Perspectives on Narrative Time in Chinese Cinema

Haizhou Wang; Ming Ding

doi:10.1515/jcfs-2023-0010

Article

Perspectives on Narrative Time in Chinese Cinema

Haizhou Wang
Haizhou Wang is a professor of Film Studies at Beijing Film Academy. He serves as the Dean of the Postgraduate Department and the Head of the Library of Beijing Film Academy. Heis the deputy president of Chinese Collegial Association for Visual Art and is the chair researcher of the China National Social Science Major Project “The Inheritance and Development of Chinese Artistic Traditions in Contemporary Chinese Films.”His monographs Imagined China: Research on Chinese Film Culture of the 1980s and 110 Years of Chinese Films (1905–2015) have won numerous research awards in film studies in China, including the Outstanding Research Awards in Humanities and Social Science of Institutions of Higher Education by Ministry of Education.
and Ming Ding
Ming Ding is a PhD candidate in art studies at Beijing Film Academy.

Published/Copyright: March 28, 2023

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From the journal Journal of Chinese Film Studies Volume 3 Issue 1

Abstract

The unique view of time rooted in traditional Chinese culture is distinct from that of Western countries. In the Eastern perspective, eternity and evanescence are unified in the axiom: “The passage of time is like flowing water.” This concept also creates a different perspective on narrative time in Chinese films, compared with Western films. In the Chinese perspective, firstly, traditional laws of time are fully respected, and the four seasons, solar terms, and festivals are often seen as time nodes; secondly, a nationally imagined unity of time and space is followed, and expressions of time are likely to be integrated into artistic images such as objects, weather phenomena, and natural landscapes; thirdly, the cognitive laws of nature are respected whereby the linear or circumferential track is adopted and therefore a sense of leisure comes up in resonance; finally, the time scale is based on perception, and Chinese aesthetic style is thus construed while fulfilling the needs of narrative.

Keywords: Chinese film; narrative; time; aesthetics in film; national style

Corresponding author: Haizhou Wang, Beijing Film Academy, Beijing, China, E-mail: wanghaizhou@bfa.edu.cn

Translated by Yingkang Wang, Communication University of China, Beijing, China.

Funding source: China National Social Science Major Research Project in Arts ‘The Inheritance and Development of Chinese Artistic Traditions in Contemporary Chinese Films’

Award Identifier / Grant number: 20ZD18

Funding source: Great Wall Scholar Scheme of Beijing Education Commission

Award Identifier / Grant number: CIT&TCD20190316

About the authors

Haizhou Wang

Haizhou Wang is a professor of Film Studies at Beijing Film Academy. He serves as the Dean of the Postgraduate Department and the Head of the Library of Beijing Film Academy. Heis the deputy president of Chinese Collegial Association for Visual Art and is the chair researcher of the China National Social Science Major Project “The Inheritance and Development of Chinese Artistic Traditions in Contemporary Chinese Films.”His monographs Imagined China: Research on Chinese Film Culture of the 1980s and 110 Years of Chinese Films (1905–2015) have won numerous research awards in film studies in China, including the Outstanding Research Awards in Humanities and Social Science of Institutions of Higher Education by Ministry of Education.

Ming Ding

Ming Ding is a PhD candidate in art studies at Beijing Film Academy.

Research funding: This article is supported by the China National Social Science Major Research Project in Arts “The Inheritance and Development of Chinese Artistic Traditions in Contemporary Chinese Films” (Grant number: 20ZD18) and the Great Wall Scholar Scheme of Beijing Education Commission (Grant number: CIT&TCD20190316).

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Published Online: 2023-03-28

Published in Print: 2023-04-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2023-0010

Keywords for this article

Chinese film; narrative; time; aesthetics in film; national style