The Research On The Transition Of Contemporary Film Criticism And Its Problems

As the development and reformation of social economy and culture in the new period, the film industry in china is being commercialized and the film concept in people’s mind become more and more diverse. As a result, the film criticism made some adjustments or transitions initiatively or under compulsion. During the new period, film criticism has experienced three transitions: political criticism to art criticism, art criticism to cultural criticism and cultural criticism to industry criticism. This paper mainly describes and analyzes the process of transition and development of the film criticism in the new period, and then conducts special studies on some important problems in the process of transition of contemporary film criticism.The first chapter discusses the transition from political criticism to art criticism and its problems. The development and reformation of society and the adjustment of art policy offered chances for the transition of film industry from political criticism to art criticism in the late 70 s to early 80 s. First, the transition started with the introspection of relationship between the film and politics then developed by the discussion on the movie ontology problem. While on the side of practice criticism, this transition was displayed on changes in film concept, criticism concept, criticism discourse, criticism theory, criticism object etc. The transition had some important achievements which reflected in that it made the film return to the art field and film criticism became a way to analyze and interpret the artistic value and aesthetic value of film. In addition, the film criticism also helped the film artists to sum up the creation experience, art rules, and helped audience appreciate and understand movies better. Of course, there were some problems occurred during the transition which included that the film ontology concept was not been widely accepted, critics treated film box office value unilaterally, and art criticism suffered interference from political criticism.The second chapter discusses the transition from art criticism to cultural criticism, and its problems.The rise of cultural criticism resulted from the combination of a variety of factors, such as cultural fever in the mid 80 s, the introduction of modern western film theories, and the rise of a new generation of film criticism workers. The transition from art criticism to cultural criticism proceeded on four dimensions which were culturology, cultural criticism, cultural enlightenment and cultural analysis. Cultural criticism opens a new angle and train of thought for film criticism. At the same time, it brings some problems. For instance, cultural criticism is not understood and accepted by common readers, and it divorces from the film creation practice. Besides, the westernization of cultural criticism brought the mismatch of criticism and its context.The third chapter discusses the transition from cultural criticism to industry criticism and its problems. As China joined the WTO, it brings great challenges to the film industry. Meanwhile, the vigorously development of the cultural industry also promotes the increase of the film industry. In addition, the hot trend of the commercial blockbuster film also brings the market recovery of the domestic film. Under such conditions, it provides chances for the industrial transition of the film criticism. In this transition, the change of the film concept is mainly reflected in the transition from film creation concept to film product concept and transition from film distribution to film marketing concept. The change of the criticism concept is mainly embodied in the changes of standards, methods and objects of the criticism. Industry criticism judges the film value mainly by box office, and introduces the methods of quantitative analysis and investigation. Besides, it is also combined with the marketing science, industrial economics science and management science to analysis the film market, industrial management and operations, theater chain and cinema construction. The main problems brought by the transition are that the boundary of the criticism discipline is challenged and there are coordination problems between the industry standards and other criticism standards.The fourth chapter combs cognition about the film otology and film characteristic in the first transition. It is a discussion about problems with film criticism theory. These issues include the misunderstanding of drama and dramatic film structure, different understanding of the dramatization, the relationship between movie and literature, the characteristic, function and category of ownership of film literature and film script. This chapter also reveals the misunderstanding of Bazin’s long-take theory and photography ontology, as well as the artificial opposition of montage theory and long-take theory.The fifth chapter chooses a typical symptom of film criticism in transition, which is the criticism of the commercial film, especially places extra emphasis on the film criticism practice. There are problems in sociological criticism, art criticism and cultural criticism about the review of commercial film. The problem in sociological criticism is that ideological difference, nationalism position and impractical moral criticism interfere with commercial film. In art criticism, the contradiction between authenticity and falsity, stylization and creation has been always entangled with the criticism of the commercial film. Meanwhile, there are over-correction and overgeneralization, as well as misplaced criticism in the commercial property and ‘kitsch’ of commercial film.The sixth chapter is intended to go beyond the general sense of film criticism and discuss some problems from the perspective of film criticism. It discussed how to understand and evaluate academic value, advertising value, self–expression and communicating value of film criticism correctly, and three different forms of film criticism, including school criticism, media criticism and internet criticism. It is a consideration for construction of film criticism subject. Although the academic value has become the main value of the school criticism, the study on it is very weak. There’s great controversy on advertising value of the film criticism in academic circle. Furthermore, self-expression and communicating value has been long-term neglected, which has not been deserved the proper research and there’s still disagreement on it. All of these problems have a direct impact on the value evaluation and the legal existing of school criticism, media criticism and internet criticism.At present, China film industrialization has just started, the ability and experience is still lacking, and being just passable is normal. Critics should be of more tolerance, understanding, less criticism, cynicism, and more constructive suggestions, less empty criticism about the film industry. Critics should take film criticism field as a public domain of an equal association and free dialogue, try to bring about the image of a positive, constructive public opinion, and create the atmosphere of a healthy, benignant, sustainable-development public opinion for the film industry, which ultimately promotes the development of individual and society.