Study On The Narrative Characteristics In Zhang Yimou’s Films

As one of the most influential directors in modern China, Zhang Yimou has become a famous "director brand". With his unremitting exploration spirit and independent art character, he leaves a significant portion in the history of Chinese movie development. His movies have strong nationality, and at the same time are successful in the world. As a representational individual in the history of Chinese contemporary cinema, Zhang Yimou’s film is valuable for research.Film is a kind of narrative art. The most basic function of film is to tell stories through lens. Therefore, it is much meaningful to analyze the narrative levels of film. At present the research of Zhang Yimou’s film mostly focused on its image and culture. There are fewer systematic thesis and work on narrative aspects. So the analysis of Zhang Yimou’s film from narrative level is of great significance.This paper tries to sort and analyze Zhang Yimou’s film from the narrative point of view from the two aspects of film narration---narrative story and narrative way by integrating the knowledge of film criticism, film language, film history. From the narrative element narrative structure and narrative means, it attempts to summarize the advantages and drawbacks of Zhang Yimou’s film in narrative aspects, also hopes to provide a train of thought for the creation and development of Chinese current film.This thesis is mainly divided into three chapters. The first chapter analyzes the characteristics of narrative elements in Zhang Yimou’s film from the themes. plots and characters. Zhang Yimou’s film carries on the traditional narrative structure, also has made breakthrough in traditional narrative structure. From these two aspects, the second chapter mainly discusses the characteristics of Zhang Yimou’s film in narrative structure. The third chapter mainly discusses the characteristics of Zhang Yimou’s film in narrative means from the narrative function of color, composition and sound.