Study On The Aesthetics Of Death In Chinese Mainland Films

Death,reflecting the attitude and spirit structure of people's life,also represents the social consciousness and cultural form.Films could simulate the death phenomena through visual and dynamic images.Exploration the death in movies is the progress not only for movie appreciation,but also for comprehension of the meaning of life and keeping up with the trend.The aesthetics of death,taking the “death” in arts for research subject,study the effects of death on human spirit and investigate the death of ontology and the relationship between death and survival to manifest the willing for freedom beyond death.However,there were little reports on the “death” in Chinese mainland films.The present paper,taking the films since the new period as an example,was guided by the views of death aesthetics to study the death images,death symbols and the meaning and value of death.The present study analyzed the movies of the fourth,fifth and sixth-generation directors and the creative subjects in the new century vertically.The fourth-generation directors,underwent the Cultural Revolution,mainly showed the catastrophic death in the Cultural Revolution with compassionate feelings,and eulogized the heroes of war and the new times.The fifth-generation directors,leading the films of china to the world,began to set up their own cultural coordinates and the descriptions of death in their movies were full of strong patricide complex.However,the sixth-generation directors did not follow the grand narrative style as before,but lowered the death aura and recorded the original appearance of death truthfully.Since the new century,pluralistic creative subjects need pluralistic demands of value.Specially,the emphasis on comic death of commercial cinemas widened the expression forms of death.In horizontal aspect,the present paper roughly divided death images into four categories as following: punitive,dedicated,disastrous and survivable ones.The objective of the punitive and dedicated death images were to punish evil-doers and encourage people to do good respectively.The disastrous ones revealed the cruelty and the survivable ones recorded the original appearance of death.However,with the development of the ages,the interpretations of death are becoming more and more diversified.According to the value theories of death aesthetics,most of the Chinese mainland films mainly focused on the publicity of ethics and morality,lacking of the aesthetic pursuit for death of ontology,existentialism and transcendentalism.This paper appeal to the directors that their movies should be created elaborately and care for life sincerely to pursue for aesthetic values that could get rid of the ethical norms and religious doctrines,follow the death of ontology and be universal.