Study On Historical Development Of Youth Movies In Chinese Mainland Since 1990

It was May Fourth Movement that the young people boarded the stage of history and caught people’s attention. Never had the young people be absence of in Chinese movies. However, Chinese youth movies developed inadequately without clear structure and rounded system due to the traditional culture and unbalanced social development. The creation of youth movies and guided theories tend to be adult-like, leading to the failure of voices of youth movies heard. Just as people noted, ‘Youth movies are attended absentees in Chinese movie history.’In the end of the 20 th Century, Chinese youth movies in this period presented a pluralistic outlook as Chinese movies experienced a systemic reform from top to bottom. Since then, the sixth generation of Chinese directors emerged as a group of creative force, with characteristics of emphasizing experience of individuals, simple but real expression of one’s feeling, and trying to explore the significance of existence of individuals in a calm way. The sixth generation of Chinese directors created a batch of youth movies in its true sense, making the prosperity of Chinese youth movies.When it comes to the previous ten years of 21 st century, the creation of Chinese youth movies were fruitful, and getting its momentum. It was particular true after the year of 2010. As a group of youth nostalgic movies hit together and got widespread impact, movie scholars got started to pay more and more attention to youth movies, youth images as well as youth culture.Based on youth movies in Chinese mainland since 1990, the thesis analyzed historical development of youth movies and evolution of youth characters, also exploring factors those contribute to development.As to the thesis structure, the first chapter is introduction, mainly introduces five parts, including the research origin, aim and significance, method, related reviews in domestic and abroad, and main creative points of the thesis.The second chapter is mainly a summary of conception, features and development line of youth movies, introducing several key conceptual words, such as, youth movies and movies of youth theme, ‘Youth’ and ‘Youth culture’.The third chapter mainly involves development of narrative approach to youth movies in Chinese mainland since 1990, which includes ‘The cruel youth’ in 1990 s, ‘New urban youth’ in 21 th century, and ‘The nostalgia of youth’.The fourth chapter deals with the summary on changes of youth characters in youth movies since 1990 s, in which, examples illustrated are ‘Subalterns’ described by the sixth generation of directors; ‘The trouble shooters’ presented by the author, Shuo, Wang; and ‘Urban elites’ in nostalgic youth movies.The fifth chapter analyzes reasons on development of youth movies in Chinese mainland since 1990 from ‘The perspective of market economy and multi-culture’. Influential factors are various, such as, ‘The entertainment of commodity economy and anxiety on consuming desires’, and ‘Consumer culture and youth culture’, and so forth.The last part is a conclusion, which gives a brief summary of youth movies since 1990 on its gain and loss.