Production And Construction Of Urban Space In Chinese Humanities Documentary

In the late 1980s and early 1990s,with the launch of the "new documentary movement" in the field of Chinese documentary,the "humanities" consciousness in the field of Chinese documentary creation began to take root,which was different from the feature film forms before the late 1980s.The awakening of the spirit is reflected in the equal attention to the living state of the person,the exploration of the inner world of the individual,and the demonstration of spiritual morality and social responsibility.At the same time,the 1990s was also an accelerated stage of urbanization in China.Factors such as market reform,commodity economy,and population mobility brought about by the urbanization wave have made Chinese cities present an unprecedented diversity and heterogeneity.As a result,urban society has become a sample of important geographic,historical,and social relations that humanities documentary focuses on.What kind of perspective should be used to explore the production and construction of urban space by humanistic documentaries?The first problem we must face is what perspective we should use to understand urban space.In the second half of the 20th century,under the trend of "space turn" in Western philosophy,sociology and other fields,Lefebvre regarded space as an important part of social relations,emphasizing that space was produced in historical development and opened up a new vision of the "triple dialectics" of space,Edward W.Soja,inherited and developed Lefebvre's spatial ideas into the "third space"epistemology,providing us with a scientific,dialectical and open cognitive urban space frame.Under the theoretical background of the "space turn" ideological trend,this dissertation selects humanities documentaries(a category of Chinese urban subjects)(1990-2019)as the object for text analysis,and explores the production and construction of image space,representation space and heterogeneous space in the city through documentary images.On the basis of the physical,symbolic and social nature of the urban space presented in the Chinese humanities documentaries at this stage,it further inquires into the relationship between the construction and examination of the Chinese humanities documentaries and urban spaces.First,this dissertation expounds the theoretical significance of ideological trend of the "space turn",and indicates that this turn provides a scientific,rational,and open theoretical framework and perspective for understanding Chinese urban problems.By sorting through the space and city theory that is of guiding significance to this research from this perspective,it further clarifies how city space is defined and distinguished in this research,which will lay a theoretical foundation for the discussion of the production of city space in the documentary.Next,this dissertation regards humanities documentary as a visual sample reflecting the urban space under the view of "landscape society",carefully tracking the space-time trajectory of urban images in the humanities documentary.Through sorting out the context,nodes and process,it is trying to clarify the value and connotation of "humanities documentary",and to examine the evolution of "space"perspective in Chinese humanities documentary.Then,this dissertation focuses on the humanistic documentaries in the stage of 1990-2019,examines the production logic of urban space in the documentary,sorts out and refines the three levels of urban space in turn:the perspective of the image space that can be perceived in the first space,by means of framework of Kevin Lynch's theory of urban imagery it mainly probes into the expression and characteristics of perceivable and readable urban imagery in documentaries.The second space is the perspective of symbolic symbol space.This dissertation uses the frame analysis method of sociology to extend to communication.Through analyzing the content of the sample,it combs out the eight main topics of the urban space constructed in the Chinese humanities documentary and refines the four main types of interpretive frameworks and spatial discourses,namely daily space,flowing space,memory space,and super space,and further analyzes these representative spatial discourses,and discusses the construction characteristics of urban symbolic space.The third space is the perspective of the heterogeneous space where material and experience intersect.On the basis of the first space and the second space,it penetrates into the social and historical context of urban space and excavates the details of representative documentary samples.Through intensive and careful reading of the five documentary texts A l'ouest des rails,Chinese Major,Wheat Harvest,Bumming in Beijing,Last Train Home,the dissertation reveals the documentary's power in the transformation of industrial space,urban dismantling and remodeling in the context of urban history relations,the marginal existence of "others" in urban space,and other public propositions intertwined with complex social relations.Finally,with cross-reference of the documentary text and urban space,the author thinks deeply about the relationship between documentary creation and urban space.To sum up,the main conclusion of the dissertation is:since the early 1990s,the complexity and diversity of urbanization have emerged,the acceleration of urbanization and the starting point of the humanistic turn of Chinese documentaries have been synchronized,and humanistic documentaries have become media samples of urban space pictures of investigation and observation of reality.By implementing Lefebvre's "triple dialectics" of space production and Edward W.Soja's "third space"theory into the analysis of framework of documentary image space production,an open space production logic can be reconstructed.We have found that the social space construction of documentary texts is much deeper and wider than the physical space.The production of the "first space"(image space)in the documentary mainly focuses on the perceptible urban images such as markers,paths,nodes,regions,and boundaries;the "second space"(symbol space)consists of daily space,memory space,and flowing space,which are four dominant discourse frameworks of super space;the"third space"(heterogeneous space)is a field that contains social struggle,power,and relationships,and touches the pain points of Chinese urban space problems since the 1990s,including urban disintegration of the traditional industrial space,the power relationship in the remodeling of urban space,the survival dilemma of the shadowed"other",etc.Finally,from the documentary and urban space's examination of each other,we find that the documentary has a certain aphasia in reflecting the reality of urban space.At the same time,from the presentation of urban space planning,daily life,urban-rural dual structure and other issues in the documentary,we are prompted to reflect on alienating urban space and reshaping the relationship between urban and rural areas.