Study On Ross McElwee’s First-person Documentary

Since 1960 s,having been experienced the developing process from the initial experiments and enlightenment to ‘the Golden Age’ of the creation,first person narratives documentary rebuilds its structure for pursuing ‘the Psychological Reality’ and even reverse the original formation of traditional documentary.This dissertation will study five of the most representative works of Ross McElwee,the founder of the first-person documentary,by applying content analysis,documentary studies and interdisciplinary research.In order to express the special aesthetic perspective,powerful inner spirit and unique enchantment of the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee,this dissertation will deeply excavate and analyze the works from the narrative aspect,documentary aesthetic and inner spiritual dimensions,creatively attempt to illustrate those from the vision of eastern aesthetics and find out commons between eastern and western documentary aesthetics.The dissertation is divided into five sections.The Chapter One will discuss the origination of first-person narratives documentary by introducing important documentary aesthetics before the appearance of it and emphasize the intimate relation between the emerge of first person narratives documentary and real movies.Then,the dissertation will outline the creating experience of Mr.McElwee,which is closely related with his initial literary background and can be exemplified directly by its prosing and poetic image and literary monologue.At last,the dissertation will depict the significant status and valuation of Mr.McElwee by focusing on the discussion of his five of the most representative works.In Chapter Two,the dissertation will analyze the narrative of first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee based on the text.Firstly,the dissertation will start from the discussion of the role of camera,which is characterized in the works of Mr.McEwlee,and the method how to convert the so-called ‘aggression’ into a positive motivation.Secondly,the essay will illustrate the consciousness,wry sense of humor,quantitative silence and metaphor,which are the prose features in the works of Mr.McElwee.Lastly,it will demonstrate the self-interactive narrative module by selecting the most representative monologue from the works of Mr.McElwee.Chapter Three will explore the documentary aesthetics by continuously returning to the text itself.At beginning,the dissertation will discuss the authentic issue that the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee subverts the aesthetics of traditional documentary,which brings a unique aesthetic delight by pursuing psychological realism and tension of privacy and glory.Then it will creatively attempt to interpret the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee from the prospective of eastern aesthetics by the surprising and rough illustration of the context and linguistic style as well as the spirit of Buddhism in the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee.By explaining the commons between the eastern and western documentary aesthetics,the dissertation expect to inspire the current academic realm of documentary.With the deeper excavation of the inner spirit of the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee,the Chapter Four discovers the tremendous spiritual force of the works.By continuously self-examining and self-reconciling the introspection of life,death,disaster and history,Mr.McElwee finally achieves the self-salvation.This kind of salvation is the reflection of his inner sense of sympathy,which also brings the two-way self-salvation of both audients and the director.In Chapter Five,the dissertation will make a series of introspection according to the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee.By analyzing the current situation of the development of independent documentary in China,the paper will mainly discuss the enlightenment and reference from the works of Mr.McElwee and attempt to figure out solutions of the current development of independent documentary in China.And the introspection and self-redeems of the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee might be the answer.By dimensional excavation,the dissertation not only does attempt to express the charm and strength of the first person narratives documentary of Mr.McElwee,but also expect to make introspection and creation as well as meet the demand of the development of documentary in China.