A Study On The Narrative Ethics Of Wang Xiaoshuai's Movies

Narrative ethics discuss the standards of the relationship between the “narrator” and the “recipient” and study the goal,method and morality of the narrator.The narrative ethics of movies have raised diachronic requirements on creation context,ethnic connotation and movie language at the same time.The paper takes Wang Xiaoshuai,one of the sixth-generation directors creating during the reform and opening-up era of economic recovery,as the research object.It aims at interpret the image texts of Wang Xiaoshuai with the new critical paradigm,and attempts to further explain the “critical paradigm of movie narrative ethics” in the process of reinterpretation.As to Wang Xiaoshuai,he is a director wandering between “personal expression”and “time recording” and difficult to be remembered by the audience.In terms of lens language,his movies lack style symbols identifiable enough compared with other directors of the sixth generation.In terms of movie concept,he clearly shows that he wished to leave some image of social transformation,and realize the cultural effect of personal expression and time-recording.Looking at the 11 movies,although his narrative style is wandering and changing,his movies keep expressing the outlook on life and values polished by personal experience,imitating life,extending image symbols and highlighting the subjectivity of the director in his murmuring and shouting.The paper can be divided into six parts,including Introduction,four chapters in the main body and Conclusion.“Introduction” mainly introduces the research background of the paper,the research literature and status-quo of Wang Xiaoshuai's movies,creative points and research significance based on narrative ethics researches.In the part about “creative points”,it is pointed out that movie ethic criticism is about the narrative form through which the narrator expresses his or her critical paradigm expressing the ethic value and viewpoints of the narrator.The paper is divided into four chapters according to this identification,respectively discussing the experience of the narrator,the ethic connotation of the movie,way of narration and the morality issue of the narrator in the whole set of narrative procedures.Chapter One discusses the causes for the narrative ethics of Wang Xiaoshuai in his movies,namely the factors influencing the shaping of his ethic ideas and values,incorporating the his “unidentifiable” background,his father's instruction during adolescence,his experience of migrating from city to city,the receding six-generation movie context he faced in the creation period and his personal experience of wandering between personal independence and the system.Chapter Two discusses the connotation of the narrative ethics in Wang Xiaoshuai's movies,taking the rooting,growth,survival and death of one's lifetime as the sequence of thought,so as to divide his movie ethics into social ethics,inter generational ethics,gender ethics and death ethics.In particular,the paper discusses the sense of friendlessness and homelessness of “hometown missing” in his movies,the fluidity in the changing times,the sense of alienation in urban life,the sense of inter-generational collision and the moral dilemma of sexual relations.Chapter Three discusses the narrative form through which Wang Xiaoshuai transmits his ethic views,analyzes narrative elements such as time,space,viewpoints and codes in his movies.It also points out that he would normally change ethic orientation through changing time sequence and increase ethic anxiety through story time;reflect broken interpersonal relationship through broken space(hometown and home);express a third-person sense of “historical ghost”,enhance the subjective recognition of the audience and reduce the sense of immorality of characters with the first person,and express the sense of hierarchy in the society and ethic disorder in gender relations through the collision between cinerous and red colors,music and human voice.Chapter Four discuses what kinds of immoral behaviors out of line with mainstream values in Wang Xiaoshuai's movie creation.For example,materializing women,“beautifying” death,and presenting excessively “eeyorish” state to stress that directors need to transmit a kind of narrative ethic responsibility characterized by “truth,goodness and beauty” in image creation.In “Conclusion” part,the paper proposes that the significance of movies is not limited to narration itself,more importantly,movies shall produce viewpoints,disseminate culture and look forward to the future creation by Chinese directors,in hopes that they can realize the ethic relationship existing in the process of imageproduction and dissemination,so as to improve and expand their own spiritual vision and emphasize their image output and ethic expression.