Narrative Time and Narrative Viewpoints in Films About Revolutionary History During the “Seventeen-Year Period” (1949–1966)

Abstract

Abstract Film narratology focuses on narrative time and narrative viewpoints. In films about revolutionary history produced in China’s “Seventeen-year Period” (1949–1966), narrative time chiefly involved choice of time, sequencing, and time spans (deformation of time). The creators basically followed the temporal order, so those films seem neat and standardized, giving prominence to the key plots and components. The narrative viewpoint of the day was chiefly omniscient, or a combination of the limited and omniscient viewpoints. The creators chose to let the narrator hide behind the text, so as to strengthen the “visual illusion” and promote the plot development through the plot itself. This narrative technique was decided by the ideology of the times and its aesthetic orientation.