libertango | 天安門廣場 - Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng

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The Wikipedia article about the square itself. (Note the cool panoramic picture there.)

The Wikipedia article about the protests.

A YouTube video focusing on the confrontation by Tank Man.

A New York Times roundup of interviews of photographers who took pictures of Tank Man.

A followup by the Times, where a picture at ground level is published for the first time. You can see Tank Man, white shirt, bags in hand, on the left through the trees. You can see the tanks approach on the right.

The Tank Man -- a documentary from PBS's Frontline, made in 2006.

Pomrfret's China, the blog of John Pomfret, author of of the book Chinese Lessons (my review here), who was working for the AP in Beijing at the time.

James Fallows's blog, written by an editor of The Atlantic as he lives in Beijing today.

I think that's everything I wanted to point to just now. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

tylik.livejournal.com

Back in 2005 I took a class on the Modern Martial Arts Film. (Taught by my Chinese advisor. After he saw the wushu academy jacket it became a degree requirement. And despite my huge initial lack of enthusiasm, it turned out to be a great class.)

My TA (who was awesome) was growing up in Beijing at the time of the protests, and is something of a dissident. His theme for the class was how much the way movies are shot changes what we think we see. He was surprised later that he never saw this photo... so he went back and searched the archives of Chinese television from the time, and found a clip of the incident. It shows the tanks trying again and again to go around the guy, and the guy repeatedly walking into their paths, while the voice over explains how very hard the tank drivers are trying not to injure anyone. The effect is shockingly different, even without the voice over - the man comes across as obstreperous, the tanks, trying to get around him, rather comical.

I'm not saying one is more true than the other.