The Sixth-Generation Directors' Aesthetics-"Treating Ugliness As Beauty"

"The sixth generation" of Chinese cinema is a "signifier" with a complicated signified among cultural space and discourse register in the 1990s. There has been undergoing an aesthetical transformation of new filmmakers followed by a change in cultural views behind various cultural realities and cultural contradictions. This thesis focuses on the sixth-generation directors' aesthetics to reveal the basic elements of the characteristics of this generation so as to clarify the two basic cultural realities left behind by various discourses of "the sixth generation". First, "the sixth generation" of Chinese cinema does exist and what's more, it is a signifier of the specific generation instead of a new name for the infinite extension of "the post-fifth-generation" called by the mass media and some experts. Second, due to the aesthetical transformation, the artistic movement of the sixth generation is quite different, which cannot be explained with the established practice of Chinese cinema and is no longer a so-called "Third World text" signified by the center of the western world. Therefore, one of the characteristics of the narration of the thesis is to portray other image of the sixth generation, with the above argument, in comparison with the previous generations as well as the Chinese traditional aesthetics.The author puts forward the aesthetics of the sixth-generation directors — "treating ugliness as beauty". Noticeably, it is a relative judgment instead of an accurate generalization of aesthetic connotations. It corresponds to the Chinese tradition of writings eulogizing life and cinematic views — taking beauty as beauty and beatifying ugliness. Treating ugliness as beauty in the sixth-generation films does not refer to the western post-modernistic direct description of ugliness. The ugliness not only involves those grotesque and evil things in life, but also the blind spot of traditional aesthetic views — the inhibited and shrouded plight of subsistence, which is more basic and intrinsic. The true value of the sixth-generation directors' rebellion is reflected as follows: social vulnerable groups are conspicuous and the doleful screen language indicates an individual and solemn aesthetic redemption through the aesthetic concern and true depiction of the darkness of the current society.In this thesis the various methods are adopted including description of phenomena, analysis of films, perusal of cases, cultural analysis and theoretical explanation to have a panoramic retrospection on the ten-year creation of the sixth-generation directors as well as to explore concrete image presentation with the aesthetics —"treating ugliness as beauty" and also interpret the underlying root causes behind the presentation from cultural point of view.