Where To Place The Youth?

Chinese film has had a history of more than one hundred yearssince the first silent film Mount Dingjun appeared in1905.Manykinds of films such as comedy, romance film, military film,swordsmen film and horror film have had full development andsystemic research in the past one hundred years. Youth moviewhich shows young people’s growth, survival state and mentaloutlook has got a start since1930s. But before the1990s, youthmovie wasn’t the mainstream of Chinese film, and it didn’tfully reflect the characteristics of youth which were broughtout fully by the sixth generation directors who were on thestage in the late80’s.In Chinese Mainland, the research onyouth’s unitary analysis and explanation gradually attractspeople’s interest after1990s.The main body of this paper is divided into four parts. Partone combs the development of youth movie in the past one hundredyears. With the background of times and film characteristics,it concludes the four theoretical paradigms of youth moviewhich are critical youth, romantic youth, reflective youth andcruel youth.Furthermore,it explains specifically to the four theoretical paradigms. Part two focuses on the narrative themeof “cruel youth” movie and analyses the common narrativetheme of the film——violence, betrayal, loss and confusion.Part three analyses the construction and its significance ofthe natural space, the social and political space and thepersonal private space in the image from the perspective of thenarrative space theory. Part four explores the narrativestructure of this kind of film.Youth movie has its unique narrative theme and image style.With the continuous rise of young directors, the film whichfocuses on and expresses youth will take on a positive trendwithin a certain period. Discussion on youth movie willcontinue,too.This has important implications for thedevelopment of Chinese film.