Research On The National Spirit In Chinese Western Films

Chinese western film, a concept was given by a film critic Zhong Dianfei in1984. Then it’s theoretical studies reached their prime form1984to1987, from2000to today, respectively. After a hundred schools of thought contend, scholars generally accepted that the Chinese western film is the genre based on the western regional characteristic and the connotation of western culture and national spirit.First of all, Chinese western film maintained a relatively primitive natural style because of its history and geography from the aesthetic point of view. The unique style, which is different from modern urban style, Not only strongly attracted filmmakers to pursue the reality in the film, in line with the pursuit of natural and simple style of realism, but also set off the plot more clearly and increased dramatic tension by the collision of the modern and traditional civilization. Secondly, the western region, which is an important birthplace of Chinese civilization, maintaining the traditional farming life, is a microcosm of Chinese civilization. And it is full of the vitality of the national spirit, thus has a strong national characteristics. When modern civilization is continuously changing the traditional culture, national common psychology is reflected more clearly in the interaction of modern civilization and traditional culture. However, scholars haven’t studied Chinese western films systematically from the perspective of the national spirit.Previous researches are often focused on the following aspects:the first is the concept of western films in China; the second is the specific film text study; the third is a multi-angle film aesthetics research; the fourth is the research of movie industrialization. But they haven’t studied the history and significance of Chinese western films systematically and thoroughly. The innovation of this paper is that by taking history as a clue, we tried to put the China western films in the field of national culture. In this paper, the connotation of "Chinese western films"; the complex of directors in the national culture; the national cultural symbol in the western films; the cultural roots and reflection of the western films; the concernment about the spirit of the age and the national destiny; the life consciousness and the evolution of the traditional values in western films were explained. By taking the specific text analysis as the breakthrough point, with the clue of the national culture and national spirit in films, and also with the consideration of the "Western-Nationality-Life", the cultural taste and quest of the Chinese western films was explored and analyzed. In the introduction of this paper, we explored the relationship between national culture and the western films; the connotation of the western films and the previous researches about the western films were reviewed. The theoretical and practical significance of studying the western film from the view of national culture was also explained.In chapter one, we tried to clarify that directors with different generations have different national culture complex by analyzing the background of directors with different generations from the view of directors, which are reflected in their films and formed different narrative styles. The narrative of the fourth generation directors follows the traditional documentary aesthetic style; they are good at telling stories about life and the ordinary people. The perspective and the narrative skills are similar with those of documentary and are easy to strike a responsive chord of the audience, making the audience have strong sense of realism and simplicity. They did not use complex and fancy narrative, but a return to the essence of life; the life was restored with the most concise and realistic methods, and this may bring to the audience the most intuitive impression, and also more likely to let the audiences feel immersive. These features were also brought in their western films, forming the most striking feature of westerns with strong reality and authenticity. Fifth generation directors were stood out by the environmental modeling skills. In the film language, they transcend the Bazin documentary aesthetic theory which was respected by the fourth generation directors; they tried to express thoughts and feelings by using the environmental modeling skills. The documentary and imago were combined and the image aesthetics theory was practiced by the strong style of "author movie". These new skills expanded the function of the film performance and had great impact on the traditional films, which resulted in the full development of Chinese movies in the1980s. Environment modeling was treated as the first language in the creation of film structure by the fifth generation directors. They paid more attention to the essence of the film, and promoted the development of the "movie aesthetics" in traditional Chinese films and finally made it developed into "image aesthetics".The sixth-generation directors had grown up in the era of reform and opening-up with the rapid economic growth. Compared with the fifth-generation directors, they had their formal education system under the opening and diverse cultural background, receiving plenty of advanced foreign film theory and possessing higher cultural literacy. The sixth-generation directors experienced the significant change of social relationship brought by Chinese society from planned economy to market economy. They also experienced the period of film from the scared hall of art to the usual life as consumer goods. Therefore, great changes have taken place in their films, no longer while overlooking the living beings, but paying more attention to the social "bottom" characters, such as thieves, prostitutes, unemployed. The living state of those people in the real society is becoming the focus of films, which makes the film seem to be marginalized in the aspect of their themes. The characters in these films don’t shoulder more social missions and historical responsibility but they still meet up with challenges of spiritual growth and perfect personality. In the image style, they emphasize the real light, color and voice, a large number of using long to form documentary style. They focus on "bottom’life of the ordinary people, using camera lens to truly record people’s confusion and uncertainty in the historical transition. Therefore, their works look more sincere and have more courage to face up to life. Chapter two discussed the national cultural symbol in the western films and its aesthetic features which demonstrated the image and aesthetic characteristics of the western film from the geographic symbol, folk culture, folk music, color implication, image and dialect, and illustrating the cultural art nourishing of western films. In chapter three, we talked about the seeking for cultural roots and cultural reflection of the western film to show how the traditional culture influence the western value orientation and aesthetic image by analyzing the western films and the culture with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In chapter four, the western films revealed and were concerned the fate of the time spirit and national destiny, through the analysis of the specific film text, revealing the modern civilization and traditional culture conflict and fusion of reflection and consideration. In chapter five, we talked about the hero complex and life consciousness of western film. The western region for a long time is the less developed regions, the economy of China and a large part of the residents still in the traditional agricultural way of life for a living. So, compared with the developed areas, their life is still very closed and backward. But it is such a kind of life condition, making their humanity and guileless personality. And Hong Kong and Taiwan’s economy is highly developed, but with an economic boom, people become cold alienation in mentally. Hong Kong and Taiwan’s directors are filming in the west of China; magnificent desolation of natural landscape in the film is philosophy and the characters in the narrative, with humanistic spirit. The modeling of western amorous feelings in Hong Kong and Taiwan film directors’western films made their tastes in art get promotion, and also making an important contribution to the artistic success films. Western films had digged the beauty of nature and the beauty of life in the western region. On one hand, it reflected in the understanding of nature and suffering, on the other hand, it also reflected in the nature and the settlement of life that is the feeling of "Unity of Man and Nature". Take the fourth, fifth and sixth generation of directors’films as examples, by the directors’interpretation, showing their awareness of the life consciousness. In the chapter six,the change of the western traditional values in the movie, the harsh natural environment, the traditional heavy burden and a strong desire to change reality and constitutes the theme of China’s western characteristic, also reflected the national history of the vicissitudes of life from the other side. In comparison, the key to Hong Kong and Taiwan movies not give the history of the western landscape massiness, but paying more attention to the demands of the mind, individual life emotional expression In Hong Kong and Taiwan, highly developed economy, the set off of hustle and bustle of city life, making people feel more inner loneliness although they are enjoying prosperous material and they need a piece of pure land to examine his own inner world. The western region of China’s splendid colors, beautiful landscape in their eyes is a kind of exotic wonders, like a spectacular view said in the poem "desert solitary smoke straight, long river down the yen", like "to persuade more as a cup of wine, west the sunlight without any reason" described the feeling of departure sadness, like "luminous wine glass, wine to drink immediately pipa to rush" expressed romantic. The natural landscape of the west, the apricot blossom spring rain in jiangnan, and high-rise buildings of modern city are all in stark contrast. Vast and powerful of natural landscape of west combined with Hong Kong filmmaker’s exquisite tenderness emotional appeal, this strong contrast to create another unique beauty of Chinese western films.Through to the western film based on the reconstruction of historical play in this chapter, western film directors show their culture to the public in holding under the arm of political and economic tide of collective aphasia condition during this period.