Creating Chinese Images: A Study Of Movie Adaptations Of Pearl S. Buck's Four Novels

Since the new century, China has attached increasing importance to the enhancement of soft power during her rise. Image of one country is the most direct embodiment of its soft power and exhibiting its people in cross-cultural movies is one of the most influential ways to promote its image. Having created the image of China for two American generations, the 1938 Nobel Prize laureate Pearl S. Buck still exerts her influence. How to evaluate her four adapted movies The Good Earth, Dragon Seed, China Sky and Pavilion of Women? How to distinguish respective purposes of their author and adaptors? How to utilize Pearl Buck's cultural resources in order to construct the image of China? These questions are the cruxes of this thesis. By analyzing historical contexts of each adaptation and employing theories of imagology and adaptation study, the thesis aims at conducting study on Pearl Buck from a brand-new perspective as well as expounding on the issue of China's image. romanticized; two movies Dragon Seed and China Sky have been eclipsed by the popularity of The Good Earth; and Pavilion of Women is a movie that can be called an Eastern miracle as a stepping stone to Hollywood. But however we study these movies, we need to overcome the perils of dualistic thinking, the notion that what has been represented on screen is either a utopia or a dystopia. If we are going to make sense of them, we need to be able to triangulate:to bear in mind the differences between the novels and the movies; the reviews as they once were and currently are; and experience that we can draw upon. So the last part of the thesis mainly argues that Pearl Buck's large quantity of realistic portrayals of the Chinese brushes aside affected Chinese images popular for a long time in American cinemas, yet the mixture of Pearl Buck's nearly naturalist writing style, her pitfalls of writing techniques and Chinese nationalism is prone to stir up affects such as the national humiliation. In addition, the conclusion discusses the correspondence between the strategy of each adaptation and the U.S. public opinions of China, influence of the pre-existing stereotypes on the screen images of Pearl Buck's characters and compromises of movie industry to adapt the ever changing context. In closing, the thesis suggests that positive cross-cultural communication, more self-retrospection of China in co-producing movies with U.S.A. and future exploration of Pearl Buck's cultural resources are not only expressions of our gratitude to Pearl Buck, an old friend of China, but also contributions to the construction of the image of China.