A Study On The Realistic Film Of Post-70s Female Film Directors In Chinese Mainland

Female directors’ filmmaking has always occupied a unique and important position in the art of filmmaking.In a traditional cultural environment filled with male gaze,female directors have been exploring their gender strengths and breaking through their limitations with the changes of the times,and their works have been enhancing the richness and diversity of cultural research issues as important texts in gender studies,popular culture and media studies.In recent years,with the improvement of women’s economic status and the awakening of self-awareness,female directors have shown more and more active in filmmaking,and a number of artistic,commercial and topical film works have emerged,such as<Lost in Beijing>,<Dam Street>,<Buddha Mountain>,<Longing for the Rain>,<Spring Tide>,<Song of Spring>,<You and Me>,<Gone is the One Who Held Me Dearest in the World>etc.The group of post-70s female directors who created these works is also becoming more and more popular.The female consciousness and the concerns for social issues in their works are highly personal in the works of Chinese realistic films.This paper chooses three female directors born in the 1970s,namely Yang Li Na,Li Yu and Ma Li Wen,and their major works as the main objects of study,and discusses the influence of the socio-historical and cultural environment and the directors’ own life experiences on their works from a socio-cultural critical perspective.Through textual analysis,this paper concludes the characters of their works in terms of themes,narrative features and audiovisual language,and then summarize the commonalities and personalities of post-70s female directors in Chinese mainland in the production of films with realistic themes.This study contains the following five aspects:In First Chapter,the introductory section clarifies the background and significance of the study,and provides a review of the relevant literature and a description of the research methodology and theoretical framework;The Second Chapter explores the socio-historical and cultural factors and their personal life experiences that influence the characteristics of post-70s female directors’ film works through socio-historical analysis;The Third to Fifth Chapters analyze the themes,narrative characteristics and audiovisual language of the three female directors through a close reading of their works.And finally,the sixth chapter draws relevant conclusions.The paper found that post-70s female directors experienced radical family and social changes in their youth,thus establishing female self-awareness and female consciousness earlier.Their early film production coincided with China’s reform of the film system and the ’New Documentary Movement’,which became a major influence on their preference for realistic themes,while the wave of commercialization after the 21st century also pushed them to gradually commercialize their works.On the level of themes,they deny the binary gender order,emphasize women’s mutual support and economic independence,and affirm women’s desires.At the same time,they are concerned about the marginalized and call for emotional care.On the level of narrative characteristics,post-70s female directors have obvious differences in the role setting of both genders,with male roles being mostly negative and oppressive forces,while female roles,for example,the role of mothers they create a transcendent and non-traditional mother role.At the same time,in terms of ending settings,they mostly set open endings.On the level of camera language,post-70s female directors preferred long shots,close-ups,handheld photography and other shooting methods in their early career,while with the commercial transformation of commercialization in recent years,they also embraced a more diverse camera language.At the same time,they also like to use water,animals and other imagery to express their mind and symbolize the characters in the film.On the whole,although post-70s female directors have certain shortcomings in the later commercial transformation,thanks to their historical background and individual experiences,their awareness of their identity as female directors and their constant innovation in realistic themes film production have made great contributions to the international spreading of Chinese feminie movies and,indeed,Chinese movies.