A Narrative Study Of Chinese Sports Feature Films During Forty Years Of Reform And Opening-up

Since the reform and opening-up in 1978,Chinese sports feature films have prospered and developed.The materials of sports feature films are basically derived from sports,and they are the product of combination of feature films' artistic expression form with sports.Sports feature films both spread the charm of sports thought,sports spirits,personal motivation and so on,and bring the audience enjoyment of colorful audio-visual language.However,there is still a gap between Chinese sports feature films and American sports feature films.Meanwhile,China's status as a sports power,is not commensurate with its current developing situation of Chinese sports feature films industry.Facing such a gap and embarrassing situation,this thesis aims to provide some valuable evidence for sports feature films in narratology through analyzing and explaining the narrative characteristics of Chinese sports feature films in the period of forty years of reform and opening-up.This study takes Chinese sports feature films from 1978 to 2018 as the research object,takes film narratology as the theoretical support,and adopts research methods such as literature analysis,image analysis,content analysis,and case analysis.In the present study,firstly sports feature film and related concepts are clarified.Secondly,narrative features presented by 51 films are teased apart in stages from four indicators including narrative content,narrative perspective,narrative structure and narrative language.Then,based on the analysis of four indicators,the narrative evolvement characteristics of Chinese sports feature films in the past 40 years are summarized.Finally,problems of Chinese sports feature films and some exploratory suggestions are put forward.According to the study,the narrative features of Chinese sports feature films in the past 40 years are as follows.Overall Chinese sports feature films have a good developing trend,and the number of films is on the rise;rich sports events interpret and promote the connotation of Chinese sports spirits from a variety of perspectives,and among those sports events,football attracts the most attention of Chinese people.Narrative theme is divided into five types,and the Olympic-themed feature films are clusterd,in which male athletes and coaches are always the leading character and the disabled,women and teenage children get more attention,besides,chracter features such as positivity,persistentence,youthfulness of athletes and professional dedication,undying resolution and conscientiousness of coaches are depicted.Narrativeperspective is divided into the omniscient perspective with broad vision and the limited perspective with limited vision.Narrative structure is divided into classical causal linear and time-space interlacing interwoven comparative narrative structure,and the story clues are diversified,including single line,double line and multi-line crossover narrative clues.Shots and music serve for sports feature films to create extraordinary audio-visual experience.The narrative trajectory of Chinese sports feature films in the past 40 years includes the evolvement of narrative content and type of theme,the story features,character,narrative perspective,narrative structure,narrative language,shot,and music.The evolvement of narrative content and theme type is from “dreams coming true with strong determination” to“self-redemption in adversity”,and then to “Olympics involvement and Olympics pursuit”.The evolvement of story features is from national context to narrative of life.The evolvement of character is from “instrumentalized person” to “subjective person”.In terms of the evolvement of narrative perspective,the omniscient and omnipotent narrative perspective occupies the mainstream position,and the power limitation perspective is also valued.For the evolvement of narrative structure,classical causal linear narrative structure occupies the mainstream position,and the adoption of interwoven comparative narrative structure has been a breakthrough in the period of diversification.The evolvement of narrative language and shot changes from language with newly appeared documentary style to with strong-color documentary style,and shots with a inconspicuous modern sense to produced by multiple and changeable shooting technique and with strong sense of science and technology.The evlovement of music is from folk songs,orchestral instruments to using popular music more often,then to wide and diverse music selection.