The Study Of Movie Adaptation Of Lisa See’s Novel Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

Lisa See(1955-),one of the outstanding contemporary Chinese-American women writers,her masterpiece,Snow Flower and The Secret Fan,set in the background of ethnic minority areas of Hunan Province in late Qing Dynasty,tells about the sad and moving sisterly friendship between two Laotong sisters,Lily and Snow Flower,which spans a lifetime,and shows women’s living conditions and folk traditions forgotten by the mainstream history.In 2011,this work was produced by both China and the United States and moved to the screen.This paper takes the novel Snow Flower and The Secret Fan and the adapted movie as study object,explores the movie adaptation of Lisa See’s novels by means of interdisciplinary research of comparative literature,studies the transformation of text content and narrative strategy in the process of re-creation of the novel,and reflects on the gains and losses of movie adaptation,with a view to deepening the research in order to grasp the relationship between literature and movie,and explore the way of movie adaptation.The first chapter combines the relevant theoretical research of feminist criticism and post-colonial criticism to study the conversion of novel text to movie content.Firstly,it analyses the reasons behind the changes of the plot of the novel,and reveals the western centralism reflected in the changes.Next,the analysis of the movie’s portrayal of the heroine in the novel shows that the movie achieves the contrast between the ancient and modern female images through the modern space-time and the addition of modern female protagonists,which improves the creation of the protagonist image.As for the male images in the movie,such as the portrayal of husbands and fathers,there are certain aphasia and dwarfing.Then it studies the rewriting of the theme of the novel by the movie.It holds that the movie,to a certain extent,continues the theme of women’s resistance in the novel,but rewrites Laotong’s friendship in the novel into a more universal friendship.The second chapter uses the related theories of narratology,the conversion of narrative strategies from novel to movie is discussed from three aspects:narrative perspective,narrative clues and narrative time and space.In terms of narrative perspective,the movie transforms the internal focalization perspective and the first-person narrative into the omnipotent narrative of the third-person,and supplements the narrative with the help of Nvshu and voice-over.In terms of narrative clues,the movie adopts a unique multi-line overlapping parallel narrative.The ancient space-time and modern space-time are parallel to each other,and are overlapped and linked by folk elements such as foot-binding and Nvshu.In terms of narrative space-time,the design of time sequence and time limit is different between the novel and the movie.The movie strengthens the construction and conversion of geographical space through the language of lens outside the flow of time,and completes the narrative in the leap of three space-time.The third chapter explores the gains and losses of movie adaptation.The double-line narrative of the movie highlights the constant sisterhood in the changing times and circumstances,and enriches the existing theme of the novel to a certain extent.Through visits and textual research,the movie creators present the traditional folk customs of Nvshu,food-binding and accompanying folk songs in more detail.The design of audio-visual language,such as modelling,lighting,music and so on,also have sparkle points.However,the complexity of double-line narrative leads to the fragmentation of narrative,which affects the narrative rhythm of the movie and the immersion degree of the viewers.Although the movie carefully presents some old folklores,it strips the context of the times in which these folklores were created.Folklore elements become a cultural symbol with a Western perspective and appear stiffly in the narrative.In addition,there are still problems in the movie:the confusion of original sound,the inappropriate selection of roles,the dilution of original tragic color,the violation of some plot logic.The concluding part points out that movie adaptation should not only pay attention to the understanding and identification of culture,but also deal with the relationship between narrative logic,theme and plot by reflecting on the merits and demerits of the adaptation of Snow Flower Secret Fan.In the presentation of national culture,we should not only maintain a certain "distance",but also break away from the limitation of the perspective of Western centralism,and constantly seek the interaction of eastern and Western cultures.More importantly,on the basis of focusing on the theme implication of the movie,we should do a good job in transforming the content,form and implication of the novel and the movie.