The Evolution of Chinese Film Theory

After 1949, it has become an important task for Chinese people to study how movies can carry out the general policy of serving politics, industry, agriculture and soldiers. There is a prejudice that does not attach importance to artistic laws and overemphasizes that movies directly serve the political movement at that time. Many comrades have put forward different opinions on this.

Nevertheless, China's film theory has made remarkable progress in many aspects. In the study of film characteristics and techniques, the most valuable achievements in this period are Shi Dongshan's Several Features of Film Art in the Form of Expression (1954) and Zhang Junxiang's Special Means of Expression (1959). Shi Dongshan starts with analyzing the similarities and differences between novels, dramas and movies. On the one hand, he emphasizes "paying attention to the structural form of the whole scene and the structural form between scenes in the development of the story, and not being confused by the form of split shots". On the other hand, he compares the iconicity of movie images with the relative abstraction of novel description, and emphasizes the visual artistic essence of movie "intuition". It organically combines the story narration and image expression of the film. In view of the problem of not paying attention to and not being familiar with the characteristics of movies at that time, Zhang Junxiang emphatically summarized and discussed the artistic characteristics of movies from the perspective of artistic skills. He expounded the advantages of vivid film image and jumping in time and space, and its shortcomings such as "one-off" and limited vision, and pointed out that these advantages and disadvantages complement and restrict each other, which constitute the characteristics of its artistic form, namely, a series of principles such as "distinct action", "simple and clear structure", "relying on visual image, relying on modeling expression" and "requiring to follow montage logic other than life logic". In addition, Ruan Qian's Introduction to Film Directors (1949) and Gu Zhong's Introduction to Film Art (1950) published in the early days of liberation are also monographs in this field.

The study of screenplay theory is a very important and fruitful field in Chinese film theory, which first promoted Xia Yan's writing class = link > published in1959; ; Write ' class = link & gt； Several Problems of Movie Scripts Based on his rich experience in movie creation, Xia Yan expounded his understanding of the laws of movie scripts. He particularly emphasized the popularization and visualization of film creation. The film is required to "accurately, vividly and vividly tell the audience's intuition and association". He attaches great importance to the revolutionary utilitarian purpose of film creation, and puts forward that "the purpose determines the genre structure" and "the film needs both drama and the distinctiveness of the characters". Therefore, he particularly emphasized the importance of drama or plot, and on this basis, elaborated the structure and skills of the screenplay. Enrich your drama theory with many experiences in traditional literature and art, such as "cutting lines" and "sewing needles". In addition, Chen Huangmei's On the Characteristics of Movie Scripts (1956), Ling Ke's Creation of Visual Images, Three Lectures on Movie Literature (1955), Yu Min's Origin and End-Homosexuality in Literary Creation and Particularity of Movie Literature, and other papers and monographs have also made great contributions to the art in this field.

In the early 1960s, the new topic of exploring the film road with China national characteristics attracted the attention of the theoretical circle. Yuan and Luo Yijun put forward the important theoretical topic of "learning from tradition" in the article "Theme Authenticity and Tradition" (1962). They expounded that film art "has the extremely broad possibility of drawing lessons from national traditions" and considered it as "one of the keys to further improve the quality of film art". They advocate that "film art should learn from national traditions, mainly from traditional sister arts", and think that this kind of learning includes different levels such as creative methods and specific artistic skills. Changling Xu's "Seeking Victory from Traditional Art ── Notes on Learning National Forms of Movies" and Han Shangyi's "Environment? Scene? Situation, On Formal Beauty, Jiang Jin and other articles discuss how to draw lessons from the experience of traditional narrative art (especially rap art), traditional art and painting theory in film creation from different aspects such as narration and modeling.

1963, The History of China Film (Volume I and Volume II) edited by Cheng Jihua, Xing was published, which was a pioneering work in the study of China's film history and also helped the study of film theory from one side.

In a word, the film theory research in New China has made great achievements. However, due to the influence of historical conditions, there is also a serious metaphysical tendency, and there are phenomena of narrow creative path and conceptualization of ideas. Comrade Zhou Enlai's two speeches on film work in 1959 and 196 1 emphasized emancipating the mind and respecting artistic laws. 1962, Qu Baiyin published a monologue on film innovation, putting forward the viewpoints of "eliminating expression" and "creating a new generation". This article not only requires a declaration to break through the forbidden area in ideological content, but also puts forward innovative ideas in artistic thought. He attributed "Chen Yan" to the "three gods" of theme, structure and conflict. "three new".

However, with the gradual and all-round development of left-leaning mistakes, the research on film theory has stagnated and regressed. During the "Cultural Revolution", Lin Biao and the Gang of Four totally denied the historical tradition of China's films, and forced the experience of "Three Outstanding" model operas into the films. These theories ignore the characteristics of film art, stifle the artist's creative personality, and make China's films retrogress ideologically and artistically.