization that has found a voice in the period of reform and opening-up. I refer to and analyze a selection of films made by Chinese Fifth Generation filmmakers in the new century—Coming Home (Guilai, dir. Zhang Yimou, 2014), Together (He ni zai yiqi, dir. Chen Kaige, 2002), and The Founding of a Republic (Jianguo daye, dir. Han Sanping and Huang Jianxin, 2009)—to understand these historical traumas. To situate traumatic history in a broader Asian context, I will also offer comparative study of memory of World War II in postwar Japan by undertaking a close reading of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Senjo no merii kurisumasu, dir. Nagisa Oshima, 1983). Employing a combination of methods, including textual analysis of films and institutional analysis of film industries, I will demonstrate that cinema finds innovative ways to engage the significant parts of national history and to generate remembrance and interpretation. Rather than reducing the Fifth Generation’s filmmaking trends in the new millennium to simplified government-appeasing or commercialization, this thesis emphasizes an understanding of their recollection of history, memory and trauma in a broader sociopolitical, economic, and cultural context. It shows how various factors—including the government’s cultural policy, economic transformation, and individual and generational sentiments—have influenced and shaped the historical discourses at specific historical moments. While affirming the significant role these films have played in keeping collective memories alive in the public sphere, this thesis also calls attention to their limitations, such as the problematic nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution, as well as the escapist imagination of cultural heritage and traditional values. / Graduate

viii, 111 p. : ill. (some col.) / During the early stage of Japan's High Economic Growth Period (1955-1970), a group of directors and films, labeled the Japanese New Wave, emerged to strong critical acclaim and scholarly pursuit. Over time, Japanese New Wave Cinema has come to occupy a central position within the narrative history of Japanese film studies. This position has helped introduce many significant films while inadvertently ostracizing or ignoring the much broader landscape of film at this time. This thesis seeks to complexify the New Wave's central position through the career of Daiei Studios' director, Masumura Yasuzo. Masumura signifies a "space in-between" the cultural elite represented by the New Wave and the box office focus of mass culture cinema. Utilizing available English language and rare Japanese sources, this thesis will re-examine Masumura's position on the periphery of film studies while highlighting the larger film environment of this dynamic period. / Committee in charge: Prof. Steven Brown, Chair; Dr. Daisuke Miyao, Advisor

Ce mémoire se penche sur l’absurde dans les oeuvres de deux mangakas de l’après Deuxième Guerre mondiale, soit Tsuge Yoshiharu（つげ義春） et Sasaki Maki（佐々木マキ）. Cette étude comparative approche l’absurde comme expérience et tente de penser l’écho que le concept a pu ou non avoir chez les auteurs en question. Pour ce faire, une exploration de divers courants underground des années 50 et 60 au Japon (culture kasutori, nouvelle vague japonaise et avant-garde) est menée afin de retracer comment ceux-ci auraient éventuellement influencés les oeuvres des auteurs analysées, elles-mêmes s’inscrivant dans la culture manga underground de l’époque. Cette section sert également de point d’appui afin de réfléchir sur la place que l’absurde aurait pu prendre au sein de la société japonaise, voyant ses fondements basculer à l’aube de la défaite et contrainte à coopérer sous tutelle américaine. C’est dans cette optique que nous proposons une lecture de l’oeuvre culte de Tsuge Yoshiharu, Nejishiki (ねじ式) comme exprimant une nostalgie propre à une « sensibilité absurde », telle que théorisée par Camus, via le motif de la réparation du corps. Parallèlement à ceci, nous nous attarderons à l’oeuvre de Sasaki Maki au coeur de laquelle le nansensu, compris comme interjection ainsi que référence au courant de l’ero-guro-nansensu, s’érige. À la suite de quoi, nous conclurons sur une comparaison entre les deux expressions de l’absurde chez les mangakas étudiés de manière à dégager, également, ce qui différencie le nansensu de l’absurde. / This text focuses on the artwork of two mangakas of the post Second World War, Tsuge Yoshiharu（つげ義春） and Sasaki Maki（佐々木マキ）. This comparative study investigates the absurd through its experimental component and tries to think the resonance that the concept might have had (or not ) among the authors cited. To this effect, we will explore diverse movements of the 50’s and 60’s in Japan (kasutori culture, Japanese new wave and avant-garde) in order to retrace how they might have eventually influenced the works of the mangakas analysed, themselves being part of an underground culture in the manga community of the time. This section also serves as a starting point for reflecting on the place that the absurd had in the Japanese society of that era, the country being recently defeated and obliged to cooperate under the American occupation which will bring profound changes to the society. It’s in the same vein that we propose a reading of Tsuge Yoshiharu’s masterpiece, Nejishiki (ねじ式), as expressing a nostalgia specific to what Camus calls an « absurd sensibility » through the motive of a body in search of repair. Alternatively, we will analyse Sasaki Maki’s work in the heart of which nansensu, thought as an interjection and in reference to the movement of the ero-guro-nansensu, is present. Finally, we will conclude on a comparison between the two expressions of the absurd in Tsuge and Sasaki’s respective work in order, as well, to elucidate what distinguishes nansensu from the absurd.