The Avant-garde In A Secular Agethe Cynical-realism In Contemporary Chinese Cinema (From The Late 1980s To The 1990s)

During China’s social transition in the 1980 s and 1990 s,an artistic trend known as’ cynical realism’ emerged in contemporary art,emphasising the representation of oneself and one’s surroundings,depicting people’s state of existence during the transition in an everyday,secular,comic and apolitical form.This study adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and borrows this terminology,arguing that in the late 1980s and 1990s,this same power and temperament of cynical realism emerged in the field of Chinese cinema,unlike the fifth-generation films and new wave art of the 1980s,which adopted a Westernised artistic language,incorporated enlightenment and critical connotations in their works,and pondered such grand and heavy propositions as the history and future of China;nor did they adopt the same fierce ideological confrontation as the Sixth Generation films that emerged in the 1990s.These films were the first to capture,present and echo the changes in social reality during the transition period,giving shape to a new experience of time and space,and at the same time participating in and contributing to the transformation of society.Firstly,through the creation of audible and perceptible visual and auditory experiences,they imaginatively mapped out people’s state of existence during the transition period,providing viewers with a tangible and sensual experience;secondly,through the breakthrough of artistic expression objects,modes of expression and concepts,they brought new images of subjects,body language and screen landscapes to the Chinese cinema screen,changing the cultural landscape of cinema in China’s mainland formed in the 1980s,and also It also paved the way for the more radical independent cinema that emerged in the 1990s.Cynical realism as a research perspective is conducive to breaking through some of the established paradigms of Chinese film history research,uncovering the unique charms of a number of neglected film texts,or revisiting certain films with new perspectives,allowing film history research to blossom into a richer and more fascinating landscape.