A Study Of The Narrative Aesthetics Of Chinese Mainland Road Movies

As an important component of film world,road movie emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and develops to today.At the beginning of the new century,the first road movie appeared in contemporary era.mainland China.Over the two decades' development,a batch of road movies enjoying excellent public praise and box office income stand out,which receive attention from academic circle.Taking the road movies in mainland China since the new century as research object,focusing on the narrative art of road movies in mainland China,this paper explores the narrative aesthetics of road movies in mainland China from the perspectives of character,space and narrative strategy.Based on looking back the development course of road movie,the introduction extracts the concept of road movie:as a kind of genre film,road movie takes road as the basic narrative space,and "pedestrian" as protagonist;it adopts the technique of travel narration or road narration to describe the process that protagonist walks from one place to another;usually,it considers exile,vagrancy or searching as theme to reflect protagonist's yearning and pursuit for freedom.Since the new century,the road movies in mainland China present the trend of prosperous development with becoming an indispensable genre film in the film industry in mainland China.The researching achievements of road movies in foreign countries and mainland China laid solid foundation for studying the narrative aesthetics of road movies in mainland China in this paper.The first chapter focuses on the "pedestrian"-people "on the road" in road movies in mainland China.The characters in road movies in mainland China include peasant workers,middle class and young people.They "start off" due to different reasons.These "pedestrian"with large difference in identity,status,cultural attainment,experience and survival state constitute "image of a group characters",which reappears the survival circumstance of contemporary Chinese people.The second chapter analyzes focusing on the spatial symbol of road movies in mainland China.This paper divides spatial symbol into road space,communication media space and scenery space.By fully utilizing these space symbols,road movies in mainland China endow them with metaphorical meaning and cultural significance.For example,the road not only is the expressway and lane in substance sense,but also refers to "road for escaping" and "road for heading for hometown" in spirit...these spatial symbols become the importance media looking into China reality.Started with narrative strategy,the third part explores the characteristics of road movies in mainland China in narrative method.In terms of narrative mode,character establishment,narrative structure and theme prototype,Chinese directors,on the one hand,follow the fixed pattern of western road movies;on the other hand,they implement localized innovation.With respect to specific narrative technique,road movies in mainland China present diversified endeavors;such as combination of smile and tear,and utilization of post-modern narrative technique including collage and parody.In addition,through innovating in optic angle,lens angle and application of special lens angle,the narration of lens reinforces expressive force of film.Based on reflecting on the problems in narration of current road movies in mainland China,the fourth chapter points out the problems such as homogenization,entertaining,marvelous spectacle,single type,absence of spiritual core,and shielded truth.Moreover,it attempts to put forward countermeasures;such as further breakthrough in type,diversified development,enhancing spiritual connotation,and enriching nationalization content.As an important genre film in contemporary Chinese movie,road movies in mainland China combines entertainment,education and aesthetics,which also is the weatherglass of Chinese social culture in contemporary society.It is anticipated that,road movies in mainland China could achieve better development.