"No Magic,no Survival"-- Mad Characters On The Screen In China

There are more and more mad characters appears on the screen in china.Filmmakers make some social problems and their feelings known to all through these abnormal characters.These characters are non-rational,or obsessed with somebody or something,or becoming more crazy with people's alienation.I classify the mad characters in this thesis and discuss its shaping strategy and cultural connotation.I divide the thesis into several parts:Introduction.The academic circles have not pay enough attention to the mad characters in movie.The characters have not been studied deeply.There is only one article "analysis of mad characters in Chinese Contemporary Film" written by Liu Shuxing analyzing mad characters from director's view. Interpretation of the mad characters scattered in the case studies,divided as follows:discovering the aesthetic characteristics and the internal implication,exploring the accepted psychology of the audience based on the specificity of mad characters,relying on Feminism to explain the reason of female madness.My study focus on the mad characters in Contemporary Film in china.The value of classifying and summarizing them is meaningful.Chapter one:mad characters and madhouse scene in Chinese Contemporary Film.The implication of "mad" is similar to Foucault's definition of mad in his book Madness and Civilization.In Foucault's opinion,we should not simply think mad as a disease.He analyzed madness and the relationship between madness and civilization through knowledge, power, sociology and psychology,etc.Western civilized people have always strangled madness, which caused Foucault's criticism.He believed that the mad people are close to the truth and truly feel the word.I divide the mad characters in Chinese Contemporary into three types: mad characters like Sisyphus,marginal people who are oppressed and the madhouse scene.Chapter two:the shaping strategy of mad characters.As a special group taken on the screen, it contains filmmakers and performers' conscious pursuit.There are three shaping strategies: strange presentations,irony expression and bittersweet aesthetic style.Firstly,the strange presentations contain the strange lines, strange language form and strange appearance of the characters.Secondly,authority, credibility, loyalty, morality, responsibility and other important social propositions are raised through irony expression.Thirdly,the appearance, actions, language and way of thinking of mad characters make many jokes.The jokes are meaningful:they adhere to the heart of faith,edge in the state of suppressed,deliberately play the fool,lonely heart and the fate of the alienated make them tragically.Through this,mad characters present bittersweet aesthetic style.Chapter three:the cultural connotation of mad characters.They reflect living wisdom,report social problems and call of understanding.Mad characters in Chinese Contemporary Film continue the ethos and characteristics of mad characters in ancient literary and artistic works,like crazy, stupid and filthy. And in contemporary Chinese social and cultural background has a more complex meaning. They reflect living wisdom through wise as stupid,skillful as clumsy,carrying forward the fine tradition of nation.Unreasonable factors in social development, political, economic and even cultural ideology are reflected.Mad characters call of understanding through its own express strategy and make the The audience know mad is not entirely ill.They moderate the Alienation and exclusion of Mainstream ideology to the mad people.Above all,"Madness"as one of the themes of contemporary film,there are innovations in shaping the strategy.And .the cultural connotation of the value can not be ignored. Filmmakers take them on the screen as a special group,giving more power than a normal character,aesthetic and cultural implications.