傅柯于1974年提出電影機器有重新書寫歷史的傾向，僅呼應新興的政治意識形態，甚至是動用國家機器來整編人民記憶。石揮與楊柳青于1950年所聯手改編的老舍中篇小說《我這一輩子》，正展示了電影、歷史、記憶之間權力同構的關係。影片中將一段完整的、以大清國為終點的封建中國的覆滅、到資本主義的國民黨政權敗逃、到共產黨所領導的人民的政府－人民共和國辛苦奪戰到建國前夕的歷史，透過一個老百姓的一生完整的呈在觀眾面前。透過這部私營電影，個人對於新社會的歡欣熱情與甫立國、急需證明合理性與建立新形象國家需要接軌。除此，電影改編的文本選擇與改編後對小說的影響更是建構在互利的基礎上。

In 1974, Michel Foucault proposed that movie could be used as an apparatus to cope with the political ideology and rewrite history, even tamper with the memory of people. Shih Hui (石揮) and Yang Liu-ch’ing (楊柳青) had created a movie script based on Lao She’s novella, My Whole Life. This movie has revealed powerfully how the authority can control the movie, the history, and the memory. Through depicting the life of an ordinary people, the movie has presented the history of the Late Ch’ing Dynasty, the failure of Nationalist Party’s (KMT) capitalism, and the emergence of the People’s Republic of China. With movie, individual can display his passion toward the society and country; the authority on the other hand can also use the movie to justify the rationale of the founding of a nation and build up a new image of the nation accordingly. In addition, the adaptation of literary work into movie and the original work can benefit from each other.