Film Songs In The Vocalization Progress Of Early Chinese Films(1929-1937)

With the progress of Chinese films from silent to sound, music has gradually become an organic component of films from the initial simple intervention, blending itself into films to help to shape characters, drive the plot and foil atmosphere. Music not only effectively promotes the development of film art, but also achieves itself in a new medium. And so there emerged film songs. As a comprehensive art form combining literature and music, songs achieve the fusion and mutual promotion of image narrative, literary writing and musical performance due to their strong lyricism and explicit meaning revealing, greatly enriching the films’ narrative space. Based on the background of complex narrative space, film songs were abstracted out from films in this paper for independent historical research as well as examination of their benign interaction with films. Through this two-dimensional development, this paper reveals how the early Chinese films effectively accomplished self-promotion with open artistic vision and tireless artistic efforts in the self-construction process, and how the film songs, the “otherness” of artistic pattern of films, devoted themselves while enriching and upgrading themselves with positive and inclusive aesthetic attitude.In the three types of film sound, human voice and natural sound make the film more realistic, further to improve its narrative features, while music is used as a lyric element involved in the films. Therefore, human voice and natural sound have more dependence-they must attach to the speakers or simulated images;instead, with its unique symbolic way, ideographic means and the artistic connotation presented, music continuously constructs its preeminent artistic image in the process of pursuing the fusion with video narrative.Based on the theoretical judgement above, tracking along the timeline of the vocalization progress of early Chinese films(1929-1937), this paper discusses issues about music and songs in this process, including ways of participating, role playing and artistic value, which reveals the exploratory development and inner abundance of early Chinese sound films. As an art energy carrier, film songs play the role in two aspects: one is as the emotion enhancer, which participates in psychological portrayal of characters or foils certain emotional atmosphere, the other is being involved in the film space construction as lyric diction, which expands the film performance space by applying lyric property to thenarrative art, further increases the complex aesthetic feeling. Moreover, music and films realize the mutual creation and promotion in the fusion process due to the relatively independent qualities of film music and songs, which brings lots of new artistic experiences, such as singing films, singer/actor star and remuneration on songs. Furthermore, film songs have gradually established the transcendent artistic mechanism in the history of serving films, emerging from films but developing beyond films, which turns to be a new artistic individual, such as the song “March of the Volunteers” to the film "Sons and Daughters of the Storm", “Graduation Song” to “Plunder of Peach and Plum”.Significantly, lots of excellent film songs never keep away from films after obtaining independent development and achievements, but as a new artistic element, reintegrate into later films, gently exerting its long and profound artistic effect, such as “Song of Fisherman” to the film “Coming Home”. This phenomenon seems beyond the time scope of this paper, but as a latecomer artistic effect, it can be exactly considered as the unique historical lingering charm of film songs in that period.