Drift Of The Youth

Adopting the theoretical patterns about the ideas of the pioneering films, this dissertation outlines the process of the development of the artistic films in the new era of China. It describes the film-makers with high spirit of exploration as pioneers who want to get rid of the fetters of the traditional viewpoints about films and the films of the 5^th and 6^th generations as the succeeding of the conceptual current of the pioneering films, on which the basic concept about the contemporary Chinese pioneering films is formed: the contemporary Chinese pioneering films refer to the new movement in the trend of composing the artistic films in the mainland China after the Cultural Revolution, which is influenced by the modern ideas and takes the strategies of action against the old patterns of films with the purpose of creating new thoughts about the films, which ultimately changed the overall image of the Chinese films. From the old pioneering films of the 5^th generation to the new one of the 6^th generation, the contemporary Chinese pioneering films exhibit the trace of the cultural transformation from the enlightenment to the post-modernism, with the latter getting independent from the former and opposed to the former. In this dissertation the enlightenment is a kind of understanding and interpretation of the new movement of enlightenment in 1980s, which is against the feudalism in a way of metaphor and puts the reflection of the history of the mainland China in the dichotomy between the tradition and modern, foreign and domestic. It has again finished the repetition of the value about the modernism and its cultural imagination, and it requests the human freedom and liberation by emphasizing the main bodies of the individual and the humankind as well. After 1980s, the new enlightenment has lost the inner unity of a social cultural idea and the ideas of the pioneering films have loomed on the horizon. After 1990s in the mainland China, the social and cultural mentalities are so vague that the cultural patterns of the whole society have been multi-polarized and the theories of the post-modernism have come into being. In this dissertation the post-modernism means a kind of post-modern cultural spirit, which is presented as such a situation: it attaches importance to intuition and phenomenon and it expects to express the unspeakable things through idea within the modern category; it advocates the multi-polarization and openness and fights off the monotonous taste as any monotonous pattern of value may result in new hegemony and enslavement; and it is a kind of vehement spirit of reflection and eagerness of reformation, which is not just for the reflection and reformation's sake but is to convey a kind of strong unexpressive feeling.In 1983 the contemporary Chinese pioneering films met its real inchoation, the 5^th generation films. After the film of The Yellow Land, the directors of the fifth generation was officially nominated, on the basis of which we cast back the film-makers of the past four generations of new China. A base point of the coordinates, the fifth generation films marked the beginning of a brilliant period of films, i.e. the pioneering films of the 1980s.The appearance of the fifth generation films not only meant the deepening of the spiritual enlightenment and historical reflection of the Chinese films but also led the trend of thought of the films seeking the root. In the mid-1980s many films expressed the enlightenment by the cultural strategy of seeking the root. Marked by the prize won by the film of The Red Sorghum, the fifth generation films had almost finished a phase of artistic experiment, then drooped next to collapse, and consequently the historic mission of the trend of thought of the pioneering films had almost accomplished. The enlightening films which took the fifth generation films as the main body showed the most vigorous life and the artistic spirit of exploration in the thoughts about films in 1980s. Seen from the themes, their enlightenment appealed to and answered the spirit of times, with the camera penetrating reality, history, culture and so on, which expressed a strong wish to liberate the humanity and reflect upon the culture. Artistically, these films upheld the expressionism and the symbolism, and the stereotyped revolutionary realistic films were shocked by the subverting composition of the pictures and the dense color. Many films got rid of the fetters of the literature and were endowed with the film language. The dramatic plots were no longer turned to, but the camera logic of feelings and psychology was underlined. So the traditions of the Chinese film dramas were really subverted. Fighting against the grand Utopian revolutionary narration by the grand narration of national fables, the fifth generation films, by the spirit of seeking the historic root, continued the enlightening themes of reflecting the nationality derived from the May 4th Movement, which constituted a main branch of the cultural thoughts about the enlightenment in 1980s.After the mid-1980, as a theological stage of the secular modernization, the cultural thoughts of the enlightenment faced its end and the times required another pioneering culture to lead the people to the secular earth. Wang Shuo was thus born. In 1988 of Wang Shuo's novels four were adapted to films, which had an obvious cultural revolt. The expression of the human difficulties and forced games was deviant from the artistic taste of the common films of entertainment, and discourse strategy of the"employer"pattern dissolved the cultural mythology of the contemporary Chinese enlightenment coauthored by the cultural and political elite, which formed another idea about the pioneering films, a thought of cynical realism. This was a transitional movie thought, whose meaning lied in bridging the ideas of the enlightenment and those of the post-modernism, which presented the cultural meaning of Wang Shuo in contemporary China. Its transition determined that the cynical films would have a short life-span and soon it would degenerate to the popular culture. Feng Xiaogang's films thus came into being. At the end of the 1980s China saw great changes. After bash the empty hearts occupied the people and the life facts could not support the optimistic ideals. The elite and the audience went back home and the square was left deserted. At this moment, the 6^th generation films appeared challenging the films of the 5^th generation with the purpose of advocating"on-the-spot record and objectivity", which were against and different from the movie aesthetics of the expressionism of the 5^th generation films. With the objective camera, the 6^th generation film-makers expressed the unexpressive things through the ideas themselves, which showed a kind of post-modern spirit: an ideal time had passed and the new generation advocated the difference, freedom, multi-polarization and tolerance as this was a world of the commoners in which people had no dreams but the innumerous spiritual debris drifting in the river of time. Under this overall thought existed two historic periods: the time before the 1990s and the time after the 1990s. The former mainly paid attention to the marginalized people, which was a kind of representation of the existing feeling of the devoid. Its main characteristic lied in the commune feelings and the expressive end of the ideology, in which the individual was indulged in the existing experience of personal feelings and the ignorance of ideology; the 6^th generation film-makers, turning the eyes from egoism to the other, began to penetrate the bottom life to present the real main body of the Chinese society, the silent majority living at the bottom. Besides the aforementioned two main directions, the post-modernist films also contained the other diversified styles and categories. All these composed a multi-polarized pattern of this thought. After 2000, there appeared several important female movies in the mainland China, in which the new-generation female directors coincided to build the female space in the films without the principal part of the male actors. Using ultra-personalized perspective, these female directors paid much attention to the unique female life experience, inner world and the process of development, which represented and deconstructed the rights construction and the cultural order implied by the relationship between the two sexes. These female films formed a feminist movie thought which was characterized by a strong awareness of being female and a cultural consciousness.Just like the old pioneering films of the 5^th generation which collapsed and degenerated, the 6^th generation films ultimately mixed up with the popular culture. The practice of the pioneering films had finished a stage. The downfall of the contemporary Chinese pioneering films is attributed to its inner paradox: on the one hand, the change itself is just the modern tradition, so the pioneering films have the tendency to negate them selves and are finally utilized by the mainstream or commercial culture, which gestates its failure from its success; on the other hand, the post-colonization dissolves the native cultural connotation and the pioneering films become the idol in the mirror in the hegemony of the western culture, so the survival method of being commercialized is the main reason for their downfall. From the 5^th generation to the 6^th generation, the thought of the contemporary Chinese pioneering films experienced the transition from the enlightenment to the post- modernism, with an inner drive in its ups and downs. That is to transcend the fetters and durance, to seek the freedom and liberation, to yearn towards and wallow in the beauty. The subversion, revolution and experimentation of the pioneering films are just the concrete realization of the transcending and seeking.