Study On The Space Aesthetics Of Ang Lee’s Films

Since the 1970 s,the “spatial turn” of humanities has not only broken through the shackles of temporal way of thinking for a long time,broaden the research fild,but also becamesa new path for research and criticism of literature and art.The space aesthetics attracted increasing interest in recent years.The film is a modern art combining vision and hearing.Its media attribute of “creating screen image in moving time and space” determines its original relationship with space in the sense of genetics.The study of space aesthetics of film can not only provide a new perspective for the film interpretation,but also expands the film aesthetics.Therefore,this dissertation takes Ang Lee’s films as the research object and discusses the space aesthetics characteristics of his works through the research paths of space theory.On this account,this dissertation enriches Ang Lee’s film research from a new perspective and provides a reference for the study of space aesthetics of films.This paper is composed of six parts from Introduction to Conclusions,and the overall structure is shown as follows:In the first chapter,the postmodern space theory,film space aesthetics and Ang Lee’s film research status are combed and analysed as comprehensive as possible.Based on the comprehensive investigation of the research both domestic and abroad the research ideas and methods of the dissertation are cleared.The second chapter defines the core concepts of the paper and constructs the basic framework of theoretical research,“What is film space?” This question is the starting point of this paper.This seemingly “self-evident” problem has been discussed by a lot of scholars in the more than 100 years since the film was born,and is still polysemous,open and correctable.Based on the previous research results,this dissertation takes screen as a perspective,and divides the movie space into three dimensions: “given space”,“chronotope space” and“consciousness expansion space”.Firstly,the “given space” of films is a “visual-grasped”modeling space which created by the changes of perspectivity,colour,light and shadow,composition and scene scheduling,It is a physical,intuitive and tangible “given thing”.Secondly,as an art of chronotope,time in film is a spatialized time,which constitutes a complete film time and space through the participation of subjective consciousness.Chronotope space presents the inner indivisibility of time and space in film.Thirdly,the “consciousness expansion space” is composed of the visible moving image in the film and the invisible audience perception and consciousness outside together.It connects both inside and outside of the screen,both visual and imaginary space and,both director and audiences into a tension system.The third to fifth chapters will make aesthetic analyses and discussions of Ang Lee’s works according to the three levels of film space divided in this paper.Above all,Ang Lee attaches great importance to the metaphor and symbol of things in his movie space.The meaningful objects,methods and means selected such as depth of field,scene scheduling and digital simulacra creation,not only deepen the space shaping and content expression,but make the film an“activity of knowing things”that can“awaken”the audience’s subjective experience,and thus an aesthetic text with the characteristics of“feeling things”with experience and emotion.Next,the time generated the combination of spaces by Ang Lee has the“poetic reality”.Through the long shot of“daily scenes”and the montage of“time deformation”,the space-time construction of his images presents the aesthetic features of“delay”and“stagnation”.Finally,an important feature of Ang Lee’s movies is that different cultures or ideas are blended into the image space.Among them,the concepts of“binary opposition”,such as“classical”and“modern”,“center”and“margin”,“rationality”and“sensibility”,are blended in the concrete space presented by his films,and further extended to the infinite off-screen space.Movie text,moving image and subject perception are intertwined and constructed with each other,which not only constitute a larger system of consciousness expansion space,but make the constructed space with consciousness expansion show interdisciplinary and cross-context,multi-level and polyphonic aesthetic characteristics.Based on this,this paper holds that,Ang Lee’s space aesthetics of films not only reflected in its “inward” attention to the imaginative and aesthetic characteristics of space,and the subject’s spatial aesthetic appreciation experience and aesthetic experience,but lied in its“outward” and conscious involvement of grand propositions such as human beings,society,history and culture into the expression and narration of film space to generate the complex and rich connotation and implication of its film space aesthetics in the form of interdisciplinary.In the form of film practice,Ang Lee shows that film space is not an objective space for objects in the form of entity,neutrality and material,but an intentional space formed by poetic thinking such as subject perception,experience,emotion and imagination.