USC School of Cinematic Arts
The Revolutionary
The Ray Stark Family Theatre
Los Angeles, CA
The Revolutionary
Irv Drasnin - Producer, Writer, Interviewer, Narrator
Moderator
Clayton Dube
Sidney Rittenberg
Yulin Rittenberg
Yulin Rittenberg
Sidney Rittenberg
Irv Drasnin - Producer, Writer, Interviewer, Narrator
Don Sellers - Producer
Sidney Rittenberg
Lucy Ostrander - Producer
Yulin Rittenberg
As a college student in the American South of the 1930’s, Rittenberg had taken up the cause of labor and of civil rights. He arrived in China as a GI at the end of World War ll and stayed to join the communist side in the civil war that brought Mao to power in 1949, the only American citizen to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party. He worked side-by-side with the Party leadership in the politically important Broadcast Administration, in charge of the English-language section of Radio Beijing. He also was a trusted translator of Central Committee documents and of Mao’s Collected Works.
At the height of the Cold War that isolated America from China in the 1950’s and 60’s, China was consumed by a political and ideological struggle that reached its climax in the Cultural Revolution, since labeled “China’s Holocaust.” It was an era of widespread destruction in which millions died, that all but destroyed the Chinese Communist Party, and whose reverberations are felt to this day. During his thirty-four years in China, beginning in the communist guerilla headquarters of Yan’an to the end of the Maoist era, Rittenberg was singled out as both a hero and a victim, hailed by Mao as “an international communist fighter” and condemned by Mao as “an imperialist spy.” He was imprisoned twice. In all, he spent 16 years in solitary confinement. He survived to tell his story, an insider’s uncompromising account of China’s revolutionary turmoil. No American has been in a better position to understand first-hand that era. Rittenberg knew its leaders personally, including Mao, Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and Premier Zhou Enlai. He was a follower, a colleague and a participant in those turbulent times. He led his life with the courage of his convictions. Even more important, he’s had the courage to re-examine those convictions, to question his own beliefs and behavior, and to do so on-camera.
Now 90 years old, his extraordinary memory opens a door to understanding China, then and now, that outsiders very rarely are allowed to enter. His perspective and insight could only have been provided by someone who was there. And it is made all the more compelling by Rittenberg’s irrepressible sense of humor, and irony, and of anecdote, evident during twenty-six hours of interviews that took place over a five-year period beginning in 2005. The filmmakers have transformed those interviews into an extraordinary portrayal of historical events unknown to many Chinese, let alone to most Americans.
Provided courtesy of Stourwater Pictures. Unrated. Running time: 92 minutes.
(Text from USC School of Cinema)
