On The Deconstruction Of "Revolutionary Realistic" Film Criticism In1980s

From revolutionary realism in the first days of the republic to socialist realism introducedfrom the Soviet, and then to creation method of the combination of revolutionary realism andrevolutionary romanticism, all of these processes have imposed political discourse such asrevolution and class struggle on realism so that forced the films gradually to yield to the control ofpolitical power. For this reason, all these different versions will be collectively calledrevolutionary realism in this article.After more than half a Century,“revolutionary realism” films and film criticism had alreadyoverburdened ideological content and gradually alienated for a overweening creation method andcritical principle. After the reform and opening to the outside world, film criticism had a heateddiscussion about how to remove the overloaded ideology on revolutionary realism. We may saythat1980s film criticism was a process that revolutionary realism was subjected to criticism andgradually lost its hegemony. Base on that fact, this paper has done a detailed research and analysisof the resolution process. As a whole, the deconstruction of “revolutionary realism” film criticismin the1980s can be roughly divided into three stages.It was the first stage between the late1970s and the early1980s. Then revolutionarydiscourse was still hanging over the film criticism. Guided by thought liberation discourse, filmscritics tried to release film creation and film criticism from disciplines of political power, and thenunder the influence of enlightenment discourse, film critics rebuilt and modernized revolutionaryrealism film criticism. This effort proceeded from the both side: one was to rebuild revolutionaryrealism inside theory resources of traditional realism, the enlightenment-based film criticism triedto redefine realism by subverting the rank order among reality, propensity and typicality thatresulted in fierce discourse conflict between socialist realism and critical realism; the other was toproceed from the external theory resources of realism that included realistic aesthetics, modernistsand de-dramatization, to modernize film creation in form. On the one hand the spread of realisticaesthetics in china was for the objection of deideologization by establishing the priority of realityto propensity, on the other hand was to break the montage tyranny by long-lens theory. Also, theobjection to enable theory resources of western modernism and de-dramatization was to subvertrevolutionary discourse and power order by the innovation of the manifestation that be used todestroy single, rigid ideology. In a word, the essence of the reconstruction and transformation inrevolutionary realism in the new period is the covert expression of films critics’ political demandthat influenced by enlightenment.In the second stage occurred in the middle of1980s. If the rebuilding and modernizing ofrealism in the beginning of new period still assumed that authoritative position of revolutionaryrealism in film creation and film criticism, then with the rise of the fifth-generation movies,revolutionary realism film criticism encountered unprecedented crisis. The fifth-generationmovies which were highly praised as modern films have broken thoroughly the traditions of“revolutionary realism” film. But it was difficult for “revolutionary realism” film criticism tointerpret the fifth-generation movies since the rules of revolutionary realism film were broken.Then variety criticism methods such as image criticism and Great Theory criticism have sprung up.The fifth-generation movies were widely acclaimed for breaking the tradition during the radicalcultural discussion, but Xie Jin’s films were excessively impacted for their maintaining traditional ethical value and inheritance to the tradition of revolutionary realism film. But It should beaffirmed that the wave of films criticism revolved around the fifth-generation and Xie Jin’s filmsmode renewed criticism methods, injected vigor and vitality into films critics. The emergence ofvarious criticism methods broke the dominance of revolutionary realism film criticism, openeddiversity pattern of Chinese film criticism.The third stage occurred in the late of1980s. In the discussion of justifying entertaining films,films critics recognized entertainment functions of films, to some extent, which dissolved thelong-standing tradition of “writing delivering ethics” in Chinese film, relaxed education functionfrom films, and paved the way for commercialization and marketing trend of Chinese film. Underthe force of Enlightenment discourse and commercial discourse,“revolutionary realism” filmcriticism which dominated movies near half a century was finally dissolved in thecommercialization and marketing trend.