From The Marginalized To The Main Stream

The early1990s saw the rise of such a group of Chinese film directors:they felt undaunted with fortitude even overwhelmed by great pressure from the Fourth Generation of film directors with "art tradition" and the Fifth with "brilliant achievements"; despite of shortage of support from the government, exclusion from the mainstream ideology, and fact of being forced to "underground" film, the New Generation of Chinese film directors are passionate in the cinematic art pursuit. With a Chinese insight into Western thought and cinematic art, they never cease to jettison traditional methods of storytelling and search for self-identity; they use film as a medium to depict the living conditions of both urban residents and marginalized people with a humanistic spirit; they broke with traditional cinema and explored issues rather than recycling policy approved. Facing the competitive cinematic market, they kept transforming by virtue of returning to a more mainstream style and as a result, started to rise onto the ground from "underground". They are what we usually deem as the New Generation of Chinese film directors though controversial in a sense.In the past twenty years, the New Generation constituted by more than a hundred film directors has made great achievements with more than four hundred works and some two hundred awards in the major domestic and international film festival. Reviewing the development of the New Generation of Chinese film, we can easily see the transformation from "the marginalized" to the "main stream".First, the transformation of the New Generation from the "marginalized" to the "main stream" finds best expressions in their increasing status and influence. Zhang Yuan, a pioneering member of China’s New Generation of film directors, made the official debut of his self-funded Mama in1989with little response. Hu Xueyang’s Childhood Story, won several awards in international film festivals but had not aroused public concern. Works produced by other directors in the same generation even did not win permission for theater release then, either. Therefore, the New Generation’s work was almost reduced to the synonym of "underground film However, the film Making of Steel released in1997marked the turning point of the New Generation. Thereafter, the New Generation "rose to the ground" and gained permission for public release. Today, the domestic film market has become a battlefield for the new-generation directors. Important figures among them include Jia Zhangke, Zhang Yang, Ning Hao, Wang Quan’an and Jiang Wen.Secondly, in terms of theme and subject matter, the New Generation is moving from the marginalized to the main stream. In early1990s, many of films directed by Zhang Yuan, Hu Xueyang, Wang Xiaoshuai and Lou Ye highlighted the negative attributes of reality (homosexuality, drug addiction, rock music, etc), showing much concern to the underpreviledged of society, but their works were not well received. The late1990s saw their shift in theme and subject matter, where they began to face the reality and adapted themselves to the demands of the mainstream culture. In the twenty first century, the theme of returning and conversion rose to prominence and elements of traditional Chinese film came back to vitality. The New Generation of film directors won the recognition of the society and home audience, which is a sign that they "rose to the ground"As a contemporary cinematic phenomenon and culture in the process of being, the initiation, rise, and development of the New Generation of the Chinese film directors are either closely connected to the tradition of film culture and the ecology of culture of the current cinema, or an indispensable from the universality of the art of film per se with local characteristics in the context of culture globalization. Explored either from the subject matter, contents, theme, narrative style, aesthetic taste and the language used, or from the film-making art of the New Generation of Chinese directors and the social-economic, political and culture background they experienced, the New Generation is found to be surprisingly similar to the two major influential European trends of cinematic thought—the Italian New Realism and the French New Wave. The similarities of the two:the on-the-spot-record style of the Italian New Realism and the "author-oriented theory" are explicitly represented in the fabrication of the New Generation of Chinese films."Little Wu" by Jia Zhangke is well-nigh a Chinese version of The Bicycle Thief, Jiang Wen becomes a Truffaut of the New Generation via Sunday Days. The phenomenon, though seemly accidental, is in fact of necessity. The New Generation of Chinese films, with its sprouting from the marginalized position to the main stream, not only demonstrates that the profound influence of the world cinema on the Chinese production, but it is similarly the real experience of the internationalization of the local cinematic art of China.This thesis, with an eye to Italian New Realism, French New Wave, through perspectives of comparative and cinematography studies, social studies, and cultural studies, attempts to explore the intention of creation, artistic value, and realistic significance of the New Generation of Chinese films. On the basis of the narratological combing and theorized anatomy, along with the case studies of the cinematic works by comparison, this study, from the cinema per se, makes a comparison among the New Generation of Chinese films, the Italian New Realism and the French New Wave, arranging academically the inherited essence, the homogeneity and the same structure, in an effort to single out the cause of formation, the trend of development and nature of the New Generation of Chinese films, for the purpose of a more explicit expounding of its artistic value and existential meaning, and the unique cultural features that demonstrated in the history of Chinese cinema.