China Musical Genre Study (1949-2010)

Even though the quantity of musical is small in Chinese film history,butit is still the organic part of the Chinese films, and it has uniqueartistic evolution and value.The development of Chinese musical can bedivided into three stages.In genre respect,Chinese musicals changed topure musical from fake musical or local musical;in theme respect,Chinesemusicals changed to entertainment-oriented form conveying lots ofmeanings;in style respect,Chinese musicals changed to internationalstyle from national style.In terms of theme and connotation,revolutionary discourse, loveexpression and the care about survival became three primary themes ofChinese musicals. Revolutionary discourse was the unique theme Chinesemusicals compare to American musicals and it was established in orderto obtain the approve of public to the new regime. In terms of love expression,revolutionary love and romantic love was two forms in Chinesemusicals.In the meanwhile,many musicals focused on the youth’s survivalcondition in urban space.Setbacks, freedom and ideal became narrativecenter.In terms of narrative mode,there existed three modes in Chinesemusicals:living performence of song and dance in realistic time and space,living performence of song and dance in assumed time and space,and scenicperformence of song and dance in realistic time and space.Most of China’smusicals used the first mode to narrate.Objectively speaking, in the above three stages,Chinese musicalswere marginalized.Especially when Chinese film industry soaringnowadays, musical’s dilemma is worrying.Three reasons caused the dilemma:from the angle of social cultural, Chinese people especially the Hannationality was deficient in cultural tradition of singing and dancing;from the angle of audience, Chinese national psychology advocate introvert and nature, but musical’s bold and flowing style was againstthe colonial psychology; from the angle of creation, because of a lackof talent and the knowledge of genre, the directors cannot createhigh-quality works. Only deepening the understanding,improving thequality of creation,and cultivating stable audiences can we create morehigh-grade musicals.