A second look at "To Live"

I teach AP Government and World Geography. Our World History teachers use To Live, but I decided to take a second look from the perspective after the class. I really didn't know too much of the details of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, beyond what I had already had read. But watching the film from this perspective I can appreciate the quite literally epic scale of the movie. It spans life in China pre-revolution to post cultural revolution and the transition to elements of capitalism. For me, since I have students that already seen the film, I don’t think I could use the film in its entirety but I think the scenes dealing with the cultural revolution could be useful. There are extremely intense scenes where the educated established class take their lumps, and I thought it could be useful in illustrating just how the mindset of the Chinese people had changed. Certainly a great film for the World History crew.