Jia Zhangke's Film And Shanxi Folk Culture

As the backbone of the new generation of Chinese directors,Jia Zhangke's film style could not be separated from his growth experience in Shanxi and the folk cultural background of his hometown.Jia Zhangkeset out from his personal experiences of survival and his sensitive insights of life,and his filmsreflect the "changes" and "constants" of the civilian life of county in the past 40 years since the reform and opening up.Jia Zhangke's films show the strong folklore complex,civiliancultural ideology,and plain and documentary aesthetic style;his films enrich the cultural connotation of contemporary Chinese films and let audiences to touch ordinary and luxury qualities with the characteristics of traditional Chinese life,which are in danger or have already disappeared.The introductionpart of this thesis,after sorting out relevant research literature in depth,finds that most of the existing studies on Jia Zhangke's films lack a folklore perspective.However,the narrative and aesthetic style of Jia Zhangke's filmsare undoubtedly welded together with the folk culture of Shanxi.From the folkloreperspective,we can focus on the deep narrative and folklore complex of Jia Zhangke's films,which is also an important practical value of this study.The body part of this thesis starts the research on Jia Zhangke's films from three aspects.First of all,this thesis tries to sort out the macroscopic background of Jia Zhangke's films,that is,the deep connections between the Three-Jin culture and Jia Zhangke's films.The main focus is on the traces of Jia Zhangke's films' "streaming" in the river bed of the Three-Jin culture,with the particular attention to important historical nodes: how are the processes of modernization and urbanism manifested in the movies,what kind of details of life are used,and how such details are constructed as folklore complex into the movie narratives.Secondly,this dissertation investigates the influence of Jia Zhangke's growth chronicle on the subconscious or unconsciousness of the movie narratives from a microscopic situation.The humanistic sentiments and realistic psychological appeals of the underlying narratives of Jia Zhangke's films,the deliberate presentation of the regional culture and the imagination of the future life are all rooted in the long-term tracing molding of the microscopic context.The third section of thebody concentrates on the folk imagery in Jia Zhangke's films and deeply interprets the folklorepoetry as a marginal person in all aspects.Because of the affinity with folk culture,such poetry is desolate but permeates a sense of life or presence.Although we frequently look back,we still face the reality and the future.The conclusion part of this thesis emphasizes the unique aesthetic and video narrative value of Jia Zhangke's films once again.The noveltyof Jia Zhangke's films has a deep or shallow relationship with folk culture.If folk culture can be creatively reconstructed or involved in movie narratives,it will play an active role in the formation of the artistic style of "Alone One,No Branch" for film directors.