A Study On Disease Narratives In Domestic Films Since The New Century

Since the beginning of mankind,health and disease have been like two sides of the same coin,and mankind has struggled with disease throughout history.Although the pursuit of health,light and dreams is a universal value for every individual,it is undeniable that disease is a product that comes with modern society,and it is an inevitable experience of sickness and pain for everyone.As Susan Sontag said,"Disease is the dark side of life,a more troublesome form of citizenship." Since the new century,stories of disease have been emerging on the screens of domestic films,involving SARS,cancer,leukemia,depression and other modern diseases,practicing the expression of different dimensions of life experience.The disease narratives in this paper mainly refer to the related domestic films that use disease as the main narrative thread or have an important influence on the storyline.The disease narratives not only visualize a series of life processes,but also provide a metaphysical perspective of criticism and reflection on social culture,ethics and morality,and become a mirror reflection of social symptoms.Disease narratives first originated in Western narrative medicine to serve the purpose of clinical treatment,and then were introduced to the study of narrative in the field of literature.At present,a systematic research system has not yet been formed for the study of disease narratives in film,and there is still room for exploration.Therefore,this paper combining the theories and research results on disease narratives,film narratology and narrative ethics,and studies the disease narratives in domestic films in the new century in order to explore the socio-cultural connotations generated under the disease discourse.This paper intends to develop a research path of disease narratives in Chinese films in the new century from five aspects.The first chapter defines the concept of illness narrative based on theories and achievements of illness narrative research at home and abroad,crawls through the development and evolution trajectory of illness narrative in the history of Chinese cinema for a century,and examines the context of the generation of illness narrative in domestic cinema from three aspects: social reality,artistic creation principles,and national literary and artistic policies.This paper intends to develop a research path of disease narratives in Chinese films in the new century from five aspects.The first chapter defines the concept of disease narrative based on theories and results of disease narrative research at home and abroad,compares the development and evolution trajectory of disease narrative in the history of Chinese cinema for a century,and examines the context of disease narrative in domestic cinema from three aspects: social reality,artistic creation principles,and national literary and artistic policies.The second chapter sorts out and summarizes the typical characters and their characteristics in the narratives of disease in both physical and psychological diseases.The characters of physical diseases are classified as sufferers,infected,and rescuers,while the characters of mental diseases are classified as loners,traumatized,and amnesiacs,and the characteristics of the characters in disease situations and the meanings behind the imagery of disease are explained separately.The third chapter focuses on the strategies of disease narratives,the narrative functions assumed by disease and the narrative perspectives of disease,the cultural connotations of disease narratives,and an attempt to analyze the style of disease narratives in the context of visual language.As a motivating event," disease" drives the development of the narrative plot,plays a role in reversing the plot and reparing ethical relationships,and carries a sharp critique of social reality as a metaphorical symbol.Individuals-families-society constitute a complete perspective of disease observation,and the screen concentrates on a variety of video styles such as light comedy,documentary and youthfulness.The fourth chapter explores the space-time construction of disease narratives in domestic films.The illness experience constructs a unique narrative space and time.The fractured,repetitive,and disordered psychological time and the material,psychological,and social space reflecting physical disease,inner emotions,and social contexts jointly write the life experience of illness.The last chapter returns to the ethical connotation and value orientation of disease narratives.Specifically,the ethics of life in the illness narrative manifests the traditional Chinese culture’s view of life and death and advocates the dignity and value of life;the family ethics practices different expressions of the ethical concepts of family members in the context of illness;and the social ethics points to the public ethical consciousness among members of society,with a view to forming ethical relationships that highlight collective consciousness in the social structure.