On The Urban And Rural Narratives Of Chinese Films Since The New Era

The so-called urban-rural narrative in films refers to the film image revealing the urban-rural relations that focus both on their collisions caused by political,geographic,economic and cultural differences and on the interactions owing to the population migration and civilization exchanges.What the author studies is the films in the New Period---films of Chinese mainland since 1978.The urban-rural narrative in these films is a kind of realistic reflection and cultural imagination to show the urban-rural relations of contemporary China by films.There are four chapters.Chapter one is about the plot mode of urban-rural narrations.The plot mode "going to the countryside—returning the city—going to the countryside again" in educated youths films has two creative peaks,one of which was in 1980s characterized with "de-political grand adolescent narrative" and the other in the New Period showing a kind of "poetic and romantic individual experience".Another plot mode "going to the city—returning the countryside—going to the city again" in the films that reveal the life of countrymen working in the cities,also has two trends.In the art films of the sixth generation directors in 1980s,countrymen face many hinders and sufferings when they enter into the city while in the main-melody,new mainstream films and commercial films,the life of the countrymen in the cities is like a "myth" and a "revelry".The second chapter analyzes the spatial construction of the urban-rural narration from two aspects:rural space and urban space.The spatial construction of rural areas in the narration can't exist in isolation from the city.According to the impact from cities,there are three kinds of rural states:the space dominated by the absent city,the urban utopia and the space enlightened and rescued by the city.When it comes to the urban space construction,the paper starts from the conflicts between the individual and the urban space.Thus it is divided into three aspects:the urban external space that the urban entrants get round,the internal and external opposing space that separates the urban entrants,and the internal space that alienates the people entering into the city.The third chapter analyzes the characters in urban-rural narrative.At first,it analyzes the image of educated youths and villagers.On the one hand,there are the enlightening educated youths and the enlightened villagers.On the other hand,there are educated youths who have gained strength from the countryside and the villagers who soothe them.Secondly,it is the analysis of the image of peasant-workers and some other related urban characters.On the one hand,peasant-workers are the contrasts and saviors of urban people in term of morality.On the other hand,peasant-workers in the consumer society have become the consumption objects of citizens.Finally,the image of left-behind children between the city and the countryside is analyzed.There are two types of images:left-behind children with sadness and pan-ethics,and vulnerable groups who are taken care of by the city.The fourth chapter begins with the directors' emotional orientation to discuss the emotional attitudes of the various generations of directors to the city and the countryside since the New Period.Among them,the fourth generation of directors have a emotional tendency of praising the countryside,diminishing the city and loving the hometown.The fifth generation of directors conduct a modern examination of the country and city in their works.The hometown complex of the sixth generation of directors also contains their love of countryside.However,what is also added to their works is historical reflections and worries of the disappearing homeland during the period of modernization.Especially in the context of the rapid development of industrialization,the sixth generation of directors and even the younger new generation directors,criticize the lost of homeland's civilization caused by the urbanization.The conclusion part points that the urban-rural narrative of Chinese films since the New Period,to a certain extent,reflects on the dramatic changes of the relationship between urban and rural areas during modernization.It also shows the general narrative tendency of resisting the city and cherishing the countryside.The insufficient is that too much emphasis is putted on the binary opposition between the city and the countryside but through moral narration,the solution is imaginative rather than practical.The urban-rural narrative of Chinese films in the future needs to pay more attention to maintaining a dual review and reflection on the relation between urban and rural areas.