Research On The Relationship Of "Language-Picture" In Film Adaptation Of The Literary Works

With the beginning of Omnimedia Era, video proves itself to be the most vital modes of transmission. It turns the media era into nothing short of "Image Age". Being the major cultural factor, image begins to encroach the traditional territory of literature. With the subtle and complex relationship of literature and video in view, it is worthwhile to explore the film-adaptation of literary works as an interesting phenomenon.Zhang Yimou, the representative director of modern China, is fully aware of the significance of the practice of film-adaptation of literary works. He adeptly uses literature as a source of nourishment for the filming art, blazing a trail of idiosyncratic film adapting method. Of his18films,13are adaptations of literary works, which earns him the title "the director inseparable from literature". His adapting efforts do not follow what Xia Yan called "be royalty to the origins". Rather, Zhang Yimou values the intrinsic character of film art, places his film within the context of the consumer society and instills his own interpretations into the films, working out an ingenious combination of art and commercialization which is considered Zhang Yimou’s brand of film adaptation. The dialogue between film and literature in different times and levels is enacted. In retrospect, it is possible to detect that Zhang’s relations with literature has experienced changes—from dependence, alienation to a revisionist return. Accordingly, his works received varied comments. An aesthetic study of Zhang Yimou’s adapting efforts will help in furthering our understanding of the contextuality of language and image, the correlations of literature and films and the revolution of artistic space against the background of vogue of film adaptation these days.The richness of subject matter, the depth of thinking and the diversity of plot and characterization of literature all set an example for film creation in terms of narrative, rhetoric and lyric technique as well as commentary discourse. Meanwhile, the visualization, montage and spatialization also influence the literary expression. In the translation from literature to film, features unique to the film art such as color, lighting, scene, composition and modeling necessitate the restoration and recreation of literary elements in the process of film creation. The representation of literary voice is more complicated than a mechanical restoration, but entails special attention to the linguistic relations between colloquial and written language, the narrative tone, perspective and other narrative issues. In the synchronic video space, graphics sounds and captions confirm and contradict on another; counterpoints and captional complement to narrative help to restructure the narrative pattern and our perception of it. Of course, literature will continue to hold a dominant position in rhetoric device, lyric method and conceptual expression.This thesis is going to explore literature and movie, two closely linked yet formally different genres in order to inform the field of vision of text, writer/director, audience and the world at large. After an intense comparative reading of texts, with equal attention to the idiosyncratic features of the two genres, I will draw attention to the characteristics of language and image in the process of transition. Hopefully, the study will contribute a little to solving the problems in the development of literature and films, with its academic research upon the phenomenon of literature adaptation in the Image Age.