Incorporate Poetry Into Things:A Study On The Documentary Style Of Jia Zhangke’s Films

As the mainstay of Chinese “sixth generation” film director who records the eras through film-shooting,Jia Zhangke has firmly established his standpoint of depicting folk stories and social realities,which draws much attention home and abroad and exerts huge influence in the moviedom.Highlighting the historical and social upheavals,Jia Zhangke’s films have shown a broader and deeper side of living backgrounds by recording nobodies or ordinary individuals who are dragged into the politics,power and economic interests.His movies also describe people’s life details neglected by the society in the flying times — poor living conditions,joys,sorrows,gathering and parting of these people in surrealistic economic society.And he uses the poetic film language to showcase the individual memories and speak for the little people.The documentary image characteristic of implying facts in poems is the most prominent aesthetic style of his films.Under the film aesthetics,film semiology,film sociology and aesthetic culturology,the comprehensive and thorough analysis of featured aesthetic implication and video portraits in Jia Zhangke’s films is carried out in this paper based on filmic texts and audio-visual language.At the same time,it also focuses on the development and innovation of documentary aesthetics theory to reach a better research result.The visualization analysis of pictures is discussed in this paper through the study of related researches in China and abroad on Jia’s films and his filmic style of “incorporate poetry into things” from two perspectives —multidimensional visual space and multilevel auditory elements.The style of his films and its forming causes are explored in detail and four traits reflected in his documentary image characteristic are summarized.This paper is composed of six parts,as follows:The first chapter is the introduction.The intention and research significance of this topic,related literature review,basic views and research perspective are introduced in detail.The innovation point of this paper is also mentioned.Thesecond chapter discusses the film documentary aesthetics from its generation to mature application,combined with the poetic artistic expression of the film and the unique lens language form in Jia Zhangke’s films.And the documentary photography feature of “incorporate poetry into things” of his films is concluded.The third chapter introduces the multidimensional visual space characteristic of“incorporate poetry into things” through six latitudes: the use of lens,the choice of visual angles,the development of rhythm,the tone of color,the integration of spaces and the surreal pictures.Chapter four carries out diversified understanding to represent the multilevel auditory elements style of “incorporate poetry into things”from four aspects: dialect reflecting the regional texture in dialogues in the film or scene,the film music recording times,the environment sound marking the style and features of times and the soundless expression of silence and contemplation.Chapter five explores the forming causes of Jia’s documentary image style of “incorporate poetry into things” from both internal and external sides with the combination of Jia’s aesthetic idea and the then backgrounds.And the characteristic of his style“incorporate poetry into things” is concluded,which is another innovative point in this thesis.Finally,the conclusion is made to point out Jia’s upholding of the humanities in the anxious reality,as well as his inheriting and promoting towards the documentary aesthetics.Also,he insists on recording the intellectuals’ “homesickness of the times conscience” with poetic lens language.